Citations

After that, I began to make a wish when the imprac­ti­ca­li­ties of life wron­ged me, but very cau­tious­ly. I did that to unders­tand who I real­ly was and what I actual­ly wan­ted, regard­less of whe­ther my wish could pos­si­bly come true or was good or bad for me or for anyone else, because I didn’t know who I was most of the time.
I tried to see myself as conscious­ness that loo­ked like me and whose spea­king voice was based herein and cen­so­red by my crap­py English but also out of my control like my ven­tri­lo­quist. I used that voice to represent the public me. And then there was my secret self who took pity on how com­pro­mi­sed I usual­ly was and poa­ched the wisest powers of my mind, then used a thought to say, in so many words, “I will grant you one wish, Dennis. What do you want?”
Then I would think about the ques­tion until it had infec­ted me, revi­sing and refi­ning a rela­ted wish, first concep­tual­ly as a tryout to assess the conse­quence, were it to hap­pen in the real world. If the wish invol­ved sex, which it almost inevi­ta­bly did, I would test myself by mas­tur­ba­ting, cum, then reap­praise the wish more puri­ta­ni­cal­ly and decide if my sur­pas­sing goal of cum­ming had over­ly influen­ced me or given me the equi­va­lent of truth serum.
This pro­cess might go on and on for weeks, months, with one off­hand in-pro­cess wish refi­ning and dwind­ling until I’d built the single most intran­sigent, com­pre­hen­sive thing I cra­ved and that would never come to pass and that no one else could ever guess I wan­ted. And once I had deci­ded on and made that per­fect wish, didn’t get it, and accep­ted that my peace of mind was doo­med, I thought I knew exact­ly who I was, and I stop­ped wishing for it.
I thought my wishing ritual would die away or be co-opted when I became a wri­ter, or at least a wri­ter good enough to do my thoughts some kind of jus­tice and get them publi­shed and read. I assu­med the wri­ting thing was gene­ra­ted from the same impulse I’d had to pin­point and set aside my dee­pest shit. I figu­red wri­ting would just give that stuff a solid form and, if safe­ly sea­led into the enve­lopes of books, rea­ders could solve me if they wan­ted. But that wasn’t true.
Instead, my wri­ting mere­ly sub­di­vi­ded me again. I became a semi-guy who dealt with other people nice­ly and ano­ther semi-guy who used the writ­ten word to chal­lenge rea­ders to accept the secret me selec­ti­ve­ly and still ano­ther semi-me who wan­ted some­thing so abnor­mal that even the unri­va­led dis­tan­cing device of nuan­ced, air­tight wor­dage couldn’t get it out to other people.
What the wri­ting did was draw a sty­li­zed map to the gene­ral loca­tion where my wishes were impre­gna­ting. I tried to make the maps cle­ver, fun­ny, dis­tur­bing, and ero­tic so the things I wrote about would seem as sca­ry or exci­ting to envi­sion as they’d been to pen, sort of like the rosy illus­tra­tions with which rides are repre­sen­ted in the fol­ded maps they hand you at the entrances of amu­se­ment parks.
I think the wishes always cour­ted love. I think somew­here along the line I deci­ded that I hadn’t actual­ly wan­ted to be dead when I’d wished to die, and that I’d wan­ted death to love me enough to kill and take me. I don’t think I knew that for a long time, though. I think I thought the wishes I so time-consu­min­gly construc­ted were about having rau­cous sex since that was the crux of what hap­pe­ned in them.
When I never thought I could be loved, or not rea­lis­ti­cal­ly, or not by anyone real who had a choice, by which I mean people other than my fami­ly, which covers most of my life, I’d think up situa­tions where the hor­ror of not being loved, of being rejec­ted by someone I could osten­si­bly pick out of the lineup of Los Angeles’s cutest boys, for ins­tance, would feel the most intense.
And since cum­ming was the most intense out­come I knew, I made them huge­ly sexual, and, to try to make the blast as wild as I ima­gi­ned being loved would feel, I made my fan­ta­sies as sca­ry and chao­tic to eve­ryone invol­ved in them as pos­sible, but espe­cial­ly to me since I was real. I wan­ted the orgasms they pro­du­ced to be like self-inflic­ted fatal wounds, or maybe more like being sho­cked back into real life by a defi­bril­la­tor, I guess.

