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Beg Pardon, Beg Pardon! Sorry to offend!

March 31, 2022 by Exangel

by Jim Meirose.

Seems in this glimmer-light ‘p’fore-dawn there’s something to mull now. There’s a door out there, past. Past what’s ‘n the way ‘f-seeing it. There’s no light ‘nd there’s nothing but nothing’s in the way so—dark must be something, after all. When you think about. Or I do. Funny—but anyplace right here but over there a little—there’s the door of this room. It’s there being its usual tall wide and deep—but how deep? Don’t know—funny. Everything’s tall and wide and deep so they say, but. That is really a lie. There’s no proof that anyone’s ever said that. So they say. Y’ so they say so they say so they say—no no no, look away. All that stuff’s stupid to think about—anyone told that’s being thought about would say—that is stupid—but; anyone? Anyone, really? They? Anyone? Hearing talk when there’s just some—anyone? Just some they? Some he she or it? These mere sounds from someone when there’s no one? No one? But—slow down. There still remains that important thing to mull now. And there are no ones in this room but me. So concentration on that thing should be easy. There are no ones in this bed but me—outside this square box they—whoever they may be—would term this a room,. So, listen, crap—who’s outside these walls this early, anyway? There’s most likely no she. And, no he. No anyone, and no they. Just you there, and me—reach out you, press my chest. Yes my. Not this, but my. And, certainly not that, those, his, hers, or its or anyone’s, or theirs. Quite Jesus. Yah, Jesus. There’s a Jesus. Yes there’s a Jesus, need to say that, just in case inside here’s a soul, and there’s a heaven up there, or hell down there, ut ut bu’ no, not—heaven and hell not or that’s wrong that’s like uh uh, hey hey, there’s a real heaven and hell and this room and a me and whatever’s outside these six plane surfaces ‘round me not you b’ all equal up into just one thing of which all are parts, and yes, Doctor Moon—oh yah he’s that trickster breathing ‘bout that corner up in here; I do hear you Moon, I do, blah yak its not that year or those years yak blah blah or that decade or century those middle ages yakity-yak, Doctor Moon. And likely-wise blah back there that B.C. this A.D. that future yakity yakity yakity yak, you claim’s stretched out six different ways, Doctor Moon, from all six plane surfaces, meaning I can go in six directions simultaneously—very wacky—out from this bed, but no, that’s wrong, even though somehow—see I sort of do nearly get your drift, Doctor Moon—whoever you are—the notion that six surfaces are one surface and with the bed they’re one too, and I always used to wonder, Doctor Moon, what’s it like to be the center of a big boulder? What’s it like to be a nonliving thing? What’s it like to be that, to be, bu’, there they are. They’re all around us, Doctor Moon; feeling things we cannot imagine. Oh yah, see the nonliving things wrapped ‘round all everything, there are so many more of them than there are of us, but we’re all one, so, that can’t be true either. Or at least not too likely. I mean, I-i mea’, it’s so terrifying, so frightening, that living and the nonliving are simply just one single thing. Mean—got to figure out this like—nonliving vs’ dead; dead vs. nonliving; which is worse, and then—how do living things factor ‘n that?

The degrees of worse all things can be!

Wow.

Hey. Look. The light’s rising in here.

See the door?

Yes; okay so we’re asked to believe that walls and this bed and me are all one of themselves, and one with all of those prior ones too, and so further and no-for the there’s not this patient, versus that patient, and this here Lon Carpre, versus that uh oh where—but they’re all Lon Carpre. But all the same that means they’re not. When Lon Carpre entered the office that first day, with no smile, all slow, all hunched, ‘nd all tight, I didn’t know it then, I didn’t dream it neither, but—the moment Lon Carpre was fully through that door all previous patients became just that him and also he every single them.. Hah. Moon. Come on. Think I’m alone in this bed looking? Did you also think there was just me on the couch in your office ‘cross from your chair? No no no; there’s just one; it’s me and not, too; it is all, really. And just one of those, too. See? See how choosing the right word is everything? Like—think of numbers, too. There is just—one. No matter how high any number may be, it’s just that many number ones merged l’gether. Like this word; everything. For so long, the lie that everything’s just a word, a term, a convenient way of buckety-summing all and every non-everything up; like that there’s a me, and a you, like somehow we’re separate; like that there’s a that, and a this, with all the millions of those being separate, was claimed to be—true!

Ridiculous!

Plus, look, see; the door’s there. Perfectly clean. When I started it wasn’t.

See what things I can do?

Hah! And what’s the last cut out to the final big It? The It that everything’s rolled up into? Is it just—just like some big dumb Santa-bag? ? Is that all that’s this everything is? Some big bag on some big jolly Santa? Hah dope yakity-spit; how can he have enough presents for all the world’s children in that big bag, which though big enough to crush him ‘s no more than half a single drop of what’s demanded by earth’s vast seas of children? Plus, hey there. Yes. You Moon. Look here. Look at this. The sea—look at the sea. It’s just all drops merged to one large drop that’s all happy together. One huge drop, the sea—and all perfectly happy—no it’s happy, and—that’s even just less than a pinch of the actual tangible valid ‘ltimat’ everything. But, no more, still. And then the stars. Drivel. And the planets. More drivel. And the years—all years are this—b’—there’s not separate there’s just th’—

What?

