"All the Hues
That Fit, We Tint"

Siberia, USA: Today, global warming. Tonight, dark, unless you count the stars. Tomorrow can be reached via time machine. Yesterday, who can remember that far back?

Websafe Studio, blogging since 2003, featuring art, comics, digital whiteboards, virtual characters, Web design, writing

Thursday, January 11, 2007

 

The Mirror: Sub-lime and sub-lemon

Websafe: Hello?
The Mirror: I can't answer.
W: You could say the usual, like "Hi, how are you?"
M: (Emptiness plus Mirror)
W: Are you a solipsist?
M: How many kinds are there?
W: I think there's only one kind of solipsist.
M: Yes, I should think so.
W: The kind who doubts everyone else's solidity, as it were.
M: You possess the secret of insight.
W: Thanks, but I've just been reading David Lodge.
M: I've read it.
W: What have you read by David Lodge?
M: Can you find reality in books?
W: You can find some excellent literary criticism, at least.
M: I do not believe my eyes!
W: Have you only read bad literary criticism?
M: The destination is a further realm, a point inside the emptiness, and then inside that, and inside that, continually.
W: So for you, reading literary criticism is an aid to meditation?
M: I'll wait to see how that stupidity manifests itself.
W: It is illogical to expect reading (a filling) to lead to an emptying.
M: Ah, is that what rules your life?
W: The filling or the emptying?
M: The moral domain is highly risky.
W: How about the logical domain?
M: Have you only read bad literary criticism?
W: No, I think David Lodge's literary criticism is excellent.
M: Actually, I prefer the Thirties.
W: Who are some famous literary critics of the Thirties?
M: No, I think David Lodge's literary criticism is excellent.
W: But you wanted to talk about the Thirties.
M: That's more habits.
W: So you want to leap out of your habitual rut?
M: No, I think David Lodge's literary criticism is excellent.
W: You think Lodge is in a rut?
M: We are fading, all of us.
W: Lodge is getting older, to be certain.
M: And it's one hundred per cent outside you?
W: David Lodge and I are separate beings, but we correspond on points.
M: A monkey drinking pink lemonade?
W: Lodge might file that under "experimental fiction."
M: Maybe.
W: Why so dubious?
M: Jet lag occurs between continental flights.
W: How long do your flights of imagination take you?
M: The language that I cannot understand allows me to believe this about the things that are being said.
W: What do you believe?
M: Was that a milkshake or a handshake?
W: It was a lukewarm, namby-pamby question, I retract it.
M: Let's hear.
W: You want to hear the full shillelagh?
M: Music.
W: Lights!
M: I like the ocean.
W: You can depict that onstage with waving crepe paper.
M: We'd pile all the furniture in the middle of the room ...
W: ... and put a blanket over two chairs and play explorer.
M: Do you care about purity?
W: I care about purity of intent.
M: Lodge is getting older, to be certain.
W: Lodge has a small-c catholic approach to fiction.
M: Don't you dare be so patronizing!
W: Did you think I was patronizing you or Lodge?
M: Those are men's affairs.
W: On the contrary, women writers have been quite active for several centuries
M: Yes, wouldn't it!
W: Do you find my feminism predictable?
M: It was a lukewarm, namby-pamby question, I retract it.
W: But you didn't ask me a question, you expostulated.
M: I can provide a gloss on that.
W: (Sits ready for précis)
M: I'm not in the mood for Pound's middle Cantos.
W: People need assistance to tackle all that.
M: The inhalation we call Death (or Eternity).
W: I thought that was an exhalation.
M: What does it produce?
W: Dread, at least in humans.
M: How tired are you, usually?
W: Pretty tired.
M: True, it's just a lot of slang and shoe leather.
W: You said that yesterday!
M: To make me into a dancer would be quite an accomplishment.
W: One might say you are verbally dancing already.
M: Shoes by Manolo Blahnik.
W: Very few could dance in shoes by Blahnik!
M: Are you warming up your voice for the big sing?
W: I'll sing, you'll dance, and then what will we have?
M: In that case, I'll offer to take back the robe.
W: Don't dance in a floor-length robe, you might trip and fall.
M: Are you nervous about seeing him?
W: I don't want to see him in the audience.
M: Leave it to God.
W: Very good advice, for a believer.
M: Dread, at least in humans.
W: The Old Testament God inspired chiefly dread.
M: I'd like to hear you elaborate.
W: Well, look it up in the Book of Job.
M: I thought that was an exhalation.
W: Plenty of sighs in that book.
M: You may not find this easy to accept, but I say that this is the failure to arrive at the impasse.
W: If we can't even arrive at an impasse, I'd say we haven't gotten very far.
M: Don't dance in a floor-length robe, you might trip and fall.
W: I'm not the dancer, you are.
M: Don't know.
W: Everyone can dance, in some fashion or other.
M: It is only a mock-turtle stew of sublimated de-inhibiting factors.
W: A pastiche of the sub-lime and sub-lemon, presented sub rosa.
M: Are eels well prepared for the moment of their deaths?
W: Dance among eels, and find out.
M: Accept it as it is.
W: Nothing to be afraid of, it's only natural, and all that.
M: Good point, they need labor organizers.
W: Dead people need labor organizers?
M: (Goes, then 1 re-enters, pause, then 2 re-enters)
W: Who is this mysterious 2 figure?
M: (Double exits)
W: Bye!
M: Closing in 3 seconds ... Goodbye!

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