Saint Christopher likes to dress as a Woman
(to the memory of Federico Fellini)
The what and the who and the where and how and the so-so and the ugh and the weirdly forgotten notions still dwelling there somewhere in your head where you cannot reach. Ever thought of psychoanalysis? Why of course you have not! Would you dare see Poseidon with his trident? Yes, upon his throne he is mighty, but when he stands up he becomes invincible; only he can control Titanesque sea-monsters of ancient times. So the question is: do you still dare? Look outside of the window, past the sandy beach … See the waves? They only get bigger! Bigger and BIGGER! Think you may control them? My dear sir: they are not your crew! They might be god’s own but depressions come out of nowhere; they happen just like those voices in your head … slow dragging occurrences to which you try and make sense while lying awake at night looking up at the ceiling of glow in the dark stars [le ciel]. So what is it you did find so uplifting in that most recent edition of the almanac? Which broadcast made you feel so innermost insecure all of the sudden? Just behold those words forming upon my lips: that it is natural!
This cannot be stressed enough!
Have any memories of being a little boy at Catholic grammar school?
Vows or vowels?
The body of Christ or the body of …?
Pipe or cigar or cigarette?
And what mischief goes on in between the bushes? Naughty boy? Naughty boy! (Ach and the torment of the blue angel dancing the rumba!) Scolded! Be scolded! Your mother did spank you bare ass in front of your hysteric brothers and sisters! Long live the republic they all screamed humming the battle hymn. Halleluiah! Amen! And thus the procession started: forwards march and onwards to the ship, let us hope the crew has cleaned the sails’ cloth and polished the woodwork. Nice orange oil makes a nice pledge, smells good aswell; after all who can be bothered to go upon the rough seas with that stale smell of rotten fish? So to hell with fishermen is what I say; they should understand proper hygiene, take a bath nicely flavored. Does this not make sense? How possibly could anyone stand being aboard a ship where all smells like dead? Do people no longer have any olfactoric sensibility then? Even if we are to be explorers, how possibly could we teach them savages if we are behaving like primate monkeys ourselves?
Come on! Come on!
Let us be brave and courageous and set a new trend for all of mankind!
I shall speak and make a prophecy that one day mankind shall reach for the stars and beyond (even) and I ask the befuddled reader the question as to what shall be our sense of fashion. How shall be our representation? Just imagine: if we do encounter alien life, the first impression shall be detrimental! So what if we are dressed badly?
[Flash forward thus avoiding the boring parts: Richard Strauss enters the stage with a solo vocal version of the Also Sprach Zarathustra opening]
THE EARTH TREMBLED!
What is vice? Who can ever truly foresee anything? Yes indeed, there is a way to everything and generally that is how it all happens, as the world just keeps on revolving. All of our discoveries, is there any true significance to them?
With one amazing sigh for mankind, he stood there at the empty pavilion looking around for any sign of life, but there just was nothing there; it was as if all had fled away or had been extinguished by some grandiose rage of humanistic combustion engines. Is this where all explorations end? Man just has no sense; often this has been strongest idea in his head, that a child raised by wolves often is more learned than the human beast. One day he had attended a conference on new planetary expeditions and could
Not help but notice how most people were more interested in pulling rank and comparing their tuxedos than in the development of new planetary alliances. How quickly one thus finds himself in the company of stale air where all reeks of bad perfume, nauseating cigar odor and intoxicating egos well beyond the value setting of push and pull game strategies.
In a mood of desolation he thus left the pavilion again, it all felt so insecurely meaningless because no matter how great a vision or idea one, at the end it all got engulfed by those official doctrines of boredom and pleasure seeking megalomaniacs exercising games of power while cheating on their wives with ever younger mistresses. And what did it all lead to? Hell and damnation! Little fleas dancing the polka in some godforsaken alien circus! So what was next? The tears … and yes … it was with such saddened eyes that he now was forced to look upon it all now that it all had come to an end and as he walked passed that promenade of fallen bodies, he sung a slow and dragging requiem.
Re – qui – em … where am I in the midst of this all? My wanderings what do they accomplish if not a daily drag of life in which we all become enlightened. Inflated by the greed and darkness as we listen to schizophrenic voices walking past the shores and bays where the ocean water moves in forcibly and while you stand there at the heart and center of cosmic radiation you can feel the salt staining your soul and then … wow: it purifies you like some alchemical miracle.
So do you have anything to say for yourself then? Will the defendant please rise when addressing the court!
Even though all was quiet and nothing at all was said?
It goes against all regulations, you are not the killer type, you are not into bombs and violence; they are merely attempting to mock you and ruin your good name and fortune.
