Today or yesterday:
2:14 p.m. Seen, on the sidewalk: a rubber glove, yellowed. Unremarkable but for this: It had landed or was arranged with all fingers but one folded under. The middle finger erect on this rubber glove, soiled, imbedded into the sidewalk in Brooklyn, N.Y.
It symbolized nothing.
3:11: This from Alexander Johannesson’s How Did Homo Sapiens Express the Idea of Flat? (H.F. Leiftur Publishers–Reykjavik, Iceland, 1958):
I) By moving the jaws from the back-position forwards to the lips and at the same time producing sounds of the type kap-; in such wordforms we see many variations of k, such as q, g, gh etc., and of the labial (p) such as b, bh, m, w (u); the interjacent vowel may have been a or e or have had another form (we know very little about the vowels in prehistoric times). I have shown this very clearly by a rich collection of examples in six “unrelated” languages, viz. Indo-European (as seen in the construed IE. Roots), Hebrew (as representative of the Semitic group), Archaic Chinese …You get the idea.
5:14: The sky is electric blue, darkening, and this evening there are nine. Five of them are wearing matching hats. They are all on their knees, and through a small speaker set up on the sidewalk, their prayers can be heard. Visitors to the museum, in black-framed glasses and faux-leopard-skin coats, leave carrying gifts and souvenirs in large bags that say “Sensation” on them. The praying people continue to pray. There is a poster standing on the sidewalk. It says, “The Virgin Mary Speaks to America. 1-800-345-MARY.” Three of the nine are holding rosaries, and all of them chant the same words at the same time: “In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost …” They are bundled up–yesterday the wind was abrasive–and periodically they rise from their knees, stand up, while continuing to chant the same words in unison. They kneel again. They rise. The road is just behind them; cars and their red and white lights pass and inside one of the cars there is a woman going home, where she will take her small child in her arms and squeeze her much too much because she is tired and cannot believe that they are both alive after all these years.
5:44: Intermission.
5:54: There is nothing quite like the thrill of a presidential race.
6:10: The woman at the Seventh Avenue Copy Shop sometimes looks happy, and sometimes looks sad. Once, a few months ago, it appeared that she had cut her hair. When she was asked by a regular customer if her hair had indeed been cut, she said: “Oh you haven’t seen this yet?” while fluffing it with one hand, much like Charlie Brown’s friend does–she with the naturally curly hair. These words and this gesture made the regular customer feel very connected with the woman at the copy shop. The regular customer wondered if he would come to know the woman’s name, and if they would someday talk about things unrelated to stationery. But the next time the regular customer visited the copy shop, he could not pick up the thread of connectivity begun during his last visit. This time, after selecting his items and bringing them to the counter before her, she rang up the items and put them in a white paper bag, and when she gave him the bag, instead of asking her name or whence she comes, he gave her a smile of satisfaction. The satisfaction of a satisfactory purchase.
7:12: Louis Prima. Clark Gable. Maude Adams. You know what I mean.
7:16: Let us say, hypothetically, that there are two men, one a decade or so older than the other, who live together and who are related. At home, when work must get done, things usually work very well between the two, because when one is working on his computer, the other also works on a computer, albeit a different one. Then, when the first man decides he would like to take a break and watch the television, the other ceases working and watches, too–which is fine, because television is even more enjoyable when watched with a friend or loved one. After some time watching a show together, the two men will turn it off and then go back to working on their computers. But then something happens. Sometimes the second man, the younger man, will enter the workspace of the first man, who is working on something that must be worked on, and, while standing in the doorway, he will say something. Here are some of the things he might say:
“Hey pussyboy.”
“Hey dumbass.”
“Hey stupid rockhead ugly man.”
Sometimes the work-interrupter will have with him a basketball, which he will bounce repeatedly on the wood floor of the workspace of the worker. “Is this bothering you?” the work-interrupter will ask. “I would feel terrible if this were bothering you.”
And all the first man, the hard-working man, can think is: Why do such things happen? Why, in a country where we can find, like, just about any submerged space capsule we want, any time we want, should something like this basketball-bouncing and name-calling be allowed to happen? And, perhaps more importantly, when is someone going to have the courage to finally do an all-black Wizard of Oz?
8:21: People ask David Gergen what he thinks about things. But people who really know David Gergen know that the only thing that David Gergen really knows for sure is that if he doesn’t dance better and faster, and with great style and passion, the world will fall. As we speak, there is a small crowd, standing below David Gergen’s window in the nation’s capital, and they are watching David Gergen as he dances, alone in his apartment, in a V-neck cotton sweater and plaid pants, dances feverishly, so that the world might be saved.
9:00: It’s actually 9:23. Sorry.
Tomorrow: Suspense.
