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- pindar wrote: "...to all comes / the wave of death and falls unforseen / even on him who forsees it / but honor grows for the dead / whose tender repute a god fosters" / so perhaps someday a schoolboy will stand before a class in the history of sexuality and recite these unforgettable words: "a bongo-playing cuban bandleader fell on the field of battle today / he was the first to shoot a live audience he never maligned"
- Dirty plates sometimes race through my head! Do you have any idea what that's like?
- I know from the Sports Illustrated article that you're on a completely liquid diet, so I made you a calf's liver frappe with onions on the rim of the glass just the way you like it.
- I've got all the latest do-it-yourself diagnostic equipment so that I can do my own home stress EKGs, myelograms, pelvic sonograms... I've even rigged the rec room so that on an overcast afternoons when I'm feeling especially introspective I can self-administer my own lower GI endoscopies.
- Oh, do you like that sculpture? I took a sculpture class at the Y and that was my final project. It's called Father Shaking Flea Powder on His Daughter's Long Greasy Hair with the Indifference of a Sinatra Shaking Grated Parmesan Cheese on a Pile of Linguine. I was trying to capture that weird kind of indifference, y'know.
- (about tattoos) and what's that one on the left? - That's the 1040 short form.
- Tasner stared out the window. From telephone pole to telephone pole, pendulous drops of rainwater dangled from the wires like ornamental money. The meadow was filled with police. Each cop's vaporous breath hovered about his head -- a foul nimbus -- a nauseating blend of mint mouthwash and rancid coffee -- the corners of his mouth glued together with hardened egg yolk. Bored, horny, hung over, underpaid, undereducated, hypoglycemic, the cops ambled through the meadow knocking daffodils off their stems in a black blur of nightsticks. (127)
- Harriet Seibel had the largest, heaviest frontal lobe in Pocahontas High School in Mahwah. (131)
- I reinquired. (131)
- ...we detect pronounced increases in dendrites... Do you know what dendrites are? (-) Gosh, Dr. Kline, I said, I don't think we've done that chapter yet. (-) Dendrites are the filamentous branches of a nerve cell that harvest information from the synapses and forward them to the main body of a cell. (-) I scribbled notes as quickly as I could and then I looked up. I think it's sad, I said, because the shadow of her head obscures whatever it is she's looking at. (132)
- Well, you see, said Dr. Kline, there are more and more toxic pollutants in the atmosphere like chlorine and acrylonitrite, and hydrogen chloride -- and the earth's population is increasingly vulnerable to these poisons because it's become too inbred... The level of genetic homogeneity is so high that our immune systems have been left with too limited a repertoire to defend against the toxic pollutants -- so in order for the human species to adapt and survive and prosper we need a dramatic increase in genetic variety -- and that requires profoundly exogamous cross-fertilization. (-) You mean mating with extraterrestrials... with aliens... with spacemen? (-) Exactly! said everyone, nodding. (132)
- One last thought -- since I've already succumbed to my nostalgia about those days at Pocahontas High... I was probably the only guy in town who had his own mother as his high school English teacher. But I'll never figure out the way she signed my yearbook: We are merely goose pimples on the arm of the law. (133)
- marsha was telling me all the bands she liked (137)
- i glanced out the window of the computer-run monorail at the pink hollyhocks and white queen anne's lace and bright purple wildflowers blooming on the hills and then i looked back at marsha who was wearing a cream satin two-piece dress, gold lame sandals with chain straps, and pearl-drop earrings / she reeked of cheap perfume / i like cheap perfume on a blond robot (137)
- i glanced out the window of the computer-run monorail at the crocodile-infested rivers and malarial swamps teeming with electric eels and 15-foot anacondas and then i looked back at marsha who was wearing a blush-pink silk blazer over skin (a latex-like water emulsion polymer the color of cafe au lait), a network of white plastic arteries circulated compressed air throughout her metal and carbon-fiber chassis / she literally had the the words hitachi electronics corporation written all over her / i estimated her development costs to have been approximately 2 billion yen / she reached behind her head as if to smooth her hair and inserted a floppy disk into a disk drive situated inconspicuously at the nape of her neck / instinctively i reached across to help her and my fingers brushed against the floppy disk as it receded into the back of her head / i looked into her sensitive almost vulnerable pale-blue electron diffraction optical imaging scanners / your software is so soft, i said / she smiled bashfully, averting her eyes, and continued to talk about the delcimerplayer who was half-human, half-mole (138-39)
