F. Scott Fitzgerald, Portrait by Akemi Shinohara

F. Scott Fitzgerald's Penis

F. Scott Fitzgerald, as we know, wrote one of the most perfect novels of all time. He also had a very small penis, about which Zelda complained. One day, looking for reassurance, he took it out and showed it to Hemingway, who reassured him -- and mocked him for it forever after.

I do not know the size of Hemingway's penis. But I do know that it was nowhere near as big as he'd like you to believe.

F. Scott Fitzgerald had a very small penis. Maybe that's why he drank and engaged in obsessive neurotic behavior, such a writing novels.

Do men with nine inch penises write as many novels, statistically? If, before birth, men were given a choice, between literary genius and a genuine porno dong -- would we be living in an entirely oral society?

Or rather -- a world where all the writers were women and all the men walked around with silly, lopsided grins.

Firsts

Recently I saw a man who has a special distinction. Special at least to me. Actually I am the only one who knows about it. He was the first man I ever had sex with in Japan. Obviously this was some years ago now, since I met him that first time.

I was in job training, it was my first day off, and I'd spent all morning searching for Shinjuku ni-chome, the gay district of Tokyo. I knew I'd found it when I noticed a sporty young guy grinning, and gesturing to me from a stairwell.

I followed him up the stairs and wound up fucking him, outside, on the staircase, beside some bar that wasn't open, where thankfully no one chose to show up early to work.

It wasn't particularly epic or passionate. Actually I was rather distracted, and somewhat concerned, because I'd only been in Tokyo a week, and in Shinjuku ni-chome three minutes, and already I was fucking a stranger in public on a staircase. This seemed to me shocking. Actually it was quite in keeping with my standard of self-control, good sense, and propriety at that time.

I saw the young man often after that, in just about every dark corner I frequented. It was sobering to realize that, by fucking that guy, I'd pretty much fucked the entire Tokyo metropolitan area, upon arrival. He never asked for a second round. Maybe I wasn't that good. Maybe he was in a hurry to get to the next one.

Whenever we saw each other after that, entering a darkroom, coming out of the steam, we nodded once, politely, and then ignored each other.

For a few years I saw him very frequently. Later I saw him less. He got fat for awhile, then he got very thin. I looked very carefully at his face, at his belly, at the back of his neck, to see if he'd seroconverted, gone on retrovirals. Probably.

I didn't see him for a long time and then, today, there he was again. We nodded once, as usual. He looked fine, he's a good-looking guy.

I noticed that he has begun to grow old. Not that he's there yet, not by a long shot. But there are the first signs: long thin lines beneath his pecs. Maybe from gaining and losing all that weight. His face is changed: he doesn't need to make a disappointed face to look disappointed.

Do I have lines on my chest now? That face, certainly, is also mine. Evidently we have entered a new stage. We were Young Hotties: never grade A, maybe B plus. Now we've arrived at Officially Attempting Macho.

I'd like to ask him how he's doing. But I'm not sure how to interrupt. He's on his way into the steam, and obviously on a mission. I'd like him to know that I wish him well, that I do care for him , somehow, even if it was just ten minutes on a staircase years ago.

It's a perilous procedure, in which I almost never succeed: to inform a stranger he is significant to me -- that he is obscurely but truly beloved -- without confusing or alarming him.

I want him to be all right. I hope he doesn't suddenly get sick, or lose all his hair. I hope he doesn't sit alone and drink or punch the walls. I hope he doesn't cry himself to sleep. I hope he doesn't stand forever in the shower, scalding himself and still not feeling clean.

I hope that when he's walking down the street alone at night his heart is very light. I hope someone cares for him; I hope he cares for someone. I hope he takes good gentle care of himself. I wish him well. I wish he would get his act together, finally, stop hanging around dark corners, like this one.

Recreational Madhouses, The Era of

The period during which recreational madhouses became hugely popular, when the stigma against mental illness had decreased to such a degree that people actually volunteered for it, and prominent experts appeared on CNN saying that it was even good for you, now and then, to be insane.

The first recreational madhouses offered a 12 hour stay, during which you were free to drink yourself into a stupor, howl inconsolably, make animal noises, expose yourself, or any combination thereof. Running screaming down the corridors screaming was popular -- so popular that the hallway was delineated using tape into lanes and half was reserved for runners, sprinting screaming naked raving up and down the halls.

The recreational madhouses soon became hugely popular. It became necessary to make appointments months in advance. This despite critics who continued to scoff: What, the subway isn't good enough for you?

This surge in popularity swiftly led to the creation of mad spas, mad resorts, and the mad three day two night packages so popular with the Japanese. (As soon as you sat down in the plane, the flight attendants came around with strait jackets.)

Violent insanity was not a problem. Those who wished to be violent were placed in 'V' wards, where there were always others who wished to be beaten.

There was even a mad retirement facility, which aired highly memorable advertisements: golden-agers rolling down a sunny hillside, rouge-laden grandmas smiling straight into the cameras: "I'll lose my marbles from the start -- and have nothing left to worry about!"

"Independent Living? Who needs it! I want full-time hands-on care NOW, while I can still enjoy it!"

Meanwhile, outside the madhouses, things were much quieter. Folks were pretty much content to go to work and then straight home to their spouses, knowing they had two weeks in May reserved for touching themselves inappropriately and screaming obscenities.

Naturally, there was still a segment of society opposed to the Recreational Madhouses. Often these were the very people one would have most liked to incarcerate themselves: the political and the pious. They seemed to believed they'd been called upon by God to be insane in the public arena. Also, some philosopher types speculated that it might be unwise to try to separate sense and madness. Just like you didn't repair your own watch because you were likely to lose some small essential part.

During some public holidays, the streets of the sane were almost entirely empty: everyone had checked themselves in to the madhouse.

What would happen to sanity, the pundits wondered, if no one was interested in participating in it? Would reality languish? Might it go the way of democracy?* Or was it like the ocean floor, which went on existing even though we rarely saw it, while we acted like it wasn't there, and kept on piling crap upon it?

After less than a year, a conservative government came into power and all Recreational Madhouses were abolished. (We're not exactly sure how this happened. It was during our madhouse vacation.) Now everything is pretty much the same as before, we ride the trains with too-tight faces. Now and then someone admits to being Jesus or opens fire or bursts out singing, On top of spaghetti! All covered with cheese!