Sometimes these visi­tors would pause their fret­ting long enough ask how Dennis was, and he would tell them he was fine as brie­fly as he could because he knew they didn’t real­ly care, or that they wan­ted to be qui­ck­ly reas­su­red he was okay enough to always be cemen­ted where they could rely on him, so, in a way, their show of inter­est was a secret way of making sure he wasn’t doing all that well, because they actual­ly wished the worst for him, or wished the worst that wouldn’t kill him.

You say that eve­ry­thing is very simple and interesting
it makes me feel very wist­ful, like rea­ding a great Russian novel does
I am ter­ri­bly bored some­times it is like seeing a bad movie other days, more often, it’s like having an acute disease of the kidney
god knows it has nothing to do with the heart
nothing to do with people more inter­es­ting than myself
yak yak
that’s an amu­sing thought
how can anyone be more amu­sing than oneself
how can anyone fail to be
can I bor­row your forty-five
I only need one bul­let pre­fe­ra­bly silver
if you can’t be inter­es­ting at least you can be a legend
(but I hate all that crap)

Mothers of America
let your kids go to the movies !
get them out of the house so they won’t know what you’re up to it’s true that fresh air is good for the body
but what about the soul
that grows in dark­ness, embos­sed by sil­ve­ry images
and when you grow old as grow old you must
they won’t hate you
they won’t cri­ti­cise you they won’t know
they’ll be in some gla­mo­rous country
they first saw on a Saturday after­noon or
playing hoo­key
they may even be gra­te­ful to you
for their first sexual experience
which only cost you a quarter
and didn’t upset the pea­ce­ful home
they will know where can­dy bars come from
and gra­tui­tous bags of popcorn
as gra­tui­tous as lea­ving the movie before it’s over
with a plea­sant stran­ger whose apart­ment is in the Heaven on Earth Bldg
near the Williamsburg Bridge
oh mothers you will have made the lit­tle tykes
so hap­py because if nobo­dy does pick them up in the movies
they won’t know the difference
and if some­bo­dy does
it’ll be sheer gravy
and they’ll have been tru­ly enter­tai­ned either way
ins­tead of han­ging around the yard
or up in their room
hating you
pre­ma­tu­re­ly since you won’t have done any­thing horribly
mean yet except kee­ping them from the dar­ker joys
it’s unfor­gi­vable the latter
so don’t blame me if you won’t take this advice
and the fami­ly breaks up
and your chil­dren grow old and blind in front of a TV set
seeing
movies you wouldn’t let them see when they were young

how are you fee­ling in ancient September
I am fee­ling like a truck on a wet high­way
how can you
you were made in the image of god
I was not
I was made in the image of a sis­sy truck-dri­ver
and Jean Dubuffet pain­ting his cows
« with a like­ness burst in the memo­ry« 
apart from love (don’t say it)
I am asha­med of my cen­tu­ry
for being so enter­tai­ning
but I have to smile

La fré­né­sie joyeuse était à son plus haut point ; on n’entendait plus que des sou­pirs convul­sifs, des glous­se­ments inar­ti­cu­lés. Le rire avait per­du son timbre et tour­nait au gro­gne­ment, le spasme suc­cé­dait au plai­sir ; le refrain de Daucus-Carota allait deve­nir vrai.

Déjà plu­sieurs haschi­schins anéan­tis avaient rou­lé à terre avec cette molle lour­deur de l’ivresse qui rend les chutes peu dan­ge­reuses ; des excla­ma­tions telles que celles-ci : « Mon Dieu, que je suis heu­reux ! quelle féli­ci­té ! je nage dans l’extase ! je suis en para­dis ! je plonge dans les abîmes de délices ! » se croi­saient, se confon­daient, se couvraient.

