To: Diary@email

“...the past has no reality except for present recollection.”

- Borges

Dear Diary[, Future Scholars and Future Students of Future Scholars],

Are you reading this? I have a difficult time writing when I’m not sure whether anyone is ever going to read what I write. Why waste time, words, bites (sic.) and brilliantly constructed interrogative apostrophes on an ontologically absent audience? The only comfort I find in this exercise is in knowing that someday these entries will be contained within The Norton Anthology of the Unpublished Works of Rex Young. And there will surely be many scholarly articles addressing this particular entry in which the publication of such scholarly articles is anticipated. Future Scholar: Use this sentence as an epigraph to your essay. Or this one.

I killed a bird last night. I wanted to write, “I am an avicide,” followed by some indiscreet allusion to The Brothers Karamazov, but I thought it would be more effective to simply write a sentence describing my desire to write such a sentence. It was Lenore’s bird.

>> Writing Idea #574 – Adapt TBK into a children’s story about a family of titmice.

No, the murder of such a bird cannot be called avicide. Such a murder can only be reckoned avicide by prejudice. But to plead my case to you, my possible reader, I will have to begin at the beginning:

I pulled up to Lenore’s house (in the DeLorean, of course) at 7:30pm. After playing with the car-doors for a few minutes I walked into Lenore’s house without ringing the doorbell (a move that generally tricks women into thinking that they trust you more than they actually do). Lenore screamed when I walked into the kitchen. This, however, played right into my backup plan for a failed attempt at enter-without-ringing-the-doorbell: I apologized (women love this move), offered to get her a glass of water, ran my hand through her hair, and then made up a quote about fear and love which I attributed to Wittgenstein (women really love this move).

>> Writing Idea #575 – The Wittgenstein Seducer: A screenplay about a great writer who seduces women by attributing everything he says to Wittgenstein. In the end we find out that the great writer is Wittgenstein.

After the faux-Wittgenstein quote, Lenore said a bunch of things which I ignored because I was busy thinking about a great idea for a screenplay. I asked Lenore if I could go into her bedroom (WLTM) in order to write down some notes for a poem which her beauty had just inspired into me. ¹ She said something about something being hot; I kissed her cheek (WLTM) and whistled the BttF theme song (Ibid.) as I walked away from her (Ibid.).

By the time I got to her room I had forgotten my Writing Idea. This, however, played right into my backup plan for when I forget a WI: I began writing down a WI about forgetting a WI. This occasioned a new WI about a WI about a forgotten WI which occasioned several more WIs of the same nature. I can’t remember what happened next.

>> Writing Idea #576 – Replace the last sentence of the previous paragraph with: And this went on forever.

>> Writing Idea #577 – Change it back to: I can’t remember what happened next.

After that, I began thinking about my feelings for Lenore—about how she alone can see through my façade of self-confidence and survey my insecurities (both literary and non) without letting me know that she can see them which allows me to realize that I have insecurities without having to convince myself that I don’t in order to maintain a feeling of supremacy over another human being. She makes me realize that I don’t have to hide behind long, convoluted sentences and obfuscated diction in order for her to appreciate me. I don’t have to be a great writer to be loved by a great woman.

Suddenly, a voice began repeating my thoughts back to me. At first I thought it was God (which, of course, led to several WIs) but the voice was far too high-pitched for it to be God. When the voice repeated my WIs about it being God (which, of course, led to several WIs), it occurred to me that the voice sounded an awful lot like a parrot’s. And it was. I must have been speaking my thoughts out loud and the parrot must have heard them all. Halfway through considering a WI about the memory capacity of a parrot I realized that the parrot had just stored in its memory everything that I had just thought about Lenore. I couldn’t let Lenore hear my thoughts. There was only one thing to do.

Dinner was a bit cold but I have an insensitive palette so it didn’t bother me much. We had lemon merengue pie (sic.) for desert and a few glasses of port. I suggested (WLTM) that we go into Lenore’s room and watch BttF III. Lenore reminded me that we had watched BttF I after our last dinner date and so it would make better chronological sense for us to watch BttF II this time. I explained (WLTM) that a strict adherence to chronology is detrimental to the aesthetic horizon of any work of art (and particularly one whose very subject is non-adherence to chronology). At this point...

>> Writing Idea #579 – Find the quote from Joyce (or was it Borges?) that proposes a system of mnemonic temporality; insert said quote as an epigraph to this entry. Elsewhere in this entry insert an obscure allusion (disguised as a WI) to the psychologically questionable brilliance contained within the act of epigraphing a diary entry.²

...Lenore gave me one of her I-see-through-your-words-but-I’m-not-going-to-say-anything-because-I-don’t-want-to-upset-you looks and took my hand in hers (I love this move). Walking hand-in-hand with Lenore toward her bedroom, I realized that I was in love with her. I tried to fend off the myriad WIs that assailed my mind in order to think of how I could say “I love you” in a more aesthetically pleasing way. I was fairly certain that Lenore would sleep with me (and not run away before the “sleeping” had happened) if I could just come up with the right words. “Lenore,” I said, “you are my dens—” and then Lenore screamed. She had noticed her parrot lying dead in a pool of red feathers and bones and other little bird-body-parts as the blood was slowly leaving its permanent stain upon her cream berber carpet. There was a small brass pestle lying bloody beside the dead creature.