__________

* Democracy was abolished in 2012 after 84% of the electorate said that free will was bothersome and they wished simply to be told what to think.

Validation

You explained that you would not have continued, except that at exactly the right moment you won a prize.

"I was validated," you said. You said it like it was something very real, something I myself ought to drive downtown and acquire, like a parking sticker or a hunting permit.

And why don't people talk about being in-validated -- since, it seems to me, that happens much more often? We invalidate each other on the train, and then at work, and then in the evening we go out to the bars --

But almost never do you hear someone say: I was found to be entirely invalid! In fact, I'd expired some time ago!

Validation seems both necessary and awful, like morphine, which is horribly addictive, which distorts consciousness, which mutilates lives -- and wouldn't it be just perfectly lovely to have some right now!

On one hand, imagine how it would feel, if a use could be found for oneself.

On the other hand, do flowers stand around thinking, "I'm doing this for the community."

On one hand, consider the vast resources that have been expended on one's behalf: the trees expelling oxygen, the cows slaughtered, the overworked professors, the mother who doubtless would have rather taken a long bath.

On the other hand, have my good intentions done any less harm than my bad intentions? Have my bad intentions achieved any less good?

On one hand, I absolutely agree -- all aspirants should be made to recite "I am not Miss Emily Dickinson of Amherst" until they get it through their heads.

On the other hand, wouldn't it be easier and more satisfactory if everyone seeking validation got an enormous dildo, broadcast on Cam4, and left the university presses alone?

On one hand, validation would mean I wasn't just some narcissist doing this for my own masturbatory glee and self-aggrandizement.

On the other hand, not necessarily.

On one hand, how can it be real if it doesn't connect somewhere?

On the other hand, is nothing worth doing for its own sake?

On one hand, it would be easier somehow.

On the other hand, it's not like I'm going to stop anyway.

On the one hand, I am vastly ashamed there is nothing to be shown for me.

On the other hand, I am venomously proud.

On one hand, how exquisite, at exactly the right moment, to win a prize.

On the other hand, I have discovered that nothing worthwhile ever enters my life unless I have first prepared a ground of perfect complete hopelessness.

On one hand, my dear handsome professor, imagine how much better you would like me, if I could do even the slightest thing to advance your career.

On the other hand, please consider: it used to be enough for poets to do their work simply to acquire lovers.

On one hand, never mind!

On the other -- who gives a damn?

Apathy Man

Dear ______ ,


People like to give you a hard time. About living at home, not going back to school, still working at the cannery, etc.

And I invite you to just go ahead and ignore them. Why can’t he? Why won’t he? Why doesn’t he? You understand that these people are just using you so they can feel less lost. (Whether or not they give a damn is an entirely separate question.) They want to feel good they stayed on the path all this time. The well-worn, signposted path.

But there is no reason, therefore, that you should feel lost. Just for the convenience of those people. Just so they can feel less lost.

You get it, don’t you?

Obviously you do. You’ve done the math few would dare to do, as you revealed to me one day, down in the family basement.

The basement, which smells of pumpkin bread and boiled pork, of whiskey, and exhaustion. The basement where, like a triple X theater, it is always 2:30 in the morning, where you continue even now to live, where your mother toils to keep it all seamlessly and intolerably moving, where your father sits all night in the corner like an angelfish stuck to the filter.

In the basement you explained it all to me. You told me about Apathy Man.

Apathy Man has the powers of all the superheroes. He’s as strong as Superman, as clever as Batman, as nimble as Spiderman. He can leap over buildings, transform himself, save pretty girls, fly.

This power does not derive from a spider bite, from the planet Krypton, but simply from the understanding that, no matter how bad the situation, no matter how bleak things appear, things could always be far, far worse.

Apathy Man can do anything he chooses. Except that he won't do anything at all. If you call him for help he says I’ll be right over. But Apathy Man never shows up. He can’t be bothered.

It might seem like all those super powers are just wasted on Apathy Man.

But, as it turns out, apathy is a very special super power all its own. When the universe is entirely destroyed, as now and then it must be, when the universe is totally pulverized, when the other super heroes are a distant memory, when not even atoms remain intact --

Somehow Apathy Man survives. Apathy Man remains to inhabit the next universe, to create the world anew.

That is, if he gets around to it.

Structural Vanity

By now Brenda understood her vanity was -- well, not just for vanity's sake. Instead it was sort of an organizing principle: a way to check and see if she was still here. Confronted by turbulence? Check your hair. Appearances were easier.

And maybe that was how it was for everyone, or nearly everyone. They didn't expect it to actually work, i.e. that they would be beautiful, and therefore beloved, and therefore all right.

Anyway, one's own decay was easier to haggle and bother with than everyone else's. To say nothing of the dissolution of the world.

Nowadays a woman who didn't smoke and ate greens was likely to outlast major geographic structures. She might easily make it to 2050, longer than nearly any glacier or coral reef. She would outlast the polar bear, perhaps the honeybee, or even tuna fish.

Considering this, it was easier to puzzle out how to look human, than how to act it.

A Visitor

He'd thought it would be fine to always be a visitor. A guest in the family. To fly in, bearing gifts, for a week or ten days, then fly away again. Every year or so. Actually he thought it would be easier.

Twenty years passed this way -- and then one evening he happened to be a guest for dinner at his niece's house. There was just this one chance to see her, and to meet her new fiancé; everyone was so busy and of course he was only staying a short time.

At dinner he happened to say how sorry he was that he was leaving so soon -- and barely glancing at him she said, "Oh, you'll be back again."

And for a moment he saw himself through her eyes, as someone who came and went, as indeed he had for her entire life. He saw that in his absence his reality had decayed, and not only for her, but for himself as well.

He looked around the table, which was populated by real people, who could be measured and weighed, who mattered, who would not fail to be found. A farmer, a school principal, and his niece, the regional director of sales. The new fiancé, in particular, was as real as the policeman who knocks on your door in the night.

Unfortunately, he himself had ceased to be real. How careless, how foolhardy, to not tend to his reality before now! He could not make himself entirely visible; he flickered at the table. He was not quite there -- of course not, he was a visitor. He might suddenly disperse, if someone happened to open a window, or turned on the exhaust fan above the stove.

If only someone had explained to him twenty years ago, how regrettable it was to be always a visitor. Back when he might have done something about it, back when he was real. At least he presumed he'd been real. It was possible he'd always been somewhat lacking in this department.

