INAPPROPRIATE MOMENT FOR DEMOLITION EXPERT TO BE DISTRACTED BY PIGEON
Five
Four
Oh look, a pigeon!
Four
Three
Two
Wuh --- |
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Tools
I am to write this column with a Staedtler HB pencil. It is necessary for one to understand one's tools, so it is no hardship to travel to the company's sustainable forest and follow a single trunk of cedar wood through the process of grinding and shaping into many halves of shaft. I close my eyes and run my fingers across the conveyor belt until I pick the pair that feels, instinctively, most suitable. I have, of course, studied Gesner's tangential entry in De omni rerum fossilium genere, gemmis, lapidibus, metallis, et huiusmodi, libri aliquot, plerique nunc primum editi to place the pencil in its historical context, and I have lain with a woman in Barrowdale to obtain a feel for those first plumbago mines. The pencil is composed from the parts which have chosen me, while I attempt to think myself into their heads. The paper I buy from WH Smith's.
Words
Words are, perhaps, the most important part of my column, so I prepare them with especial care. I decide to use the word "gown" and in order to do so I must become the word Gown, believe that I am a loose, flowing outer garment, with the unspoken but sentence-augmenting subtlety of quantifying the members of a university as opposed to the townspeople, feel the Old French "goune" from the Low Latin "gunna." I unslip the top layer of skin from my back leaving it attached only at my nape, stain it, and wrap myself spiderlike about an assistant's shoulders; he walks around town inviting persons to admire his gown until I am quite satisfied I am in character. The word "gown" is removed during the editing process, but this is to be expected.
Topic
I must now ask myself, "About what shall I write?" About what shall I write? I must write the truth of what I know. I know privation; I know horror; but most of all I know this column. Over its conception I have thought myself into it until there is no longer "Stan," but only, "Stan Is This Column." With tools and words I begin to write my column. Of the world beyond the column I know nothing. My writing is almost automatic. The column, alive in my head, now dies as it is birthed upon my audience. My writing sprawls and judders as befits this orgasm of creative destruction. The column is complete, and slowly I return to who I am: a blank sheet aching for the identity of my next article. I am drained. Leave me now. A souvenir mug is available from the lobby. |
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SINGALONG
Strangers in the Night, Exchanging Fluids
I'm Just a Girl Who Can't Say Flmrbrblmbrmble
Unforgettable, That's What You Er
He's Up Mother Brown |
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