The New Answering Machine by Crad Kilodney

The New Answering Machine was invented for lonely, suicidally depressed people who rarely find messages on their answering machines. If you do not get a nice message for an entire week, The New Answering Machine will create a virtual message and record it overnight so you will find it when you get up in the morning.

When you install The New Answering Machine, you simply dial a number linking you to a computer and follow the prompts to indicate your gender, sexual orientation, and other details. A heterosexual man, for example, will receive sexy, romantic messages from female voices and messages of encouragement, flattery and good cheer from male voices. No two messages are alike, and no two voices are alike. In this way, the lonely, suicidally depressed person is assured that he will receive a message every week that will make him feel better, and they will be varied and interesting.

In development trials with a group of subjects, it was established that recipients of these messages did not mind that they were fake. Over and over again, lonely, suicidally depressed participants said that the virtual voices were sweeter and kinder than real voices and that their messages were more pleasant and sincere than anything that had been said to them by real people, either over the phone or in the so-called real world. Skeptics have been very surprised and now concede, perhaps reluctantly, that the virtual messages produced by The New Answering Machine reach a level of kindness and civility no longer found in human society.

A poignant testimonial comes from Richard G. of Toronto, one of the first purchasers of The New Answering Machine:

“I live alone and have no friends. There is no one I can talk to. I used to be in terrible emotional pain. Every time I set foot out of doors, I felt surrounded by stupid, ugly people. If I tried to flirt with an attractive woman, she would ignore me. People would only be polite if I was buying something; otherwise, I seemed not to matter to anyone. The city seemed like a cesspool of vulgarity, incivility, and abnormality. No one remembered my birthday. No one wrote me letters. The people I used to know had all drifted away.

“On two occasions I attempted suicide. The first time, I cut myself and had to go to the hospital to get sewed up. They told me I had done a stupid thing and not to do it again. The second time, I took a bunch of pills. I got sick and threw up and lay in bed for two days. Many times I just cried. I longed for some sort of comfort.

“Then I bought The New Answering Machine. After a week of no real messages, I awoke to find the message light flashing. Excitedly, I played back this message: ‘Hi, Richard. This is Elizabeth. Just thought I’d let you know I’ve been thinking about you. I feel like getting into bed with you. It would be wonderful. We’ll get together soon, okay? Here’s a great big hug and kiss from your sweetie-pie…Mwah!…Love ya!’

“After another week, I found this message: ‘Rich! This is Ben! Hey, don’t let things get you down, man! You’re a cool dude! You rule! You’ve got brains, you’ve got talent! Everyone here says you’re the best! You’re our hero! We’ll stay in touch, okay?’

“I was so happy to get these messages I never thought about suicide again. Sure, I knew they were virtual, but then I thought, they sound so real, maybe they are. In any case, I knew I could look forward to a nice message no matter how rough a week I had. This is the best invention ever!”

The New Answering Machine has its critics, of course — the predictable motley crew of social workers, psychologists, and other politically correct twits — but what have they ever done for the lonely, suicidally depressed except criticize them for being lonely and suicidally depressed?

The New Answering Machine is the answer to millions of prayers. It is the boon of the Millenium. Maybe it’s right for you or someone you know.

Production is not yet able to keep up with demand, and stores are chronically sold out or unable to obtain stock, so be persistent. Go to all the stores in your area. Keep asking for The New Answering Machine.

Why I Want to Fuck Ronald Reagan by J. G. Ballard

RONALD REAGAN AND THE CONCEPTUAL AUTO DISASTER. Numerous studies have been conducted upon patients in terminal paresis (GPI), placing Reagan in a series of simulated auto crashes, e.g. multiple pileups, head-on collisions, motorcade attacks (fantasies of Presidential assassinations remained a continuing preoccupation, subject showing a marked polymorphic fixation on windshields and rear trunk assemblies). Powerful erotic fantasies of an anal-sadistic surrounded the image of the Presidential contender.

Subjects were required to construct the optimum auto disaster victim by placing a replica of Reagan’s head on the unretouched photographs of crash fatalities. In 82% of cases massive rear-end collisions were selected with a preference for expressed fecal matter and rectal hemorrhages. Further tests were conducted to define the optimum model-year. These indicate that a three year model lapse with child victims provide the maximum audience excitation (confirmed by manufacturers’ studies of the optimum auto disaster). It is hoped to construct a rectal modulous of Reagan and the auto disaster of maximized audience arousal.

Motion picture studies of Ronald Reagan reveal characteristic patterns of facial tones and musculature associated with homoerotic behavior. The continuing tension of buccal sphincters and the recessive tongue role tally with earlier studies of facial rigidity (cf., Adolf Hitler, Nixon). Slow-motion cine films of campaign speeches exercised a marked erotic effect upon an audience of spastic children. Even with mature adults the verbal material was found to have a minimal effect, as demonstrated by substitution of an edited tape giving diametrically opposed opinions…

INCIDENCE OF ORGASMS IN FANTASIES OF SEXUAL INTERCOURSE WITH RONALD REAGAN. Patients were provided with assembly kit photographs of sexual partners during intercourse. In each case Reagan’s face was super imposed upon the original partner. Vaginal intercourse with “Reagan” proved uniformly disappointing, producing orgasm in 2% of subjects.