Other people knew better, as he understood now when he suggested, repeatedly, painfully, that they might yet visit him. They looked at him pityingly, with real distaste, as if he had suggested some game of make-believe, when they had real grown-up things to do.

Why had it taken so long for him to notice the parentheses draped around his shoulders, or this enormous asterisk, like a desiccated spider, floating in the air beside his head?

He tried to console himself it was a reasonable mistake, which anyone could have made. Spending overmuch time with himself, as he did, he was prone to think himself significant. Other people, who saw him seldom, were less likely to fall into error.

And so, like an amphibious creature, he slid from visibility at the dinner table, and contemplated life in one world or the other.

If he stayed away, might he not develop in the other place, at least the appearance of solidity? Could he make-believe until convinced and proceed from there to convincing other people?

To be free at last of visiting. Visit, Visited, Have Visited: to thrash about seeking visibility, the primary effect of which is to fling muck.

Instead he intended to sink permanently from view, so as to obtain thereby the chance of being visible elsewhere.

And so a visitor ceased to visit, and what was seen rarely was now not seen at all, and what was barely noticed was not noticed at all: like a freckle on the underside of an aging arm, like a dun-colored migratory bird.



Whether this person attained reality elsewhere is unknown. Certainly it is to be doubted, considering his tenuous and attenuated state.

Cute, Regulations

One of the primary stresses of modern life is that the period during which one is expected to be cute is constantly being extended. It used to be that women were expected to be cute until the age of 25 and men until the age of 9. Now men are required to be cute until the age of 45. (Unless you are a homosexual. Homosexuals are expected to be cute until age 68.) My grandfather was cute until the age of 95, at least in his green suit. At 96 he was not so cute anymore. Women are now expected to be cute until death. Actually even after death they are expected to be cute, but then it is no longer their responsibility but rather the mortician's.

Threat.

Obviously the advertising people don't write with me in mind. It seems entirely horrible, this Pepperidge Farm truck I see on the highway now, Never have an ordinary day.

The Fear of Lunch

Without warning, Randy Mesmer sprouted an entirely new fear: a phobia of confident Europeans, particularly those with confident voices and thick curly hair. This terror developed to such a degree that Randy longed to take these Europeans aside and pour out his heart to them --

"Listen, I am so incredibly sorry to show up like this. I feel ashamed and I would like to apologize from the bottom of my heart. Trust me, I would have shown up as somebody else if I could have. It's not that I have no money for clothes -- it's that I have no judgment. Oh, what I would give to have been born beautiful! If it were up to me I'd be ravishingly beautiful, so beautiful I'd never have to explain anything, so beautiful that everywhere I went I would be embraced vigorously by the benefit of the doubt. Sadly this isn't the case. It's genetic. Actually my mother and father were reasonably attractive, but the way they're jumbled up in me -- it's not pretty. Anyway I would like for you to keep this all in mind and not judge me too harshly for having the gall, the nerve, the presumption to appear at your restaurant and ask for lunch.

"How about this? I'll just have the special and a glass of red wine and -- you just go ahead and throw the tablecloth over me. It's not a problem. Actually I myself would be more comfortable. Even if it is a little hot. It'd be like making a fort as a child --

"I won't speak. Actually, it would be a tremendous relief to me to not have to speak. Isn't that the reason one orders the special -- so as to not to have to talk?

"Tell me honestly -- are you concerned about the tablecloth? About the possible stain which I might inflict upon it? Because I do not need to drink red wine. Or have pasta with tomato sauce. In fact I do not need to eat at all. Wouldn't that simply matters! How about this? I will sit here in the corner and you just throw the table cloth over me. I would appreciate that very much. I will be entirely careful. And I will be perfectly quiet.

"I appreciate this all very much and I am grateful to you, sir, with your curly hair and your booming voice and your air of owning the world. Please go ahead. Throw the tablecloth over me. Because it is worth 15 dollars to me, just to disappear for lunch."

Manifesto, definition courtesy of Tristan Tzara:
A manifesto is a communication addressed to the whole world, in which there is no other pretension than the discovery of a means of curing instantly political, astronomical, artistic, parliamentary, agronomic and literary syphilis. It can be gentle, good-natured, it is always right, it is strong, vigorous and logical. A propos logic, I consider myself very charming.

The Year of the Aleatory

Like a developing nation seeking to boost tourism, I like to come up with slogans, and declare that this is The Official Year of Something or Other. Like “Malaysia Truly Asia”. Like “Come to Bangladesh Before the Tourists!”

For example, in my one man micro-state, 2005 was the Year of Tight Pants. Not to wear them myself, thank you, but to appreciate them on other people. Actually, The Year of Tight Pants went on for an extremely long time. (Public Relations is a hit-or-miss affair in my one man micro-state.)

Effective immediately however, a new slogan is in effect. This is the Year of the Aleatory. I found this word in a crowded page and fell in love at once. I’m smitten. I couldn’t love this word more if it had broad-shoulders and hands like catcher’s mitts. Not if it had three days of stubble, not if it were wearing overalls.

The dictionary defines aleatory as “dependent on chance, luck, of uncertain outcome.” It is derived from Latin aleator – a gambler.

Aleatory music is “20th century music in which chance or indeterminate elements are left for the performer to realize. The term is a loose one, describing compositions with strictly demarcated areas for improvisation according to specific directions and also unstructured pieces consisting of vague directions, such as “Play for five minutes.”

Anyone can imagine the vast wave of joy and relief that swept across me, when I came upon this vitalizing word. “Oh thank goodness!” I thought. “I was starting to worry that everything just random!”

But, no! No more random accidents, random sex, random scribbled pages. This is the Year of the Aleatory!

I intend to have t-shirts printed up which read: “We’re not LOST, darlings – we’re IMPROVISING!”

I discovered the word aleatory in an introduction to a book of stories by Robert Walser, the Swiss writer and psychiatric patient. His later work, as he neared final permanent incarceration in the sanatorium at Herisau, was described as “aleatory”.

And it was as if Robert Walser himself appeared before me, dapper in a yellow suit, with his pleasant smile and his eyes on the abyss, to say, “You too can practice the aleatory! You too can align yourself with the aleatory!”

My understanding of the word is further colored by the words of Eileen Agar, the Surrealist painter and photographer: “You see the shape of a tree, the way a pebble falls or is formed, and you are astounded to discover that dumb nature makes an effort to speak to you, to give you a sign, to warn you, to symbolize your innermost thoughts. Chance is not a neutral but a distinctly positive force; the surrealists believe that you can get on good terms with chance by adopting a lyrical mode of behavior and an open attitude.”

