When I Wrote This Last Week...

I think I'd just spend it all on yard statuary, like chintzy Michelangelos and fake Roman fountains. No, all figural. No fountains. Those fake Chinese horses and soldiers buried with their Emperor.

And I'd buy a sledgehammer. And I don't know what I'd do after that. I mean besides use the sledgehammer.

I would break them down to the smallest recognizable fragments.

And then maybe glue them on some giant monolithic piece of clothing and make some person wear it and live in the gallery's space non-stop, carrying the weight of that horrendous detritus. I picture it as a giant poncho of death. Or maybe more like a flying saucer you wear. The wearer would try to do basic tasks under the burden. And maybe workmen would come out and glue or otherwise attach more fragments as the day wore on. Until at the very end, all you would see is a rubble pile of cultural fragments and a vague hint of movement under there. The person.

Sisyphus is funny.


I wasn't thinking just then of what should really go on the person.

It would be much funnier if the Poncho of Death were covered by books that people gave this person, promoting themselves by attaching more and more weight to the person. Just have like thousands of authors filing through attaching their books.

And then you see this person trying to walk down the street under like five thousand books. It would be like The Blob with gout moving a few inches every ten minutes.

This isn't some sort of sick passive-aggressive thing directed at anybody who gave me a book recently. I've loved everything I've received because I know the people I want to know.

But it just came to mind when I saw my emails from Goodreads where I get a thousand recommendations a day and I can't always tell who are the people whose books I want to read because so many authors I like have the same first names and that's all Goodreads gives in their emails: the first name.

I probably should just opt out of receiving the updates since I don't have the money anyway and it gets old trying to cadge books.

I just catch them much later when ABE starts getting copies. That's why I'm usually a year or two behind on everything, with a few exceptions.

Hehe.