The Fitting

Kuala Lumpur, 2011, CE

-Do you have anything more formal? I don’t mean dressy, I mean the thing about this apron is that it’s really, you know, such a tease and I don’t always feel that way when I’m washing dishes.

-Yes, a lot of the aprons coming out of Italy this year are certainly provocative.

-I mean, I want it to be practical, but I don’t want to make me look like Mrs. Butterworth, either, I mean look at this, it’s so ...parochial

-Bucolic, really.

-I mean, I’m not churning butter or anything, I’m just washing dishes, I want something with a certain faire du vaisselle if you will.

-What about this?

-Again, this just says rip it off me and stick it in me, it’s not a proper apron at all, but some sort of sudsy fantasy.

-What about this Kenneth Cole?

-I think it’s a lot of leather. I’d feel like was butchering a pig.

-It feels nice, though doesn’t it. And it’s practical.

-Yeah, but what are all these hooks?



Xianyang, 227 BCE

You must play me music that will take away my fear, my fear in building this Empire. I am a warrior, it is true, but a warrior’s trade is not death. It is fear. It is by fear and through fear that we fight. It only through fear we can accomplish our goals. We trade fear. It is my fear against the other’s fears. To be as powerful as I am, to be as feared is to never feel safe. I do not sleep. I cannot sleep. Where are my soldiers in dreams? This is why I need music.

It must be martial and strident, but not reckless. It must give time between beats for the wiping of the brow. For the young who are dying, it must be catchy. For the old, it must be tuneful. For the women, it must drown out the screams of babies. Only in this way can we advance as a people.

It must cover me like an armor. But a special armor, that covers me from the inside. Against my own betrayal, against any future self that cries “Hold, enough.” Against the traitor in the sinews, the death they call after.



Ur, 2112 BCE

-My barber spits on me

-What, you mean like a little spittle when he talks?

-No, he spits on me.

-Like an accident?

-No, he pretty much -Whouck-ptoooo! spits on me. In the face.

-Have you thought of going to like another barber?

-I’ve had this barber since I was a kid. He was my father’s barber before I was born.

-But he’s spitting on you.

-Yes.

-Nothing good can come of this. Have you asked him why?

-No. I can’t deal with it.

-I think you should go to another barber.

-Because?

-Because I don’t think this barber really respects you for who you are. For one thing, he spits on you.

-You don’t know that. Maybe it’s a gesture of respect.

-Does it feel like a gesture of respect?

-No, but I haven’t had too much of that, so I don’t really have much to compare it to.

-I think this obvious. This is not a good experience for you. You should go somewhere else.

-You don’t understand, He has this little shop. He’s worked there all his life. My whole family went there.

-Did he spit on them?

-I’m too ashamed to ask.

-Do you tip him?

-Well enough

-I’d say it was not hygienic, but this puts your problem in the wrong light. Stop going.

-But if I stop, I might never know.

-Never know what?

-What was meant.



NUMBER 49, WEEK 37, WORD COUNT TO DATE: 41,365
NEXT BY 8 MARCH 2006

Notes Towards Post-Modern Romance

Post-Modern Romance takes as its point of departure the Heideggerian observation that “I love you” is always a quotation. This is not to say that the Post-Modern romance is simply quotational or simply consists of quotations like a game of charades, which is not to say that some Post-Modern Romances do not consist entirely of games of charades.

As such, the Post-Modern Romance tends to favor such asymmetrical romances as Martin Heidegger and Hannah Arendt. Indeed, it cannot stop thinking about them. “Asymmetrical” here, in the sense of “asymmetrical warfare.” It favors a naive reading of the first half of the Phaedrus and its breakups tend to resemble those of Abelard et Heloise.

Whereas the Modernist Romance tends to favor identity over difference, is indeed about a putative myth of origins or reunion of a divided androgynous soul, the Post-Modern Romance is all about differences, irreconcilable disjunctions, incommensurability and seeing, as Levinas put it, infinity in the face of another, because, left to your own devices, you would never, ever pick this movie out on your own.

Following Deleuze and Guttari: Modernist Romances, dominated by a myth of origins, tend to be Oedipal; Post-Modernist Romances tend to be rhizomatic, that is, a little slutty.