Ideally, there would be a fund available to reward and sustain anyone who, when questioned at the dinner table by their elderly father as to their future plans and direction in life, was brave enough to respond, “As for me, Dad -- I’m adopting a lyrical mode of behavior!”

Unfortunately, no funds are available at this time.

Annie Dillard says, “Every day is a god, each day is a god, and holiness holds forth in time.” How then do I learn to step aside and allow the day and the night to speak for themselves? Plans, good intentions and efficiency have been found empty-handed: I have wandered off into the floating world.

(Plans, outlines, and objectives: my opposition to them is suspicious, like a broken-hearted man who forever after takes an immediate dislike to any woman whose hair is a particular shade of red. Maybe I’d even approve of success – if it were a friend of mine.)

The white cards on which I write this evening are turned multi-colored by the rainbow lights of Soi Twilight in Bangkok, where I sit and watch the crowds who’ve come to buy sex and see the shows. The tattooed thug at the massage parlor across the way leers at me, gives a calculated belly rub. As for the mama-san at X Boys – she and I are having an affair -- as yet unconsummated. She’s wearing a red satin suit, her hair is pulled back in a fluffy white scrunchie, and I believe she genuinely loves me. Isn’t cold beer delightful?

Who is this now: a diva marching down the street in three inch heels, bottle red hair flying behind, and – now this is really extravagant – she is waving a large gold fan before her, as if preparing the air to receive her.

We are so rich in our impoverishment, so very promising in this, our advanced state of physical and moral decay. I am astonished to discover myself all the time nearly bursting with radiant light – almost all of which serves only to light up trash.

I am not hopeless, however. Nothing is lost. Nothing is random. Not here in the Year of the Aleatory.

Surrealist Painters and Poets

Mary Ann Caws, editor

The MIT Press, 2001

An anthology so rich and diverse I'm going to go ahead and call it "heroic". So much of this wouldn't be available anywhere, if not for this book. Mary Ann Caws has done dozens of fresh translations. It seemed incredible to sit at my table with my coffee and say, "Ah, now I'll read Andre Breton's letter to his daughter. . . now I'll look at facsimiles of Joseph Cornell's letters to Mina Loy and Marianne Moore. . . here is a picture of an elderly Picasso wearing a fireman's helmet. . . here are the poems of Robert Desnos and Paul Eluard and Malcolm de Chazal." The book is beautiful and fascinating and simply a lot of fun. I'm not a scholar or a historian -- this is a book to read for pleasure.

Somewhat at random, here are 7 Things I Loved:

Giorgio de Chirico, an excerpt from his memoirs: "Although the Surrealists professed unadulterated communist and anti-bourgeois feelings they always tried to live as comfortably as possible, dress very well and eat excellent meals washed down with excellent wine; they never gave so much as a centime to a poor man, never lifted a finger in favor of someone who needed material or moral support and above all they worked as little as possible, or not at all." (p.29)

Louis Aragon, an excerpt from Paris Peasant: "Fearsome, charming whores, let others take to generalizing in their arms." "No museum could ever reconstruct you on the basis of your little dimpled hand." (p.75)

Antonin Artaud, an excerpt from "Van Gogh: The Man Suicided by Society": "He who does not smell of a smouldering bomb and of compressed vertigo is not worthy to be alive." "Only perpetual struggle explains a peace that is only transitory just as milk that is ready to be poured explains the kettle in which it has boiled." (p.106)

Leonora Carrington, the story "House of Fear": "But I'd forgotten that I could only count to ten, and even then I made mistakes. In a very short time, I'd counted to ten several times, and I'd gone completely astray. Trees surrounded me on all sides. 'I'm in a forest,' I said, and I was right." (p.149)

Arthur Cravan, from his Notes: "I am perhaps the king of failures because I'm certainly the king of something." (p.171)

Julien Gracq, "Ross' Barrier": "At such times we hugged each other so long and close that in the melted snow, a single gully was hollowed out, narrower than a baby's cradle, and, when we got up, the cover between the two teat-like mounds suggested Asiatic asses, saddled with snow and descending the mountain slopes." (p.231)

Marcel Marien, his stunning essay "Psychological Aspects of the Fourth Dimension": "For if one break, pierce, breach, split, or otherwise penetrate an object, it is not its interior that is thereby reached; in the new void created, new images are created, hitherto unknown surfaces are touched." (p.289)

And I haven't mentioned the poems of Mina Loy, or the portfolio of Dorothea Tanning paintings, or Joseph Cornell's dream journal or Breton's collaborations with Eluard, or the entirely incredible Meret Oppenheim.

There is so much here -- and so many writers I would never have found if not for this book. An anthology, it seems to me, is a mission of rescue and in this case the survivors are dazzling.

Mr. Gerber Is Living the Life He Always Dreamed About.

We never learned how Mr. Gerber maintained himself. He helped out here at the building, kept an eye on things, but that hardly could have been enough to live on.

Mr. Gerber was peculiar, certainly. I don't doubt that he was somewhat mad. He may have been a pervert. A skim milk-looking middle-aged man, thinning hair, the kind of man you can hardly tell if he is 38 or 61. The sun seems to never shine directly on such a person.

In a crowd of people Mr. Gerber was useful as an end table. You gave him your drink to hold when you went to the toilet. Fifteen minutes later he hadn't moved. I suppose you could have thrown your coat over him.

Mr. Gerber was part of the complex. He lived in a corner basement apartment. A made-over utility closet, I suspect, though of course I never saw it. In this building we're all good friends -- it's required. When we had parties we invited everyone. When we invited everyone, we invited Mr. Gerber, too.

If you forced him to speak, Mr. Gerber would straighten up, tuck his chin down toward his chest, and say that he was grateful, grateful to be at a party like this, among people like these people. Mr. Gerber was so strenuously grateful one wondered if he was grateful at all.

I should clarify some things about myself. I am a person who tells the truth. Thus many people do not like me very much. I'm not a sentimentalist. I'm not a sympathetic sort of person. I'm a pragmatist. I'm an M.T.V. person. Do you know what that means? That means: My Time is Valuable. All right, let's continue.

Mr. Gerber was extremely unobtrusive, but he was always around. If you came home early feeling under the weather, there was Mr. Gerber. Or late on Sunday afternoon when distractions were running low. At 3am when you couldn't sleep, there was Mr. Gerber, clearing away the junk mail, sweeping out the entryway.

