Kermesse Jette

Chapter 3: The Vacation

They desperately needed to stop.

“Daddy, Daddy!” screamed Tony in a voice of desperate pleading.

They were on the Interstate, about twenty miles from the nearest gas station, and they had just left Burger Junction and Auto Palace. Tony needed to stop.

“Tony,” Mrs. Jones said calmly, turning around in her seat to hit the teen with a flyswatter her husband had given her as a Mother’s Day gift. “You have got to understand that we are trying our best to make it to the gas station as soon as you can, but Iowa is a big, spread out place. If you need to stop that bad, we’ll pull over here.”

The other children screamed with laughter, tormenting their brother with sadistic cruelty, the same kind they learned from their mom.

Tony became enraged, taken by anger. He began lashing out, kicking the dog and shouting obscenities. The dog bit him back. Fido is a pit bull.

Grandma’s house was just down this oak lined street.

“Des Moines is such a pretty town,” Mrs. Jones said. “But I hate your lousy mother.”

Mr. Jones didn’t hear her, as he was chomping on a Mars Bar, noticing that there wasn’t really an almond in every bite. He slammed on the brakes, rolled down the window, threw the candy out onto the street and pulled out a Heath Bar in retaliation.

“Litterbug,” said Toniya.

“Nazi Swine,” Mr. Jones replied laughing.

“Look there’s Grandma!” Little Boy Joey bellowed. “It’s a Miracle.”

Grandma was there alright, all 350 pounds or her. Mrs. Jones grimaced in disbelief.

“That fat hippo,” she said, giving the old woman the proverbial finger.

She put down her Mighty Mouseketeer Comic Book, and opened the door, proceeding to roller skate up the driveway’s slight incline.

“Your mom can really skate,” Mr. Jones pointed out to the three children.

TO BE CONTINUED

Marcie's Teeth

Marcie recuperating

So for the sake of completeness, here is a story about Marcie Carey and her dental adventures, which actually compare okay to those of her sisters.

Marcie had kind of unfortunate childhood and young adulthood in a puppy mill. Most of the dogs who were recovered with her — 11 of the 16 — died shortly after they were seized by animal services in Georgia. I can only imagine that her taciturn nature is both a result of the horrible experiences she had (three litters of puppies before she was 18 months old among other things) and part of her survival strategy. Marcie is very reserved and quiet — she had lived with me for three years before I ever heard her make a sound — and very loving with cats and people she knows well; I wonder sometimes if she is completely cheerful but she seems content most of the time.

Anyway, like a lot of puppy mill dogs, Marcie has always had terrible teeth. They’ve been extracted one by one over the years, but today, recognizing that all of her canine teeth were practically parrallel to the jawbone and that none of the molars met, the very nice dog dentist Dr. Michael Peak recommended that it was time for total toothlessness. (Also, the spaces around the teeth accumulate bacteria which affect dogs’ health in other ways.)

This is a challenging procedure not just because of the tiny bones of Italian Greyhounds but because their low body fat makes anesthesia tricky. Dr. Peak used only light sedation (isoflurane) with Marcie and some nerve blocking shots around the gumline. And of course Marcie had plenty of dog tranquilizers and painkillers plus subcutaneous and IV fluids.

Also, Marcie is simply much younger — Astra was 16 years old when she had her major extraction and bone graft! — than her sister was undergoing the same procedure.

Naturally I asked to keep the teeth, which you see here, and to have lots of photos.

However I do not think either Marcie nor myself was prepared for embarking on the new adventure of canine cuisine we are now faced with addressing. Marcie already was used to a lot of food — soup, stew, oatmeal, various kinds of cooked vegetables — she just sort of slurped up (not to mention the diet staples of ice cream and yogurt — what can I say?) but if people have ideas about what else a tooth-free IG might subsist on, that would be great.

The excision of Marcie’s tusks are certainly a loss to the world of Italian Greyhound glamour but I think you can see she is going to quickly make a good showing of the “tongue as accessory” thing.

Chapter 2

Something very evil had clutched the residence at 704 Howser Street. Something that hung over the little home like a black widow’s veil. Indeed, something hideous. Sure, it had happened before, but not in Astoria. This was spooky.

Inside the home, she could feel the presence of the evil force as it hovered over her. She could feel it. None of the appliances were working properly, the children had taken up the practice of walking through solid walls while chanting “Go Wisconsin!”, and sirens were piercing the air, their source unknown. This was most definitely frightening.

Actually, this evening was not unlike the previous few.

Only too clearly came the images of the hamsters in the bathroom, and the sailors in the atticway. She also knew the house still reeked of cheap beer and nachos. The smell was overbearing.

Her mind reeled back a few days as she tried to recall the event that might have triggered all of this, but all she could remember was the fight she had with her husband after he replaced their conventional front door with a paper barrier.

As she thought of the incident, her husband, coincidentally, came crashing through the barrier. The tearing of the paper was loud enough that it could have been a truck driving through the door.

Next came THAT voice.

“Hey! I caught that ball!” He exclaimed.

Immediately she knew that Frostie’s Angels had lost the big ball game. Her husband kept babbling about the outcome of the final play, but when he settled down, he asked her where his supper was. She pointed to the recession of the ceiling/wall above the refrigerator. There he saw a drooping wad of spaghetti, clinging for its survival.

“What’d ya do dat fer?” He asked, pointing his finger at her. There was a brief pause.

“I think we got ghosts.” She said, erupting into tears.

“What have you been smokin’?” he retorted.

With those words, the kitchen floor began crackling and crumbling beneath him. Through the crevice that developed, a little green man burst onto the scene. Was this an alien visitor?

No. It was Gumby.