>> Writing Idea #581 – Consider replacing the previous two sentences with: She had found her bird and it was dead.

That’s about all I can remember of last night. I drove home in the DeLorean and played with the doors for several hours, contemplating the possibility that a poet who lives through WIs doesn’t actually live at all. ⁴

________

¹ It occurred to me (both last night and just now) that “inspired into” is redundant. I just want to make sure that you know that I know that. I am a great writer.

² >> Writing Idea #578 – Insert a WI that pretends to propose the insertion of an epigraph (although the epigraph has already been inserted) and then make this WI a footnote to that WI so as to confuse the reader’s sense of time. But who is the reader? Are you reading this? ³

³ >> Writing Idea #580 – Insert “Are you reading this?” at the beginning of this essay and then rewrite the rest of the essay to address the question of whether or not anyone is reading this.

⁴ Future Scholar: Consider writing an essay on the literary effect of ending a story on a profound note followed by a footnote which completely deflates the profundity. You can use the previous sentence as the epigraph. Or this one.

Transcript from a Session between Lenore Beadsman and Dr. Jay

------

JAY: So you'd say that you're feeling anxious about your upcoming dinner with Rex?

LENORE: God damn it.

JAY: Perhaps even angry?

LENORE: My anger is directed toward your tendency to repeat exactly what I just said a moment ago with the same quasi-reflective intonation as you furrow your brow and stare at a point just above my head.

JAY: Ah yes, the point, the quasi-reflective tone...

LENORE: I'm leaving.

JAY: Wait!

LENORE: Will you stop?

JAY: Yes. My apologies. It's a bad habit - the first thing they teach you in school.

LENORE: Well it's stupid.

JAY: I agree. Now, let's talk about your overwhelming hostility.

LENORE: Fine.

JAY: When was the last time you made love?

LENORE: How is that relevant?

JAY: It's been that long, huh?

LENORE: What do you mean?

JAY: It's been so long that you don't even recognize that the question is perhaps one of the more psychologically relevant questions anyone could ever ask - along the same lines as "When was the last time you thought about murdering your father and marrying your mother?" or "What goes on four legs in the morning, on two legs at noon, and on three legs in the evening?" -

LENORE: What?

JAY: A man.

LENORE: I don't -

JAY: You need a man.

LENORE: I have Rick.

JAY: Excuse my saying so, but there are many ways in which Rick is not a man.

LENORE: What do you mean?

JAY: Although he may be strangely adorable, Rick -ironically-named- Vigorous could never act on his own oedipal fantasies even if he happened across his true father on the road to Thebes and killed him, because when he finally ascended the throne and took his place beside his unwitting mother he wouldn't be able to-

LENORE: What is with you today? I have no idea what you're saying.

JAY: Rick God-why-is-this-happening-to-me-when-I-love-Lenore-so-much- Vigorous cannot maintain an erection: he cannot get it up. He makes a poor woodsman -

LENORE: That's enough. I get it.

JAY: Good. So when was the last time you got it?

LENORE: Gross. And... well... it's been... four years?

JAY: Christ, lady.

LENORE: What? What's so bad about that? I just haven't met the right -

JAY: Look, I wouldn't normally suggest this, but it is within my capacity as your psychiatrist to have sex with you right now in order to remedy the situation.

LENORE: Oh my god...

JAY: This is your breakthrough, Lenore.

LENORE: Please put those back on.

JAY: I will replace my elegant trousers on one condition -

LENORE: Anything!

JAY: That you own up to feeling anxious about your upcoming dinner with Rex!

LENORE: What the hell is wrong with you, Jay?!

JAY: Perhaps even angry!

-----------------------------

Re: Pensées (what does that translate to anyway?)*

* Pensées is the Old Frissian word for Thoughts. It is also the etymological forebear of pansy, a flower which is said to resemble the human face.†‡

† Amongst botanists (and some paleo-cartesians), the human face is said to be the place where thinking happens.

‡ In the early twenty-first century, a group of rogue linguists argued that the English word, pansy, was in fact derived from a Gaelic appropriation of the Vulgar Middle French imprecation, Pentoir Emoutay, which translates roughly as "poor anagramatist" and is incidentally an anagram for "You are impotent."


----------


Dear Lenore,

Your lasagna was mediocre.

That’s not true; it was great. I was trying to lie to you (knowing that I would fail) in order to show you that I am incapable of lying to you. Actually, that’s not true either; the lasagna really was mediocre and my saying that it was great was the real test to see whether or not I could lie to you. But, as you can see, I am incapable of lying to you, even when the truth is indigestible. Actually, that’s not true either; I knew that I could only prove to you that I am incapable of lying to you by confusing you into thinking that I must have just lied to you—and then letting you leap faithfully into believing in my honesty. Honestly, Lenore, I can’t remember what your lasagna tasted like.