Des cris rauques jaillis­saient des poi­trines oppres­sées ; les bras se ten­daient éper­du­ment vers quelque vision fugi­tive ; les talons et les nuques tam­bou­ri­naient sur le plan­cher. Il était temps de jeter une goutte d’eau froide sur cette vapeur brû­lante, ou la chau­dière eût éclaté.

L’enveloppe humaine, qui a si peu de force pour le plai­sir, et qui en a tant pour la dou­leur, n’aurait pu sup­por­ter une plus haute pres­sion de bonheur.

Un des membres du club, qui n’avait pas pris part à la volup­tueuse intoxi­ca­tion afin de sur­veiller la fan­ta­sia et d’empêcher de pas­ser par les fenêtres ceux d’entre nous qui se seraient cru des ailes, se leva, ouvrit la caisse du pia­no et s’assit. Ses deux mains, tom­bant ensemble, s’enfoncèrent dans l’ivoire du cla­vier, et un glo­rieux accord réson­nant avec force fit taire toutes les rumeurs et chan­gea la direc­tion de l’ivresse.

Le thème atta­qué était, je crois, l’air d’Agathe dans le Freyschütz ; cette mélo­die céleste eut bien­tôt dis­si­pé, comme un souffle qui balaye des nuées dif­formes, les visions ridi­cules dont j’étais obsé­dé. Les larves gri­ma­çantes se reti­rèrent en ram­pant sous les fau­teuils où elles se cachèrent entre les plis des rideaux en pous­sant de petits sou­pirs étouf­fés, et de nou­veau il me sem­bla que j’étais seul dans le salon.

L’orgue colos­sal de Fribourg ne pro­duit pas, à coup sûr, une masse de sono­ri­té plus grande que le pia­no tou­ché par le voyant (on appelle ain­si l’adepte sobre). Les notes vibraient avec tant de puis­sance qu’elles m’entraient dans la poi­trine comme des flèches lumi­neuses ; bien­tôt l’air joué me parut sor­tir de moi-même ; mes doigts s’agitaient sur un cla­vier absent ; les sons en jaillis­saient bleus et rouges, en étin­celles élec­triques ; l’âme de Weber s’était incar­née en moi.

Le mor­ceau ache­vé, je conti­nuai par des impro­vi­sa­tions inté­rieures, dans le goût du maître alle­mand, qui me cau­saient des ravis­se­ments inef­fables ; quel dom­mage qu’une sté­no­gra­phie magique n’ait pu recueillir ces mélo­dies ins­pi­rées, enten­dues de moi seul, et que je n’hésite pas, c’est bien modeste de ma part, à mettre au-des­sus des chefs‑d’œuvre de Rossini, de Meyerbeer, de Félicien David.

Ô Pillet ! ô Vatel ! un des trente opé­ras que je fis en dix minutes vous enri­chi­rait en six mois.

À la gaie­té un peu convul­sive du com­men­ce­ment avait suc­cé­dé un bien-être indé­fi­nis­sable, un calme sans bornes.

J’étais dans cette période bien­heu­reuse du haschisch que les Orientaux appellent le kief. Je ne sen­tais plus mon corps ; les liens de la matière et de l’esprit étaient déliés ; je me mou­vais par ma seule volon­té dans un milieu qui n’offrait pas de résistance.

C’est ain­si, je l’imagine, que doivent agir les âmes dans le monde aro­mal où nous irons après notre mort.

Une vapeur bleuâtre, un jour ély­séen, un reflet de grotte azu­rine, for­maient dans la chambre une atmo­sphère où je voyais vague­ment trem­bler des contours indé­cis ; cette atmo­sphère, à la fois fraîche et tiède, humide et par­fu­mée, m’enveloppait, comme l’eau d’un bain, dans un bai­ser d’une dou­ceur éner­vante ; si je vou­lais chan­ger de place, l’air cares­sant fai­sait autour de moi mille remous volup­tueux ; une lan­gueur déli­cieuse s’emparait de mes sens et me ren­ver­sait sur le sofa, où je m’affaissais comme un vête­ment qu’on abandonne.

