Recently, I went back to look for some of my brother Jonathan's old newsgroup postings, and found that some of my favorites were no longer in those archives. I decided I'd better put the ones I could still find somewhere I could control, on my web server.
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The Christmas Artichoke Written for a colleague's Christmas party. Said colleague, when pasting up the invitation for same, put a picture of an artichoke where a tree should have gone. So, the demand to me: "Help me explain the Christmas artichoke!" Once upon a time, in a little town on the cold North Sea, Christmastime was fast approaching. All the little children had begun opening their Advent calendars, and were scarfing down their Advent chocolates at the prescribed rate of one per day. The grownups, however, had weightier matters on their mind: how to acquire and decorate their Christmas trees. Traditionally, they had gone to a lofty pine forest on the outskirts of town and hewed down mighty trees for the delight of their children and the season. Now, however, all the trees had been hewn in past seasons, and what faced the grownups was an uninspiring mix of young scrub pines and worse. They could hardly go home and face their children with a knee-high tree unable to support the wealth of ornaments accumulated in previous years. The annual tree-hewing expedition thus foundered in silence and disappointment. The children groaned as the traditional tree-trimming parties were put off again and again, for want of suitable trees. Then, two days before Christmas, the general gloom was relieved by an even gloomier event. A Spanish freighter was caught in a dreadful winter storm, and ran aground on the rocks where the town's little beach turned into a forbidding stony spit. A breach in the hull made the disaster apparent to everyone; most of the ship's hands were lost, and only a couple made their way to shore. But along with shipwrecked sailors, what should come bobbing in on the waves but the ship's cargo! Cans and bottles washed up on the shore like magic -- fine Manzanilla olives, stuffed with Sevillan pimiento, and canned whole artichokes in salt water. A lurid illustration of a rampant, bristling artichoke on the artichoke cans' labels stuck in the minds of the villagers; slowly, a certain resemblance to a much larger plant became clear... And so it was, on the night before Christmas, that each family of the little town gathered before its Christmas artichoke, displayed on its finest china, ornamented with bright red pimiento, and surrounded by wreaths and presents. It was as if each family had been given a scale model of a Christmas tree, and now each family could enjoy the holiday at last. The children were enchanted, and even the grownups remarked that when they had drunk enough Christmas ale, the artichoke loomed before them as large as a balsam fir. On Christmas morn, each family rushed down to the artichoke, to find that Santa had been there and had gone so far as to polish off all the edible leaves. Apparently, Santa was especially pleased, because the presents were twice as large and numerous as in the past. The joyful children voted the artichokes a full success on the basis of their accumulated loot, and the parents thanked God that the extra presents had silenced any potential complaint on the part of the children. From that day forward, it was the Christmas Artichoke that had its place in every home. The pines, which needed a few years to regrow, were very thankful. THE END Ode to Human Resources
Behold the paper-pushing wretch
Of her wages, one-sixth cut
Polyester clothes her form,
Her bloated face shines, not with toil,
The high-piled desk stacked with reports?
Today, all thoughts of work are banned.
Work? Work? *That* is for those ingrates
Some distance there must need be put
And yet, in some quite distant lair,
The mills of the gods, sure, run slow,
The worker hopes for swift relief.
Arteriosclerosis will
"Justice delayed is justice denied!"