Axillary, buccal, navel, aural, and orbital modes produced proximal erections. The preferred mode of entry overwhelmingly proved to be the rectal. After a preliminary course in anatomy it was found that the caecum and transverse colon also provided excellent sites for excitation. In an extreme 12% of cases, the simulated anus of post-costolomy surgery generated spontaneous orgasm in 98% of penetrations. Multiple-track cine-films were constructed of “Reagan” in intercourse during (a) campaign speeches, (b) rear-end auto collisions with one and three year model changes, (c) with rear exhaust assemblies…

SEXUAL FANTASIES IN CONNECTION WITH RONALD REAGAN. The genitalia of the Presidential contender exercised a continuing fascination. A series of imaginary genitalia were constructed using (a) the mouth parts of Jacqueline Kennedy, (b) a Cadillac, (c) the assembly kid prepuce of President Johnson…In 89% of cases, the constructed genitalia generated a high incidence of self-induced orgasm. Tests indicate the masturbatory nature of the Presidential contender’s posture. Dolls consisting of plastic models of Reagan’s alternate genitalia were found to have a disturbing effect on deprived children.

REAGAN’S HAIRSTYLE. Studies were conducted on the marked fascination exercised by the Presidential contender’s hairstyle. 65% of male subjects made positive connections between the hairstyle and their own pubic hair. A series of optimum hairstyles were constructed.

THE CONCEPTUAL ROLE OF REAGAN. Fragments of Reagan’s cinetized postures were used in the construction of model psychodramas in which the Reagan-figure played the role of husband, doctor, insurance salesman, marriage counselor, etc. The failure of these roles to express any meaning reveals the nonfunctional character of Reagan. Reagan’s success therefore indicates society’s periodic need to re-conceptualize its political leaders. Reagan thus appears as a series of posture concepts, basic equations which reformulate the roles of aggression and anality. Reagan’s personality. The profound anality of the Presidential contender may be expected to dominate the United States in the coming years. By contrast the late JFK remained the prototype of the oral subject, usually conceived in pre-pubertal terms. In further studies sadistic psychopaths were given the task of devising sex fantasies involving Reagan. Results confirm the probability of Presidential figures being perceived primarily in genital terms; the face of LB Johnson is clearly genital in significant appearance–the nasal prepuce, scrotal jaw, etc. Faces were seen as either circumcised (JFK, Khrushchev) or uncircumcised (LBJ, Adenauer). In assembly-kit tests Reagan’s face was uniformly perceived as a penile erection. Patients were encouraged to devise the optimum sex-death of Ronald Reagan.

The Autobiography of J.G.B. by J. G. Ballard

On waking one morning, B was surprised to see that Shepperton was deserted. He entered the kitchen at nine o’clock, annoyed to find that neither his post nor the daily newspapers had been delivered, and that a power failure prevented him from preparing his breakfast. He spent an hour staring at the melting ice that dripped from his refrigerator, and then went next door to complain to his neighbor.

Surprisingly, his neighbor’s house was empty. His car stood in the drive, but the entire family—husband, wife, children, and dog—had disappeared. Even more odd, the street was filled by an unbroken silence. No traffic moved along the nearby motorway, and not a single aircraft flew overhead toward London Airport. B crossed the road and knocked on several doors. Through the windows, he could see the empty interiors. Nothing in this peaceful suburb was out of place, except for its missing tenants.

Thinking that perhaps some terrible calamity was imminent—a nuclear catastrophe, or a sudden epidemic after a research-laboratory accident—and that by some unfortunate mishap he alone had not been warned, B returned home and switched on his transistor radio. The apparatus worked, but all the stations were silent, the Continental transmitters as well as those of the United Kingdom. Disconcerted, B returned to the street and gazed at the empty sky. It was a calm, sun-filled day, crossed by peaceful clouds that gave no hint of any natural disaster.

B took his car and drove to the center of Shepperton. The town was deserted, and none of the shops were open. A train stood in the station, empty and without any of the passengers who regularly travelled to London. Leaving Shepperton, B crossed the Thames to the nearby town of Walton. There again he found the streets completely silent. He stopped in front of the house owned by his friend P, whose car was parked in her drive. Using the spare key that he carried, he unlocked the front door and entered the house. But even as he called her name he could see that there was no trace of the young woman. She had not slept in her bed. In the kitchen, the melting ice of the refrigerator had formed a large pool on the floor. There was no electric power, and the telephone was dead.

Resuming his journey, B systematically explored the neighboring towns, circling them all as he approached central London. He was not surprised to find the huge metropolis totally deserted. He drove down an empty Piccadilly, crossed Trafalgar Square in silence, and parked outside the unguarded Buckingham Palace. As dusk fell, he decided to return to Shepperton. He had almost run out of fuel and was forced to break into a filling station. However, no policemen were out on patrol or in their stations. He left behind him an immense city plunged into darkness, where the only lights were the reflections of his headlamps.

B passed a disturbed night, with the radio mute beside his bed. But when he woke to another luminous morning his confidence returned. After an initial doubt, he was relieved to see that Shepperton was still deserted. The food within his refrigerator had begun to rot; he needed fresh provisions and a means of cooking for himself. He drove into Shepperton, broke a window of the supermarket, and collected several cartons of canned meat and vegetables, rice, and sugar. In the hardware store, he found a paraffin stove, and took it home with a tin of fuel. Water no longer flowed in the mains, but he estimated that the contents of the roof cistern would last him a week or more. Further forays to the local stores furnished him with a supply of candles, flashlights, and batteries.