Je com­pris alors le plai­sir qu’éprouvent, sui­vant leur degré de per­fec­tion, les esprits et les anges en tra­ver­sant les éthers et les cieux, et à quoi l’éternité vou­lait s’occuper dans les paradis.

Rien de maté­riel ne se mêlait à cette extase ; aucun désir ter­restre n’en alté­rait la pure­té. D’ailleurs, l’amour lui-même n’aurait pu l’augmenter, Roméo haschi­schin eût oublié Juliette. La pauvre enfant, se pen­chant dans les jas­mins, eût ten­du en vain du haut du bal­con, à tra­vers la nuit, ses beaux bras d’albâtre, Roméo serait res­té au bas de l’échelle de soie, et, quoique je sois éper­du­ment amou­reux de l’ange de jeu­nesse et de beau­té créé par Shakspeare, je dois conve­nir que la plus belle fille de Vérone, pour un haschi­schin, ne vaut pas la peine de se déranger.

Aussi je regar­dais d’un œil pai­sible, bien que char­mé, la guir­lande de femmes idéa­le­ment belles qui cou­ron­naient la frise de leur divine nudi­té ; je voyais luire des épaules de satin, étin­ce­ler des seins d’argent, pla­fon­ner de petits pieds à plantes roses, ondu­ler des hanches opu­lentes, sans éprou­ver la moindre ten­ta­tion. Les spectres char­mants qui trou­blaient saint Antoine n’eussent eu aucun pou­voir sur moi.

Par un pro­dige bizarre, au bout de quelques minutes de contem­pla­tion, je me fon­dais dans l’objet fixé et je deve­nais moi-même cet objet.

Ainsi je m’étais trans­for­mé en nymphe syrinx, parce que la fresque repré­sen­tait en effet la fille du Ladon pour­sui­vie par Pan.

J’éprouvais toutes les ter­reurs de la pauvre fugi­tive, et je cher­chais à me cacher der­rière des roseaux fan­tas­tiques pour évi­ter le monstre à pieds de bouc.