To be continued…

4 Tesems (bas) et 3 hyènes (haut), origine: tombeau de Ptah Hotep à Saqqara.

This book, The Hour of Our Death by Philippe Aries (New York: Knopf, 1961) and the pages inside it was rebound recently, with the ad hoc call slip of a patron (who apparently had found the book) joined to new (sewn) binding.

The First Thilling Chapter

WARNING!
The Inspector for the Office of Literary Quality, a unit of the British Colonial Office, has determined that the following reading material is of the poorest possible grade, as it is solely structured around nonsense and simply “meaningless words on a page.”

This material is not intended for resale, and is the property of the University of Polyleritae.

Any infringement of the Statuatory Copywright by Dr. Moe Howard and the University is a violation of all applicable laws.

Please note that the names have been changed in order to encourage innocent parties to commit acts that would adulterate their innocence.

This is the first installment of the Tom Selleck/Opus the Penguin Literary Collection.

The University would like to thank you for helping us to establish the finest in InstiLit. Please remember that THIS IS A SECURED BUILDING. NO RIFF-RAFF. NO WHISTLING IN THE HALLS OR PLAYING WITH THE ELEVATORS.

THANX,

The University of Polyleritae

Notes in the sketchbook XXVIII
— A pink rain fell over meadows.
— The air is like green glass.
— The girl [observed] looked into the water, the water was clear [as] crystal, the girl was crying.
— Trees had their growth rings, the animals their veins.

Notes in the sketchbook XXXI
The storm roared.
I entered the house and saw all
A tall woman red small black cat [playing] on the green table.
Kraak, lightning strikes the vehicle – the beautiful little cats were playing with the woman, she smiled – ah ah [poor] man and horse are [is] dead. [The man cries] [sky] the angel of fear knocks at the window; the [poor woman] I could shake the red heart of the woman and black kittens knew the green table – what it [?], red and black and green? Three colors give it a thought? If we give to the red heart shape, the black that [one of three interspersed] small kittens, green form of [a large square plate ?...] the square.

I meditate on that thought.
The red heart of the woman breaks.
It [comes] springs a [blood ...] [a streak of blood] A stream of blood [across the sky due] which falls into the river, it flows through the now red green pastures grazed by sheep or black.
The storm has withdrawn his hand from the earth.
The blue sky [?] Ogle like a gigantic glass eye the scene [of] red, green, and black, this thought is not it terrible? [...] Do you understand what the painters paint?

Notes dans le cahier de croquis XXVIII

— une pluie rose tombait sur des prés verts.

— l’air resemblait a du verre vert.

— la fille [observait] regardait dans l’eau; l’eau était claire [propre] comme du cristal; la fille pleurait.

— les arbres montraient leurs anneaux de croissance; les animaux leurs veines.

Notes dans le cahier de croquis XXXI

L’orage grondait.

J’entrai dans la maison et vis tout

Une grande femme rouge; des petits chat noirs [jouaient] sur la table verte.

Kraak, la foudre a frappe le véhicule — les petis chats jouaient avec la femme, elle souriait — ah ah [le pauvre] homme et cheval sont [est] morts. [L'homme pleure] [ciel] l’ange de la crainte frappe a la fenetre; [la pauvre femme] je voyais trembler le coeur rouge de la femme et les chatons noirs su la table verte — qu’est-ce que c’est [?], rouge et noir et vert? Trois couleurs donnent elles une pensée? Si l’on donne au rouge la forme du coeur, au noir celle [de l'un des trois entremeles] des petits chatons, au vert la forme [d'un grand carre plat?...] du carré.

Je veux mediter cette pensée.

Le coeur rouge de la femme se brise.

Il en [sort] jaillit un [sang...] [une raie de sang] un flot de sang [en travers due ciel] qui tombe dans la riviere, elle coule maintenant rouge a travers les vertes prairies ou paissent des moutons noirs.

L’orage a retiré sa main de la terre.

Le ciel bleu [?] reluque tel un gigantesque oeil de verre la scene [de] rouge, vert, et noir, cette pensée n’est-elle pas terrible? [...] Comprenez-vous ce que le peintres peignent?

[1]

CCCP Calendar Card, 1971

Soviet Calendar Card, 1971

Documenting odd things found in library books begins; this project is called The Lure of Salvage. Our inaugural item, this small (7 cm by 10.2 cm) calendar card from Moscow cicrca 1971 was found in a book of Russian poety printed in 1942. The photo does not do the image of the curly horses and leaping wolves justice but it is very dreamy and lovely.
‘There is no document of culture that is not at the same time a document of barbarism.’ – Walter Benjamin

Unidentified Coastal Organism

It’s June 2010.

“The end of history involves, then, an ‘epilogue’ in which human negativity is preserved as a ‘remnant’ in the form of eroticism, laughter, joy in the face of death. In the uncertain light of this epilogue, the wise man, sovereign and self-conscious, sees not animal heads passing again before his eyes but rather the acephalous figures of the hommes farouchement religieux, ‘lovers,’ or ‘sorcerer’s apprentices.’ ”
– Giorgio Agamben, The Open: Man and Animal, (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2004), 7.

Henry Howard, the Earl of Surrey, is credited along with Thomas Wyatt for founding the English sonnet. Henry Howard lived in France for a long time, was frequently in trouble with Henry VIII for his boisterous behavior, and got into all sorts of adventures; he was a cool dude. This verse, thought to be about Anne Stanhope, Lady Hertford, is from about 1542.

A SONG WRITTEN BY THE EARL OF SURREY.
OF A LADY THAT REFUSED TO DANCE WITH HIM.

Journalism: FAIL

Not good.