If you caught him alone Mr. Gerber was chatty, in a style both humdrum and bizarre. He'd chat about the light that was out, about trash collection, about the weather -- and then he'd sigh and say, "For so long I dreamed of this and now I'm living it!" And an enormous smile would sweep over his face.

I am not impressed by poetic-type people. If you take a moment to investigate their self-conscious behavior, you will nearly always see an attempt to camouflage failure. Like women who gain weight and become spiritual.

For all his being nothing, Mr. Gerber was extremely grandiose. His life appeared to be 10% of one's own life, which frankly was shoddy in some departments, and yet he talked like he was rags to riches, like his whole entire wish list had been delivered. He was delusional obviously. Probably he was actually severely depressed. I've seen a case or two of this before.

I suppose he was giving me some clue the afternoon we discussed Christmas shopping, while leaning up against the mailboxes. He said he was pleased to be finished with his shopping. (I have no idea who he could have been shopping for. I myself never received anything from him.)
Mr. Gerber said, "I like things -- but most of all I like the space between things."

Well. It sounds a little spiritual written down, doesn't it? Trust me, it wasn't spiritual at the time. He had one hand in a crinkly bag of BBQ ripple chips, He had little orange specks around his lips.

Conspiratorially he leaned near me, breathing on me with his barbecue chip breath. "Have you ever been in the train station at rush hour, shoving and elbowing along with everyone else, when, without warning, a gap appears? You've got 144,000 people in front of you. 144,000 in back. But nobody is quite exactly where you are. You're in a little gap. I love that."

I bet, if we really looked into it, we'd find out that Mr. Gerber really was a pervert. Perverts resemble skim milk and are always careful to be the nobody next door.

As for myself, I don't shirk responsibility. I believe in doing things. I celebrate achievement. That is why I live on the top floor, whereas Mr. Gerber lived in the basement. Both of us, it's true, live alone. But a corner on the top floor is obviously very different from a corner in the basement.

All religions of the world agree on one point: every little thing you do matters. All of us are born with a 'to do' list. We must work, procreate, ornament, etc. Like it or not this is the situation. When we die we go to Heaven, to the auditors, and all our exotic destinations, university publications, and redheads are tallied.

You can pretend otherwise but that just means you are afraid of life. At very least you must avoid blowing your nose on cloth napkins and eating potato chips on the train.

One night -- I was having some troubles, I admit. I don't have nearly as many troubles as most other people, but still I have some. For some reason I was walking around in my t-shirt. And underpants.

This is not as inappropriate, as abandoned, as it may seem. I am fastidious about underwear, about its cleanliness. And all my underwear is very modest, more modest than what many people wear on the outside.

Anyway, it was the middle of the night. In one of my hands could be found a fifth of whiskey. I turned the corner and saw that there was someone there. I started to apologize -- but there was no need. It was only Mr. Gerber.

"Whiskey?"

Mr. Gerber looked at the bottle. "It isn't space really," he said. "Actually it obliterates space. But it feels like space." I thought this meant I could continue enjoying my liquor privately, but he took the bottle from me, and had a good strong slug of it.

I remember he didn't shiver and his eyes didn't widen any. So maybe that was Mr. Gerber's story.

"Isn't this the very best time of night?" said Mr. Gerber. "I adore it. I like stumbling on these odd times when one can really live."

Well, this was nonsense, and I would certainly have said so, had I not been overwhelmingly intoxicated. And so I said, "Gosh. You really like some unusual things, Mr. Gerber."

"I like all the things that are likeable. And also those things that cannot help but be loved. Dust, for instance." Now he started counting things off on his thick stubby fingers. "I like train stations when the train is gone. I like gardens in winter. Nothing charms like the absence of charm! I like cafeterias. I am addicted to laundromats. I dislike traveling, but I enjoy being in transit. There's no place a man can really live, don't you agree, besides in a city, in a basement apartment, in a building where no one really likes anyone!"

Likely this was not Mr. Gerber's first whiskey of the evening. Some people enjoy being eccentric and contrary. And they expect other people to find it just delightful.

Personally, I dislike monologists. Don't you, too, dislike monologists? It's the back and forth of dialogue that enriches one, connects one to the species, even has health benefits. Not so Mr. Gerber. He did not seek the back and forth, the to and fro. Mr. Gerber had his speech prepared. No doubt he was a deeply lonely man, and monologues, as everyone knows, are a hazard of that species.

"One of the joys of modern life," said Mr. Gerber, "Is the perfectly anonymous coffee shop -- not the most popular chain, but its cheaper, though I grant still over-priced, imitators. Each shop is just like another and even the street corners on which they appear are so similar, so dull and gray, that you could never agree to meet anyone there, because you could never think of anything that might distinguish it from any other shop, its street from any other street, its city from any other city, until finally you cannot even distinguish yourself from anyone else: in a place like this you can really live!"

My diction doubtless makes Mr. Gerber's gobbledygook more distinguished than it really was. I decided to confront him about his evasions, to remind him that work and restraint are necessary, that the age of consent is 18. Unfortunately that drunken evening was the last I saw of him. For shortly after this discussion, Mr. Gerber disappeared.

I don't mean that there was anything untoward about it. I don't think he ran out on the rent. He just isn't with us anymore.

The odd thing is, now that Mr. Gerber is gone, he's become a very common topic of conversation among residents here in the building. They want to know where he went. They want to understand him. This is a sentimental and foolish interest which Mr. Gerber does not in any way merit.

Thus it disturbs me somewhat to discover that I, too, am unable to stop thinking about Mr. Gerber. Mr. Gerber is absolutely stuck in my mind. He appears to have become part of the structure, like train stations and dull street corners. Like dust.

I want very much to see Mr. Gerber again. I would greet him courteously. I'd listen to whatever nonsense he wished to share. And I'd be sure to tell him, "We cannot forget you, Mr. Gerber." I think the look of disappointment on his dull face would be most satisfactory.

Holy Books of Guttersnipe Das: Robert Walser

Robert Walser, Masquerade

translated by Susan Bernofsky

Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990

I adore Robert Walser. Sometimes I think I love him too much. Like, I might have amounted to something, might have succeeded in life, if I hadn't been all the time reading and re-reading Robert Walser. Maybe this book was a really bad influence on me. Maybe you shouldn't read it.

