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Edited on Sun May-11-08 11:08 PM by Old Crusoe
-- A brutally confessional yet mythically pointless assessment of the current socio-political landscape –-
-- in which feral cats seek vengeance, tulips are sacrificed, and a nominee emerges through the vapors of perilous despair…
* * * *
When you’re alone and life is making you lonely, you can always go downtown
--to the library. We’re in the mid-May moments of a protracted primary season, and in search of insight and vision, I sought the sanctuary of the local library, a deliberate functional monument to ideas.
Howard Dean drove the bus I took downtown. I liked the way he handled the thing. It was a 50-stop route, long and arduous but well worth the ride. I thanked him as I stepped off. He nodded back, smiling.
The great provocation of the library environment is that figures both living and dead are vividly, inarguably alive inside those books at all hours, and for all time. If a 2-year old is impressed by a book on say, dinosaurs, those ancient creatures are at least as vivid and alive and real to that child as a contemporary politician -- say Ted Stevens -- might be to that child’s parents or grandparents. Some might even say decidedly more alive than Ted Stevens, in fact. Certainly more sentient.
Deciding in advance to visit the library’s small book sale, I stopped nevertheless for a moment outside to appreciate the spring day.
Of a sudden a shadow passed over. There was a reverential whoosh, and a man with wings landed on the roof of the office supply shop across the street.
By damn, it was Icarus.
“But…” I stammered, unable to find the words.
“Dead?” He said. “Not at all. Never was, in fact. Never will be.”
“But…”
“Yes, I fell. Universally, all of us fall from far heights with much to lose. It had been a glorious rush, soaring so high, buffeted by currents, beyond all distraction and woe. The crash into the sea was despairing.”
“But how – “
“Kind villagers in wooden boats out fishing witnessed my descent, came to my rescue, rowed me to their fire-lit huts, tended my wounds, and gave me welcome. It was there I found healing and fulfillment, even as I found inspiration soaring the heavens. It takes a village.”
Stupefied with wonder, I spat out the first thing that came to mind. “So what brings you to town?”
He gestured to the office supplies store. “I’m out of glue, dude.”
“Glue? Oh. For the wings…”
“Bingo. It’s a mythic construct. Deal with it.”
Safety is a worthy goal of societies. So is adventure. You need glue for the wings, but you need wings to see far distances. And you need myth to know yourself better. Those are philosophical imperatives. On the practical plane, it’s a good idea to avoid sleeping in subways.
Call me crazy, but at that moment, I could have sworn I saw Jack Kerouac drive by, a Kucinich 08 sticker on the left bumper. He waved casually with a sort of bohemian detachment, a seasoned grin across his sad, dark face.
At 11 minutes after 9:00, Rudy Giuliani pulled up at the curb with half a dozen or so of his several wives and girlfriends. Rudy got out, picked up a bullhorn at the ready on the dash, leapt onto the hood, and began barking commands to the women regarding their comportment inside the library. Something about “these field trips are a pain in the ass” and “you girls better be on your best behavior or the terrorists will kill us all.”
At the corner stood Toby Keith in a small vendor’s booth, offering boots for sale, of which the red-white-and-blue–trimmed models appeared to be doing brisk business. George Allen was handing his VISA to Toby across the counter. Joe Lieberman, Zell Miller, and John Boehner were next in line.
I turned back toward the library, preparing to go inside. Disturbingly, I saw Tom Cruise, furiously jumping up and down on the flowerbed adjacent to the entrance. He was wearing a t-shirt that said “I Drink Swan Urine,” and was yelping incoherent fragments at anyone who would listen. An entire bed of tulips lay trampled beneath, dirt and bulbs and crushed stems spewing in all directions. A 4-year old child, in the hand clasp of her mother, turned away from the scene in embarrassment.
Just beyond, in a park thick with lilac were Gene and Finney, high in an old tree, Finney moving perilously out to the far end of the top-most branch, Gene closer toward the tree’s trunk with an odd, uncertain look on his face.