In the following week, B made several expeditions to London. He returned to the houses and flats of his friends, but found them empty. He broke into Scotland Yard and the newspaper offices in Fleet Street, in the hope of finding some explanation for the disappearance of an entire population. Lastly, he entered the Houses of Parliament, and stood in the silent debating chamber of the Commons, breathing the stale air. However, there was not the least explanation anywhere of what had taken place. In the streets of the city, he saw not a single cat or dog. It was only when he visited London Zoo that he found that the birds still remained within their cages. They seemed delighted to see B, but flew off with famished cries when he unlocked the bars.

So at least he had a kind of companionship. During the next month, and throughout the summer, B continued his preparations for survival. He drove as far north as Birmingham without seeing a soul, then drove down to the south coast and followed the road from Brighton to Dover. Standing on the cliffs, he gazed at the distant shoreline of France. In the marina, he chose a motorboat with a full tank of fuel and set out across the calm sea, now free of the customary pleasure craft, petroleum tankers, and cross-Channel ferries. At Calais, he wandered for an hour through the deserted streets, and in the silent shops listened in vain to telephones that never rang. Then he retraced his steps to the port and returned to England.

When the summer was followed by a mild autumn, B had established a pleasant and comfortable existence for himself. He had abundant stocks of tinned food, fuel, and water with which to survive the winter. The river was nearby, clear and free of all pollution, and petrol was easy to obtain, in unlimited quantities, from the filling stations and parked cars. At the local police station, he assembled a small armory of pistols and carbines, to deal with any unexpected menace that might appear.

But his only visitors were the birds, and he scattered handfuls of rice and seeds on his lawn and on those of his former neighbors. Already he had begun to forget them, and Shepperton soon became an extraordinary aviary, filled with birds of every species.

Thus the year ended peacefully, and B was ready to begin his true work.

Born this day

Sketch by Ralph Steadman

Died this day.

Jean-Paul Sartre. 21 June 1905 – 15 April 1980. Born this day.

Existentialism Is a Humanism. These lecture notes had a huge influence on me in my teens.

The Conceptual Advertising of J.G. Ballard

J. G. Ballard's 'Advertiser's Announcements'

Six Inches by Charles Bukowski

The first three months of my marriage to Sarah were acceptable but I’d say a little after that our troubles began. She was a good cook, and for the first time in years I was eating well. I began to put on weight. And Sarah began to make remarks. "Ah, Henry, you’re beginning to look like a turkey they’re plumping for Thanksgiving." "Ats right, baby," I told her.

I was a shipping clerk in an auto parts warehouse and the pay was hardly sufficient. My only joys were eating, drinking beer and going to bed with Sarah. Not exactly a rounded life but a man had to take what he could get. Sarah was plenty. Everything about her spelled S-E-X. I had really gotten to know her at a Christmas party for the employees at the warehouse. Sarah was a secretary there. I noticed none of the fellows got near her at the party and I couldn’t understand it. I had never seen a sexier woman and she didn’t act the fool either. I got close to her and we drank and talked. She was beautiful. There was something odd about her eyes, though. They just kept looking into you and the eyelids didn’t seem to blink. When she went to the restroom I walked over to Harry the truckdriver. "Listen, Harry," I asked, "how come none of the boys make a play for Sarah?" "She’s a witch, man, a real witch. Stay away." "There’s no such thing as witches, Harry. All that has been disproven. All those women they burned at the stake in the old days, it was a cruel and a horrible mistake. There’s no such thing as a witch." "Well, maybe they did burn a lot of women wrongly, I can’t say. But this bitch is a witch, take it from me." "All she needs, Harry, is understanding." "All she needs," said Harry, "is a victim." "How do you know?" "Facts," said Harry. "Two guys here, Manny, a salesman. And Lincoln, a clerk." "What happened?" "They just kind of disappeared in front of our eyes, only so slowly— you could see them going, vanishng…" "What do you mean?" "I don’t want to talk about it. You’d think I was crazy."

Harry walked off. Then Sarah came out of the lady’s room. She looked beautiful.

"What did Harry tell you about me?" she asked. "How did you know I was talking to Harry?" "I know," she said. "He didn’t say much." "Whatever he said, forget it. It’s bullshit. I won’t let him have any and he’s jealous. He likes to badmouth people." "I’m not concerned with Harry’s opinions," I told her. "You and I are going to make it, Henry," she said.

She went to my apartment with me after the party and I’m telling you I’ve never been laid like that. She was the woman of all women. It was a month or so later that we were married. She quit her job right off, but I didn’t say anything because I was so glad to have her. Sarah made her own clothes, did her own hair. She was a remarkable woman. Very remarkable.

But, as I said, it was after about 3 months that she began making these remarks about my weight. At first they were just genial little remarks, then she began to get scornful about it. I came home one night and she said, "Take off your damned clothes!" "What, my darling?" "You heard me, bastard! Strip!"

Sarah was a little different then than I had ever seen her. I took off my clothes and underwear and threw them on the couch. She stared at me.

"Awful," she said, "what a lot of shit!" "What, dear?" "I said you look just like a big tub of shit!" "Listen, honey, what’s wrong? You got the rag on tonight?" "Shut up! Look at that stuff hanging at your sides!"

She was right. There seemed to be a little pouch of fat on each side, hanging just above the hips. Then she doubled up her fists and hit me hard several times on each of the pouches.

"We’ve got to punch that shit! Break up the fat tissues, the cells…" She punched me again, several times. "Ow! Baby, that hurts!" "Good! Now, hit yourself!" "Hit myself?" "Go ahead, damn you!"

I hit myself several times, quite hard. When I was finished the things were still there, though now they looked quite red.

"We’re going to get that shit off of you," she told me.