As she departs, with pursed' lips Capybara I find it difficult to believe the opprobrium in which capybaras are held. I have observed one, in person, at the Santa Ana Zoo. (The Santa Ana Zoo was previously a rotting facility in which Orange County's urban poor once came to gawk at tired tigers in ornate iron cages. Now it serves as a relatively humane habitat, on the model of the Bronx Zoo but diminished by a factor of fifteen, for South and Latin American mammals of both the caged and stroller-pushing varieties.) I found the capybara sulking on a small island in the middle of an artificial lagoon. Several lemurs were swinging merrily in the tree which had been implanted in the midst of this small, dirt-covered concrete land mass, but they did not seem to distract the capybara. What a piteous sight he is! His completely flat face; his soulful eyes; his slow, sporadic gait; his furtive ingestion of leaves from a broad bush -- all these things move me to compassion. He is a massy rodent Napoleon in exile, dreaming of empires which can never be his. They would never be his, in any event; he is far too sleepy. But perhaps it is in sleep that he dreams most colorfully, most plaintively. In his waking life, the capybara is not a happybara. Pascal once asked, "Who is happier: the laborer who for twelve hours each night dreams that he is a king, or the king who for twelve hours each night dreams that he is a laborer?" The capybara does dream, and it is of a better life. He dreams of his brother, the Snappybara; he dreams that he has turned into his brother. The Snappybara leads the same daily life as the capybara, with one essential difference: the Snappybara gets to go home at night. From the Zoo, the Snappybara walks home slowly to his small rented room at the Motel Conquistador, Transient and Weekly. He takes a languorous hot bath, fluffs his short bristly fur, and pads down First Street to Niki's Indian Food, where he orders vegetable curry and flatbread. He devours his meal with relish; he particularly enjoys the eucalyptus chutney. Back at the Motel Conquistador, the Snappybara puts on a smart double breasted yellow suit over a dazzling white shirt, stuffs an elegantly folded silk handkerchief into the breast pocket. He carefully tunes his ancient Grundig shortwave, with its ghostly illuminated dial, and waits, the minutes punctuated only by the ticking of four Radio Shack timers. Five minutes later, at seven o'clock, the radio sputters to life: "From Rrrrradiodiffusion Cooba, in the rrrrromantic ceety of Havana, we welcome you to thees evening's prrrogram of dance myuseek!" Three spotlights mounted on the dresser snap on with three nearly simultaneous clicks. The Snappybara is illuminated brilliantly in the middle of the tiny hotel room, his features thrown into sharp relief. Loud dance music fills the room, and the Snappybara, surprisingly agile for his bulk, begins to dance. Graceful and elegant, he glides his beautiful imaginary partner around the room in perfect form, through tangos and mambos and merengues. He compliments her on her stunning dress. From his long memory, he paraphrases verse by Jose Alvarez Baragano, Alberto Baeza Flores, Jorge Maretta, Ephrain Nadereau Macetta, always careful to recast his partner as the idealized object, whether the original was a woman, the ocean, or the State. By the end of the evening, he is drained. He bids mournful farewell to his ethereal beloved, and sinks upon his bed. With four clicks, the timers leave the room in darkness and silence. The Snappybara sleeps, deeply. He dreams of his beloved, who has come to visit him unexpectedly at the zoo, to take him away. He wakes, shuddering, at her icy touch. Naked, he walks out, locks his door, pads to the zoo, enters his habitat, swims out to his island. The first visitors of the day -- a short, dumpy woman in an untucked Lakers T-shirt and orange stretch jersey pants, accompanied by her two-year-old daughter -- have arrived. To them, he bids a courtly good morning, yawning and stretching. The capybara, though, is not the Snappybara. The capybara stands on that same island, looks at the same people. "Why have they come to visit me?" he thinks. "I am sad, lonely, powerless. Why can they not go and stare at the monkeys instead?" From above him, in the tree, the lemurs rustle. IBM Invents Wheel. Puts It To Work In 'Type-writer'." (200 BC, Armonk, Mesopotamia) What if you were to take the middle slice of an orange out? It would roll along the ground, if pushed, until it fell over. But what if this slice were made out of a thick slab of stone? Take, for example, a cross-section of a temple's column. It would be massive enough so that falling over would not be possible. And if one were to attach things to this cross-section, or "wheel?" Only IBM has been bold enough to see the implications. Doctor Amalek ben Shushan, head of IBM's Circular Objects Division, says, "The Wheel will have numerous other applications -- we can convert our sledges to new "chariots," as we like to call wheel-equipped sledges," "But we are most excited about our "type writer." Cuneiform symbols can be etched onto a wheel which, when turned by our slaves, will be in precise position to imprint a mark on a clay tablet." "The biggest problem we have had to date has been getting the slaves to turn the wheel so that the character which they want to imprint is facing directly opposite them," said the excitable, bearded scientist, who some say bears a resemblance to former King Nimrod. "Dr. Euclid, in our Theoretical Mathematics Division, is working on an absolute method of wheel positioning. He has discovered a basic unit, called the 'degree.'" "The slaves need only line up the symbol desired with themselves, and then rotate the wheel one hundred and eighty of these degrees to put the wheel in place for 'imprint mode'." "We are also working on type enhancements. We have discovered that if the slaves are whipped while the imprint is being made, the wheel will be jostled slightly, creating a "bold face" character. This is very good for headings, totals, and things of this nature." Doctor Amalek ben Shushan believes that in this way, IBM has once again delivered a technological advantage which will serve the kingdom of IBM for several hundred years." Untitled