- he'd flung himself into the vat with a kind of sublime grace / that his back was arched, his legs extended, his hands pressed together above his head as if in prayer (139)
- i took an apartment from the cern atom smasher in switzerland... but it was like living over a bowling alley... all that smashing / so i moved back, to a basement apartment next door to the norad strategic warning center in colorado under cheyenne mountain / and here i enjoyed a long overdue respite from the pierced nipple and enema crowd, here amid the murmuring mountain streams and craggy cliffs my soul was succored in days of arcadian serenity and tranquil restoration -- often i'd awaken from an afternoon nap to find a caribou or elk performing a delicate pas de bourree on pointed hoof from flagstone to flagstone, his hairy... (139)
- i had a wonderful next-door neighbor -- a warmhearted, jovial, gregarious woman with an irrepressible zest for life / she had a deep consuming passion for macaroni and cheese and often i'd awaken from an afternoon nap to find men in white overalls running a thick black hose from their gleaming cylindrical tank truck to an inlet valve in the backyard and pumping gallons and gallons of creamy yellow velveeta cheese sauce into her underground storage reservoir (140)
- and i asked if i could do anything to help and she said, no no no, you just got into the den and watch TV / so i watched a documentary about norwegian explorer and writer thor heyerdahl proving that it was possible for a race of primitive people to have migrated from continent to continent on styrofoam kickboards and i watched a news conference at which the president announced that after having reviewed the film the dirty dozen with the trilateral commission he was sending jean harris, claus von bulow, john delorean, and nine other upper-crust felons to the caribbean in an aromored yawl with a 155-millimeter champagne bottle mounted on deck capable of firing a 600-lb. cork from the costal waters of eastern nicaragua right into the living room of commandante daniel ortega (140)
- a gaunt pockmarked dissipated handsome sexy mosquito hovered at the scren window / transfixed as if spaced out on smack / a thousand images of the flickering sony trinitron reflected in his compound eyes / his sharp proboscis flashed in the moonlight like a hypodermic needle with a drop of blood at its tip (140)
- he was saying, "let me in, marsha" and "marsha, do you have any sweet shit in your liquor cabinet like sambuca or kahlua or peppermint schnapps or amaretto" and "marsha, don't you recognize me -- this is jesus, they freeze-dried my brain at san quentin" and "masha, this is elvis... this is prince" / so i ran and got a can of extra-strength raid and sprayed him through the screen window until death was his final reward / the phone was ringing in my apartment / it rang 50 times / 60 times / 70 times / 80, 90, 100, 110 times / finally on the 117th ring i picked it up... breathless... panting... it was my cousin, my gastroenterologist / he said, marsha, you'd better catch the next flight to new york city -- your father's got kidney stones (141)
- the surgeon turned to the nurse and said, "guitar" / the nurse handed him a fender stratocaster / the surgeon strapped it over his shoulder / "guitar pick," he said / she complied, placing a guitar pick firmly in his gloved hand / as the surgeon began to play jimi hendrix's solo from "purple haze," he held the guitar up against the amplifier, producing howling high-pitched feedback / as my cousin, the gastroenterologist, later explained, the guitar feedback produces shock waves in the warm bathwater which travel harmlessly through the body but shatter the brittle kidney stones into fine fragments / he said that the guitar-feedback method of smashing kidney stones had been developed at the monterey pop institute of kidney, bladder, and urethra disease and had just been approved by the FDA / i trusted my cousin's medical explication as i trusted my cousin -- implicitly (141)
- notwithstanding one's political affiliations one couldn't deny his baseball prowess, and in fact he had such an incredible spitball that his salivary glands were insured by lloyd's of london (142)
- we were reminiscing over falafel sandwiches and diet cokes in the mount sinai cafeteria when my cousin's face took on an unexpectedly somber aspect / what's wrong, i asked, do you have food allergies? / is the wheat gluten in the pita bread causing you to become moody and capricious? / is the nutrasweet in the diet coke making you epileptic? (142)
- and he looked at me and with the grim urgency of a network anchorman he said, marsha, the freon bubble in your father's brain is the work of terrorists (142)
- if, after installing new head, you are unable to discern the contradictions in capitalist modest of production, you have either installed your head improperly or head is defective (143)