Then who would you say is the devil?
Diablo? Up and down games? Why must there be an evildoer?
I would have assumed that much was obvious!
Nonsense! Nonsense!
(But wait a minute who is speaking again …)
As such the dance continues while the dice keep on spinning bringing up numbers of imaginary complexity; you stood there for a while just before you came to disappear and thus begins your story as I bring you here from a different world; so rest not in tears my friend for you are alive and the last of your kind: whatever happens now is up to you and all that which shall unfold from here, be it mere drinking bouts or bored soap opera wives’ parties of tears and cookies, the future is what you see, so let us hope your eyes are well!
But what is there to see in that desolated landscape?
It brings back memories of dreams of winged horses of blooming wisdom,
Can anything ever be trusted? Indeed: time itself cannot be trusted since forevermore it moves by our noses and we can never ever grasp it, nor even truly observe its passing. Just the disappearing! But does that not imply a certain death? But say dear, could you stick to the point? Yet amazingly there is no point! Just widening circles following the footsteps of Sir Doppler’s fainting footsteps acting like phantoms twirling around with enigmatic confusions. Must we divulge more to the reader? It should seem obvious by now that both men needed a drink pretty quick, so they went to a bar and continued talking past one another under the enjoyment of smooth ale lubricating their vocal chords. A third gentleman who had entered with them quickly came to listen in on their conversation with a gleeful expression illuminating the contours of his face.
There was never any sadness in his inability to express himself, for in reality it was what enabled him to listen and hear things no one else could because always they were too wrapped up. Dialogues as such were especially funny for one always was a deader and the other a goner; words … symbols; but symbolizing what? The grammar is the usage, but what when all is left blank? X = 0 what does that really tell us? What on earth does the word tautology mean? Stand for … same old, same old … California dreaming upon the eternal surf of being suspended midair in those collapsing wave fields of quantum jitters. Indeed, man no longer has a fashionable sense of what it means to be human! We are all aliens! And yet we take our rocket ship to go on a trip … and Handel’s angels and apostles all cheering:
Halleluiah! Halleluiah!
And now presenting all dressed in white and black … pope of the new world order, what a perfect fit: magnificent! Encroiable! Incredible! Diabolic! Dia-what? Anabolic? I heard it is anorexia nervosa!
He could not stand it of course; all those flashing lights brought him close to an outfall of epileptic rage.
Let us move out squad!
We are under fire!
In the hole!
(Roaring sounds as if they are cavemen once again, but as the saying goes: the show must go on!)
With strobe lights: there is a party in Roma!
[TOGA! TOGA! TOGA!]
Those about to salute you die … nothing there to lose besides all that which is inevitable and in utero. Order! Order! Order! Will the gentleman at the bar please identify himself!
Sir Dusnotkomjpute; and I can tell you a story of how once I went to Egypt, sitting on the back of a camel I traveled through the desert and like Christ I was waiting for temptation but none came ever and with the dropping curtain all became in blackness. Let me tell you my fellow readers, but the desert gets awfully cold at night; no cloud coverage you see, so all heat bids one farewell. So? I mean: who cares? Why are you reading this anyway? Sadly though I would like to state the phrase you are reading too much in it! Enough is enuff! Tea for two and snuff for three! Ah! Delicious! Beaming with joy he took a deep puff from his cigar and slowly allowed the fumes to leave his mouth erupting like some metaphysical volcano. For sure, life had become complicated since all the sudden it lacked all narrative coherence; not that it all came as such a surprise, for truly it had been lingering by means of that quantum superposition strategy, still the measurement came as a surprise. And what now? Where to go now that all roads are open and all else has disappeared? [Nausea!] Food tastes so stale, yet man is what he eats … so the disappeared are those who forgot to eat; like Midas … all turns to gold … Leprechaunic obsession and all turns to dust …
Where am I?
He woke up screaming for surely he valued his life and did not feel comfortable in that sudden void. The abbreviation UFO flashed in front of his mind’s eye, had he been abducted by aliens? Were they going to experiment on him?
Another scream: but that was not him was it?
That voice … indeed it sounded so alien that it had to be the truth!
What is wrong?
The other asked as he snapped a twig in half.
Huh?
He noticed his own hands as he was sitting there near the campfire.
Surely all had been some mirage! No wonder and no surprise! All that stress as of late, enough to make even the strongest have a breakdown; and with that in mind came there the realization of horror, of being tortured unto bitterness. Addicted to any and all such violent somersaults whatever has become of man? To the stars and beyond until there is no more; all those discoveries, yet still we are wandering forevermore left astray. Remarkable how much confusion may arise out of agricultural perfection, of course one wonders how else it could possibly be. Could there be a world without I-scream?
