Brief Excerpts from (Fictional) Reader's Reports

"This story is not worth the paper it's printed on. The plot is utterly stupid and the characters superficially portrayed. This book doesn't have any redeeming qualities."

"It feels as if there ought to be four or five chapters left--not necessarily to wrap everything up, but to follow [the author's] themes through to something beyond a formal exercise or a fucked up Christmas Carol."

"[The author] categorizes this seventy-some-odd page manuscript as a 'Cyberpunk Epic.' I'm pretty sure that's code for sci-fi with funny clothes and a stupid haircut."

"Neither story nor characters have substance. The story even becomes cheesy towards the end. The author uses a couple of interesting stylistic techniques (chopped sentences, internal dialog), but they don't salvage the book."

"...not adventurous, they contain no questions or answers or skillful structures. They are unsophisticated and undeveloped and simple. I will recommend this one no more than the last one."

"The stories are better crafted than almost anything else I've read lately, but sometimes I find that annoying--it's not discreet and it's not quite mastery. It's a very talented writer showing off his talent. I can spend a few pages playing along and then the fact that I'm being manipulated becomes apparent and I prefer the authors who are merely manipulating themselves (suggestive and accurate) and letting me watch."

"Likewise, the political group with which he was involved is referred to simply as 'the Movement;' while this appears to be the author’s attempt to pique the reader’s curiosity, to sound ominous, etc., it reads like a creative writing piece by a high school student who has gleaned her plot points and characters from a mishmash of mediocre films."

"This sample is one of the most artlessly written pieces I've read here. I could pick half a dozen better manuscripts out of the slush pile with no trouble. I could barely stomach reading the 81 pages that I was given and I'm grateful at least to the author for not submitting a complete manuscript. That's it and that's all."

"The way [the author] works the basic premise of the book (overweight woman wants to get even for humiliations suffered in adolescence) reminds me of a bad flick on teenage bickering and cattiness. I simply cannot recommend this book."

"Its absurdities are not absurd enough and the ending to the book is heavy-handed and leaves a foul taste in my mouth."

Note: I did not write any of these and no one knows who did and these have nothing to do with anything at my place of employment or anywhere else on Earth. Consider them a fiction, though I claim no authorship.

Jessica, you're A-OK in my book.

Shave 'em Dry (1935)--the low-down, dirty Blues

So, I was sitting here at my desk, minding the Catalan literature, when Squeo asked me if I had ever heard of Bessie Anderson (AKA Lucille Bogan), the blues singer.
"Maybe..." I replied, unwilling to believe that there could be a great female blues singer that I didn't know.
"Do you know the song Shave 'em Dry?" he asked.
"Maybe..." I replied.

He sent me the mp3. I did not know it. It is a filthy, filthy song and I am sure you'll all love it. I'm posting the lyrics...

SHAVE 'EM DRY (unexpurgated version)

I got nipples on my titties, big as the end of my thumb,
I got somethin' between my legs'll make a dead man come,
Oh daddy, baby won't you shave 'em dry?
(Aside: Now, draw it out!)
Want you to grind me baby, grind me until I cry.
(Roland: Uh, huh.)

Say I fucked all night, and all the night before baby,
And I feel just like I wanna, fuck some more,
Oh great God daddy,
(Roland: Say you gonna get it. You need it.)
Grind me honey and shave me dry,
And when you hear me holler baby, want you to shave it dry.

I got nipples on my titties, big as the end of my thumb,
Daddy you say that's the kind of 'em you want, and you can make 'em come,
Oh, daddy shave me dry,
(Roland: She ain't gonna work for it.)
And I'll give you somethin' baby, swear it'll make you cry.
I'm gon' turn back my mattress, and let you oil my springs,
I want you to grind me daddy, 'til the bell do ring,
Oh daddy, want you to shave 'em dry,
Oh great God daddy, if you can't shave 'em baby won't you try?

Now if fuckin' was the thing, that would take me to heaven,
I'd be fuckin' in the studio, till the clock strike eleven,
Oh daddy, daddy shave 'em dry,
I would fuck you baby, honey I'd make you cry.
Now your nuts hang down like a damn bell sapper,
And your dick stands up like a steeple,
Your goddam ass-hole stands open like a church door,
And the crabs walks in like people.
(Aside: Ow, shit!)
(Roland: Aah, sure enough, shave 'em dry?)
Aside: Ooh! Baby, won't you shave 'em dry

A big sow gets fat from eatin' corn,
And a pig gets fat from suckin',
Reason you see this whore, fat like I am,
Great God, I got fat from fuckin'.
(Aside: Eeeeh! Shave 'em dry)
(Roland: Aah, shake it, don't break it)
My back is made of whalebone,
And my cock is made of brass,
And my fuckin' is made for workin' men's two dollars,
Great God, round to kiss my ass.
!Aside: Oh! Whoo, daddy, shave 'em dry)