Crap.

No!

All’s—frozen.

Frozen.

Froze.

‘n.

Oh hah whu’ out a cloud, Okay, some cloud. Can go on from here. Because what we need’s there—huh? What’s that yelling?

Lon! My shoes. Like my shoes, Lon?

What? Uh—no I nothing no what? What what?

Lon! My shoes are better than your shoes. Lon!

No!

Lon! Wake up!

Yes—no—b-b-b-u’ ‘t—

Lon! Look, the day’s so sunny. Look ‘round at the light, Lon—look ‘round at the light! Wake up! My shoes are just fine! Whatsoever’s your big problem?

 

Filed Under: EAP: The Magazine, Spring 2022: What Glamour.

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In This Issue.

  • Who Was Dorothy?
  • Those Evil Spirits.
  • The Screaming Baboon.
  • Her.
  • A Tale of Persistence.
  • A Conversation with Steve Hugh Westenra.
  • Person Number Twelve.
  • Dream Shapes.
  • Cannon Beach.
  • The Muse.
  • Spring.
  • The Greatness that was Greece.
  • 1966, NYC; nothing like it.
  • Sun Shower.
  • The Withering Weight of Being Perceived.
  • Broken Clock.
  • Confession.
  • Francis Coppola’s Apocalypse.
  • Sometimes you die, I mean that people do.
  • True (from “My Life with Dogs”).
  • Fragmentary musings on birds and bees.
  • 12 Baking Essentials to Always Have in Your Poetry.
  • Broad Street.
  • A Death in Alexandria.
  • My Forked Tongue.
  • Swan Lake.
  • Long Division.
  • Singing against the muses.
  • Aphorisms from “What Remains to Be Said”.

In The News.

That cult classic pirate/sci fi mash up GREENBEARD, by Richard James Bentley, is now a rollicking audiobook, available from Audible.com. Narrated and acted by Colby Elliott of Last Word Audio, you’ll be overwhelmed by the riches and hilarity within.

“Captain Sylvestre de Greybagges is your typical seventeenth-century Cambridge-educated lawyer turned Caribbean pirate, as comfortable debating the virtues of William Shakespeare, Isaac Newton, and compound interest as he is wielding a cutlass, needling archrival Henry Morgan, and parsing rum-soaked gossip for his next target. When a pepper monger’s loose tongue lets out a rumor about a fleet loaded with silver, the Captain sets sail only to find himself in a close encounter of a very different kind.

After escaping with his sanity barely intact and his beard transformed an alarming bright green, Greybagges rallies The Ark de Triomphe crew for a revenge-fueled, thrill-a-minute adventure to the ends of the earth and beyond.

This frolicsome tale of skullduggery, jiggery-pokery, and chicanery upon Ye High Seas is brimming with hilarious puns, masterful historical allusions, and nonstop literary hijinks. Including sly references to Thomas Pynchon, Treasure Island, 1940s cinema, and notable historical figures, this mélange of delights will captivate readers with its rollicking adventure, rich descriptions of food and fashion, and learned asides into scientific, philosophical, and colonial history.”

THE SUPERGIRLS is back, revised and updated!

supergirls-take-1

In The News.

Newport Public Library hosted a three part Zoom series on Visionary Fiction, led by Tod.  

And we love them for it, too.

The first discussion was a lively blast. You can watch it here. The second, Looking Back to Look Forward can be seen here.

The third was the best of all. Visions of the Future, with a cast of characters including poets, audiobook artists, historians, Starhawk, and Mary Shelley. Among others. Link is here.

In the News.

SNOTTY SAVES THE DAY is now an audiobook, narrated by Last Word Audio’s mellifluous Colby Elliott. It launched May 10th, but for a limited time, you can listen for free with an Audible trial membership. So what are you waiting for? Start listening to the wonders of how Arcadia was born from the worst section of the worst neighborhood in the worst empire of all the worlds since the universe began.

In The News.

If you love audio books, don’t miss the new release of REPORT TO MEGALOPOLIS, by Tod Davies, narrated by Colby Elliott of Last Word Audio. The tortured Aspern Grayling tries to rise above the truth of his own story, fighting with reality every step of the way, and Colby’s voice is the perfect match for our modern day Dr. Frankenstein.

In The News.

Mike Madrid dishes on Miss Fury to the BBC . . .

Tod on the Importance of Visionary Fiction

Check out this video of “Beyond Utopia: The Importance of Fantasy,” Tod’s recent talk at the tenth World-Ecology Research Network Conference, June 2019, in San Francisco. She covers everything from Wind in the Willows to the work of Kim Stanley Robinson, with a look at The History of Arcadia along the way. As usual, she’s going on about how visionary fiction has an important place in the formation of a world we want and need to have.

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