- ...and then i looked back at marsha / at the epicanthic folds of her japanese-made eyes, at her olive silk pleated tunic and smoke-blue wool crepe pants / and in the periphery of my vision i noticed a group of caucasian hoodlums entering the car / i think they were delinquents from one of the bad parts of canada / recalling the fashion of urban black youth of the 1970s who wore combs and afro picks in their hair, these caucasian thugs took it one step further -- they wore all their grooming implements and toilet articles / they swaggered down the aisle with q-tips sticking out of their ears, strands of dental floss hanging from their teeth, and big globs of styling mousse on the tops of their heads / they were apparently a gang of deaf caucasian punks because instead of toting boom boxes on their shoulders, they each carried a letter-quality printer which churned out the lyrics of the songs (143)
- ...immense musclewoman -- 165 lbs. of steroid-scented beefcake garnished with a red bikini that marked her bulging latitudes like two rubber bands about to snap (144)
- ...and beat him with my huge fists until his face was a pudding of flesh and blood and his lower lip protruded stupidly from his mouth like the heavy petal of a summer flower (144)
- what color is your mozzarella? i asked the waitress / it's pink -- it's the same color as the top of a mennen lady speed stick antiperspirant dispenser, y'know that color? / no, ma'am, i said / it's the same pink they use for the gilette daisy disposable razors for women... y'know that color? / nope / y'know the pink they use on the wrappers for carefree panty shields? / nuh-uh / well, it's the same pink as pepto-bismol, y'know that color? / oh yeah, i said, well, do you have spaghetti? / well, what's spaghetti? / it's elongated thin solid strings of pasta / no, we don't have that, but i want to tell you, mister, that no matter what you order tonight you're in for a treat because our new chef was a texas death row chef / what's that? i asked / well, the state of texas is executing so many convicts that it's been forced to hire special death row chefs to accommodate the spiraling number of last meal requests -- a condemned inmate being of course traditionally entitled to the final menu of his choice / in the old days, when capital punishment was infrequent enough to be noteworthy and when death sentences were meted out primarily to the itinerant and impecunious, steaks or cheeseburgers with a side of french fries or onion rings, coffee, and pie a la mode tended to be the order of the day / but today, murder, mayhem, random violence, heinous brutality, and wanton slaughter of innocent life is just as likely to occur in corporate boardrooms, health spas, tanning salons, and video clubs as it is in slum alleyways and backwoods motels / this coupled with your gastronomic education in the public schools and wardens are finding themselves obliged to accommodate last requests for everything from coquilles st. jacques and roast pheasant with chestnut stuffing to braised veal shanks, milan style, and cold sauteed trout in orange marinade / electric chairs, gas chambers, and firing squads are working at such a frenetic pace that death row kitchens are sites of frantic raucous activity, with depleted items being constantly scrawled on the 86 board and waiters rushing in & out yelling their orders: i got a steak au poivre, a stuffed sole, an order of fried zucchini sticks and cancel the bay scallops -- governor's pardon... the kitchen lights intermittently dimming as power surges to the electric chair / ads for death row chefs and death row sauciers appear in all the major trade publications and the cornell school of hotel/motel management & the new jersey culinary institute offer degrees in last meal preparation / students are trained in every aspect and nuance of death row cuisine including which wines more felicitously complement meals preceding death by firing squad and which wines more felicitously complement meals preceding death by lethal injection / sounds good, i said, let me try that roast phesant with the chestnut stuffing / we don't have that / how about the cold sauteed trout in orange marinade, that sounded good / nope, we don't have that / what about those braised veal shanks? / nuh-uh / then why don't you give me a cheeseburger with a side of french fries, coffee, and pie a la mode / thanks for your order, mister (145)
- my body was exhausted / my head felt like a buoy, bobbing on the surface of the water / i tried to forget my own exhaustion, my own pain, by eavesdropping on the conversation of a man and woman in the adjoining booth and i concentrated with such focused intensity that during lulls in their conversation i could hear the secretions of their internal glands drip with the audibility of leaking faucets (145-46)
