|
|
wonderful to be back in this large urban place i forget
Daniel A. Foss (U17043@UICVM.BITNET)
Wed, 3 Jul 1996 05:43:51 CDT
to. As a city, truly, it can't be much. For one Thingie, there aren't any
*books* They sell in The City which are sold here also. Serious cities
mulct you of your printedmatter spending money before you leave the airport;
the nothingmuchistic vestige which remains is inadequate to feed the Habit
at Barnes & Noble, I have no idea when they were elevated to the peerage;
surely, nevertheless, no-Otis be evident. This wordsalad has a Purpose, a
Far Far Higher Purpose than I've ever been purposeful before. The intent
is this:
I'm endeavouring to simulate the *cweative pwocess* wherewith the text
of Riane Eisler's Sacred Pleasure: Sex, Myth, and the Politics of the Body.
SanFrancisco CA: Harper's 1995. Be it known to one and all, at the outset,
that in no wise is this extended sneer (hopefully perhaps some rougher abuse)
directed against Ruby Rohrlich. I do not now, have not since I was raped wuth
Ruby not merely failing to find me a smart feminist lawyer interested in
broadening legal definitions of coercion but endorsing en bloc the totality
of the residents of Great Neck, subsuming the rapists. (Why did I write that?
Because I feel dutybound to insist zur bitteren ende, that in sinking to the
lowness I've attained, wacko stuff does indeed occur wherefor, by the provi-
sions of inference heuristics shaping social epistemology, it couldn've
possibly happened; delusional system tout entiere, prima facie. Plausible,
yet false.) Now, not twentyone hours' elapsation went by since last I saw
my goddamned mother. Ruby is different to a muchness. To such great extremity
was I driven by confinement in th Cavern of Overheated Maternal Suffocation
that I actually called up George Wash, and asked for Ruby's number; set one
mama agin another mama. Possibly; I forget. Full twentyfathom five of anthro-
pologists were unlisted, unknown to their departments (including Ruby), or,
like even one of my oldest fiends, an Africanist of Jewish Oxford provenience,
his wife with or without him, had given the planet the slip. To top it off,
and edge closer to Sacred Pleasure, there was Danger, in the guise of a
Beautiful (in spirit) Woman. As by social categorization a Degenerate in that,
should I be seen Else than immobilized, I'm therefor & thereby & therewisth
Drugged; unemployable mobile or Elsewise; mumbling idiot coming up to, with
Drugs, Slurred Speech, and, indispensibly for sterotyping, Something In His
Eyes, I have ascertained by involuntarily undergoing the bitterest Experien-
ces (meaning, it could all have been taped or on film, but it sureashell was
no joke at the time), that the strongest Sex Taboo in the culture is that
banning the slightest hint of attempt by the Degenerate to associate with
Normal women. Now, it was quite clear that, when I did go over there, not
far as the nonwhite pigeon flows, the lady's resolute prohibition of Funny
Business had a subtext. The second past the door, having been sternly
Dressed Down, howbeit I was Dressed Up, $300 suit (you don't wanna see the
Disheveled aspect, ever, which when not Overdressed, you will without fail),
it was written in the Riot Act, hence Read Aloud, memorizedly, that I was to
not, under Penalty Of, essay any seduction. One loophole remained open; that
was, as I said, forthrightly, "If any seducing be done, 'tis Thou who sedu-
cest me; for lo, I have foresworn." Thereafter, I was in the not unfamiliar
and hardly damnably difficult position of Creating in her head the Experience
of Seducing me, whilst I prevailed upon her willing, then eager, fingers to
do her bidding my way. I call it my seduction, sixty-forty.
Afterwards, the inevitable: WHAT HAVE I DONE! Whenc, hence, I was to not
darken her door ever & forever.
At this time (back in mother's abode), it was decided, in staff meeting,
that I was, now and for future foreseeable, Writing A Book. There were several
overdetermining reasons for this. Firstly and foremostly, when a curious or
suspicious Normal laid on the Dread Query,"Whaddaya do?" I not merely say I'm
"a writer," a bigcity synonym for BUM, SCHNORRER (mooch), and AUSGETRAUBEN
(Human Garbage); I say, "This just come out; ya want one."
Lateron as it latens, I am asked, "Why youwanna write a book?"
"Declining real income; mine. Declining imaginary income, even."
"What's the bookabout?"
"Since whenizzat important?"
"Huhwhut?"
"Gimme Drugsenuf an' time, with thou beside me inna wilderness (to stick
up seven-elevens), an' whatizzabout TeX careofitself."
"Still...."
"Look, as my fathermayherestinpeace woulda said, "Woik, anna book woiks
wit'choo," wisdom born of functional illiteracy in three languages. More
compelling was Grad School Mentor Maurice R. Stein; after a thousand pp
of MS, quoth he, "It hasn't quite settled down yet and decided just what
kinda book it wantsa be, yet." Waiting on this decision cost him a marriage.