Examples of Post-Modern Romance:

(a) being abducted
(b) receiving someone else’s correspondence
(c) translating something
(d) following a stranger
(e) dating someone with no common language
(f) dating someone who you are not sure is real
(g) dating someone you really despise
(h) falling asleep during a Jean Cocteau marathon
(i) deciding you really like Manhattan Clam Chowder



Post-Modern romances tend to resist closure, especially now that it is easy to move and take your phone number with you. Having had approximately no singular firm reason to have started, like many similar films and narratives, they only stop owing to a practical limit on time and resources (much like the pornographic narrative). Like the universe, they are prone to start up all over again simply because they become more likely than not.

Bataille planned a sequel to Histoire d’Oeil: this unthinkability is the essence of Post-Modern Romance.


Elements of the Post-Modern Romantic:

Naive attempts at cynicism.
Cynical attempts at naivete.


In Post-Modern Romance and ethics, there is no illusion of loving something or anything “in and of itself.” Post-Modern Romance cannot conceive of what this object is. Nor would a listing of all the reasons for loving something or someone be expected to be particularly satisfying. Indeed, nothing about the Post-Modernist Romance is satisfying in the traditional sense: it does not impart knowledge, nor does it have “signifying content”. It is, however, often cited as a reason to move [Note 1].

As such, the Post-Modern Romance tends to favor such asymmetrical romances as Martin Heidegger and Hannah Arendt. Indeed, it cannot stop thinking about them. Hannah Arendt, young, brilliant Jewish student. Martin Heidegger, famous, intimidating, beard smelling of pipe smoke and pickles.


Post-Modern Lovers:

Nietzsche
Jean Genet
Dracula
Special Agent Dr. Dana Scully
Enid from Ghost World
Buddha
Bugs Bunny in drag
Jeffery Dahmer
William S. Burroughs
Samuel Beckett
The Narrator of La Carte Postale


Structure of the Post-Modern Romance:

The Post-Modern Romance is rarely linear in organization and then only in reverse order.
The Post-Modern Romance eschews the triangle for its Oedipality, but may form rhomboids of n sides, interpreting desire, however, as an effect of structure.

The Post-Modern Romance is synchronic. The absence of a larger narrative is part of its charm.

The Modernist Romance is Sassurian and operates on the model of Telecommunications and Cybernetics. The Post-Modern Romance operates on the hopelessly illocutionary model of the bottle Alice finds that says “drink me” (or a surreptitiously placed sign that says “kick me”).

Post-Modern Romance accepts the old adage Amor caecus est, but in the sense that Lacan writes that “God is unconscious” is the true form of atheism [Note 2]. Post-Modern Romance has an unromantic faith in blindness, viruses, signs, and believes in the great strength of evolution, making love in the dark.

Modern Romance is based on compatibility, or incompatibility. Post-Modern Romance is based on incommensurablity and conditions of signifying possibility.

Post-Modern Romance is not to be confused with Post-Modern Eroticism or Sexuality, though no hard distinctions can be made and it would be difficult to describe either of these without the other. Briefly put then, Post-Modern sexuality is anti-phallic and polymorphus. Which is not to say that it is anti-genital or that the penis does not appear. Indeed, there may be several, but the question of whose penis it is may never be clear: briefly not: “my penis” or “your penis” but (roughly): “(it) penises” in the sense of “it rains” or “il faut.”

Post-Modern sexuality tends to favor paraphillias because it finds them sweet and adorable, the more abstract, the better. It also favors sexual positions that allow the participants to watch television and give no priority to syntax.

In this regard, consider the distinction between drive (“impulse”) (Trieb) and instinct in Freud and the problematic history of its translation and the difficulty of explaining some purchases to your parents.


In short, the Post-Modern Romance tends to favor such asymmetrical romances as Martin Heidegger and Hannah Arendt. Indeed, it cannot stop thinking about them. Though the Post-Modern Romance begins with the awareness that not every question-sentence that can be created admits of a productive or pragmatically useful answer-sentence it does ask itself why a nice Jewish girl like Hannah Arendt couldn’t find a nice Jewish man, a really nice one like Emmanuel Levinas, instead of hooking up with a total Nazi like Heidegger.