But it is so wonderful. So alive. Despite reading omnivorously and obsessively for years, I haven't found anyone else who writes anything like Robert Walser.

Walser's work is gleefully improvisatory, deliberately sketchy. It disappears as you read it. He is strenuously humble. Haughtily humble. He never stops referring to himself and how minor he is.

There's a special Jane Bowles variety of relief I feel, reading Robert Walser. The relief of having absolutely no idea what sentence is coming next. The feeling that the writer does NOT have a perfect and fixed agenda that I must now march down without missing a scenic vista or semi-colon, as if I were a tourist/prisoner on some kind of militant buttoned-up bus tour.

I think Masquerade is my favorite, among the Robert Walser books now available. (If you can, buy whatever is available. The books go in and out of print.) However, if you're just discovering Walser, I recommend reading Selected Stories first, followed by Masquerade, and then try one of the novels -- Jakob von Gunten or The Tanners.

It's more useful to "taste" Walser, than to try to explain him. Thus, here are a few typical sentences you'll find inside Masquerade:

(p.71) "I came into the world on this or that day, was brought up in this or that place, went properly to school, am something or other, am called so and so, and don't think much."

(p.77) "She then offered the opinion that she was the embodiment of a long string of capricious notions. I said I would love all her notions, would even worship them."

(p.31) "The elegant woman is somewhat hesitant to bite into the caviar marvel; naturally I imagine it's me she's holding and no other, that's why she's not entirely in control of her biting powers. It's so easy and so enjoyable to fool oneself."

(p.154) "Being carefree is never permissible, only seeming to be."

(p.170) "One should, in my opinion, treat sinners with care. To be sure, depravity can not only be exceedingly moving, but even something splendid. I incidentally possess, at the moment, a great deal of social polish, which I point out expressly for the benefit of those incapable of believing it. What a smashing, springblossomishly unfolding tussle I tussle!"

AWE.

"Please," you said. "Less awe."

I’m sorry. I must have seemed terribly exaggerated. Maudlin. But please imagine, pretty boy, that you are 53. Beauty’s not just some dainty treat. It’s a surprise. And not like a birthday party, but really a shock to the system. Especially if you have been alone for a very long time.

Do you know what it’s like to be lonely? Perhaps you do. In the beginning loneliness is quite passionate really, as it stumbles over broken ground: boulders, lava flows, birds of prey. That sort of thing.

After a long time it is a clear cold flat expanse. You can see for miles in every direction. No one is coming.

Excuse the fancy turns of phrase. Nowadays I read more books than I talk to people. Drama is something I enjoy – but only in books with Russians! Years ago I was advised to cultivate a simple life.

I shouldn’t be grandiose. After all, I was completely wrong. I felt like I was living on the moon. And someone was sneaking up on me.

I’m 53. I wrote that already. At a certain point your age becomes a talisman you wave in front of you in hopes life will leave you alone. It doesn’t work. But anyway – I’m 53. I was never particularly handsome. Not like you! OK, for awhile I had a certain something maybe. That something has long passed. My father and grandfather were both bureaucrats. I have inherited neither their money nor their influence. Their jowls alone have been vouchsafed to me.

I have enough money for basic security, none for excess. I admit I like security. I have never been a globetrotter, a go-getter, an enthusiast. I am not saying this is the way you ought to live. But it is not such an uncommon strategy either. I look upon disappointment as a friend and ally.

Now can you imagine how I felt – when I answered the door and a boy stuck his tongue in my mouth?

Do you understand why I shook? You looked worried -- I must have seemed even older than I am. Please understand: I prepared for disappointment. I did not prepare to have an Italian boy (28!) unbuckle his belt in my entryway.

Those who fast are warned to resume eating only gradually -- a bit of gruel, weak tea. Whereas I was accosted by the buffet. I am sorry if I sighed a lot or looked close to tears. I am grateful to have survived.

This is not an effect of age: all my life I have struggled to retain my composure in the face of good news. I remember the day at work when I was told I had been promoted to assistant manager. (This is the same job I have now, 23 years later.) I still remember the day. I locked myself in the bathroom for an hour. I was sure I was about to be sick.

The year before last a stranger's child threw her arms around me at the park. I'd been pushing her on the swings. I'd sung a little song for her. She hugged me and my eyes welled up. Her mother laughed -- and pulled her off of me at once. I'm sure I seemed a little crazy, the kind of person not to be trusted with children.

Years ago I had as many aspirations as anyone. I may even have been grandiose, if you can believe it. And then – well, I lost my balance. I was advised to live a simple life. I got a job at the drug store. I moved in with my mother.

It would have been easier for me, I think, if you'd refused to move and expected me to do everything. If you'd demanded money or stolen something from the nightstand. Lord knows, I'm used to that.

But you said (and, hello, you demonstrated) that you are attracted to older men. Good Lord, the fetishes people have nowadays: spitting, spanking, amputees, auto-asphyxiation, old men. Such perversity. God bless you!

I have adjusted, adapted, prepared, accommodated myself to simplicity, to ordinariness, to what is drab. But please keep in mind: I recognize that I am very humble, very nothing. But life however is very rich. It is extremely even overpoweringly rich and, contrary to the advertising blitz, it does not care whose handbag you are carrying. It does not care if you have a Mercedes or a Mastercard or an enormous penis. Life goes on being rich. Yessir, even for me at Payless Drug six days a week, with library books and 2 cans of Diet Beer, with my chapped lips and increasingly demented mother.

All that is required is a certain quiet precise attention. I cultivate this. I sometimes even think that life is more well-disposed toward me, because I am so very nothing.

My mother used to tell me that I was too proud. You see how we are misunderstood even by those who purport to know us best.

Mother, as you know, is extremely unwell. But there is something in her even now: Mother adores monster movies. Often now she seems very far away, but she still lights up to see a giant reptile wreaking havoc, a luxury shopping district squashed.

That night -- the night before we met -- was a double feature. I stayed up very late to watch with her, to watch her. Something I would ordinarily never do. And so the next morning I was exceptionally tired and accepted the new clerk's offer to get coffee from the gas station, except that the clerk is new and added too much sugar and got an extra large instead of a small and I was on auto-pilot and drank it all and that, I think, is why I did something so abandoned, so reckless, so entirely uncharacteristic of me, and winked at you, when you came up to the counter with your can of Red Bull, and Cheddar Cheese pretzel combos, and two boxes of Trojan Magnum XL.