Samson placed one hand on Column A
He smelled the scent of fear
He laughed as a corner of masonry
He wept, tears coursing from his
All this, from the folded oracle's message, Dear Captain Cleanliness Dear Captain Cleanliness: Your insolence, not to say arrogance, at our last encounter still whets the cutting edge of my hatred. Your reference to "Great Ligurian Slime Molds!", at my entrance, clearly was meant for me, and I am not pleased with the comparison. Who do you think you are, so-called "Great Upholder of Galactic Hygiene", to make mock and sport of me? I have spent many years perfecting my technique of entering a room as the focus of evil, even down to the descending semitones in the 'cello and bass parts; I am not to be outdone by your modernist flippancy. I must also take exception to your concept of "conflict", which seems to consist of childish gymnastics meant to impress an absent audience of eight-to-twelve-year-olds. Once I am knocked down, pinned, or sent flying with your trademark "Clean Sweep of the Feet," this apparently signifies victory to you. Your metaphors of sanitation are also tired. "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle!" is not an appropriate comment when I am propelled into a porthole-cum-garbage-chute by your admittedly fleet footgear. I also seethe at your squeaky-clean appearance, your assumption of the moral upper hand, and at your concise modes of verbal and written expression. Have you thought *why* it is that you need to repeatedly demonstrate the ostensible superiority of good over evil, over and over again? Might it not have something to do with the inadequacy, not to say the inconclusiveness, of your demonstrations? Why is it that you never annihilate me, but instead I must go skulking off into the cosmic undergrowth, to nurse my wounds and prepare for your eventual destruction? How can you reject these lucubrations of mine as "meaningless gibberish?" (I congratulate you on the consecutive use of two trisyllabic words, by the way.) And why must you always shill that vile-tasting pudding mix at every opportunity? Not only does it contain more evil chemicals than I could synthesize in my secret laboratories, but I also swear to you that I will never, ever eat it. (I will never be pacified by its creamy smoothness, achieved with unguentine gums, nor by its fictive "chocolatey" flavor. Never!) I would urge you to consider being defeated by me at our next encounter. Not only would this benefit your concept of "fair play", in allowing a marginalized villain an opportunity for success, but it would allow me to demonstrate the extent of my powers over your supposedly impervious form. (You do not doubt your own indestructibility, do you?) Still, I know that you will refuse me. "Fair play," you will say, "is only for those who play fair." Your shallow tautologizing, my dear Captain, will only lead to more inevitable repetition for both of us. I hope that, one day, you will bore more easily. Yours in eternal fury, Dirt Daemon. Visit to the Rebbe A man came to 770 in order to ask the Rebbe about his business prospects. He had set up a World Wide Web site from which he hoped to sell trinkets of all kinds; his efforts all met with crushing failure, as people browsed his site but did not buy. After receiving the customary dollar, the man related his problem to the Rebbe. The Rebbe looked at him sternly, and told him to "check his errors." The man slunk away in remorse, believing that his blemished life was the cause of his failures, and resolved to conduct himself in a more halachically correct manner. That night, he examined the meager access_log and error_log files that had accumulated on the site in his absence. At the exact time when he had met the Rebbe, there was recorded a malformed request from a site with an IP address of 121.79.23.25. When he attempted to check the address out, he was filled with joy -- surely this was a site that would look favorably on his products -- but his joy was dampened when the numbers proved not to refer to any valid host. Mulling over his plight, he began to surf the net, and came upon the Xerox map server. In desperation, he entered the numbers in various combinations, and found that, inverted slightly, they pointed to a spot in the desolate Australian Outback. A year later, he had gleaned millions of dollars from a mine he had dug upon that very spot, which yielded forth many valuable minerals. Encyclopedia Brown and the Death of Language The town of Idaville had known peace and prosperity since its early years. In the last four years, it had also enjoyed a measure of security known to few towns in the state, or, for that matter, in the country. Police Chief Brown, the top law-enforcement officer in Idaville, had something of a secret