A Call to Land-Dwelling Mammals

I find fish revolting. I find the ocean terrifying. I find lakes and rivers and streams to be foul and perhaps more terrifying than oceans. Oceans are a foreign world to us. We cannot breathe there. Lakes and rivers and streams and brooks and the like are invaders onto our land, sweet terra firma. They’re here to kill us. In fact, they do kill us. They rise and flood and drown and soak us to death. They’re foul and they are our enemies. Like fish. Fish are foreign to us. They live where we cannot and they cannot live where we do. They are aliens. Cold aliens with one thought: swim. They swim all of the time, when they’re awake and when they’re asleep. They can see through their eyelids. They’re always watching, always floating, always hunting. Make no mistake about it: fish are our enemies. Scaly and sharp-toothed, how did anyone ever mistake them for food? Gills are an abomination. Fish are an abomination. Sea creatures of all kinds: abominations. That goes double for the crustacean, triple for the mollusk. Crabs of all kinds, wandering around, thoughtlessly waving their crooked claws and sidestepping through the hostile waters. Clams, lying silently in slimy safety, biding their time before they attack, before they join the tunas and marlins and lobsters in their plot against us. Mollusks seem innocent, but they’re just waiting to learn which way the tide—ha, ha—will turn. Seaweeds are out to trip us up, to ensnare us. Coral reefs are planted like mines to sink our boats. BOATS! Abominations! We have as much business at sea as the fish do on land. We're invaders too. In the war on sealife, we're winning, but the oceans have spies. OH YES! We feed and keep the spies close to our families, in huge tanks near seats of power. God knows what influence they exert—even in the highest echelons of our governments. Aquariums and bowls full of conspirators, sleepless, dreamless agents of the oceans. They gather information and then fake their own deaths and, like chumps, we flush them back to their world to report to their superiors, the sturgeon generals and tacticians that grow more desperate with each passing day. Even the water-dwelling mammals are not to be trusted. The kamikaze whales heave themselves at our shores, killing themselves in the hope of crushing just one infant human. The dolphins cultivate a cult of personality, but millions of stories of dolphin brutality, of the bottle-nosed bastards bludgeoning our youth have gone unreported. We had them for a while with the tuna nets. We had them on the ropes—ha, ha—but they’re back and they’re becoming more underhanded and more skilled with each passing day. The water-dwelling mammals are perhaps the greatest threat to our well-being. If you won’t join me and put an end to the influence of all of these aquatic monsters, I cannot guarantee your safety in the coming days. Land-mammals WILL prevail.

Note: I have recently been informed of a startling fact: my sources suggest that we, land's best bet against this watery menace, are 70% water! See how nefarious their plot?! See how deep their treachery?! What can one do against oneself?!

And that isn't the worst of it. Picture if you will, a polar bear clinging to a melting ice floe. The image should be familiar to you. That polar bear is us. We are that polar bear! We're losing 25000 acres of land a year to the Gulf of Mexico--and that's just from Louisiana! Actually, not a huge loss. But the ice floe IS melting.

More on this as it develops...

More from A KIND OF TESTAMENT by Witold Gombrowicz

Besides…How could I, a Pole, believe in theories? That would be grotesque. Against the Polish sky, against the sky of a paling, waning Europe, one can see why so much paper coming from the West falls to the ground, into the mud, onto the sand, so that little boys grazing their cows can make the usual use of it. But these theories, which drift across the sky, become ridiculous, blind, ignoble, bloody, vain. Gentle ideas are pregnant with mountains of corpses. What can one do? Everyone sees the world from where he stands. It is not for nothing that I come from the plains which separate Europe from the rest of the world.
Communism, Fascism, the Church, any particular faith?
No.

From A KIND OF TESTAMENT by Witold Gombrowicz

All on my own, without any support, racked by doubts, I didn’t know what to do. What could I do? I was only sure of one thing: it was solely by cutting it that I could escape from this Gordian knot. This idea of total intransigence, which had occurred to me, had existed somewhere inside me ever since my childhood. It was even connected with a certain optimism, at least as far as literature is concerned. Because I—and I was sure of that, immature though I was—had a right to speak. I had a right to express myself, like everything that exists, like everything that is. You see, I had what everyone has: I knew what one might call the language of fact.
What could I do? To start with, I told myself, I must acknowledge this state of affairs. I must acknowledge reality and bring it to light…
To break away! To keep one’s distance! The writer, the artist, or anyone who attaches importance to his spiritual development, must feel no more than a resident in Poland or the Argentine, and it is his duty to regard Poland or the Argentine as an obstacle, almost as an enemy. That is the only way to fell really free. And only those people for whom their country is an obstacle rather than an advantage will have a chance of becoming truly free spiritually, and, in the case of Europe, truly a European.
So, these were my views then, but I elaborated on them as time went by.
Well, I wanted to be like those young men one sees in the stations of small provincial towns, their packs in their hands. They are just about to leave, and when they see the train which is to take them away, they murmur: ‘Yes, I must leave my birthplace. It’s too small for me. Farewell! I may return, but not before the wide world has given birth to me again.’
‘After that I shall no longer be Polish! I shall be all on my own.’
‘On your own? But loneliness will deliver you up to your own misery!’
‘Give me a knife, then! I must perform a still more radical operation! I must amputate myself from myself!’
I suppose that Nietzsche might have formulated my dilemma in these terms. I proceeded to amputate. The following thought was the scalpel: accept, understand that you are not yourself, that no-one is ever himself with anyone, in any situation, that to be a man is to be artificial….
Blind obedience and blind faith had become essential, and not only in the barracks. People were artificially putting themselves into artificial states, and everything—even, and above all, reality—had to be sacrificed in order to obtain strength. What was all that? Glaring idiocies, cynical falsifications, the most obvious distortions of reality, a nightmarish atmosphere….Monstrous horror….
Where was I? I was in the darkest of nights, together with the whole of humanity. The old God was dying. The laws, the principles, the customs which had constituted the patrimony of humanity were suspended in space, despoiled of their authority. Man bereft of God, liberated and solitary, began to forge himself through other men…. It was Form and nothing else which was at the basis of these convulsions. Modern man was characterized by a new attitude toward Form. How much more easily he created himself, created as he was by it!