Mayor

File this under SOME OLD BULLSHIT. This is something I wrote in 2003 or 2004. I found it in a file somewhere. It's about my cat:

If Emmett were the mayor, I'd play a game of listening improvisation whenever he gave a speech. As he spoke, relaying whatever it was he wanted to relay, maybe something about the budget, maybe something about traffic, I would sit in a seat in back and play with the form. I could change his cadence by tapping my foot, pacing or confusing his tempo. He might suddenly speak polyrthymically, or stick with a simple 4/4 beat. I could rustle a few papers to stir the air and affect his pitch ever so slightly. I might cover an ear with my hand, listen to the way his voice changed when the sound is caught by only the left or the right. I could turn my head from side to side, listening to the difference in each angle. I'd open and close my hands around my ears to condense the sound waves into smaller spaces. Turn my head quickly (little doppler effect), making little rippling ponds, splashes of noise.

I might cover one eye to change my perspective, tilt my head to the side. Nod or shake. Squint, smile too hard, strain the muscles around my eyeball to squeeze it. Use my hands as blinders, press my thumbs to the sides of my face, making little trails of blue light, or green grids.

But, I don't think I'd mess with the content. Not at first. Just style and presentation.

If I taped Emmett's speeches, though, I could allow myself to mess with them. I might substitute words using homonyms, changing his meanings. I might transcribe entire speeches without vowels, or verbs. Cut up the text, put it in a hat, pull random bits and sort them into a new speech, studying that. I could intentionally mishear him. I could randomly add footnotes, or tangents. Or, I could fundamentally change the way I understand what Emmett says. I might try to override the hardwired pathways in my brain, forcing information through unused synaptic links. Or, perhaps I could make the pathways fire back wards? Parallel? A speech about the budget could be reconfigured, reassessed, and reinterpreted as a speech about divorce rates in ant colonies, or it could taste like limes and raspberries.

***

Later, we all found out that the center of the galaxy tastes like raspberries.

***

Here's a photo of Emmett about to teleport away.



Emmett has powers.

***

Two from Seth Pollins:

In Defense of Self-Portraiture
The Dr. Mario Champion

***

Some more old stuff:

stuff i thought about today at work

• i practice no organized religion, but i do read strunk and white's "elements of style" nearly every day.

someday, i might start writing it like this: str-nk and wh-te.

• if you come to my bookstore, i'm the guy at the kid's info desk with the temporary strega nona tattoo. don't point and laugh.

• the results of today's books-in-print olympics are as follows: garfield gets the gold with 312 results, ziggy the silver with 41 results, and jonas salk, the man who cured polio, gets the bronze with 32 results.