weapon in his young son Leroy, known to all in Idaville as "Encyclopedia." (Leroy, embarrassed by this cognomen, could not bear to correct their spelling, though the name should properly have been spelt "Encyclopaedia.") This name was still not at all just. An encyclopedia is a large reference work containing articles on things of general and local importance. It is organized alphabetically, rather than by concept. Encyclopedia Brown's brain was unique, in that, given a set of assorted facts, he could arrange them into a conceptual hierarchy such that missing facts could be readily inferred from their absence in this hierarchy. He did have a considerable number of extraneous facts at his disposal, given his wide reading and adult library card, but, really, he was more of an Inference Engine than an Encyclopedia. Despite this nominal discrepancy, Chief Brown exploited the skill of his son, by narrating to him, over dinner, the facts of cases he could not solve. Encyclopedia would, prior to dessert, come up with the right answer. One day, Leroy's slightly older friend Sally, who possessed a measure of skill in the physical arts comparable to those Leroy enjoyed mentally, and who often served as Leroy's "muscle" in tight situations, came over to his house, laughing merrily. Bugs Meany, the notorious tough guy and neighborhood bully, had acquitted himself poorly in school that day. Sally, who had often triumphed over Bugs with the aid of Leroy, saw Bugs go down in flames in English class, over a discussion of the Scarlet Letter. "It was hilarious, Encyclopedia! He told Mrs. Fletcher that he couldn't understand the book at all, because of all the little words that got in the way. Mrs. Fletcher called him a ninny! She said that words are the most important things we have, because they represent concepts, ideas, and things. Bugs was stuttering and stalling, but he shut up soon enough. On the way out, though, I could hear him mumbling something about revenge. I don't know, Enyclopedia, but I have the feeling that something is going to happen. Something bad." Encyclopedia pushed his glasses higher up on his nose. "The problem, Sally, is that we don't have any indication of how he could get revenge against a grammar school teacher. Teachers are the most powerful people besides our parents. They cannot be harmed by disgruntled students." One of the little kids in the neighborhood, at that point, came running up to Encyclopedia and Sally. "Bugs is coming! Bugs is coming! And he's got a box!" The trio rushed on down their street, to behold a curious sight at the crossroads. Bugs Meany, adorned with his usual rumpled hair and cardboard crown, was standing on an old wooden soapbox, before which was strewn a large pile of kindling. Several young members of his circle were clustered behind Bugs. More menacing, in Encyclopedia and Sally's eyes, were several teenagers and older men, the sort who hung out at the railway station and package liquor store. Most surprising to them was that Bugs and the forces of Bugs, even the grownups, were clad in loose-fitting black pajamas. Bugs ascended his soapbox, directing a particular sneer at Encyclopedia. By this time, a considerable crowd of Idaville kids and grownups had coalesced in front of the soapbox. It was plainly time for an oration of considerable length, an impression aided by the numerous sheets of yellow legal paper festooned with crayon Bugs twisted back and forth in his hands. Bugs began to speak. "Recently, I had to say, to our beloved classroom teacher, Mrs. Fletcher, 'One of the problems I have always had with being a student of 'literature' are all those little words that get in the way.' And though I gave these words a lot of thought, they strangely left me tongue-tied. Whether from the eloquence of my own analysis or from my own lack of something new to add, I just didn't know what to say except, quoting Molly Bloom, yes." "Good grief," Encyclopedia whispered to Sally. "He really *has* been sneaking into the adult section." "But then this afternoon, I started thinking. It strikes me that my frustration is not unique and that, as kids and grownups, we all probably share his feelings about the messiness involved with these "little words that get in the way." But being in a grammar school, I had always assumed that these words were my friends, that my job as a student was to come to an understanding with language. Just because we are all students of literature, though, does that mean that language treats us any better? Sometimes I imagine it like a cease-fire and sometimes like a truce, but wouldn't it be dishonest to think that it isn't a war of some kind, perhaps a police action? But if this is in fact a war of some kind, perhaps the treaty is not the only tool at our disposal. That is, instead of trying to come to an uneasy peace with words--always a tricky process at best--I am calling for the generalized destruction of language itself." The crowd gave a disconcerted shudder, but was stilled by Bugs's icy gaze. Bugs went on. "Now I realize this might strike some of you as harsh, but the fire is the best place for these things, since words do little else than burn, anyway. Of course, some of you might be worried. You might say: Come on, Bugs, remember what Heine said: "After you start burning books, then you start burning people." But I am NOT following our pastor's argument that these books show teens having sex, using illegal drugs, or practicing devil-worship. I don't want to burn them for those reasons. Quite the