I figured that is was love and decided to cooperate… Sarah began counting my calories. She took away my fried foods, bread and potatoes, salad dressing, but I kept my beer. I had to show her who was wearing the pants in our family.

"No, damn it," I said, "I won’t give up my beer. I love you very much but the beer stays!" "All right," said Sarah, "we’ll make it work anyway." "Make what work?" "I mean, get that shit off you, get you down to a desirable size." "And what’s a desirable size?" I asked. "You’ll see."

Each night when I got home she’d ask me the same questionl

"Did you punch your sides today?" "Oh, hell yes!" "How many times?" "400 punches on both sides, hard."

I would walk down the streets punching at my sides. People looked at me but it didn’t matter after a while because I knew that I was accomplishing something and they weren’t."

Things were working, marvelously. I came down from 225 to 197. Then from 197 to 184. I felt ten years younger. People remarked about how good I looked. Everybody except Harry the truck driver. Of course, he was just jealous because he never got into Sarah’s panties. His tough shit. One night on the scales I was down to 179. I said to Sarah, "Don’t you think we’ve come down enough? Look at me!" The things on my sides were long gone. My belly hung in. My cheeks looked as if I were sucking them in. "According to the charts," said Sarah, "according to my charts, you’ve not yet reached a desirable size." "Look," I told her, "I’m six feet tall. What is the desireable weight?" And then Sarah answered me quite strangely. "I didn’t say ‘desirable weight’," I said, ‘desireable size’. This is the New Age, the Atomic Age, and most important the Age of Overpopulation. I am the Saviour of the World. I have the answer to the Overpopulation Explosion. Explosion. Let others work on Pollution. Solving Overpopulation is the root; it will solve Pollution and many other things too." "What the hell are you talking about?" I asked, ripping the cap off a bottle of beer. "Don’t worry about it," she answered, "you’ll find out."

Then I began to notice, as I stepped on the scales, that although I was still losing weight I didn’t seem to be getting any thinner. It was strange. And then I noticed that my pantscuffs were hanging down over my shoes—ever so slightly, and that my shirtcuffs were hanging down a bit over my wrists. When I drove to work I notcied that the steering wheel seemed further away. I had to pull the car seat up a notch. One night I got on the scales. 155. "Look here, Sarah." "Yes, darling?" "There’s something I don’t understand." "What?" "I seem to be shrinking." "Shrinking?" "Oh, you fool! That’s incredible! How can a man shrink? Do you really think that your diet is shinking your bones? Bones melt! Rduction of calories only reduces fat. Don’t be an idiot! Shrinking? Impossible!" Then she laughed. "All right," I said, "come here. Here’s a pencil. Now I’m gonna stand against this wall. My mother used to do this with me as a kid when I was growing. Now put a line right there on the wall where the pencil hits after you place it straight across the top of my head." "All right, silly," she said. She drew the line.

A week later I was down to 131. It was happening faster and faster. "Come here, Sarah." "Yes, silly boy." "Now, draw the line." She drew the line, I turned around. "Now see here, I’ve lost 24 pounds and 8 inches in the last week. I’m melting away! I’m now five feet two. This is madness! Madness! I’ve had enough. I’ve caught you cutting my pants legs, my shirt sleeves. It won’t work. I’m going to begin eating again. I think that you are some kind of witch!"

It was soon after that the boss called me into the office I climbed into the chair across from his desk. "Henry Markson Jones II?" "Of course, sir." "Well, Jones, we’ve been watching you carefully. I’m afraid you just don’t fit this job anymore. We hate to see you go like this…I mean , we hate to let you go like this, but…" "Look, sir, I always do my best." "We know you do, Jones, but you’re just not doing a man’s job back there anymore." He let me go. Of course, I knew that I would get my unemployment compensation. But I thought it was small of him to let me go like that…

I stayed home with Sarah. Which made it worse—she fed me. It got so I couldn’t reach the refrigerator door anymore. And then she put me on a small silver chain. Soon I was two feet tall. I had to use a potty chair to shit. But she still let me have my beer, as promised. "Ah, my little pet," she said, "you’re so small and cute!" "I’m not a duck, I’m a man!" "Oh my little sweet man-y-man!" She picked me up and kissed me with her red lips…

Sarah got me down to being 6 inches tall. She carried me to the store in her purse. I could look out at the people through the little air holes she had poked in her purse. I will say one thing for the woman. She still allowed me to have my beer. I drank it by the thimble. A quart would last me a month. In the old days it was gone in 45 minutes. I was resigned. I knew that if she wished to do so she could make me vanish entirely. Better 6 inches than nothing. Even a little life becomes very dear when you near the end of life. So, I amused Sarah. It was all I could do. She made me little clothes and shoes and put me on top of the radio and turned on the music and said, "Dance, little one! Dance, my dunce! Dance, my fool!" Well, I couldn’t collect my unemployment compensation so I danced on top of the radio while she clapped her hands and laughed. You know, spiders frightened me terribly and flies were the size of giant eagles, and if a cat ever caught me it would torture me like a small mouse. But life was still dear to me. I danced and sang and hung on. No matter how little a man has he will find that he will always settle for less. When I shit on the rug I would get spanked. Sarah put little pieces of paper around and I shit on them. And I ripped off little pieces of that paper to wipe my butt with. It felt like cardboard. I got hemorrhoids. Couldn’t sleep nights. Feelings of inferiority, of being trapped. Paranoia? Anyhow, I felt good when I sang and danced and Sarah let me have my beer. She kept me at an exact six inches for some reason. What the reason was, it was beyond me. As almost everything else was beyond me. I made up songs for Sarah, that’s what I called them: Songs for Sarah:

"o, I’m just a little snot, that’s all right until I get hot, then there’s nothing to stick it in except the fucking head of a pin!