My impulse was to shout a caution their way, but was distracted by a large sheep dog. It was Nana, who took care of the Darlings’ children in the Peter Pan narrative.
“Nana, it’s good to see you. I’ve been a fan for years. How are things?”
“I’m holding on,” she said, “But I’ve been a whole lot better. I’m in treatment for PTSD after far too long an engagement with the Darlings.”
“Those kids were likely difficult," I said, "given as they were to Jungian impulses. That job had to have been thankless drudgery.”
“The Mister & Missus were elitist snoots. And clueless besides. They were the real problem. It wasn’t the kids,” Nana corrected. "I knew in advance kids will test limits and try to get to Neverland. In fact, I was sympathetic. Readers take delight in that open window in the upstairs bedroom, a stage waiting for Peter’s arrival. But they don’t realize who left that window ajar on purpose.”
“Dear god, you mean it was an inside job?”
“No comment,” Nana said. “If I tell you any more, I’d have to kill you. Fiction is a ruthless business.”
I wanted to press her for details. I wanted Amy Goodman to show up and interview her, just to have that true insider’s glimpse, to learn if Nana was in fact the Deep Throat hinge character that tripswitched that narrative. But it was not to be. Nana ambled off down the sidewalk, moving to its far edge so as to avoid the dirt and bulbs flying in a torrent from the tulip bed.
At last I made it inside the library, and things looked busy.
Just off to the side of the lobby, I spotted Cindy McCain at the photocopier with a stack of recipe books.
In one of the larger conference rooms there was gathered a team of linguists and board-certified psychiatrists, a panel assembled to assess the Bush presidency, examining Dubya’s brain x-rays and speech patterns. I poked in for just a moment to see how the project was going.
In a hushed tone, a spokeswoman told me, “This team is assiduous. The effort and modalities multiple and valiant. Yet the odds are long.”
“And the president?” I asked.
“Nuttier than a fruit cake, with half the intelligence and popularity.”
Moving in the direction of the book sale room, I couldn’t help but notice former Texas Congressman Tom DeLay in the Entomology section, re-arranging chairs at given tables, placing more chairs at some tables and taking chairs away from others. He appeared to shove patrons out of their chairs without cause and then relocate the chairs to the tables he preferred. An assistant librarian dutifully stepped over to confront DeLay about this behavior, but he blasted her with bug repellent.
And over there in the corner, I saw Mark Foley. He had selected a book and was fondling its pages.
In the study room I was astonished to see leprechauns. There were leprechauns, elves, and land spirits of all sorts, happily industrious in work and games. They were building things. They were laughing. It was amazing to see. Still rapt with surprise, I stepped in and spoke with one of them, who seemed to be in charge.
“I know people who consider you folks to be wholly imaginary.”
“Well,” he said, gesturing about the room’s busy throng, “Clearly, those people are full of shit.”
At this rate, it would take me all morning to get to the book sale room. I was worried that all the Danielle Steeles would be gone by the time I got there. I hate it when that happens.
Finally, I made it to the sale room but was stunned to see the dastardly Ernst Stavro Blofeld, the Bond villain, at the cash table, stroking his nervous white cat. He was wearing a Ron Paul button.
“Blofeld. I thought you’d been killed off several films ago.”
“I was rescued by kind villagers in a wooden boat.”
“Well, they’re a resourceful bunch, those villagers. You know, I’ve never bought you as a purely sinister figure. I always sensed some percentage of decency – minimal though it be – in your deep core.”
“That’s a very insulting thing to say to a Bond villain. We work hard at being subversive, one-dimensional, world-threatening monsters. You know I can make things most unpleasant for you.”
“Unlikely,” I snapped back. “After eight years of Bush and Cheney, there’s little you can dish out that would spook me,” and I left him there, counting proceeds at the cash table, the white cat purring uneasily in his dry-cleaned lap.
At last, I stood before the modest sale shelves. Mostly books, and a few CDs on a small rack. I approached the CDs and picked through the selection, considering the Dixie Chicks, Jackson Browne, Stevie Wonder, then finally settling on Petula Clark.
