“I have nothing. I owe much. I leave the rest to the poor.”—
François Rabelais
What is life, anyway, but a lingering feeling of guilt? Might as well enjoy it!
Don’t worry about photographs of yourself. You don’t look like that.
He thinks she farts fairy dust, and so does she.
“I thought you were going to change!” “Well, I’m still me.” I sighed inwardly. Still me.
She made a little swoon as if I already had her in the bowling grip and Mae-West-walked away.
The head tells you it’s all random, the heart tells you it’s not and the generator is too busy to think about it.
We are caught between the ding and the dong of the dialectic, ambivalence the very law of life, for it is inherent in this system, in this particular system, that there is no system, inconsistency is a principle of the system, each new formula a liberation from the last, everybody’s got something to sell, and it’s nice, oh, it’s so nice when we find something we can stay with for a while—Nabokov, Letterman, Crest—but we move on, we move on, upping the ante with each success, with each defeat, it doesn’t matter, put in on this number, stabilize here, but on we go, grabbing at an illumination that can only come when we have exhausted everything, though we never do, we know we never will, it’s all there to keep us moving, keep us interested, distract us perhaps, from the crushing conviction that God in his Infinite Boredom broke himself into a trillion us just to have somebody to talk to!
But this too is a contortion, life is a series of contortions, pushing us into every possible position, having us every way it can think of, and even when we lie there, sated and sore, we are still sealed in, still have no clue what’s next, our ignorance so seamless as to suggest a law in ambush, another law, the corollary to The Law, inscribed in stone over the exit sign: YOU DON’T KNOW SQUAT!”
What did I do, she wanted to know.
I told her I was an artist.
Oh, how interesting, what kind?
Conceptual stuff.
What was it, painting? Sculpture?
It wasn’t much of anything, I told her. I was a minimalist who had arrived at the supreme elegance of statement. I just didn’t do it!
She ambushed me on my way back from the toilet and held me against the wall by the love handles. I was too stunned to protest!
That other incarnation that is living in the south
“Of course money can’t buy happiness,” she reminded me.
“Not unless you know where to shop.”
She touched her chin to her shoulder in a way that suggested I might as well throw my chops on her right now. Just walk right up and achieve bliss. It would, her look said, be a bun-clenching experience.
A stooped elderly man came over and spoke to me. “Are you Delmore Danruther?”
“Sort of,” I said.
“I’m Walter Dadd. This is my crematorium.”
“Oh,” I said. “Gee. I’m sorry.”
Fire trucks were pulling in.
Nadine could put you back together if you swallowed depth charge.
The Book:
The Play:
The Movie:
An appropriate
poem—
—which can be
found in this book:
Robert MacLean is a bad poet and an independent filmmaker. His The Light Touch is on Amazon Prime, Tubi and Scanbox, and his 7-minute comedy is an out-loud laugh. He is also a screamingly funny novelist, a playwright, a blogger, a YouTuber, a reviewer of films, a literary critic, and a stand-up comic poet. Born Toronto, PhD McGill, taught at Canadian universities, too cold, lives Greece, Irish citizen. Committed to making movies that don't matter. No brains, but an intellectual snob.
In which there are three blackbirds.
The Light Touch on Amazon Prime
On YouTube:
Boccaccio’s "The Husband"
Boccaccio's "The Horse Trade"
Boccaccio's "The Stupid Friar"
Chaucer’s "The Miller's Tale"
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