Sarah would clap her hands and laugh.

"if ya wanna be an admir in the queen’s navy just be a clark for the fuckin’ nark, grow 6 inches tall and when the Queen goes to pee you can peek up inter drippin’ pussy…"

And Sarah would clap her hands and laugh. Well, that was all right. It had to be…

But one night something very disgusting happened. I was singing and dancing and Sarah was on the bed, naked, clapping her hands, drinking wine and laughing. I was putting on a good show. One of my best. But, as always, the top of the radio got hot and started burning my feet. I couldn’t stand it anymore. "Look, baby," I said, "I’ve had it. Take me down. Gimme a beer. No wine. You drink that cheapass wine. Gimme a thimble of that good beer." "Sure, sweetie," she said, "you put on a wonderful show tonight. If Manny and Lincoln had acted as nice as you, they’d be here tonight. But they didn’t sing or dance, the brooded. And worst of all, they objected to the Final Act." "And what was the Final Act?" I asked. "Now, sweetie, just drink your beer and relax. I want you to enjoy the Final Act. You are evidently a much more talented person than Manny or Lincoln. I do believe that we can have the Culmination of the Opposites." "O, hell yes," I said, draining my beer. "Now give me a refill. And just what is the Culmination of the Opposites?" "Enjoy your beer, little sweetie, you’ll know soon enough." I finished my beer and then the disgusting thing happened, a most disgusting thing. Sarah picked me up and placed me down between her legs, which she spread open just a bit. Then I was facing a forest of hair. I hardened my back and neck muscles, sensing what was to come. I was jammed into darkness and stench. I heard Sarah moan. Then Sarah began to move me slowly back and forth. As I said, the stench was unbearable, and it was difficult to breathe, but somehow there was air in there—various side- pockets and drafts of oxygen. Now and then my head, the top of my head bumped The Man in the Boat and then Sarah would let out an extra-illuminated moan. Sarah began moving me faster and faster. My skin began to burn, it became harder to breathe; the stench became worse. I could hear her panting. It occured to me that the sooner I ended the thing the less I would suffer. Each time I was rammed forward I would arch my back and neck, tilt everything of me into this hooking curve of a thing, bumping The Man in the Boat. Suddenly I was ripped out of that terrible tunnel. Sarah held me up to her face. "Come, you damned fiend of a thing! Come!" she demanded. Sarah was totally drunk on wine and passion. I felt myself being rushed back into the tunnel. She worked me rapidly back and forth. Then suddenly I sucked air into my lungs to increase my size and then I gathered saliva intlo my jaws and spit it out—once, twice, 3 times, 4, 5, six times, then I stopped…The stench increased beyond all imagination and then, at last, I was lifted out into the air. Sarah lifted me into the lamplight and began kissing me all over my head and shoulders. "O, my darling! o, my precious little cock! I love you!" Then she kissed me with those horrible red and painted lips. I vomited. Then, spent in a swoon of wine and passion, she placed me between her breasts. I rested there and listened to her heart beat. She had taken me off of her damnd leash, that silver chain, but it didn’t matter. I was hardly free. One of her massive breasts had fallen to one side and I seemed to be right over the heart. The heart of the witch. If I were the answer to the Population Explosion then why hadn’t she used me as more than a thing of entertainment, a sexual toy? I stretched out there and listened to that heart. I decided that she was a witch. Then I glanced up. Do you know what I saw? A most amazing thing. Up in that little crevice below the headboard. A hat pin. Yes, a hat pin, long with one of those round purple glass things at the end of it. I walked up between her breasts, climbed her throat, got up on her chin(after much trouble), then walked quietly across her lips, and then she stirred a bit as I almost fell and had to grab to a nostril for support. Very slowly I got up by the right eye— her head was tilted slightly to the left—and then I was up on the forehead, having gone past the temple, and I was up into the hair—very difficult, wading through. Then I stood and stretched—reached up and just managed to grab the hat pin. Coming down was faster but more treacherous. I almost lost my balance several times, carrying that hat pin. One fall and it was over. I laughed several times because it was so ridiculous. The outcome of an office party for the gang, Merry Christmas. Then I was down under that massive breast again. I laid the hat pin down and listened again. I listened for the exact sound of the heart. I determined it to be at a spot exactly below a small brown birthmark. Then I stood up. I picked up the hat pin with its purple glass end, beautiful in the lamplight. And I thought, will it work? I was 6 inches tall and I judged the hat pin to be half again longer than 1.9 inches. The heart seemed closer than that. I lifted the pin and plunged it in. Just below the birthmark. Sarah rolled and convulsed. I held onto the hat pin. She almost threw me to the floor—which by comparative size seemed a thousand feet or more and would have killed me. I hung on. Her lips formed an odd sound. Then she seemed to quiver all over like a woman freezing. I reached up and jammed the remaining 3 inches of the pin down into her chest until the beautiful purple glass head of the pin was up against her skin. Then Sarah was still, I listened. I heard the heart, one two, one two, one two, one two, one… It stopped. And then with my little killer’s hands, I clutched and gripped the bedsheet and made my way to the floor. I was 6 inches tall and real and frightened and hungry. I found a hole in one of the bedroom screens which faced east and ran from ceiling to floor. I grabbed at the branch of a bush, climbed on, clambered along the branch to the inside of the bush. Nobody knew that Sarah was dead but I. But that had no realistic good. If I were to go on, I would have to have something to eat. But I couldn’t help wondering how my case would be evolved in a court of law? Was I guilty? I ripped off a leaf and tried to eat it. No good. Hardly. Then I saw the lady in the court to the south set out a plate of catfood for her cat. I crawled out of the bush and worked my way toward the catfood, watching for animals and movements. It tasted worse than anything I had ever eaten but I had no choice. I ate all the catfood I could—death tasted worse. Then I walked over to the bush and climbed back into it. There I was, 6 inches tall, the answer to The Population Explosionm hanging in a bush with a bellyful of catfood. There are details I don’t want to bore you with. Escapes from cats and dogs and rats. Feeling myself growing bit by bit. Watching them carry Sarah’s body out of there. Going in there and finding myself too small, still, to open the refrigerator door. The day the cat almost caught me as I ate at his bowl. I had to break away. I was then 8 or 10 inches tall, I was growing. I even scared pigeons. When you scare pigeons you know that you are getting there. I simply ran down the street one day, hiding along the shadows of buildings and down beneath hedges and the like. I kept running and hiding until I got outside a supermarket and I hid under a newspaper stand just outside the entrance to the store. Then, as a big woman walked up and the electric door opened, I walked in behind her. One of the clerks at a checkstand looked up as I walked in behind the woman: "Hey, what the hell’s that?" "What?" a customer asked him. "I thought I saw something," said the clerk, "maybe not. I hope not." I somehow sneaked back to the storeroom without being seen. I hid behind some cartons of baked beans. That night I came out and had a fine feed. Potato salad, pickles, ham on rye, potato chips and beer, plenty of beer. It became about the same routine. Each day, all day, I hid in the storeroom and at night I’d come out and have a party. But I was growing and hiding was becoming more difficult. I got to watching the manager put the money in the safe each night. He was the last to leave. I counted the pauses as he put the money away each night. It seemed to be—7 right, 6 left, 4 right, 6 left, 3 right, open. I went over to the safe each night and tried the numbers. I had to make a kind of stairway out of empty cartons in order to get up to the dial. It didn’t seem to work but I kept trying. Each night, I mean. Meanwhile I was growing fast. Perhaps I was 3 feet tall. The store had a small clothing section and I had to keep going into the larger sizes. The population problem was returning. Then one night the safe opened. I had 23 thousand dollars in cash. I must have hit them the night before banking time. I took the key the manager used in order to get out without the burglar alarm ringing. Then I walked down the street and got a week’s worth of lodging at the Sunset Motel. I told the lady I worked as a midget in the movies. It just seemed to bore her. "No television or loud noises after ten p. m. That’s our rule here." She took my money, gave me a receipt and closed her door. They key said room 103. I hadn’t even looked at the room. The doors said 98, 99, 100, 101, I was walking north toward the Hollywood Hills, toward those mountains behind them, with the great and golden light of the Lord shining upon me, growing.