contrary: these books LOOK like they are using foul language and teaching the black arts along with recreational drug use but in reality they are FILLED WITH LANGUAGE, pure and simple. It isn't that I connect books with people, so that burning one would be like burning the other. I want to burn the books, all the books, because they don't connect with people. Not enough, anyhow, for my tastes. I think that this is finally the right reason to have book-burnings, because books have language in them and I am against that." "For these reasons, I am proposing a LINGUISTIC YEAR ZERO, like Pol Pot called for back in 1975. Did this infamous Cambodian leader not write on Rimbaud and Baudelaire? Was he not a student of the French symbolists? But where he was misunderstood as referring to politics, we know where the real trouble lies. Now is the time to get back to our roots, to stop signifying so much and start really meaning the things that we say. Time to go out into the rice paddies and try to rediscover what it was that we used to think, before we lost ourselves in this morass of so-called communication. If words don't always mean what we want them to say, I say we don't need them!" "But words are what he's using to *give* this speech in the first place!", hissed Encyclopedia Brown to Sally. "So what tools do we have for this CAMPAIGN AGAINST WORDS? While we sit idly talking about language -- even while signifiers continue to ensure that FEAR is BUSINESS AS USUAL in every city where it is spoken -- we should look to our very own SCHOOL for inspiration. Hasn't Idaville known very well the danger of these lexico-terrorists? Should we not feel ourselves roused to new patriotic heights by the lengths that this recent offensive has gone to in order to ensure that a few more books might be kept safely away from causing harm? Of course, I speak of that brilliant Idaville offensive, code named: OPERATION LIBRARY RETRO-FIT. At first I, too, was worried when the public library and school library closed over the summer: 'how will I continue important research?' I asked myself. But now I realize that I was worried for the wrong reasons. Today a cold sweat breaks out not because the books are inaccessible but because they are MUCH TOO ACCESSIBLE BY FAR. Now I know that many of you have removed as many books as possible from the shelves, and I appreciate the courage that took, to actually take those loathsome and foul beasts into your own homes so as better to monitor them. But the library caved in to pressure and has reopened, at least for the time being. Limited hours are only a temporary and faulty means of combatting the problem. Having a paltry three copiers on the third floor will only discourage those that have better things to do than stand in line for hours at a time. WHAT ABOUT THOSE WITH TIME ON THEIR HANDS?? WHAT ABOUT THOSE WITH NOTHING TO LOSE?? Can we just sit back and wait for someone to actually USE the two card catalogue terminals at the entrance? What if the book hasn't been checked out by one of us? WHAT IF XEROXING IT ISN'T ENOUGH--WHAT IF THEY WANT TO READ IT, TOO? If someone accidently puts eye to page, the ink will be spilt on our collective conscience. Maybe you can live with that, but I cannot." "If we are to put an end to this we must continue the momentum of this summer -- a veritable oasis of unreading--and strike at the root. OPERATION LIBRARY RETRO-FIT can only carry on so long without our help. Now is the time. Today we must shake off the lethargy that has thrown this haze about our heads and forge new tools, fuse new horizons, construct clearer meanings, and dig deeper sincerities in order to finally rid ourselves of this befuddled ambiguity. But Bugs, you say, what weapons have we to do this? Idaville has almost endless means of enforcing illiteracy and stopping language in its tracks, but what can we possibly do? I tell you this: with the very tools we are already using. Our greatest weapon against language is language itself." "While we may not be able to physically stop books from being removed from the shelves (I myself have tried, it is difficult), we must instead understand how our own positions put us on the inside track to subversion. Think a moment about this -- our beloved English class is really nothing more than a LANGUAGE CLASS. (I know this isn't true, but this is what the outside world thinks.) And that means that most people think that we have some special knowledge that will make sense of this mess in ways they don't understand. So what we need to do is to subvert language from the inside, hollow it out, explode its symbolic matrix and then run for cover. I am thinking of a two-pronged pincer movement that should hit words right where it hurts. First, treat language like a transparent medium for communication of ideas, culture, whatever comes to mind (literally). Then, after that fails, tell them you were sorry, that really language doesn't mean, rather it is (as the poet says); that language is its own domain, autonomous and unconnected with the outside world, with its own laws and its own modes of cohering. Tell them that all language is really fossilized poetry, filled with metaphorical meanings, not some pedestrian vehicle for thoughts but the opacity of existence, the clearing in which Being unfolds. Tell them that words are a temple that first fits together and gathers around itself the unity of those paths and relations in which birth and death, disaster and blessing, victory and disgrace, endurance and decline acquire the shape