does. Make the following experiment: say, “I have a good reputation” and mean , “I have a bad one.” Can you do that? And what are you doing as you do it?
NIETZSCHE: What is the matter with you?
WITTGENSTEIN: Can you do it?
NIETZSCHE: Why should I want to?
WITTGENSTEIN: Then consider the following form of expression: “The number of hairs in my ears is equal to a root of the equation x 3 + 2x - 3=0.” Or: “I have n friends and n 2 + 2n + 2=0.”
NIETZSCHE: You are truly mad. You know, the thought of suicide is a powerful comfort: It helps one through many a dreadful night.
anfractuous
Inflato was giggling. He was holding me in his arms as he stood in the first room of the graduate student Laura’s apartment. He talked a lot about how he really shouldn’t be there and how it was awkward, “what with the baby and all.” Then she touched his hand. He gave me a glance as if to put to me the question: Do you know what the hell is going on? I put back to him silently: No, do you?
Then he let Laura hold me. She was soft enough and I understood on some level the attraction he felt, but still I was upset by the gesture. Had I liked my father more, perhaps I could have been a bit more tolerant or even forgiving, accepting his transgression, if you will, as a human search for something. But knowing him as I did, as the man who still assigned me to periods in my playpen prison because of his belief in my retardation, as a man driven mainly by insecurity and adherence to form, I could not. What was going on was all too obvious and I felt some sadness for the naive Laura. I didn’t know, however, if they had indeed already done that thing about which I had read, which caused adults so much consternation, which my parents did, and which made me, the putting of the penis into the vagina. I looked for clues, but saw none.
“I’ve applied for a job in Texas,” my father said. “I haven’t told Eve, however.”
“Don’t you think you should?” Laura asked, holding his hand now.
“She’s happy here. It would be so hard for her to pick up everything and start over. You know, her painting and everything.”
“It must be so difficult for you.”
“I’m so tired of this department. Just a bunch of stodgy old farts.”
Laura stroked his knuckles.
To their credit they did not go beyond knuckle fondling in front of me, but I have no doubt that later, when Inflato claimed to be in the library, he was in fact putting his penis into Laura’s vagina. Had I any money, I would have bet on it.
ootheca
Out of me came a story that I presented to my mother. There had already been several poems and a few notes, and so she did not faint. She liked it and told me so, and then she read it to me. In spite of the fact that speech was so hard on my ears, I did not mind hearing it as much as I expected.
The story came after my reading of Twain’s Roughing It and all of Zane Grey. Not a bad story, not a deep story, but a story nonetheless, decidedly more self-conscious than Twain or Grey 17 and finally not as funny as Twain and not nearly as exciting as Grey. But the story was instructive.
Mo saw the story’s instructive possibility in a different way. She handed the pages to my father in my presence. He read, gave a ridiculing laugh, and said, “I don’t know why you insist on keeping this joke going, but at least write a decent story.”
Mo looked at me and I could feel a reaction showing in my baby face.
“Even a mildly retarded child should be able to write better than this,” he said. He threw his head back, laughing. He was attempting to insult my mother, which was bad enough, but to say that about my story was too much. Then he said, “Mixolydian is even misspelled.”
Ignorant bastard! Mo was prepared and waiting just for this. She had left a marker and notebook in the pen with me and before I knew what was happening I had taken up both. It wasn’t until I was near done writing that I looked up to see the
NIETZSCHE: What is the matter with you?
WITTGENSTEIN: Can you do it?
NIETZSCHE: Why should I want to?
WITTGENSTEIN: Then consider the following form of expression: “The number of hairs in my ears is equal to a root of the equation x 3 + 2x - 3=0.” Or: “I have n friends and n 2 + 2n + 2=0.”
NIETZSCHE: You are truly mad. You know, the thought of suicide is a powerful comfort: It helps one through many a dreadful night.
anfractuous
Inflato was giggling. He was holding me in his arms as he stood in the first room of the graduate student Laura’s apartment. He talked a lot about how he really shouldn’t be there and how it was awkward, “what with the baby and all.” Then she touched his hand. He gave me a glance as if to put to me the question: Do you know what the hell is going on? I put back to him silently: No, do you?
Then he let Laura hold me. She was soft enough and I understood on some level the attraction he felt, but still I was upset by the gesture. Had I liked my father more, perhaps I could have been a bit more tolerant or even forgiving, accepting his transgression, if you will, as a human search for something. But knowing him as I did, as the man who still assigned me to periods in my playpen prison because of his belief in my retardation, as a man driven mainly by insecurity and adherence to form, I could not. What was going on was all too obvious and I felt some sadness for the naive Laura. I didn’t know, however, if they had indeed already done that thing about which I had read, which caused adults so much consternation, which my parents did, and which made me, the putting of the penis into the vagina. I looked for clues, but saw none.
“I’ve applied for a job in Texas,” my father said. “I haven’t told Eve, however.”
“Don’t you think you should?” Laura asked, holding his hand now.
“She’s happy here. It would be so hard for her to pick up everything and start over. You know, her painting and everything.”
“It must be so difficult for you.”
“I’m so tired of this department. Just a bunch of stodgy old farts.”
Laura stroked his knuckles.
To their credit they did not go beyond knuckle fondling in front of me, but I have no doubt that later, when Inflato claimed to be in the library, he was in fact putting his penis into Laura’s vagina. Had I any money, I would have bet on it.
ootheca
Out of me came a story that I presented to my mother. There had already been several poems and a few notes, and so she did not faint. She liked it and told me so, and then she read it to me. In spite of the fact that speech was so hard on my ears, I did not mind hearing it as much as I expected.
The story came after my reading of Twain’s Roughing It and all of Zane Grey. Not a bad story, not a deep story, but a story nonetheless, decidedly more self-conscious than Twain or Grey 17 and finally not as funny as Twain and not nearly as exciting as Grey. But the story was instructive.
Mo saw the story’s instructive possibility in a different way. She handed the pages to my father in my presence. He read, gave a ridiculing laugh, and said, “I don’t know why you insist on keeping this joke going, but at least write a decent story.”
Mo looked at me and I could feel a reaction showing in my baby face.
“Even a mildly retarded child should be able to write better than this,” he said. He threw his head back, laughing. He was attempting to insult my mother, which was bad enough, but to say that about my story was too much. Then he said, “Mixolydian is even misspelled.”
Ignorant bastard! Mo was prepared and waiting just for this. She had left a marker and notebook in the pen with me and before I knew what was happening I had taken up both. It wasn’t until I was near done writing that I looked up to see the
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