Died this day in 1980

"Open the door! Open, blast you! I'll endure anything, your red-hot tongs and molten lead, your racks and prongs and garrotes – all your fiendish gadgets, everything that burns and flays and tears – I'll put up with any torture you impose. Anything, anything would be better than this agony of mind, this creeping pain that gnaws and fumbles and caresses one and never hurts quite enough."

Jean-Paul Sartre, No Exit, 1944

Read Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas online at Rolling Stone in its entirety.

Hunter S. Thompson, Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas, Rolling Stone, November 1971

RIP John Donne

Christopher Wren & Nicholas Stone, Monument to John Donne, St Paul's Cathedral

RIP you old bastard. 20 years in the grave.

Source

The Whores of Mensa by Woody Allan

THE CLIENT

One thing about being a private investigator, you've got to learn to go with your hunches. That's why when a quivering pat of butter named Word Babcock walked into my office and laid his cards on the table, I should have trusted the cold chill that shot up my spine.

"Kaiser?" he said. "Kaiser Lupowitz?"

"That's what it says on my license," I owned up.

"You've got to help me. I'm being blackmailed. Please!" He was shaking like the lead singer in a rumba band. I pushed a glass across the desk top and a bottle of rye I keep handy for nonmedicinal purposes.

"Suppose you relax and tell me all about it."

"You ... you won't tell my wife?"

"Level with me, Word. I can't make any promises." He tried pouring a drink, but you could hear the clicking sound across the street, and most of the stuff wound up in his shoes.

"I'm a working guy," he said. "Mechanical maintenance. I build and service joy buzzers. You know - those little fun gimmicks that give people a shock when they shake hands?"

"So?"

"A lot of your executives like 'em. Particularly down on Wall Street."

"Get to the point."

"I'm on the road a lot. You know how it is - lonely. Oh, not what you're thinking. See, Kaiser, I'm basically an intellectual. Sure, a guy can meet all the bimbos he wants. But the really brainy women - they're not so easy to find on short notice."

"Keep talking."

"Well, I heard of this young girl. Eighteen years old. A Yassar student. For a price, she'll come over and discuss any subject - Proust, Yeats, anthropology. Exchange of ideas. You see what I'm driving at?"

"Not exactly."

"I mean my wife is great, don't get me wrong. But she won't discuss Pound with me. Or Eliot. I didn't know that when I married her. See, I need a woman who's mentally stimulating, Kaiser. And I'm willing to pay for it. I don't want an involvement - I want a quick intellectual experience, then I want the girl to leave. Christ, Kaiser, I'm a happily married man."