In the Post-Modern Romance, the valentine can take the form of an activity or quiz:

Let us imagine the following case. I want to keep a diary about the recurrence of a certain sensation. To this end I associate it with the sign "Y" and write this sign in a calendar for every day on which I have the sensation. - I will remark first of all that a definition of the sign cannot be formulated. - but still I give myself a kind of ostensive definition.

How? Can I point to the sensation?
Not in the ordinary sense. But I speak, or write the sign down, and at the same time I concentrate my attention on the sensation.

But what is this ceremony for? for that is all it seems to be. A definition surely serves to establish the meaning of a sign.

- Well that is done precisely by the concentration of my attention; for in this way I impress upon myself the connection between the sign and the sensation.

But "I impress it on myself" can only mean: this process brings it about that I remember the connection right in the future. But in the present case I have no criterion of correctness. One would like to say: Whatever is going to seem right to me is right, and that only means that here we can't talk about 'right'.

Are the rules of the private language impressions of rules? - The balance on which impressions are weighed is not the impression of a balance.

"Well, I believe that this is the sensation Y again." - Perhaps you believe that you believe it!

Then did the man who made the entry in the calendar make a note of nothing whatever? - don't consider it a matter of course that a person is making a note of something when he makes a mark - say in a calendar. For a note has a function, and this "Y" so far has none. (One can talk to oneself. - If a person speaks when no one else is present, does that mean he is speaking to himself?)



Note 1: “What people accept as justification is shown by how they think and live,” (PI, 325).

Note 2: "La véritable formule de l'athéisme n'est pas que Dieu est mort; même en fondant l'origine de la fonction du père sur son meurtre, Freud protège le père. La véritable formule de l'athéisme est que Dieu est inconscient".


NUMBER 48, WEEK 36, WORD COUNT TO DATE: 40,752
NEXT BY 1 MARCH 2006

Do You Want to Make Love?

So when I ask you: “Do you want to make love?” it is not a demand or a solicitation. It is a celebration of life. It is always the most salient question, the most salutary. It is the best question. It is not about sex or drugs -though it can involve both those things. It is a sentimental question, yet devoid of all sordidness.

It is not a question that can have anything behind it, anything begging, like “How are you doing?” or “What are you doing?” No, “Do you want to make love” presumes nothing, that you feel well or sad or even like making love. Instead it offers itself.

It is a gift with no strings attached. Particularly if posed in the afternoon. It’s a completely innocent and well meaning question like: “Are you hungry?” Not like: “Do you want some gum?”

It is really more of a remark, but with no perlocutionary or undesirable illocutionary force: consider such uncontaminated remarks as: “Wow, cool shoes” or “Look, a Narwhale!”, versus the patently comprimised “You look nice today” or “Thanks for coming.”

It is an expression that really thinks the best of people like “gesundheit”, not the worst like “Jesus loves you.” It belongs among the great innocuous and beneficial expressions of mankind along with “au revoir”, “ciao”, “aloha” and “move along”.

So when I ask you: Do you want to make love? Do not feel pressured, importuned or perplexed. It is a celebration of life. And of you. It is like the cry of a bird and as beautiful.


you are not alone

NUMBER 47, WEEK 35, WORD COUNT TO DATE: 39, 394
NEXT BY 22 FEBRUARY 2006

Phases of the Wolf-Man

❍

Right now, I’m eating hot dogs –I want to say thousands of them, but it’s fewer than that –just whole packs of them briefly thrown in the microwave. I am eating them with mayonnaise and barbecue sauce: my hands are slippery red and white with them. I was sitting at the kitchen table, but now I’m on the floor, just eating, stuffing my mouth full, three or four at a time and the mayo –and there are other condiments –is making me a little sick, but somehow I feel that I will feel worse if I stop, like when I had been continuously driving a long time, eighteen hours, you feel sicker if you stop. This has –nothing –to do with being –a Wolf-man. This is just something that I am doing.

It’s late at night. I’m not sure there is a full moon or no –I’m not good at that sort of thing. I am getting ready. I am putting on my running suit. Actually, I am looking for it. I keep everything on hangers in my closet, so reaching back there is like pressing through a thick forest of baby clothes and old snowsuits. I never seem to throw anything away. Anyway, I push into my closet and it pushes back, rolling back on me like a dusty wave. I sneeze a lot, but eventually I force my way back, further into the past, past the pants I can’t wear anymore with the pleats, and I find it, my running suit. It’s baby blue with rainbow stripes on the arms and legs. My face is hot and wet from the struggle with the closet and the sneezing. I am flushed. I strip naked and pull my running suit on. The tight polyester slips around me and I zip up. I am hot, sweaty and a little erect, to feel my nude self clung tight in this running suit. I keep sneezing. My nose runs. I am the Wolf-man.

