It is not easy to hit the big screen, even if you are the father of the atomic bomb himself.
But once you have managed to get Hollywood interested, things can unexpectedly get
a little complicated. The problem is that the magnifying glass is moving from the hands
of a narrow academic circle to a wider audience, and here practically anything is possible,
even being considered a schmuck.
I am the resultant of all minor and major ailments, injuries, and diseases that have befallen me.
My life consists of all the books I have read or at least hoped to get my hands on, all the places
I have been or refused to go, every word spoken and left unsaid, and many more. But in the end,
nothing of this will reach a graveyard except the name and two random dates. I am an engraver
preparing my tombstone.
Not used to receiving praise, I tend to approach it with some disbelief.
But that makes me wonder if this might actually say more about myself
than the others, for whom we do not even have a proper name, unlike
their cunning brethren, well known as sycophants, flatterers, or toadies.
And I am always puzzled by how rich our vocabulary turns out to be
when a sinister nature lies on the dissecting table. The good one seems
flat and dull by comparison.
What is the difference between a farmhouse and a palace? None, if you call them both dwellings,
of course, and you can list similar pairs indefinitely: a redbrick and Oxbridge, a vicar and a pope,
bread and gâteau, and so on and so forth. When you think about it, it is only fair to add yourself
and your god. After all, you are each other’s creations.
When I look at the clock face, it strikes me
that there is not a minute in twenty-four hours
where it is the same day everywhere in the world.
What is more, the twenty-four hours themselves
happen only four times a year, and even that depends
on latitude. But if I were you, I would not worry
about it—unless you are an astronomer, of course.
Four seconds, give or take, make no difference
when you wait two hours to see the Mona Lisa,
just for a moment.
Living in a seaside town, it is nothing strange to run into seagulls fighting
over food scraps in front of a chip shop. Moreover, if you happen to have
a sandwich in hand, you can bet they will try to steal it, often successfully,
when you least expect an attack from above.
Living in a seaside town, at least once in your life you wiped their poo off
your head or some piece of clothing. Their cries are your lullabies at night
and wake you up better than an alarm clock in the morning.
Living in a seaside town, you hate them until you either move somewhere
else, learn to love them, or at least get along.
Living in a seaside town, you know they were here first.
Should I rather enjoy a pleasant slumber while being thoroughly aware of sleeping
or choose painless insomnia with its constant watching and waiting? There are also
heavenly bribes to virtue offered by religion, with its promise of happiness always
expressed in odd numbers. Perhaps if I ever envied someone’s moral high ground,
even if it was nothing but a long-forgotten echo of casual snobbery, I could simply
follow the lead instead of dwelling upon all this froth.
In Dollhouse Land, a world without kitchens, bathrooms, nurseries, or families, there is no place
for Chucky, Brahms, Billy, Hugo, or Slappy. It is true that Ken is allowed, but only conditionally
and not before the vasectomy, and even after that, his every step is watched. In Dollhouse Land,
Barbie, Bratz, and Polly Pocket run the business. They are the ones who turned a beach lounger
into a throne—only no one bothers to shout, ‘The king is dead, long live the king!’ anymore.
I am not good at reading people. Perhaps this is why I focus on language—machine language,
to be precise—and would rather spend a lifetime with Turing than a moment with Shakespeare.
But if you decide to pity me, do not. Remember, you would not have read these words if it were
not for us.
hidden pilcrow 