It was Maurice R. Stein who legitimized my incoherence; though he never
imparted any, even the tiniest, dollop of his charisma which, exclusively,
rendered his charisma Endlessly Fascinating; mine, mere tedious mumbles.
(Today he says my mind had been Destroyed By Drugs. Excepting only Adminis-
tration, I can still outcohere him.)
Thus are books written with nothing to say and incapacity to write, present
argumentation, and, worst of all my horrors, reason logically. So, we begin
at Riane Eisler's beginning. (Too late for her conception, had her Person
Most Responsible For Child Care been prevailed upon to Do The Right Thing.)
Here comes the deadest giveaways of all:
*Sacred Pleasure* is a book that quite unexpectedly demanded to be written.
-----------------
You see that? Who among ye is unacquainted with digressions I've laid on you
which would not SHADDUP! Which obtruded themselves at lenghts up to 300, 500
lines (before I decided that a lifetime without Direct Experience of Self-
Discipline, whateveritis, was a lameassexcuse, nothing more).
-----------------
My plan, as I mentioned in the closing pages of The Chalice and the Blade,
was to write a different book.
-----------------
Drugs will, people, do just that to you. It's Impossible to grind out
relentlessly, premeditatedly, the verbal-conceptual-liearsequentialified
ideation, which, to be sure, is weighted on the onetrackmind, doublerailed,
so as to GRIP the railgauge which, be it not blown by terrorists, moveth but
in one and onliest directiion perforce. As cannot happen with Pills Dr A
giveth me (who maketh me lie down in greenishtinges; yea though I sink in
ooze inna valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil, for I have
perpetrated Complacency Delusions and mistakes of the same kind but lesser
degree; and we are all agreed, I'm better off dead. What kinda idiot, out
there, has the slightest confidence I'll finish this post, let alone commence
Chapter One.
----------------
But fortunately the creative process is guided not ony by our conscious
plans but by far deeper stirrings.
----------------
Oh, yeah, yeah. When them ol' Orange Pills zap you inna dopaminergic system,
an' yer concentration is to diluted to clot on the slightest, least Thingie,
forget whatever silliness your old Conscious had in mind, cuz that's not
any more *your* mind. If, that is, it ever was. "There will be an answer,
let it be, let it be." Oh, but of course. Not one answer, merely, but many,
dozens, hundreds. Will there, though, be a QUESTION? Count on it not, and
if it doth show up, PUT IT TO THE QUESTION, with harshness of utmost cruelty.
----------------
So gradually, though not without a struggle, I began to shift from what I
thought I wanted to write to what I now see I needed to write.
----------------
That is the first paragraph; and it was my perceived duty, in writing the
two books I published and the one I didn't, to have an Idea, grandiosity
delusion howbeit it might have been, to press on with until its collapse.
That all was long ago, however, when I had more to say, less to digress
in stating the idea. (Rare was it, if Drugged, as I was when capable of
typing at a rate within reason, withal, that I didn't treasure the verbiage
unforseen above the overthoughtout.)
In our times, there is a Drug dealer called a literary agent. His her
its customers are, necessarily, on Advances; and the Literary Agent's duty
to his clients on Both Sides is, by any means necessary, be there aught to
be said or Elsewise, furnish the means to verbosity which, if not spiritually
fulfilling to the creative fetishist, is contract-fulfilling for the most
critical customers.
The precondition for Advances is, for a previous work, gotten published
or even gotten advances too. It goes without saying that the recipient of
Advances advances to the fore of the Advances-dispersal queue. (There is
something more than slightly sexual in this usage, and I'll nail it.)
See how much lineage a determined sayer-naught can not say over so
extended an empty hotairballoon? (I am trying to figure a way outta my
predicament. Aha. If, should, all recipients of candy from their agents,
or Elsewise suppliers for the Creative Endeavour (and mark ye, I sternly
reprimand Dr A when the word creativity passeth his lips: "creative is
what they call a Retarded Jewish brat who can't do goddam shit, but they
can get 'im to fingerpaint") sell apples inna street instead, I shall
cease diminishing-returning writing-fakery.
Then comes Pleasure. This word makes me sick. Sex, frankly, aint no
goddam lollipop. There's more'n enuf ego mixed in with it, ie, the strictly
sexy bits, you gotta do stuff which is absolutely wretched if successful;
not much better (since you fled) or even worse (since you did not). Vacuous
nothing, pablum of the spirit, hardly suffices to stoke a sex obsession and
keep it that way. Pleasure is, well, like eating birthday cake. Pleasure is
that which, squishy and icky, can't get you to covet. Whether the lady's
spoken fer or she aint, you damwell gotta covet, Else she aint gonna be
there long; only, that is, until she meets herself a Real Coveter. (The
sevenh commandment taboos coveting property in land, animals, houses, real
estate, women, which under patriliny, he's going to have residing there.
