hand on Charlton Heston’s shoulder and lowered his head. No, no, no, presently, present tense. Nat lowers his head.
Why the woes? Charlton asks.
The woes are my meal ticket. I am depressed. If only someone would listen. The river sweats oil and tar. Écoute de la presénte partie.
It became apparent to me that I had been undermined by the disease, even then resisting at every turn the employment of that word I hated, perhaps feared, so much, depression. I preferred the assignation neurasthenia, what William James called Americanitis, for I am so American, to my roots, my Southern, cotton-soiled roots. In fact, I would rather call it shinkeisuijaku, the Japanese term for it. Finding names for it would give me something to do on those nights when I felt so weak and lethargic, but lifted somehow by knowledge of my company in the disorder, Virginia Woolf and Marcel Proust. It is sad that there are those who would want to reduce this disease of the formidable intellect to a bout of the blues, as if one might sing his way clear of the darkness that pervades every corridor of one’s dank and dismal castle. Unlike some, I never soared with my malady, but rather, continuing the annoying song metaphor, the music of my days was a treble clef, a mere drone of contrabass and the sickly slow thumbing of a timpani.
You’re quite angry with Bill, aren’t you.
That’s not the point. I ask only that you be mindful in due time of my pain.
Why is that familiar?
Then dived he back into the fire that refines them.
First, imagine a quale that which none more experientially intimate can be conceived.
What is this exactly?
This is the beginning of my ontological argument for the existence of qualia. I like it better than the inverted spectrum argument, don’t you? Hardly different, but it’s prettier. No reason to be locked into any one way of thinking. I think it’s a decent first step toward the establishment of my solipsistic construction of, well, everything.
That would make the rest of us zombies.
More or less.
You’re worried about me. That makes two of us. Have you heard any new ones? I’d love to hear a new one.
I don’t know any new ones.
That’s a shame.
The results from the paternity test arrived in an envelope that seemed so usual. I knew what it was and so did Sylvia. Meg Caro wasn’t there and I wondered if she should be present for the opening of either an opening or a closure. Meg Caro had left a number and had been patient enough to not call in the week that it took the test to be completed. I looked at Sylvia.
What? she said.
Should I call and ask her to come over?
Sylvia had not so much softened to me as she had to the idea that the young woman might have a father. Call her.
By Dint and Dining Out
Imagine, if you will, Jackson Pollock unveiling Number 1 in Firenze in 1550. How many ways would they have killed him? And they would have absolutely been right to do it.
Thus Encircled
We sat, the three of us, Meg Caro, Sylvia, and I, the envelope on the coffee table between us, Sylvia and I side by side on the sofa, Meg Caro in the matching stuffed chair across. The coffee table had once been a dining table, but I had sawn off the legs because as a dining table it was simply no good, too big for two, too small for four, but as a coffee table it was fine, just a wee bit high but fine. It was perfect for the envelope that lay on it, unopened and heavy. We three stared at it. The envelope was off-white, not quite tan, just a bit taller than a standard business envelope but as long. Whether it was foreshadowing or irony, Meg Caro and I had chosen to wear polo shirts embroidered with the same little equestrian figure, hers yellow, mine black.
Questions moaned and answers groaned, the screaming gulls claim song. The tripping steps lead to the depth and we merrily dance 91 along. If children had not spoiled the fun, brought with them so much dirt, this party would still be raging and no one would be hurt.
Why the woes? Charlton asks.
The woes are my meal ticket. I am depressed. If only someone would listen. The river sweats oil and tar. Écoute de la presénte partie.
It became apparent to me that I had been undermined by the disease, even then resisting at every turn the employment of that word I hated, perhaps feared, so much, depression. I preferred the assignation neurasthenia, what William James called Americanitis, for I am so American, to my roots, my Southern, cotton-soiled roots. In fact, I would rather call it shinkeisuijaku, the Japanese term for it. Finding names for it would give me something to do on those nights when I felt so weak and lethargic, but lifted somehow by knowledge of my company in the disorder, Virginia Woolf and Marcel Proust. It is sad that there are those who would want to reduce this disease of the formidable intellect to a bout of the blues, as if one might sing his way clear of the darkness that pervades every corridor of one’s dank and dismal castle. Unlike some, I never soared with my malady, but rather, continuing the annoying song metaphor, the music of my days was a treble clef, a mere drone of contrabass and the sickly slow thumbing of a timpani.
You’re quite angry with Bill, aren’t you.
That’s not the point. I ask only that you be mindful in due time of my pain.
Why is that familiar?
Then dived he back into the fire that refines them.
First, imagine a quale that which none more experientially intimate can be conceived.
What is this exactly?
This is the beginning of my ontological argument for the existence of qualia. I like it better than the inverted spectrum argument, don’t you? Hardly different, but it’s prettier. No reason to be locked into any one way of thinking. I think it’s a decent first step toward the establishment of my solipsistic construction of, well, everything.
That would make the rest of us zombies.
More or less.
You’re worried about me. That makes two of us. Have you heard any new ones? I’d love to hear a new one.
I don’t know any new ones.
That’s a shame.
The results from the paternity test arrived in an envelope that seemed so usual. I knew what it was and so did Sylvia. Meg Caro wasn’t there and I wondered if she should be present for the opening of either an opening or a closure. Meg Caro had left a number and had been patient enough to not call in the week that it took the test to be completed. I looked at Sylvia.
What? she said.
Should I call and ask her to come over?
Sylvia had not so much softened to me as she had to the idea that the young woman might have a father. Call her.
By Dint and Dining Out
Imagine, if you will, Jackson Pollock unveiling Number 1 in Firenze in 1550. How many ways would they have killed him? And they would have absolutely been right to do it.
Thus Encircled
We sat, the three of us, Meg Caro, Sylvia, and I, the envelope on the coffee table between us, Sylvia and I side by side on the sofa, Meg Caro in the matching stuffed chair across. The coffee table had once been a dining table, but I had sawn off the legs because as a dining table it was simply no good, too big for two, too small for four, but as a coffee table it was fine, just a wee bit high but fine. It was perfect for the envelope that lay on it, unopened and heavy. We three stared at it. The envelope was off-white, not quite tan, just a bit taller than a standard business envelope but as long. Whether it was foreshadowing or irony, Meg Caro and I had chosen to wear polo shirts embroidered with the same little equestrian figure, hers yellow, mine black.
Questions moaned and answers groaned, the screaming gulls claim song. The tripping steps lead to the depth and we merrily dance 91 along. If children had not spoiled the fun, brought with them so much dirt, this party would still be raging and no one would be hurt.
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