I’m not a complicated guy. As I explained to you the other night, all truth-functions are results of successive applications to elementary propositions of a finite number of truth-operations; humans have complicated minds. Eo ipso. The complicated humans are the ones who try to make their minds seem simple. Me, I just say things. And that’s what makes me a great writer. That and my mastery of Latin, Wittgenstein and Women.

So dinner at your place tonight? Seven-thirty? Great. I’ll bring my copy of BttF II. And if you feel like going for a run this time just let me know first; I’ll run with you. Remember, the truth or falsity of every proposition does make some alteration in the general construction of the world.

Don’t worry about my wife,
Rex

P.S. I think of more than everything and will always let you down ... gently ... into bed ... after stand-up sex against the wall. Your lasagna tasted great.

An Open Letter to All Brazen, Potent Rhetorician Types and their Accompanying Semantically-Challenged Love Interests

From the righteously indignant desk of Rick Vigorous:

To Whom It May Concern

Dear Rex and Lenore,

Subject: Fatalism, Wittgenstein, and Podophobia via "Manuscript Query #4"*&%^

* - Used to express doubt concerning the validity of the subject enclosed between the preceding quotation marks.

& - Used to acknowledge the confusion caused by an author who uses uncommon punctuation and footnotes to undermine his own credibility by foreshadowing his own ruse in the forthcoming, so called "Manuscript Query #4"

% - Used to indicate that the narrative/rhetorical device exemplified in the preceding quotation marks, asterisk, ampersand, and explanatory footnotes is worthy of extreme metaphysical reflection@.

@ - Used within a footnote to acknowledge the obvious literal impossibility of a preceding phrase or suggestion without detracting from the metaphysical claim at the heart of the footnote$.

$ - A derisive symbol used to deride a series of convoluted footnotes, metaphysics, risible, overly-involved addenda which devastate the coherence of the subject line, and redundancies.

---------

To: F + V Publications

From: Kirc Sorogivu

Subject: An Excerpt from "On Anagrams, Pseudonyms, Significant Fictional Middle Names, and Endlessly Self-Referential Writing"

"I smell oranges" Erx Gouny said as he contemplated cheating on his lovely wife who doesn't deserve it at all.

"Hmm?" Eronel (this one was easy!) Mansbead replied as she pondered whether she loved the man who really deserved her love more than anyone else in the whole world and would do/write anything to make this known to her.

"Oranges."

"I don't think I have any oranges here."

"I wish you did"

"Me too. Why didn't you bring any?"

"Are we engaging in metaphor or are we talking about actual citrus?"

"I'm not su-"

Suddenly, there was a knock at the door. Eronel opened it to find her inevitably beloved friend and companion Rick Husserl Vigorous. He presented her with a veritable cornucopia of oranges, new sneakers, and Wittgenstein's "Philosophical Grammar". He thinks of everything and will never let you down.

-------

Pensées (what does that translate to anyway?)

----

When I said I wasn't a fatalist, I didn't really know what I was talking about which isn't surprising because my relationship to words is complicated.

Are you complicated? I believe that you're being honest with me, but does that honesty redeem the bad things you're being honest about? Last night, it seemed to. Honesty is simple at least; I think it's easier to keep track of.

I lied about a dream once. I don't lie a lot, but why did I lie about a dream? I was telling it to Rick and I changed some important details because I was afraid of how he'd interpret them, but if I was really afraid of that I shouldn't have talked about the dream at all.

Was I trying to assure him that, on the most basic level of consciousness, he didn't have to worry about how I felt for him?

I'm sorry I ran away last night. I had been looking forward to the ride home in the DeLorean and I kept my sneakers on when I walked in because I have this thing about feet - not because I was planning on running. The meal was great and I've never cooked while wearing a chef's hat before; I think it gave me confidence and improved the overall quality of the lasagna. Did you like it? I didn't get a chance to ask you before I left.

I didn't want to run, but while you were in the bathroom I started wondering where your wife was... if she was upstairs or not. Does she have a separate home? My parents ended up that way - my family is a whole different story - and they never got a divorce. Why don't you get a divorce? Is she wealthy? I don't want to be the downstairs, "other" woman. Rick is always talking about the distinction between self and other in words I can barely understand, but he wants me to belong to him - to be part of himself - and when that doesn't scare me it actually sounds romantic. Why don't you feel that way about me? You have a lovely home - it has a woman's touch, your wife's? - I just don't know what I was feeling right then when I ran away. I'm embarrassed.

I used to hate guys like you when I was younger. You probably never apologize for anything, do you? You think that just because you're unapologetically arrogant and immoral but direct and honest about the fact that you're unapologetically arrogant and immoral that you don't have to apologize, because who can be surprised or hurt by what you do when you've told them ahead of time that you're going to do it? Didn't they know what they were getting into? Aren't they just as responsible as you? It doesn't work that way. Words don't work that way. I'm not sure.

I think I'm ugly.

But I'm not looking for sympathy or compliments or anything so don't bother. It's just a fact.

If I'm weird around the office now, I'm sorry. I just need to figure some things out.

