Book of Numbers: A Novel Read Online Free PDF Page B

so incapable, so incapable of
     wording, to spew out what I spewed—all bodytext, no attachments—I was
     shocked.
    Because I sent it out and received an immediate rejection. I wasn’t
     timely anymore. But I could still read between the lines. My tone had been too charged,
     my rhetoric too raging.
    The editor, however, either pitying or gracious, passed me along to the
     Sunday Book Review, which offered me its font (Imperial)—if I could contain
     myself, be selfless, mature. My initial assignment was a book about the
     events—not as they affected me, but as they affected everyone (else).
    Though I’ve since forgotten everything about the book—its
     title, its author, but that’s only because they’re online—I do
     recall the work: being mortified by it, and enjoying it. Enjoying my mortification. The
     clippings collected. My precocious ghosts, paper creased yellow. “Edifice
     Rex.” “Rubble Entendre.”
    I became a legit critic, one of the clerisy, the tribe that had ignored
     me—and it was all because I’d been ignored that I was fair, accurate,
     pretentious. I always went after the feinschmecker stuff. Wolpe at Carnegie Hall
     (centennial of his birth), Whistler at the Frick (centennial of his death).
The
     Atlantic,
The Nation
. Though my assignments were usually kept to Jewish books, to be
     defined as books not just about Jews but by them.
The Holocaust Industry:
     Reflections on the Exploitation of JewishSuffering, American
     Judaism: A History
—for
The New Republic
a novel called
The
     Oracle
or
The Oracle’s Wife
set entirely in Christian New
     Amsterdam but written by a woman called Krauss—I wrote Edward
     Saïd’s obituary for
Harper’s
.
    I explained, explicated, expounded—Mr. Pronunciamento, a taste
     arbiteur and approviste, dispensing consensus, and expensing it too: on new frontiers in
     race and the genetics of intelligence (Rabbi Moshe Teitelbaum and heterozygote fitness),
     on new challenges to linguistics (connectionist vs. Chomskyan), circumcision and STDs
     (“Cut Men, Not Budget”), manufacturing jobs shipped overseas and other,
     related, proxies for torture (“Contracting Abroad: Black Boxes and Black
     Sites”). All for casual readers who specialized in nothing but despecialization,
     familiarity. They didn’t want to know it, they just wanted to know about it.
     Culture justified by cultural calendaring: the times and addresses and price.
    But then, a break.
    A site was about to launch—a bright blue text/bright white
     background site that if it wasn’t defunct would be ridiculous now, but it
     wasn’t then—in NY urls were still being typed and discussed with their
     wwws. It was amply backed by old media, amply staffed by new media, and was to be given
     away for free—its publication was its
     publicity—www.itseemedimportantatthetime.com, believe me.
    They emailed with a Q: Would I like to interview Joshua Cohen?
    My A: Why not?
    But not this type of Q&A—instead, a profile, though they
     wanted only 2,000 words. They had infinite room, eternal room, margins beyond any
     binding or mind, and yet: they wanted only 2,000 words (still, @ $1/word).
    It was a gimmick—everything is, and if it isn’t,
     that’s its gimmick—and yet, I accepted, I had to, I had to meet
     myself.
    Joshua Cohen—Principal, but not yet mine—would be in NY for
     only a minimized window. I was instructed to meet him at Tetration’s HQ, at some
     strange time, some psychoanalyst’s 10 or so intersessionary minutes before or
     after the hour. In the lobby, in a waterfront fringe of Chelsea being rezoned for
     lobbies. They’d just gone public, at $80/share, for a market
     capitalization in excess of $22B.
    My first reaction was, this was a railshed of reshunted
     freight that coincidentally included office furniture—Tetration was still moving
     in. I entered as the gratis vendingmachines were being installed, empty, gratis but
     empty. They’d purchased the railshed