I pour myself a little drink while waiting for the running suit to complete the wash cycle. I know it will dry quickly outside in the night air. I do not need to drink to become the Wolf-man. I just have a little time on my hands, is all. I turn on the television. Maybe a nature show will be on. Or pornography. I pour myself another drink. I use the expression “pour myself” but I couldn’t find any clean glasses, so there’s no actual pouring involved. There’s nothing really on. I flip from channel to channel. With a light footed trot I am on the prowl, my attention is quick, vulpine. I run quickly through a familiar episode of “Miami Vice” I have already seen. My way is sure and deft. I think about stripping naked and working out, but I remember I still can’t find the spring thingy that goes on the end that keeps the weight on and how last time the weight slipped off and broke something collectable. Through these hundred channels I have gone and seen and been not seen, like the hundred places of the forest floor, silent and swift and discriminating. To the blue of the blocked channels, I howl.

I am ready. I pull my suit out of the washer. It feels like a fresh wet skin. I feel my muscles move and slide and beneath this new skin. I howl. I exult. I also feel a little uncomfortable dampness, especially in the pants. I think about taking it off and putting it in the dryer, but I do not want to lose the moment, waiting for the dryer. I wrap myself in a towel and pour myself a drink. I can feel myself gathering, collecting, steaming in this damp running suit. The thunderhead. The power. The root of my sex. The tightness of my buttocks. Within my new skin, I stroke myself gently. Masterfully. Majestically. I keep sneezing. I get another towel. I pour myself a warming drink. It is midnight. Charlie Rose comes on. I usually don’t watch the whole thing, but I’ve been kind of following this story, but first he’s talking to Sean Penn again.

☾

-So if you can get those documents to us, explaining your payment history, I think that would go a long way in terms of getting your refinance going.

-So I just write my Household Finance

-Well, you should probably call them

-I call them and ask for my payment history for February of last year.

-Going back to February, yes.

-Can I have them fax it to me? Would that be quicker?

-They probably will need to mail it to you.

-Could you? Could um, ...Could you ask them and have them fax it to you? Because it’d be quicker.

-No they probably need to release those records to you, and we can’t ask them. But you could fax it to us once you’ve got it.

-I see. So I call my bank and have them send it to me. Then I fax it to your number.

-That’s right. Then we’ll be able to get your loan request underway.

-With cash out. Oh, that’d be great. You’ve been very helpful.

-Thank you. I am the Wolf-man.

-Thank you, Mr. Wolfman.

-No, no. I am a Wolf-man.

-What?

-A man who changes into a wolf. Okay, be sure to get those documents into us and I’ll take them right into the president and we’ll get you approved.

-Oh, okay, thank you.

My secret is out.

✩

-You mean like in the movies?

-It’s not like in the movies. I was never bitten. I think I was born a Wolf-man.

-Okay, well is this related to the whole not bathing thing? Because that, again, is what I called you in here to talk about. Because it’s makes for a poor work environment and that’s what we’re here to do and I shouldn’t need to tell you this -you know, showering, brushing your teeth -you do brush your teeth, don’t you?

-Yeah, I brush. I take baths. Bathroom’s been busy lately. Housemates. There’s no hot water and I don’t want to be late.

-Well, you know, what can I say, I’m sure it’s not good for the other people on the bus, either. I appreciate that you get here on time, but, it's part of your job, not only to get here on time, but on time ready for work, for the professional work environment...

-I can bathe more.

-Good, great, I’d really appreciate it, your co-workers would -look, it’s awkward having to tell you all this, I mean I just want to keep this place professional and it’s bad that people are having to come to me.