I used to draw.

----------

Fact

From the desk of Rick Vigorous:

-----

You can breathe in an inverted, oversized fish bowl for approximately 35 minutes before you consume the oxygen supply and pass out.

-----

To: Lenore@email

Dear Lenore,

So here we are, working just a few floors apart from each other. I was going to make this letter into a paper-airplane and fly it down the elevator shaft to your desk but I wanted to try out this intra-office email system that the tech guy showed me. And I don’t know how to make paper-airplanes.

We should go out tonight. I have a wife so you don’t have to worry about me trying to take advantage of you. Actually, I despise my wife so I would have absolutely no problem cheating on her. In fact, I cheat on her quite often. But, as you can see, I am making no attempt to hide my arguably despicable character from you—so you don’t have to worry about me being dishonest with you. I will always tell you the truth, Lenore. I would also point out that I am an expert rhetorician; after our date tonight, when we are making love, I will teach you about the rhetorical trick of modulating a future event into the present tense to make it seem as though its occurrence is inevitable and completely non-contingent upon human will. This trick works great on women and speed-readers.

So dinner at my place? Let’s say 8 o’clock. Great. I’ll even let you cook. And since we’re being completely honest with each other I’ll tell you a secret: I always let a woman cook for me; it tricks her into thinking that she wants to impress me. Wanting to impress me is only a glass of wine and a few Back to the Future quotes away from wanting to seduce me. And wanting to seduce me is only a whispered line of Wittgenstein away from being seduced by me. It’s all quite simple. But since I have revealed my secret to you, you have nothing to be worried about. Oh, and I have a chef’s hat which you can wear while you’re cooking. I have a fetish for interesting hats, so it will be easier for you to try to seduce me if you’re wearing one.

Speaking of seduction and interesting hats, what’s up with Rick? I caught him leering at me this morning in the IHOP parking lot. And he was wearing a space helmet….

I’ll pick you up in the DeLorean at 8.

Potently,
Rex

P.S. Feel free to make your amorous response into a paper-airplane and fly it up to my office. I’m easily seduced by women who can do things that I can’t.

Dr. Jay's Voicemail

From the shamelessly befuddled voice mailbox of Rick Vigorous:

----------

Jay: Hi Rick. Sorry to get your voicemail - I would have liked to hear how you reacted to my penetrating analysis of your Rex Young fixation.

The space helmet is some kind of prophylactic. Although it's clear that Rex is having gorgeous, unprotected intercourse with Lenore, you believe that there is no intellectual exchange: the helmet is barring the mental connection that you so prize with Lenore on account of your inability to satisfy her dormant, but probably ravenous sexual appetite. You're so threatened by Rex, that you've discounted his intellect entirely and I must say that, if you still plan to hire him, this is a dangerous oversight - why can't a man's "Michaelangelesque" physique be glossed with droplets of ethereal light-scattering sweat without nullifying his intellect? Also, I fear that some of your overwhelming homoeroticism has crept into my own analysis. You have separated mind from body too distinctly. You, like most steadfast Cartesians, implicate your own impotence in this distinction. How clean are your feet on average?

As for the DeLorean, its ubiquity is a testament to the continued relevance and genius of the "Back to the Future" series which I have recently rediscovered on my own. You have been billed for the 6.5 hours which I spent watching the trilogy as research for your condition, as well as the 13 hours I spent reflecting on the films, and the 2.5 hours I spent looking at pictures of the DeLorean on the internet. I did not bill you for the hour I spent researching the peculiar physiology of seagulls' wings as it was admittedly an offshoot from my original research.

See you again soon. This voicemail took approximately 3 minutes to record. Your account has been billed accordingly.

------------------

Transcript from a Session between Dr. Jay and Rick Vigorous

--------

JAY: Why don't you begin where we left off last time?

RICK: The last time you and I met for one of our sessions or the last time you unethically told me exactly how to exploit Lenore's psychic vulnerabilities after accepting a rather outrageous fee?

JAY: The last time we talked about you, Rick and my fee is quite reasonable.

RICK: Well, I don't feel good.

JAY: That's great. Let's start there.

RICK: It's not great.

JAY: I mean it's great that you're able to be honest about how awful you feel.

RICK: It's not very difficult to complain. People do it all the time - probably more than they do most other things.

JAY: An incisive observation. Are we on our way to a breakthrough? Should I get out the gas mask? It might become too difficult to breathe if the scent of breakthrough gets to be too -

RICK: Shut up.

JAY:...

RICK: I don't feel good.

JAY: Did you have another dream?

RICK: Yes. This one featured a new player though and I wasn't in it at all.

JAY: That's already very different from the usual one in which your penis suddenly transforms into various floppy pastas as you fail to satisfy Lenore who eventually falls to devouring your member with a finely ground bolognese - the carnal symbolism of which is quite -

RICK: I dreamt about Lenore having fantastic, amazing, God-affirming sex with Rex Young...

JAY: Who's -

RICK: On top of a 1981 DeLorean...

JAY: Yes, of course a DeLorean, but who is this man - what does he look like?