Please understand – about the wink – it’s not the sort of thing that I would ever do. Except that I did.

I’m sure you understand now how I felt when you handed me the receipt. I’m sorry I acted so dense. I assumed you wanted to return something. You smirked, I looked down at the paper and – there was your phone number.

The other clerks are very good to me. Even if they accuse me of being “brainy”. I bring them donut holes every Friday. Nobody minded that I lay down in the storeroom for an hour. I’m sure they just assumed that I was worried about my mother.

I didn’t call you. Of course I didn’t call you! Do I have to start explaining all over again? I am 53. Almost 54 actually. I have a double-chin. If an Italian boy with a trouser snake passes me his number I assume it is going to cost more than I can afford.

The next day you were back, looking aggrieved and demanding my address. Which was, of course, just next door. Of course I would never give a total stranger my address. My own mother’s address. Except that I did.

I have water and canned food in case of earthquakes. I have a back-up generator. I have the phone numbers of three coroners taped inside the cupboard. But you were an emergency for which I was not prepared.

About my mother. Please don’t be sorry! Yes, she was startled to see a nearly naked man in the entryway, grappling with her very own unbuttoned son. But in another moment I’m sure the memory had entirely dissolved. Anyway, she was exceptionally cheerful the whole rest of the evening. And I’m sorry that I myself was so startled. I wasn’t horrified actually. It’s just that, at the moment she came around the corner, I’d forgotten that I even had a mother.

As for the rest – how can I thank you? It’s like my soul’s been reupholstered, new doors and windows, new carpets throughout, all new appliances, solar power!

And that is why I must insist that you not contact me again. Good news, for a man like me, is contraindicated: it’s over-rich, intoxicating. Potentially devastating. I am nursing my mother throurgh her twilight years. To tell the truth, management has several times offered me promotion. But I don’t want my own store. Assistant manager is high enough in the world for me.

I’m sure this will be no sacrifice for you – I suspect that you are only passing through. Wild boy! Anyway, this city has an army of plain faced fifty-somethings if that is your fetish. They will be thrilled to see you. Most of them have money.

I’m sorry – to good news I cannot adapt. I suspect my mother will soon be unable to dress herself. I am prepared for that. I have learned to live my simple life. I cannot risk losing my balance now. I cannot adapt to good news – which is, I suppose, a kind of fear of heights.

There are many drug stores in this city. I reckon most of them stock Magnum XLs! It will be easy for you to avoid mine. Super Walgreens, to tell the truth, has better prices.

Please tear up my number. My face will be easy to forget. Thank you for your praise and endearments. I am certain that you do not mean them. This is a well-known Italian characteristic.

Please don’t call or come into the store. Please no letters. I almost never go out now that Mother is doing so poorly so there is zero chance of a random meeting.

Above all I must insist that you not come to the door again. You see what kind of man I am. I do not know what I would do --

Enlightenment -- and What I Wore.

A Zen Story Retold.

A rich lady who wanted to be enlightened climbed a mountain to meet a holy woman. Reports that the rich lady climbed the mountain in 400 dollar Italian pumps are completely false. In fact she'd bought new high-class hiking boots for the occasion. Extremely comfortable, excellent traction, and also quite chic. For hiking boots anyway.

Certainly it's a question that merits consideration: what shoes do you wear to be enlightened?

Also false are reports that the holy woman was up there wearing a white sheet or even naked. She had a down parka. A cheap one and patched with duck tape but still -- real down. A few tiny feathers were caught in her wooly brow. Reports that the holy woman had once been a courtesan or even a princess are likewise groundless. No question but that this old woman had been Plain Jane even half a century before.

The rich woman presented gifts as she had been instructed: a garland of orchids, a specialty fruit basket, beeswax candles. The holy woman was very interested in these gifts at first, but afterwards looked quite disappointed. As the rich lady began to prostrate before her she could be heard muttering, "Still no cream corn! Why, after all this time, can't people understand that I would simply like a few cans of creamed corn!"

As she prostrated, the rich lady recited the obligatory verses of praise. And all the while she was thinking, "This had better not be a scam! Maybe this old girl is going to be re-selling the Alfonso mangos in two hours time." The rich lady was also worried this might all be joke and there was a camera somewhere and this was all going to be on TV and then she would never ever be promoted to executive vice president.

Still, she'd come this far -- she'd bought new boots, she'd gotten a blister -- and so she joined her palms above her head and said, "Please! Show me the way to enlightenment!"

The holy woman stared at her. The holy woman ran her tongue over her desiccated lips. She had an enormous thick tongue, a real dong of a tongue, the kind of tongue possessed only by people in nursing homes, a tongue seen wandering around the mouth after the mind is gone.

"You're sure that's what you want?" said the holy woman. Her voice was unexpectedly tender and motherly, as though she were asking if French Literature was really such a practical thing to be majoring in. "You're sure that's what you want?"

"Yes, that's what I want! The student is ready! Show me the way to enlightenment!" The rich lady recited it thrice, as she'd been instructed.

The holy woman sighed, like this was really not what she was in the mood for today, but still she put her shoes on. She had an old pair of sneakers, quite incongruous really, like a high school boy might wear for track and field. She laced them up carefully and then she pushed herself up to a standing position.

"Well, all right then," said the old woman and transformed in a flash into a gigantic three-headed demon, a dank shaggy saber-toothed thing, which drove the rich lady out the door and out onto the mountain path.

"WTF!" thought the rich lady abbreviatedly. "Why did I ever sign up for yoga! I could have signed up for hula! I could have signed up for Pilates!" The rich lady kept running, always just a few steps in front of the demon, gagging at hideous smell of its breath: dead puppies and peanut butter.

Although the holy woman might have seemed kind of fake, but the demon was entirely real. Vicious and horrifying and -- Sorry -- not in any way comical.

In spite of the fact the rich lady had never seen a demon before, this demon was not wholly unfamiliar. One of its three heads was that of a guy who'd put a gun to her once, the only time in her life she'd ever been threatened, a strung-out dead soul face -- even blown up three times the size and sulphur-colored she could recognize him.

As for the second head, well, of course she recognized that one -- she was married to it. Her good husband, who had a personality at work supposedly, who did as he was told to do, who thought as he was told to think, who could no more have an original thought than he could lay an egg. What an agreeable thing, it seems, to be marry an agreeable man. Until you find yourself in a walled-up room screaming, Is anyone there?