Lights began to flash …
IT WAS TIME
Clockscene (Prokofiev’s Cinderella: midnight)
Can we sustain? I do not know for certain son, but we must try if our sins are to be forgiven! And there was a blinding light and somewhere in the distance, a shrill trumpet sound echoed through some weird field filled with distortitrons. Inside the wind there was the crackling of electricity … dressed elegantly in fractal red is the Monsignor of salvation, coming to the rescue with a suit of neon green twilight is the Angel of arching angles and there atop the mountain sits the Holy Father of coming lights of disillusionary rays sticking their heads through that unfathomable network of clouds. Chance happening of the Aurora Borealis! It is all up to the Ace of Spades digging his way to the very foundation of the card house and then with a huff and a with a puff … yea: I shall blow your brains out!
Naughty, naughty wolf!
His name is Cerberus!
Yes of course: the protector of hell! But did you honestly think somebody would want to go there?
You would be surprised my young squire, for after all: all is well that ends in hell!
How ado about nothing? Much left to be unspoken! [… and the world’s smallest violin … only for you … a quartet for me … a dozen of roses …] Blooming with uncertainty he got dressed as fast as he could manage, all that which was on his mind was bothering him a great deal, to the point that it gave him these feeling of gastric repulsions. But he was alive! That much he was certain about! And the world was real! Nothing can be escaped! T’is bizarre! Oh world: you dwell in such strange habitats!
Shaking like a reed he let go of the handrail and descended the stairs ready to meet his fate (his maker). Outside there were there dull noises monotony and thee smell of dread and exhaust. A slight and translucent fog attached itself to his eyes and with it there came the insight of chthonic transmissions journeying through the airwaves.
“Apple dear boy?” a voice called upon him, “It would do wonders to put some color back into your cheeks.”
“Oh deary dear, you look paler than a ghost!” (creaky old lady)
“Want to dance?”
“C’mon chachacha chachacha!”
With a hastened pace he left everybody behind of him and did not even pay any attention as to where he was going. How odd, he had grown up somewhere in the future but now found himself in a blurry past of vague remembrance. (By all means this was the land of the forbidden!) Sudden downfall brought back sad recollection (think Richard Strauss’ Metamorphoses) and without further ado tears came rolling down those hills … subtle at first but gradually increasing most vividly, it would not be much longer now before erosion would kick in and the inevitable landscape would be formed. To what would it be attracted? With a sense of fatigue he came to sit down on a hollow log of wood, to look at that passing river. For sure, eh had come a long way from that boulevard at the other side filled with brothels and the political headquarters of the Anarchistic Burlesque Party. [And this is not mere imagination!] A gentleman had walked inside one of those buildings; he had been dressed sharp as a knife: beware all who meet him! There was a scream later that day, it was quite the commotion but it turned out that some cleaning lady had seen a rat. Why do people always have to scream just because to see a furry little guy? Hysterical is it not? How society has changed man; line dancing the Danse Macabre; all together yet still alone: DEVASTED! Mars, the God of war peeking out of windows while outside the gardeners are making a ruckus, roofers are drilling holes, carpenters are sawing beams, old ladies invite you over for coffee and biscuits … For goodness sake! Get thee behind me! All of you! Everyone! Anyone! The insistence of it all is just such a humanistic disgrace! One cannot think a proper thought while being surrounded by such suffocation! Alas! Politics became a reality! The president and the chairman of the board, they are dressed to avoid the embarrassment of naughty questions. If looks could kill … BUT THEY CAN! They have! Flashback to the council of Nicaea: how must one dress a man of the cloth? Serene but with an edge! It should show authority! Chosen by God! Maybe a little trim of gold, you know, that divine radiance of the sun. We must be splendorous, show that God has blessed us with power beyond it all!
“I’ll have a God Dog!” he spoke with a polite voice as he stretched out his arm and handed over a dollar bill to the smiling street vendor.
“Want some sauce on that?”
“Sure: sambal sauce please!”
Ach, the sensation of a sweetly burning tongue! Oh heaven! Oh most sentimental of perceptions! It is happening! Almost reaching climax … yes yes yes yesssssssssssssssssssss …
But where am I?
The very image is frightening for it is blasphemy!
It made him feel like a robot whose memory had just been wiped out. Tabula Rasa … now let us wait for inscription and hope it is not encrypted! Somehow it was not quite as bewildering, at least not in any way he could have imagined. It did not take long before a blanket of stars came to cover this darkened room of uprising phantoms, outside the fields were set ablaze as the comet was drawing near and for sure it is known that this was not the end but merely the beginning.
Orlando
November-December 2007