RICK: I have no idea what he looks like, but I knew in my dream that it was Rex Young.

JAY: What did he look like in your dream?

RICK: Young, hale, and...

JAY: Continue - everything you say is confidential.

RICK: Do you say that to Lenore as well?

JAY: Yes, but rest assured that no one is paying me a reasonable fee to divulge your psychic weaknesses.

RICK: Probably because I make them abundantly clear on my own...

JAY: Please continue your description of this "Rex Young".

RICK: He was young, hale, corded with immaculate tethers of muscle, sweating tastily - tastefully - and...

JAY: Yes. You clearly have some strange unfounded homoerotic fixation that you've tied to Rex -

RICK: And he was wearing a space helmet.

JAY: I'm sorry?

RICK: A space helmet. He was completely naked and gorgeous - Michaelangelesque - except for the space helmet.

JAY: And what about Lenore?

RICK: She looked just like Lenore, but she was wearing an oversized chef's hat which kept falling over her eyes as they made love.

JAY: Stunning.

RICK: What? What does it mean?

JAY: I'm merely remarking on how impressive the image you've painted here is.

RICK: What does it mean?

JAY: That, at least on some level, you'd like Lenore to be sexually satisfied - even if it's not by you - you're sort of an altruist.

RICK: No I'm not. We both know that. I'd keep Lenore handcuffed to me at all times if I could.

JAY: Oh yes. That's right.

RICK: So what does it mean? You didn't even say anything about the space helmet and chef's hat.

JAY: I'll have to get back to you on all of this. I'm beginning to feel numb from the force of the impending breakthrough.

RICK: Jesus.

JAY: What do you intend to do in the mean time about Rex Young?

RICK: I'm going to hire him immediately.

JAY: ...

------

Transcript from a Garden to Window Conversation between Lenore Beadsman and Rick Vigorous

From the recently recovered desk of Rick Vigorous:

----------

LENORE: You could have called instead -

RICK: I feel that the revelation of my pensees deserved a greater demonstration of -

LENORE: And you can stop throwing those rocks now. The last one hurt.

RICK: Sorry. I've just been...

LENORE: ...

RICK: ...

LENORE: Are you not going to finish that?

RICK: I think the ellipsis speaks louder than...

LENORE: You're doing it again.

RICK: Yes. Yes I am...

LENORE: Look, do you want to come inside instead of shouting?

RICK: I must confess that I prefer this scene. It adds a certain cachet to our reconciliation - don't you think?

LENORE: I don't know what that means. I don't really understand why you disappeared.

RICK: I'm afraid that I'm in love with you, Lenore.

LENORE: ...

RICK: It's tormenting me - tormenting me to the point where I begin to just write things without screening them.

LENORE: So the words impose their own form of -

RICK: No. I don't want to scare you with words that assert their own existence -

LENORE: Those words scared me. Why do you think you don't deserve me? I like being around you but -

RICK: I don't want you around me... or with me... I want you to be mine.

LENORE: It's that particular distinction that worries me.

VLAD: I do like Rick, Mindy, but sometimes I'm afraid he's going to show up outside my window, climb the walls, and slash me to ribbons!

LENORE: Sorry, my parrot has been talking a lot lately... sometimes he -

RICK: I forgot my knife at home.

LENORE:...

RICK: Not funny. You're right.

VLAD: How am I supposed to tell him about my family? About how completely warped everyone is? About how my father is testing advanced hormones on my parrot and is probably spying on Rick all the time - how my last boyfriend disappeared suddenly and still hasn't surfaced?

LENORE: Well I guess that's one way of finding out.

VLAD: Not to mention the fact that my father often playfully asks "have you heard from Dean lately?" - all but confessing that he made Dean disappear.

RICK: Goodnight, Lenore. See you in the office.

LENORE: Rick?

-----------

Literary Agent Application from Rex Young

Rick, I know you're out there. I thought this might cheer you up: the guy with the back to the future/freudian manuscript applied for the job posting you put out on the blog.

-----

To: Lenore Beadsman
From: Rex Young
Re: Literary Agent Position

“I’m your density.”
(George McFly. Back to the Future. 1985.)

Reasons why you should hire me:
1. I have an excellent sense of epigrammatic humor.
2. I can quote Back to the Future (I, II and III) better than any of the other eligible bachelors working at F+V.
3. “A flying DeLorean? What the hell is going on here?”
4. (Biff Tannen. Back to the Future II. 1989.)
5. I have never experienced impotence.
6. I have never experienced impotence.
7. I deserve to have you
8. as a co-worker.
9. I can bench-press 275 lbs
10. while writing a sonnet
11. about your wine-blue eyes.
12. I can write poetry
13. while pretending to write a job application.
14. I can write poetry
15. that secretly tells a woman
16. named Lenore
17. that I love her
18. even though I’m married
19. to a really beautiful woman—
20. a beautiful woman that doesn’t deserve
21. my secret poetry;
22. But you
23. deserve more than poetry;
24. You deserve
25. a poet
26. who will also work diligently at whatever tasks F+V Publications assigns to him.
27. I have never experienced impotence and,
28. “I want you to know that I care about you deeply.”
29. (Doc Brown. Back to the Future III. 1990.)
30. Call me.