“I think this is the one with “Don’t Sleep in the Subway” on it, I said to no one in particular.
“I LOVE that song,” Blofeld interjected from the cash table.
“Well, I hate it,” said a woman re-shelving books along the wall just behind me. She was a library volunteer, there to lend a hand with the book sale. I was disappointed that she didn’t like an honored pop song, one of the better-written ones at that.
“Why do you hate it?” I asked her, ostensibly to learn her objections but also accusingly, as if to suggest that she’s got it all wrong about Petula Clark.
“Just listen to the lyrics. She wants him back after he was such a shit to her!”
Blofeld jumped. “Madam! Please refrain from coarse speech. It upsets me.”
“Sorry,” she said, then turned to me and offered the reason for her bias against the song.
“Look. It’s a song about a woman who wants her man back after he’s walked out on her. She’s doing the Oh-honey-be-careful-don’t-sleep-in-the-subway hyper-protective-enabler thing, trying to lure him back into the apartment, back into the sack, when all along he’s a rogue weasel out for carnal distraction. You have no right to defend her for that.”
“But it’s a singular voice – a characterization to tell a story. It’s not Petula Clark, specifically, expressing that sentiment.”
“She’s a whore. She’s gotta be a whore. She’s gotta be a whore to want him back or wish him well once he’s left her. Feminism never gets anywhere with women like that.”
“Is this some sort of Clinton impeachment allegory?” I was suspicious.
“No. It’s a crap song and you need to come to terms with it.” She resumed her book-shelving, her face flushed.
I was about to ask if there were any Danielle Steele novels still left, but thought better of it, and instead, took the Petula Clark CD up to Blofeld’s cash table and plunked down my money.
“Don’t mind her,” he instructed. “She’s distraught. She was the one who planted all those tulips outside that Tom Cruise is trampling as we speak.”
The CD with “Don’t Sleep in the Subway” was 4 bucks. I gave Blofeld a 5-dollar bill. “Keep the change, “ I offered.
“I intended to. If you want another tax cut, phone the White House.”
I nodded, and clutching the Petula Clark CD to my heart, walked toward the exit down a different hallway past a row of many rooms.
In the first room I saw Thomas Paine, his hands to his face, weeping.
Across the hall, Linndie England was reading Karen Armstrong’s BUDDHA. Actually, someone was reading it to her. It wasn’t at all clear that Linndie was listening. In the few instances when she was listening, it wasn’t clear she understood.
In the next room sat George W. Bush, reading MY PET GOAT II. Actually, someone was reading it to him. It wasn’t at all clear that he was listening. In the few instances when he was listening, it wasn’t clear he understood.
In the next room was Harriet Tubman. “Thank you,” I told her.
In the next room was Dr. Don Blake, staring plaintively at his wooden cane.
In the next was Condoleezza Rice. She wasn’t doing anything.
In the next, Nick Drake, or his eerily beautiful ghost, was singing “Joey will come to say hello…”
In the next, kind villagers sat in a circle exchanging rescue strategies.
In the next sat Mario Cuomo, yearning to have the winter of 1992 back, wishing he had boarded that plane after all.
In the next, a thousand feral cats clawed Bill Frist’s flesh from his bones.
In the next, several hundred superdelegates conferred. One of them shouted, “Evan Bayh!? I don’t THINK so!”
Nearly noon now, and as I stepped back outside, some people in crisp uniforms were shoving Tom Cruise into the back of a medical utility van. Tom was still squawking incoherently, kicking and thrashing around as they stuffed him in through the doors. Some rescues are messier than others.
Barack Obama approached the flowerbed at just that instant surveying the wreckage of the damaged blossoms.
The library book sale volunteer shouted from the doorway to him, “Hey! Obama! You’re supposed to be so damned inspirational. Can you bring those tulips back to life?”
“No,” Obama answered. I can’t. But I’ll help you plant some more.”
* * * *
This is a 30,000th post. Thanks to the admins and the mods, and to the DU community generally for the brains, the wit, the laughter, and the good company. Now let’s beat the living crap out of John McCain.
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