If you, yourself, don't covet the exogamous woman of wife giver qua wife
taker, she is gonna be gone gone gone, as the bridewealth or dowry will
be paid right from under your nose.
None of this has anything to do with Pleasure, sensu Eisler, except in
that wifetakers have copped some thrill snatching the lady you've been
Counting On.
Pleasure is a permanentlty gangrenous, from jingling over radio, at least
ab initio, and thenceforward, debased in usage by employing more extravagant
words with the same or, worse, more intense semantic fields. Look here. Before
you were born, Baseball in New York City was tribal war. The Italians, the
Slavs and perhaps Irish of Brooklyn, these were for the Dodgers. My father,
always lacking the popular touch, and perhaps a bit despised, what with his
six years' schooling "memorizing the names of Polish kings," defiantly held
fast to the Yankee affinity. This I inherited. With naught to gain; what's
more with aught to lose; I exceeded even my own father's partisanship for
the Yankees, whose minions, hordes, and fifthcolumnists penetrating by way
of the Bronx defenses comprised such as Republicans, Suburban Protestants,
those Italians whereunto Joe DiMaggio could do no wrong, and the curious
breed of Mel Allen (qv) lovers. Racial Minorities (African-Americans,
Hispanics), of course, were for the Giants, whose ballpark lay in Harlem.
Each team had its radio station whereupon its games were broadcast,
with copious beer commercials. For the Yankees, there was "Baseball and
Ballentine," where the latter's logo was three pretzellike rings, signifying
Purity, Body, Flavour. Catholic theology somehow entered into it, or
so projection said; but as I was Jewish, that entailed sinful thoughts.
The Dodgers' beer was Schaefer. Yanks and Dodgers played eachother so often
that even I memorized the enemy beer commercial, which was, actually, far
superior to "ours." Here it is, "the early-childhood memory that justabout
*ruined* the word "pleasure," lifelong, for this writer.
Schaefer is the one beer to have
When you're having more than one
Schaefer flavor doesn't fade
Until your taste is done.
[Think: Mormon Tabernacle Choir.]
The most rewarding pleasure in this man's world
For people who are having fun!
SCHAEFER IS THE ONE-BEER-TO-HAVE
When you're HAVING MORE THAN ONE!!
[Hey, drinker/drunker, if you weren't in bed with two women,
[If all you did was fall off the barstool,
[By us, yer still a man's man.
[By us, yer one of the Select Brotherhood of the Primal Horde!
[Let's, like, do the Secret Grip on that;
[One last round, fellas, TO EQUALITY! Fucked and phony so it be, the
[ equality among men, who are Brothers, is demonstrably Sleazy, in that,
[ men being men, we leave it to the women to Uphold Standards, make
[fine invidious distinctions twixt & tween small social-distance cleavages
[among all lower middles in general, and the lower middles we know, which
[is, regrettably, you, in particular.]
Pleasure, in those days, even for the stupidest kids like me, was the
bait on the trap, in itself meaning, signifying, zilcho; hyposemic in its
semantic field, which moreover was extraordinarily heavily plowed. Best
you can get from pleasure is, nothing went wrong. Cf *shep naches*.
See, without having yet got to the book, we've ascertained that you
cannot make any kinda argument using idiot words; nor can you Create any
fake Direct Experience wherefrom it becomes, or once became, Compelling
as to there inhering a Great Truth in the inanity, "The personal is
political."
Which did a good turn twenty years ago, and that's now long in the past.
What the political is, is going at what's out-fucking-side! This country, like,
is *over*, and if we do not grab hold of its Overness and Donewithedness,
it will squeeze us to death.
In the trying months to come, there shall be recurrences of what activated
itself yesterday, from seat 22B of a Boeing 737; what I did was, I made a
political speech. Wherein was denounced each and every bit of rhetorical
gibberish of 1996. As it happens, a deaf old lady got the speech fullblast,
but ya can't win em all.
For it is written, "The poisonal is political." Yet I say unto ye, "Fuck
the person/al, go out there and do in whate'er be outside. Be ye as Armenians,
they cannot kill too many without disgraceful numbers of human rights
violations; and while fighting it out, manbe getting killed, don't worry,
I go first, I'm sluggish and suspicious looking, read up on WHAT THE FUCK
IS GOING ON OUT THERE, cuz nobody at this time knows. And insofaras they
know, they LIKE IT!
Throw rocks at your local economist. The economists know nothing they
can tell you. What's more, THEY LIKE THE WHOLE FUCKING DEAL.
Above all, never agree with anything I tell you.
Thank you and good night.
Daniel A. Foss
<My use of dirty words in the foregoing has been wholly oblivious to the
<Communications Decency Act having ever existed.>
|