----------

Sure, it creeps me out a little bit, but ever since I started at this firm that has sort of become the norm. They're just words on a page, right? How dangerous could they be?

Consider:

How to begin to come to some understanding of one's place in a system, when one is a part of an area that exists in such a troubling relation to the rest of the world, a world that is itself stripped of any static, understandable character by the fact that it changes, radically, all the time?

---

DFW, The Broom of the System

Rick...

I'm worried about you. You're reading this, aren't you? Please call soon.

-L

Pensées

From the self-effacing, psychologically-naked desk of Rick Vigorous:

-----

I don't deserve you and I never will.

Thoughts keep tumbling over one another. I oscillate (a word I rather like) between loving you and hating you for being so captivating and hating certain obvious weaknesses in myself which allow me to find you so captivating when, at more sober times, it is nearly objectively clear to me that you are not all that exceptional.

I want to possess you, but possessing you would mean the end of the desire to possess you and I don't want the desire to go away. In the end, it is the desire to love and not love that we desire... or something like that I don't remember exactly I haven't read that book for a long time. Amherst was a long time ago. I wasn't impotent at Amherst.

I am Swann. I am inoperable.

Bombardini strives to be of infinite size: to overwhelm the other via the infinite increase of the self - even Descartes would blush at this.

A new take on Lewis Carroll's riddle: How is a maligned, immature raven like the writing desk of Rick Vigorous?

Frequent only runs this operation for tax benefits. That I publish a quarterly at all is part of the sham, but I love the quarterly...

Last night, I dreamt that, in mid-conversation, you began to chew on the carpet in my living room - really chewing on it. You ate right through it and continued until you reached the core of the earth, chomping your way through tectonic plates, magma (which is just indoor lava, right?), and nickel. I looked over the hole and accidentally slipped inside. I feared I'd be incinerated but I went into low orbit instead (that's what would theoretically happen, barring incineration, anyway) and just went back and forth between the hole in Cleveland and the hole in what was probably Mongolia or something... waiting for someone to pull me out on the other side, but no one did. Where did you go? Who pulled you out? Was it Rex Young?

I don't want to wake up with this pain in my stomach any more... microscopic you-shaped pins sticking in every pore as I, poor Rick, pour sweat and clutch at my abdomen as if clutching at pain ever did anything except magnify the pain.

I hate wordplay like that too. We have that in common. I really like that about you.

Ask yourself when we (everyone) became so afraid of change that we'd stick to certain modes of behavior no matter how self-destructive they might repeatedly prove to be.

Habit: that slow moving arranger of things without which no room would be habitable... at least I think that's how he wrote it.

If we end up handcuffed to each other in a massive dessert, I'm sorry in advance.

----------------

Transcript from a Session between Dr. Jay and Lenore Beadsman

-------------------

JAY: And these feelings from Rick... you don't welcome them?

LENORE: That's exactly what I just said.

JAY: So then you -

LENORE: Verbatim -

JAY: So you'd like for Rick to stop feeling.

LENORE: Entirely?

JAY: You'd like Rick to be some kind of vegetable, yes. You may even wish him to be dead.

LENORE: Back up a second -

JAY: There's no stopping now. I can taste the breakthrough in the air.

LENORE: But -

JAY: The thought of being intimate with Rick elicits a murderous reaction from you, because you realize that this intimacy would mean -

LENORE: I am paying you too much money -

JAY: You realize that this intimacy would be mean the unthinkable!

LENORE: ...

JAY: What do you fear most of all, Lenore?

LENORE: That I mean nothing more than what's said about me -

JAY: Yes, quite profound, but what's your next greatest fear?!

LENORE: That I might never be completely -

JAY: Shoed!

LENORE: Shoed?

JAY: You can't be shoeless with Rick, Lenore! You loathe bare feet! You'll never be shoed enough to feel comfortable!!

LENORE: Wait, no -

JAY: Even now you're wearing three pairs of socks, am I correct?

LENORE: Yes, but -

JAY: Breakthrough, Lenore! Breakthrough!

LENORE: Can't someone fear intimacy and commitment without fearing unhygienic feet?

JAY: Certainly not!

-----

Wanted: Literary Agent

From the desk of Rick Vigorous:

Frequent and Vigorous Publications seeks a literary agent who meets the following criteria:

-Must make Rick uneasy about his chance of ever possessing Lenore, despite Lenore's clear -perhaps even inexplicable - affection for Rick.

-Must never have experienced impotence.

-Must possess an unhealthy fixation on the "Back to the Future" movie series.

-Must be unhappily married to a woman of incomparable beauty and depth.

Please direct all flirtatious inquiries to switchboard operator and blogger Lenore Beadsman.

Manuscript Query #3

----------

To: F + V Publications
From: Rex Young
Subject: An excerpt from my “Beached Whale” manuscript. The genius of this particular scene lies in the uncomfortable tension created by the juxtaposition of a children’s game and sex. There is also some very clever oedipal symbolism.