"How long has this been going on?"

"Six months. Whenever I have that craving, I call Flossie. She's a madam, with a Master's in Comparative Lit. She sends me over an intellectual, see?"

So he was one of those guys whose weakness was really bright women. I felt sorry for the poor sap. I figured there must be a lot of jokers in his position, who were starved for a little intellectual communication with the opposite sex and would pay through the nose for it.

"Now she's threatening to tell my wife," he said.

"Who is?"

"Flossie. They bugged the motel room. They got tapes of me discussing The Waste Land and Styles of Radical Will, and, well, really getting into some issues. They want ten grand or they go to Carla. Kaiser, you've got to help me! Carla would die if she knew she didn't turn me on up here."

The old call-girl racket. I had heard rumors that the boys at headquarters were on to something involving a group of educated women, but so far they were stymied.

"Get Flossie on the phone for me."

"What?"

"I'll take your case, Word. But I get fifty dollars a day, plus expenses. You'll have to repair a lot of joy buzzers."

"It won't be ten G's worth, I'm sure of that," he said with a grin, and picked up the phone and dialed a number. I took it from him and winked. I was beginning to like him.

THE SETUP

Seconds later, a silky voice answered, and I told her what was on my mind. "I understand you can help me set up an hour of good chat," I said.

"Sure, honey. What do you have in mind?"

"I'd like to discuss Melville."

"Moby Dick or shorter novels?"

"What's the difference?"

"The price. That's all. Symbolism's extra."

"What'll it run me?"

"Fifty, maybe a hundred for Moby Dick. You want a comparative discussion - Melville and Hawthorne? That could be arranged for a hundred."

"The dough's fine," I told her and gave her the number of a room at the Plaza.

"You want a blonde or a brunette?"

"Surprise me," I said, and hung up.

"I shaved and grabbed some black coffee while I checked over the Monarch College Outline series. Hardly an hour had passed before there was a knock on my door. I opened it, and standing there was a young redhead who was packed into her slacks like two big scoops of vanilla ice cream.

"Hi, I'm Sherry." They really knew how to appeal to your fantasies. Long, straight hair, leather bag, silver earrings, no make-up.

"I'm surprised you weren't stopped, walking into the hotel dressed like that," I said. "The house dick can usually spot an intellectual."

"A five-spot cools him."

"Shall we begin?" I said, motioning her to the couch. She lit a cigarette and got right to it. "I think we could start by approaching Billy Budd as Melville's justification of the ways of God to man, n'est-ce pas?"

"Interestingly, though, not in a Miltonian sense." I was bluffing. I wanted to see if she'd go for it.

"No. Paradise Lost lacked the substructure of pessimism." She did.

"Right, right. God, you're right," I murmured. "I think Melville reaffirmed the virtues of innocence in a naive yet sophisticated sense - don't you agree?" I let her go on. She was barely nineteen years old, but already she had developed the hardened facility of the pseudo-intellectual. She rattled off her ideas glibly, but it was all mechanical. Whenever I offered an insight, she faked a response: "Oh yes, Kaiser. Yes, baby, that's deep. A platonic comprehension of Christianity - why didn't I see it before?" We talked for about an hour and then she said she had to go. She stood up and I laid a C-note on her.

"Thanks, honey."

"There's plenty more where that came from."

"What are you trying to say?" I had piqued her curiosity. She sat down again.

"Suppose I wanted to have a party?" I said.

"Like, what kind of a party?"

"Suppose I wanted Noam Chomsky explained to me by two girls?"

"Oh, wow."

"If you'd rather forget it..."

"You'd have to speak with Flossie," she said. "It'll cost you." Now was the time to tighten the screws. I flashed my private- investigator's badge and informed her it was a bust.

"What!"

"I'm fuzz, sugar, and discussing Melville for money is an 802. You can do time."

"You louse!"

"Better come clean, baby. Unless you want to tell your story down at Alfred Kazin's office, and I don't think he'd be too happy to hear it."

She began to cry. "Don't turn me in, Kaiser," she said. "I needed the money to complete my Master's. I've been turned down for a grant. Twice. Oh, Christ."

It all poured out - the whole story. Central Park West upbringing, Socialist summer camps, Brandeis. She was every dame you saw waiting in line at the Elgin or the Thalia, or penciling the words 'Yes, very true' into the margin of some book on Kant. Only somewhere along the line she had made a wrong turn.

"I needed cash. A girl friend said she knew a married guy whose wife wasn't very profound. He was into Blake. She couldn't hack it. I said sure, for a price I'd talk Blake with him. I was nervous at first. I faked a lot of it. He didn't care. My friend said there were others. Oh, I've been busted before. I got caught reading Commentary in a parked car, and I was once stopped and frisked at Tanglewood. Once more and I'm a three time loser."

"Then take me to Flossie."

She bit her lip and said, "The Hunter College Book Store is a front."

"Yes?"

"Like those bookie joints that have barbershops outside for show. You'll see."

I made a quick call to headquarters and then said to her, "Okay, sugar. You're off the hook. But don't leave town."

"She tilted her face up toward mine gratefully. "I can get you photographs of Dwight Macdonald reading," she said.

"Some other time."

FLOSSIE'S

I walked into the Hunter College Book Store. The salesman, a young man with sensitive eyes, came up to me. "Can I help you?" he said.

"I'm looking for a special edition of Advertisements for Myself. I understand the author had several thousand gold-leaf copies printed up for friends."