Houses & buil­dings were not just left as they were : all doors are large, none are revol­ving, there are no cage­like places, ele­va­tors are trans­pa­rent, all win­dows can open, places open out onto other places, hall­ways are gene­rous, there is no rent, backyards behind city buil­dings are joi­ned without fences so you could ride a horse behind the streets, some pave­ments have tur­ned back to dirt, there isnt any money, money became so phy­si­cal­ly large that to accu­mu­late five dol­lars it would take a whole old-fashio­ned room full of these big metal things ellip­soid in shape, all the sewage of the world makes fuel plus a gene­rous contri­bu­tion from the stars, the ex-oil com­pa­nies take care of that, we clean the streets, the schools are an essay on schools, you can get what you need from the stores and sto­re­houses, if you act gree­dy no one will look at you, drugs are dis­pen­sed by old people, if you want dope you have to go to the museum, when you die there’s no hos­pi­tal, it’s safe to be born and safe to die at home, there’s no acci­dents, hideous things have cea­sed to befall you, various women and men come to your house when you need them to work against these things, often old people say, “I have never suf­fe­red pain,” old people run the news­pa­pers and sto­re­houses, they meet in conven­tions to plan the free tra­vel­ling all over the world of the 18–25 year-olds in place of the ancient col­leges, they run the nur­se­ry schools, it is to your grea­test disad­van­tage to live in a house without an old per­son, you have no influence then, the whales are far­mers for the humans, we cat their under­wa­ter pota­to baked with a steak of shark & sea­weed salad in America, poets and artists enter­tain the people in the neigh­bo­rhood, there are contests and exchanges with other parts of the world, neigh­bo­rhoods publish books, the prin­ting costs are paid by Ex-Landlords Inc. (Ex-Publishers Inc lost all their money inves­ting in solid-state com­pu­ter sys­tems and are see­king to re-invest in lite­ra­ture), there are still cockroaches in the cities, they live in a museum built on top of the Frick cal­led the Watt on Fifth Avenue (no chil­dren allo­wed) named after for­mer Secretary of the Interior James Watt who had an out-of-the-body expe­rience at the ope­ning and after that he was­ted away in a noi­sy wil­der­ness somew­here, there are no den­tists, den­tists had to admit at last there were herbs that cured too­thaches without any pain at all, for years the den­tists were held in the jails for sadists, now they are relea­sed and live among us, there are still doc­tors whom you never have to wait to see, when patients (the word patients was chan­ged to people, or, col­lo­quial­ly, leeks) go to a doctor’s office (the word office was chan­ged to house) they are given tea and per­haps les­sons and oint­ments, acu­punc­ture is prac­ti­ced to prevent diseases, ope­ra­tions are rare, they are per­for­med in ope­ra­tion cathe­drals, most diseases and chro­nic debi­li­ta­ting disor­ders disap­pea­red after people began to stop being paid sala­ries for their work and the medi­cal pro­fes­sion (the word pro­fes­sion has been chan­ged to chore or ins­pi­ra­tion) became so pre­do­mi­nant­ly female for a while, there was a come­dy show you could still go to for a long time where some man would stick his hand into some part of your body and say, “I’m the doc­tor, I know what’s best for you and my time is pre­cious,” all over the world it was good news to know at last that by gent­ly and aggres­si­ve­ly rub­bing the tip of the penis and the penis all over before what they used to call sexual inter­course with a great big hot sponge soa­ked in honey and kar­kade you have a 100% chance of avoi­ding get­ting pre­gnant, actual­ly the sponge doesnt even have to be hot and it doesnt have to be a sponge, you can do it any way, and when this method of birth control was first dis­co­ve­red it mar­ked the begin­ning of the death of both capi­ta­lism and armies : people all over the world fled from mis­pla­ced tasks, there is no use­less work, nobo­dy has a job contri­bu­ting to the making of money by some­bo­dy else jobs are either in the com­mu­ni­ty or in the world, nobo­dy works to sell things and it didnt take long to find out that with people wor­king at use­ful things all the time to pro­vide them­selves and other people with what they need, and with no mani­pu­la­tions of cur­ren­cies or power or land, there was enough food and shel­ter for eve­ry­bo­dy in the world, though some in the world wound up having fewer of the luxu­ries than they were used to having, crime is fading away, there are still courts and much of what the courts have to do has to do with the rest of crime and the rest of land there is still bad fee­ling about all this sha­ring of pro­per­ty and land, maps have become much more com­plex than they used to be, eve­ry­place is smal­ler and there are more places than before, there is at this moment no lon­ger such a thing (though it is being wor­ked on) as a map of the world, the air is clear, it is gol­den, in sum­mer it is iced, there is a lit­tle store on the ave­nue where you can stop if you want for a draft of elixir, it is gol­den, in sum­mer it is iced, reme­dies become opaque in moon­light if you’re ner­vous, have lost love, there are the mes­me­ric tobac­cos and the aphro­di­siac ones, there are the work tobac­cos, take this if you cant sleep, take this cure for the pains of child­birth, it’s a mix­ture that must be sto­len from a neigh­bor and stand in a glass in the room next to you emit­ting a light of all the colors, go to the store of help to get some, there are the his­to­ries of all the indi­vi­duals of the world, eve­ryone adds to this part of the book.

I had been wan­ting to keep a jour­nal of one week of living in New York and eve­ry detail of eve­ry­thing that hap­pe­ned at work, home and in the com­mu­ni­ty, to see if recor­ding eve­ry­thing about living in the city would be illu­mi­na­ting fun­ny or use­ful because it would be about money, work, poli­tics and sex.

Everything you or I or any­bo­dy says always seems 100% wrong some­times, unless you keep for­cing it to be clo­ser to the truth, kids have shar­per memo­ries till they learn to use the lan­guage well and then there is always all that pre­va­ri­ca­ting and the lan­guage begins to lie loo­se­ly once more : can I say this ? I got very angry…