INTERIOR - BEDROOM

SCENE: MAN and WOMAN have just had sex in bed. MAN is smoking a pipe. WOMAN is coughing intermittently. WOMAN’s eyes are closed. A worn poster of Back to the Future II is hanging crookedly over the left bedpost.

MAN
I had a strange dream.

WOMAN
While we were making love?

MAN
Making love?... No. Last night.

WOMAN
Was I in it?

MAN
No. I was on a beach [WOMAN smiles] and there was a giant sand castle. I wanted to stomp on it but it was too big to stomp on. And then ...

WOMAN
And then what?

MAN
... and then Biff Tannen from Back to the Future stepped out of the sand castle.

WOMAN
Biff Tannen?

MAN
Yeah. Biff Tannen. He was wearing a velvet smoking-jacket.

WOMAN
Strange.

MAN
And then Biff Tannen turned into a beautiful woman. We played beached-whale for a while in the surf and then started fucking.

WOMAN
Beached-whale?

MAN
Beached-whale. It’s where you lie where the waves crash and let them crash on you and try not to drown. You can’t use your hands or legs. You just lie there. I used to play it a lot when I was a kid. You never played beached-whale?

WOMAN
And then you made love to Biff Tannen?

MAN
Made love?... No, Biff Tannen had turned into a beautiful woman.

WOMAN
Before or after beached-whale?

MAN
Before.

WOMAN
Did you win?

MAN
Beached-whale? No. I don’t know. We just started fucking.

WOMAN
[Coughing violently] I never get to make love in my dreams...

MAN
And then the beautiful woman pulled out a permanent marker and wrote obscenities all over my body. But I didn’t mind because she had let me fuck her. And she was beautiful. And then I was back in the room I lived in as a little kid and my mom came in and got mad at me for having permanent marker all over my body. She said it was going to make me sick. I think I was naked.

WOMAN
Why do you always say ‘fucking’ instead of ‘making love’?

MAN
[Putting out his pipe] People in movies make love. Real people fuck.

WOMAN
I wish we could be in a movie sometimes...

MAN
So what does it mean that my mom got mad at me after I fucked a beautiful woman?

WOMAN
...our movie could be about a giant sand castle. I’m the queen of the castle and you’re the lowly serf that lives in a giant seashell down the beach. But I love you anyways. And everyday we play beached-whale for hours and then make love in the surf without using our hands or feet. And try not to drown...

MAN
A movie.... What if you turned into Biff Tannen?

WOMAN
I won’t.

MAN
You’d look sexy in a velvet smoking-jacket.


[WOMAN turns into Biff Tannen, naked]

WOMAN
I know.

[MOTHER OF MAN enters room, smoking a pipe]

MAN
Fuck.

END SCENE


Postscript: I will submit the rest of the manuscript once I have contractual assurance from your firm that, in the event that this manuscript is turned into a movie, F +V will make no such production deal unless I am cast as MAN. Maybe Lenore can play WOMAN.

----

Rick is absolutely ecstatic about this submission. He thinks it will almost certainly appear in the quarterly review. He even said something about wanting to hire anyone who was capable of combining "Pop culture references, deeply psychological and nearly universally held sexual impulses, and "fun for the whole family".

I'm beginning to think that I have no taste for good literature. I was deeply disturbed by this submission. I'm not even sure how this author, Rex Young, is aware of my existence. Does he read the blog? Does anyone read the blog? Maybe Grandma is right about the words thing...

Transcript from a Dinner between Rick Vigorous and Lenore Beadsman

FROM THE DESK OF RICK VIGOROUS:

---

LENORE: We could ask the waiter to the turn the air conditioner down...

RICK: Lenore, I'm a sweaty man regardless of external conditions. I could be frozen in ice for thousands of years and then unearthed perfectly preserved and perfectly perspiring.

LENORE: Maybe they have a bucket or a towel in the back.

RICK: Let's cease our discussion of my fluid production for a moment.

LENORE: Okay. So what do you recommend?

RICK: That you and I should date. Perhaps indefinitely.

LENORE: Huh? I was talking about the menu.

RICK: The squid is good.

LENORE:...

RICK: Can I tell you a story?

WAITER: Good evening. Do you know what you'd like?

RICK: To possess another human being... and the ribeye

WAITER: Very good sir. And for you, miss?

LENORE: The squid.

RICK: Okay so here's a story which I think is quite relevant to my recent suggestion.

LENORE: Is this from a manuscript?

RICK: Yes. Anyway, it's from another sad college student and of course you received my letter lamenting the number of college students writing long, sad, convoluted stories. This story, however, is particularly sad, but not for obvious reasons: there's no real tragedy, unfortunate circumstances, or pathetic characters to wring sympathy out of the reader.

LENORE: So what's so sad about it?

RICK: The absence of struggle is conspicuous. We're presented with an idyllic relationship between a man and a woman who completely understand and love each other. We watch as they do normal things: grocery shopping, driving in the car, having dinner, making love (and the man isn't impotent... not once), and discussing their plans for the future which include travel, children, perhaps another home. It's all perfect.