The third head, well, that also was easy. That was her own face in the mirror. Not the face she saw -- the face that always threatened to arrive. The face she attempted to ward off with creams and exercises, with yoga and antioxidant supplements, with positive thinking. Here was that face, her own face, wrecked by time, by bitterness and busy-ness, by the life she'd left unlived.

All three heads had the same horrible teeth, the same awful breath, as the demon ran behind her shrieking in unison the same terrible word.

NOW! Shrieked the demon. Now! Now! Now!

The rich lady sprinted along the mountain path, the demon close upon her, its claws extended, its teeth about to chomp.

NOW! Shrieked the demon. Now! Now! Now!

Overheard: Charity

“Charity is impatience with God. That’s all it is. Doing something God ought to have done already but God didn’t do it and finally it pissed you off enough you decided, fine, I’ll do it myself, and I’ll have a talk with that G.O.D. when I see him.

“There are so many paths to God, so many attitudes one can assume: friend, slave, child, mother but nowhere in the sacred treatises will you see 'God as roommate' discussed as a sacred path. And that is because God SUCKS as a roommate. God will leave the dishes in the sink forever.

“And all God’s codependents, all God’s buttbuddies, will try to explain it away: God is busy, God couldn’t possibly be expected to --, maybe God thinks this would be a nice time for YOU to develop your leadership skills. More generally everyone will just pretend that the dishes aren’t there or even that it’s the dishes own damn fault.

“And this is how charity arises, charity means being entirely pissed off and fed up. To such an extreme degree that you decide, fuck it, I’ll just do it myself. This is charity, and naturally it is virtue most prized by God, since it gives God one less thing to do.”

The Difficulty of Making Good Choices.

After much deliberation, after contemplating and delineating their desires and expectations, as well their weaknesses, histories, and needs, along with the possibilities and limitations of their current situation, they decided not to become lovers. Because, despite their physical attraction to each other, they recognized a physical relationship would not likely lead to happiness, not for themselves and not for others, at least not in the long term. This was the choice that they had made and they had made this choice carefully. This was the right choice.

They were still friends. Of course. And so they met for coffee. As friends do.

“Great to see you again.”
“Great to see you, too.”
“Thanks for meeting me.”
“My pleasure.”
“I think – is it okay to talk about this? I think we made the right decision.”
“Absolutely.”
“You’re feeling well?”
“Perfect.”
“And you’re -- comfortable sitting out here? Not chilly? You don't want a table inside?”
“No, it’s lovely out here. So bright.”
“Can I ask you something?”
“Of course.”
“Personal questions are okay?”
“Well. Ask me and I’ll think about it.”
“Why are you wearing a face mask and a scarf and galoshes and industrial overalls and a motorcycle helmet? It’s a warm day – and you are not riding a motorcycle.”

“Just felt like it.”

The café was a little expensive, the coffee incredibly strong. They sat sipping it now.
“A face mask is certainly a common sight in this city. It’s flu season after all. And as for the winter clothes, well, plenty of people believe that winter begins on a certain day and so they wear their fur trimmed coat and snow boots even if it’s downright balmy. Overalls are always adorable but the overall effect – is it okay to say this – seems to me, frankly, outlandish. I’m not hurting you am I? You know I never want to hurt you. The motorcycle helmet seems particularly superfluous, since you came here on the bus --”
“I’m comfortable.”
“That’s what matters. Are you comfortable?”
“I’m not comfortable at all. Physically. But I can say that I have a certain spiritual comfort as well as a hard-headed pragmatic satisfaction.”
“You’re quoting my letter.”
“I agreed with your letter.”
“I’m glad to hear that.”

They sat together in silence for the next few sips of coffee. The man who asked questions bobbed his head around, nodded like he was checking things off a list. Yes, it was Thursday morning. Yes, this was Tokyo. The sun was out and so were the high society wives and their ten thousand dollar dogs. He never stopped smiling.

The other man may or may not have been smiling. He had his visor down.

“You’re okay?”
“Yes! I’m completely okay,” said the voice inside the helmet. “Of course I’m a little sweaty, but that’s to be expected.”
“Good, good.” He went on nodding at the air. “Listen, I don’t want you to feel like I’m pressuring you – because I totally respect you and your decisions and those decisions, we both agree, don’t have to look anything like what other people are deciding but – are you sure you don’t want to remove something?”
“Of course I would like! But no, absolutely not. Oh, hell.” There was a muffled sob from inside the helmet.
“Oh honey – I mean, dear friend. Does this have anything to do with what we decided?”
“I completely agree with what we decided. It’s definitely the right choice.”
“It’s good to hear you say that.”
“And sometimes, when you make the right choice, you have to accept, it’s going to be a little awkward sometimes. For example, now.”

Another long silence.

“I am very interested in what you are saying. Please -- continue.”
“We made an excellent choice. A mature thoughtful and ethical choice. I will sleep better. Eventually. I presume. In the meantime, there may be, as I said, some awkwardness.”
“I think I see what you’re saying. You mean, despite the choices we made there are still residual feelings which – point in another direction.”
“Something like that.”
They nodded to each other, one hairy head and one motorcycle helmet. The natural opening was lost; the moment passed. Their coffee was nearly finished and what was left was cold.

The man in the motorcycle helmet lay one gloved hand on the other man’s thigh. The other man looked carefully at that hand.

The voice behind the visor said, “I want to fuck you in bed. But only to start. Really I what I want is to fuck you down on the floor. So we can really have at it. I want to spank your hairy ass. I want to be buck naked with the blinds open and the sun streaming in. I want to beg for it. I want to cram your cock down my throat. I want to feel your balls resting on my beard. I want to put my tongue in your asshole. I want to drink your hot spunk.”

At tables all around them, Japanese ladies did not turn to look. Immaculate in linen, in the style, still, of Audrey Hepburn, those ladies did not turn and did not look. Perhaps a particularly sharp eyed observer might have noticed the muscles straining in their delicate necks. Perhaps they might even make an appointment later with their acupuncturist. To help them manage the discomfort accumulated over a lifetime of not turning. Because these were absolutely first-rate ladies, the kind who do not ever look.

Their dogs had no such qualms however. Naturally. The dogs were positively riveted, straining at the end of their leashes. Those little dogs were absolutely interested in finding out what happened next.

But anyone with even the most rudimentary knowledge of men, or dogs, will not require such elucidation.