"I'll have to check," he said. "We have a WATS line to Mailer's house."

I fixed him with a look. "Sherry sent me," I said.

"Oh, in that case, go on back." he said. He pressed a button. A wall of books opened, and I walked like a lamb into that bustling pleasure palace known as Flossie's. Red flocked wallpaper and a Victorian decor set the tone. Pale, nervous girls with black-rimmed glasses and blunt-cut hair lolled around on sofas, riffling Penguin Classics provocatively. A blonde with a big smile winked at me, nodded toward a room upstairs, and said, "Wallace Stevens, eh?" But it wasn't just intellectual experiences. They were peddling emotional ones, too. For fifty bucks, I learned, you could "relate without getting close." For a hundred, a girl would lend you her Bartok records, have dinner, and then let you watch while she had an anxiety attack. For one-fifty, you could listen to FM radio with twins. For three bills, you got the works: A thin Jewish brunette would pretend to pick you up at the Museum of Modern Art, let you read her master's, get you involved in a screaming quarrel at Elaine's over Freud's conception of women, and then fake a suicide of your choosing - the perfect evening, for some guys. Nice racket. Great town, New York.

"Like what you see?" a voice said behind me. I turned and suddenly found myself standing face to face with the business end of a .38. I'm a guy with a strong stomach, but this time it did a back flip. It was Flossie, all right. The voice was the same, but Flossie was a man. His face was hidden by a mask.

"You'll never believe this," he said, "but I don't even have a college degree. I was thrown out for low grades."

"Is that why you wear that mask?"

"I devised a complicated scheme to take over The New York Review of Books, but it meant I had to pass for Lionel Trilling. I went to Mexico for an operation. There's a doctor in Juarez who gives people Trilling's features - for a price. Something went wrong. I came out looking like Auden, with Mary McCarthy's voice. That's when I started working the other side of the law."

"Quickly, before he could tighten his finger on the trigger, I went into action. Heaving forward, I snapped my elbow across his jaw and grabbed the gun as he fell back. He hit the ground like a ton of bricks. He was still whimpering when the police showed up.

"Nice work, Kaiser," Sergeant Holmes said. "When we're through with this guy, the F.B.I. wants to have a talk with him. A little matter involving some gamblers and an annotated copy of Dante's Inferno. Take him away, boys."

Later that night, I looked up an old account of mine named Gloria. She was blond. She had graduated cum laude. The difference was she majored in physical education. It felt good.

Jack Kerouac, 'On the Road' map from his notebook

Dear old Bull Lee would have turned 100 today.

Excerpt from Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs

“Did I ever tell you about the man
who taught his asshole to talk?

His whole abdomen would move up and down,
you dig, farting out the words.

It was unlike anything I ever heard. 

Bubbly, thick, stagnant sound. 

A sound you could smell. 

This man worked for the carnival,you dig? 

And to start with it was
like a novelty ventriloquist act.

After a while,
the ass started talking on its own.

He would go in
without anything prepared...

and his ass would ad-lib
and toss the gags back at him every time. 

Then it developed sort of teethlike...

little raspy incurving hooks
and started eating.

He thought this was cute at first
and built an act around it...

but the asshole would eat its way through
his pants and start talking on the street... 

shouting out it wanted equal rights.

It would get drunk, too, and have crying jags.
Nobody loved it. 

And it wanted to be kissed,
same as any other mouth. 

Finally, it talked all the time,
day and night. 

You could hear him for blocks,
screaming at it to shut up... 

beating at it with his fists... 

and sticking candles up it, but... 

nothing did any good,
and the asshole said to him... 

"It is you who will shut up
in the end, not me...

"because we don't need you
around here anymore. 

I can talk and eat and shit." 

After that, he began waking up
in the morning with transparentjelly... 

like a tadpole's tail
all over his mouth. 

He would tear it off his mouth
and the pieces would stick to his hands... 

like burning gasoline jelly
and grow there. 

So, finally, his mouth sealed over... 

and the whole head... 

would have amputated spontaneously
except for the eyes, you dig? 

That's the one thing
that the asshole couldn't do was see. 

It needed the eyes.

Nerve connections were blocked... 

and infiltrated and atrophied. 

So, the brain couldn't
give orders anymore. 

It was trapped inside the skull... 

sealed off.

For a while, you could see... 

the silent, helpless suffering
of the brain behind the eyes. 

And then finally
the brain must have died... 

because the eyes went out... 

and there was no more feeling in them
than a crab's eye at the end of a stalk.

The 100 best novels: an introduction Robert McCrum introduces our definitive list of the greatest novels written in English, a 100-week project that begins tomorrow with John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress

The 100 greatest novels of all time: The 2003 list

Thomas Pynchon has a new book out this week. Gravity's Rainbow is my literary white whale mainly due to my inability to finish it after numerous attempts.

"All that most maddens and torments; all that stirs up the lees of things; all truth with malice in it; all that cracks the sinews and cakes the brain; all the subtle demonisms of life and thought; all evil, to crazy Ahab, were visibly personified, and made practically assailable in Moby-Dick." ~ Herman Melville

A bit late but Richard Kadrey finally got a UK publisher for Sandman Slim!

"The best B movie I've read in at least twenty years. An addictively satisfying, deeply amusing, dirty-ass masterpiece, Sandman Slim swerves hell-bent through our culture's impacted gridlock of genres... it's like watching Sergio Leone and Clive Barker co-direct from a script by Jim Thompson and S. Clay Wilson." ~ William Gibson on Richard Kadrey's Sandman Slim novels