I hope your feelings aren’t hurt. I mean, I’m not your Mom or anything or some hygiene, you know, Nazi, you know “Mr. Clean” or whatever. It’s not my place to tell people how to live their private lives, that’s right outside this office. I mean, we’ve all gone camping right? And natural smells, whatever. But are we camping now? You know what I mean? A little soap and water never hurt, even when you’re camping. I wouldn’t care if you were sitting next to me -well, I would care, that’s the point -but if I didn’t manage this office I wouldn’t care. Live and let live. I mean you can do your own thing, whatever. You’re a Wolf-man. Is that like a religion? Like uh, what’s that thing called in like the Indiana Jones movie, um -like a Sikh or something... “Kali-Maaaah”, you know? God, what is that called?

-So they -uh, that Asian family in Florida is going to try and get us their payment history.

-Okay, whatever, just keep them interested. Hey, you know what’s great? Body wash. It’s like shampoo for the body. Or like Irish Spring. Oh that was before you’re time. Oh no, it wasn’t, you’re like way older than I am. Yeah well, like Irish Spring, scrubbing bubbles whatever. Okay?

☽

-I like helping people.

I know you do.

-I also like figuring things out. Like I figured out how to copy a DVD. It’s not easy, because you can’t just copy it. They don’t tell you how. But I figured it out. Just as long as it’s not longer than ninety minutes.

Well, you are very smart.

-I’m also very physical. I like to work out. I don’t as much as I should, but when I put in the time it makes me feel really good, I mean good about myself.

Do you go to a gym?

-No, just ...around the house. I have some weights that a friend’s brother gave me. He works at the Renaissance fair. He’s got swords and weapons for hand to hand combat from all periods.

So your conversation, sounds like it went really well

-Yeah, the president said I was doing a really great, really superior job -because I like to help people. And that I was a great asset to the company because I always come in on time. We talked about religion. He’s a religious man, an educated man. He asked if we could go camping sometime, just me and him. Like a man thing. And work out. He said that I could be president, too. But I have to take more showers.

Right.

-You know, be more professional. For the big boys.

How’s the not drinking coming along?

-I don’t drink.

Well, okay, it’s not just the not drinking. You’ve also got to go to the meetings. If you’re not drinking, that is. If you want to drink, that’s another story.

-But it’s better if I don’t.

Well, on the whole, I think you should be very proud of yourself. You’re doing good. You’re working. You’re taking care of yourself. Just think, if you keep this up you could start to realize some of those dreams you’ve always been talking about.

-Like making that balloon project.

Well, that’s partly an engineering problem and perhaps a legal thing, but, you know, going back to school, meeting more people -if you did half or even one of the things you talk about, it would be quite an achievement. You’re a special person. You’ve got dreams and visions for yourself. You should work toward realistically realizing them, just one of them. You would find it very satisfying.

-I’m glad you said that. Because there’s something I’ve always been meaning to ask you.

Yes?

Would you like to go out with me for a drink and -uh, have a drink sometime?

Well, that’s very nice of you. And I appreciate you’re being honest about your drinking. I’m here to help you. This is our time, together, to -talk about you. I think you’re really a likable person. But they don’t really let us do that and I don’t think it’s really a good idea for many reasons, because our relationship is a professional one. And you need to meet people. People in your world, in your life. I think you need to meet women. I think you’re ready. Not necessarily dating, just getting used to talking to them, as you have to me. Remember, women are people, too, just like me. You can talk to them -you wouldn’t tell them all the same things, but they love a good listener and I think you could be that, if you tried. And I think at heart, you’re a decent sort. You’re sweet even. Sexy. I’m sorry I can’t be that person for you. I really am. I’m married to my ship. Not that I’m not tempted. No, I would give it all up, just to be with you, I really would. I would love to spend one long and lonely sweaty night with you, rutting on all fours. Totally wasted. In the Wolf-cave. I know you are a Wolf-man. I’ve always known it. You move like a hunter. Your eyes are quick. I could smell it in your breath and on the couch after you’ve gone. I would lie on that couch and hike my skirts up. And I would keep doing it until I thought I was going crazy. That’s why I can’t be with you and it’s your choice, okay, whether or not you want to modify your behavior, but I think, and I know you think, that drinking has bad consequences for you. Okay? Well, let’s think on that until next time. I’ll look forward to hearing what you’ve decided. Okay? Wolf-man.

Yes, yes. I am the Wolf-man.

NUMBER 46, WEEK 34, WORD COUNT TO DATE: 39,136
NEXT BY 15 FEBRUARY 2006