of destiny for human being, the all-governing expanse that is the world of this world-historical people and from which the nation first returns to itself for the fulfilment of its vocation. Just whatever enters your head, it's easy once you get the hang of it. Then when both of these fail and people come looking for your head unload the coup de grace. Tell them that you're sorry but these things happen. Then tell them to turn their rage and their frustration into something constructive, something positive, something that will help make this world a better place for ourselves and our children and our children's children. Then tell them about the fires and how books need to burn, every page and every word until only ashes are left of pretty speech." "Gee, Terwilligers!," said a gap-mouthed Encyclopedia Brown to Sally, who was racked by a combination of incomprehension of Bug's speech and a strange physical, almost libidinous urge to push things forward into the as-yet-unlit fire. "'The destiny of a world-historical people' is very dangerous nationalistic rhet..." But at that moment, one of the older black-pajama-clad men stepped forward with a tire iron and slammed it down hard over the front of Encyclopedia Brown's head. The iron burst through the initial shell of the skull, sending fragments of hair, bone and scalp scattering, and passed deep into the forepart of Encyclopedia's brain. Blood, red haemhorraging blood, spurted from Encyclopedia Brown's head, and for Encyclopedia, things started to happen in slow motion. Despite massive trauma, he still seemed to perceive the pajamaed man in front of him, smiling, smiling, stepping aside to reveal Bugs on his soapbox, now ranting at his enraptured audience: "And who among us is the living instantiation of books and language? The collection of books that NAMES, LISTS, and ORDERS every fact we hold dear and true is the Encyclopedia. After the Goths sacked Rome, scholars preserved the miserable facts of classical civilization, and most especially its writing, its script, in such piddling chrestomathies, such spores, as to allow language to resurface after it had been properly wiped out through the use of clean, beautiful force. I want nothing less than the death of he who is the Living Encyclopedia, Leroy "Encyclopedia" Brown! Consign him to the living flame, which burns without speaking a word!" Encyclopedia could feel Sally, kind Sally who had once punched Bugs Meany right in the nose, holding his right hand in a powerful grip. On his other side appeared Jed, the gas station attendant, who had given him gas on credit once, when his father was chasing bandits. Jed took Encyclopedia's other hand. But rather than walking home with their friend, they drew him closer and closer to the pile of kindling, then raised their arms, swung him back and forth, and flipped him onto the unlit pile. Jed grasped a five gallon can of gasoline, and proceeded to baste Encyclopedia and the kindling with its contents. Encyclopedia's brain was verging on synesthesia now, one part short-circuiting into the other. "Why are they pouring Orange Crush on me?," he thought, smelling the pungent aroma of spilt soda pop. A gentle warmth buoyed up beneath him, and then, with his left eye, he saw a familiar book fall right next to him. "Invertebrate Zoology," he thought to himself. "What a lovely title." His backside began to feel comfortably warm. A pulse of alarm crossed his mind, for he couldn't seem to move. On his chest landed Volume I of the Oxford English Dictionary; Volumes II and III buffeted his head from either side, their bindings now not dark blue, but a pale orange disclosing a darker brown. Over his legs, though he could not feel them, he could see Mrs. Fletcher's body, or at least her pale, white, cellulite-covered legs, tied together with stout cord directly over her bulgy ankles and sensible spectator pumps. It was at this moment that he realized that he was going to die, but he was not alarmed. Even if they burnt the whole school library and the whole public library on top of him -- perhaps his father, too, when the mob had become too large for a small-town police department to control and had begun to sack and ravage the downtown area -- even then, things would be all right. Encyclopedia remembered that Chinese emperor he had read about once, who had prepared three thousand five hundred terra-cotta dolls of his servants and ministers and soldiers and subjects, to be buried along with him. Just so, Encyclopedia and his teacher and his beloved father, Chief Brown, would go to heaven with ten thousand useful and instructive volumes, and there they would all read together in peace and harmony. God would send them all the updates to all the Encyclopedias, and they would laugh, from the seventh sphere, on the folly and misery of the world below. At that moment, Leroy "Encyclopedia" Brown lost consciousness, and, shortly thereafter, was compounded with the ashes whereto he was kin. WHAT DID ENCYCLOPEDIA BROWN FORGET? Encyclopedia should have learned from The Case of the Viennese Painter that someone with Bugs's rare combination of arrogance, pettiness and megalomania might erupt into demagoguery and violence at any time, given a sufficient number of reversals and slights. He should have urged his father, Chief Brown, to "disappear" Bugs long ago, in the interests of a civil society. In homage to Donald J. Sobol. Thanks to Christopher Diffee (cmdiffee@uci.edu) for letting me quote and liberally adapt what is here the text of Bugs' speech. |