- where were you last night? the man said angrily / what are you talking about? asked the woman / well, all i dreamt of last night was sitting on the bank of a stream eating a turkey salad platter garnished with mandarin oranges / that was me! exclaimed the woman / what? said the man / i was the mandarin oranges or should i say i appeared in your dream in the form of mandarin oranges -- because they are sweet and tart and small and cool like me -- i was symbolized in your dream by mandarin oranges / well, this is very annoying, said the man, why couldn't you have simply appeared in my dream as you, like we planned? / well... thought the woman, and then after a prolonged pause she said, well, you have some nerve being annoyed -- where were you last night?/ the man squirmed a bit in his seat / why, he asked, what did you dream? / i dreamt i was lying on a beach blanket on an endless asphalt field in indiana, thoroughly basted with suntan lotion, reading lee jacocca's autobiography & a squadron of french mirage-2000 jet fighters kept flying back and forth above the field in tight wing formation / the man averted his eyes sheepishly, that was me, he said, i appeared in your dream in the form of mirage-2000 jets... but i didn't mean to! i intended to come as myself (146)
- i wish you had he said softly / this is the problem, said the woman, although we intend to appear as ourselves -- we are apparently transmogrified en route into each other's dreams into encoded images or symbols of ourselves / this is quite unsatisfying, said the man, how will we ever recognize each other? we'll simply have to assume that any elements congruent with those which appeared last night represent each other / you're right, said the man, now i know that any time i encounter a garnish in my dreams it's you -- every olive, every tomato slice, candied apple, parsley sprig, lemon rind, grated radish, and maraschino cherry -- it's you! / yes, said the woman, and i know that each time i discover an F-16 or a MIG-25 or a strategic air command bomber or a 747 passenger plane or the space shuttle or even a soviet SAM-7 surface-to-air missile--it's you... you and only you! (147)
- i found the lovers' passionate predicament and their passionately ingenious solution quite poignant / not only was i moved by the sophistication of their microcomponents -- only 4th-generation robots were capable of dreaming & telepathy -- but they made me think back to the springtime of my own youth, when i first fell in love / the year was 1958 (147)
- i suffered the agonies of an enraptured adolescent / i can remember vividly the very sweetness of my longing, the hot sudorific intensity of fantasies inevitably doused in the icy realization of my desire's futility... absently doodling her name on my gym shorts / "sophia" ... "sophia" ... the word reverently multiplied on every wall of the weight room, scratched even in the vinyl-covered benches of my nautilus equipment / she was the first & last woman i ever loved (147)
- he appeared to me to be in a state of extreme agitation and although we hadn't seen each other in some 20 years, he forwent any pleasantries and steered me roughly from the bar / come with my to my loft car, he said, i want you to see my new painting -- i think it's the best work i've ever done (148)
- this painting is extremely spooky / it's like the portrait of dorian gray or something (...) the painting is protean... it's unstable... it changes! / what do you mean? i asked / i mean the painting literally changes depending on where the monorail is -- the painting transforms itself -- it apparently metamorphoses its pigments to reflect the location of the monorail -- it's like some kind of weird window! / well, it didn't take me more than a couple of seconds to realize that it was a window / and if there had been any doubts, they were dispelled as the monorail began to pull away and, through the window, the red convertible and the two pale & spent convicts receded in the distance and the setting dessert sun cast a coral light on the landscape (149)
- i walked away, deeply moved by the refusal or inability of this robot to distinguish between the factitious & the natural / but a powerful turbulent hungry feeling was welling up within me / i longed for the warm textures of flesh and blood -- the faint glimmers of sympathy and pleasure in a pair of eyes indicating the presence of a heart and nerves and synapses and not gallium arsenide chips & integrated circuits / perhaps i'm the last human being on earth with an abiding system of ethics & a beautiful body / although on certain beaches beautiful heavily muscled proletarian boys are cracking open horseshoe crabs with ball-peen hammers & sucking out their 175-million-year-old deoxyribonucleic acid in a gallant effort to rejuvenate the human species / but i am nostalgic for more romantic times / i slipped into a camisole of silver & violet mesh, a black velvet skirt, a sapphire & opal necklace, diamond earrings, and a pair of multicolored python pumps / and i made my way, car by car, through the computer-run monorail -- cruising for sentient beings (149-150)
jul 20 2015 ∞
nov 10 2023 +
nov 10 2023 +