LENORE: I must be missing something...

RICK: In many manuscripts, everything I just described would serve as set up to some great fall or discovery. For example, after all this, we find out that the man's having an affair, or the woman, or both and then we watch as their idyllic life crumbles around them. Or maybe we'd go further into the future and discover that they're inexplicably unable to conceive, or there's a miscarriage, and the whole thing falls apart... some kind of conflict or struggle - something.

LENORE: But there's nothing?

RICK: Nothing. The manuscript ends with the couple going on a rural weekend retreat with some close friends.

LENORE: Perhaps the tragedy happens at the retreat? A bear attack? A hunting/boating accident? And we're just left to wonder when the hammer is going to fall...

RICK: Interestingly, your reaction is similar to mine and it also illustrates what's so sad about this story.

LENORE:...

RICK: That we're conditioned to expect, perhaps even - on some subconscious level - demand the worst. The sad part of the story is that the reader can't accept something flawless and is utterly dissatisfied by the end - thankless for the sublimity in which the reader was immersed for the duration of the story.

Lenore: Of course we can't accept that - it's preposterous. Life is full of struggle and if art imitates life -

RICK: You're taking the easy way out. Consider for a moment that life is full of struggle because we insist that it's full of struggle.

LENORE: That sounds like something Wittgenstein or my grandmother would say -

RICK: Nevertheless. Consider.

LENORE: Considering... and no: we could walk down the street and see struggle or just eavesdrop on a conversation in this restaurant and hear how unhappy two people are together.

RICK: I'm not suggesting that if we simply didn't have a word for struggle then we'd globally leap into some utopian existence, but why shouldn't it be possible for just two people to be together and not struggle. Why does that repulse us?

Lenore: Ask the author.

RICK: I'm not sure the author even knew what he was writing. If I had to guess, then I'd wager that we're presented such a catalogue of perfection as an escape from the author's angst-ridden life - which, I must say, is a refreshing departure from angst-ridden authors who write angst-ridden stories. At any rate, I sincerely doubt he meant to evoke this meta-reading experience. Again, why is this portrayal of domestic bliss worthy of scorn and derision, even as an exception?

LENORE: I don't know. How was this relevant to your sudden suggestion that we date?

RICK: I don't know.

LENORE: Did you reject the manuscript?

RICK: Absolutely. No one wants to read that sort of thing.

-----------

Manuscript Query #2

Rick just handed me a query to review. I'd like to share.

----

To: F + V Publications

From: HCO

Subject: A Sweeping Novel a la War and Peace, Swann's Way, Don Quixote, and the Adventures of Curious George.

For your consideration, I have included the following excerpt from my ironically titled novel "A Novel, A Novel By" which will intrigue potential readers when they read "A Novel, A Novel by" a Novel by HCO (note: when I go on press tours to promote the book I will try to lower my intellect to the level of the people).

*************

George adjusted his visor on his helmet which was in fact a barber's basin, though his loyal squire, Poncho Sanza, wasn't going to say so. Among the other things Poncho refused to reveal, were the following:

• George was in fact a chimpanzee - not the old delusional human knight he had deluded himself into thinking he was.
• Natasha, the lady whom he sometimes referred to as "Dulcinea", was hardly a lady (she wasn't transgendered or anything - this is more an indictment of her moral character) and was already making plans to elope with Anatole (note: Natasha and Anatole are both humans).
• George's childhood home in Combray had been burned to the ground as they set off on their journey when Poncho finally succeeded in igniting his own flatulence
• Poncho was not a chimpanzee as he had claimed, but a capuchin.

George turned to his companion.

- See you yon giants?

- Of course, master.

- Methinks they doth mean the fair village harm.

- Perhaps they harness the power of the wind to aid in agricultural practices?

- Poncho, thou art a fool - thou'st merely see'th the foul enchantment of an enchanter designed to make'st thou think the giants be windmills.

- Honestly, I'm at a loss: there's no real way to assail that kind of thinking.

- Charge!

*****

I eagerly await your response.

-HCO

--------------------------

I don't even know what to say. Maybe I'll come up with something while I'm at dinner with Rick tonight. He invited me out and I felt oddly compelled to go.

To All Ennui-Afflicted College Types:

From the desk of Rick Vigorous:

I’m starting to think something is just deeply wrong with the youth of America. First of all, a truly disturbing number of them are interested in writing fiction. Truly disturbing. And more than interested, actually. You don’t get the sorts of things I’ve been getting from people who are merely…interested. And sad, sad stories. Whatever happened to happy stories, Lenore? Or at least morals? I’d fall ravenously on one of the sort of didactic Salingerian solace-found-in-the-unlikeliest-place pieces I was getting by the gross at Hunt and Peck. I’m concerned about today’s kids. These kids should be out drinking beer and seeing films and having panty raids and losing virginities and writhing to suggestive music, not making up long, sad, convoluted stories. And they are as an invariable rule simply atrocious typists. They should be out having fun and learning to type. I’m not a little worried. Really.

---

D.F.W. The Broom of the System