Jack here.
The fever’s gone. I’m still sick, though. Never mind I’m sitting here like a fool—more like a two-bit hooker, actually—editing a massive, near-sadistically impenetrable document for money, not enough of it.
But let me tell you about my blissful, antihistamine-enhanced sleep last night. A serial dream—it bridged multiple pee breaks—had me much excited at a book idea. I’d decided the combination of the world’s longest palindrome (several long paragraphs) and a brand-new concept of time I’d come up with would throw light on the whole of existence, proving a ripping good yarn to boot. The excitement had fled by the time I awoke.
Do you think the Muse might be messing with me?
Early response from Bob the Literatus:
Palindromic narratives? “T Eliot, top bard, notes putrid tang emanating, is sad. I’d assign it a name: gnat dirt upset on drab pot toilet.” Might one build out from that? It was making the rounds in DC back in the 1960s.
Another offering from Bob the L. (who makes no claim, herein, to theological soundness):
“God, a red nugget, a fat egg under a dog”.
Funny I had a similar dream last night, maybe the same one – did you see me in it? But instead of drawing on your pharmacon, I mistakenly drank the wrong potion from my cabinet. I thought it was the ole YaaDongPLUS, but it was actually JGA’s (Jett the Giant Anthropologist’s) Liver Spot (good name for a bar!) Remover — nothing to do with age mind you, but livering, or living only (hard on the spot) — sounds like a palindrome but madam it’s not. And I think I may still be dreaming under its influence, shacked away in me Isan idyll instead of serving where I was meant to be. (The difference is only the addition of lime juice, funny enough.) In the end, no harm done. Think that this must be the place. Not waiving, mate, but drownding.
And here I thought writers and other artists wanted to be messed with by the Muse. Your muse might well be Melpomene, though.
Re: the document from hell, let me be the first to say: geçmiş olsun.
“Well past,” in Turkish, no? Thanks.
The Muse to which you refer was once in charge of celebratory song and dance, I believe, but later moved into tragedy. Which is it in this case?
Damn, I’d be downright monolingual and stupid, were it not for the Web.
A little more fluently, it’s “may it be in your past”. It’s what you say to someone who’s sick or otherwise afflicted.
And yeah, it was the tragic Melpomene — clearly also my muse — I was thinking of.
Big coincidence. My very next post refers to Terpsichore. Given this sudden whirl of Muses, why aren’t I getting anything creative done?
I am replying to the screed on wisdom in the right-hand column, which doesn’t seem to have a thingie to click on so that I can reply in the appropriate box. This lapse seems designed to make me look like a fool, which I am already, so the effort is redundant.
Collin has it exactly wrong on wisdom. Hangovers are good for you. They are liberating experiences that enable you to peer into the dark corners of the soul, thus enhancing self-knowledge. They destroy egoism and bolster humility. I plan to cultivate one this very evening by cracking a new bottle of Paranoya Vodka, which is a steal at only Bt259 a bottle and confers hangovers of a truly skull-splitting quality. Cold pizza for breakfast, too, is a fine way to start the day, although I’d pass on the stale beer. If you don’t like the cold pizza festering on your kitchen table, send it over to me. (I have a microwave, ha ha.)
Wisdom is for wusses. Wise pipple do not go out to see demonstrations in the street like in Libya right now or during red-shirt season in Bangkok. They lock their doors and stay inside and eat cold pizza and curl up in fetal balls and suck their thumbs. Confucius got to be a wise man only after he tried being a government administrator and was sandbagged by rivals jealous of his skill. Wisdom is knowing when to do nothing. I do nothing all the time, and look at how smart I am. That’s why they call me Osho, which is Japanese for Oh, shit. Here endeth the lesson.
Aha. That is exactly what my ‘screed’ implies. (Says, really.) You have expanded my aphorisitic advice into a proper screed that says the same thing. It is clear that the Paranoya V. has cleansed the doors of your perception regarding what is proper and fitting in this life, but you no doubt read my offering through the bottom of the bottle, darkly. Yours in ever seeking…