Q: Do you like to make your bed in the morning?
A: Absolutely. I use a sledgehammer. I get insights by
reaching for the pillows. I keep a trapeze under a stuffed horse. I use it to
swing back and forth like a trombone stuck in a jujube.
Q: What do you think of today’s propaganda?
A: I think it’s terrific. I’ve never seen so many
brainwashed people. I mean, what an achievement! We’ve finally reached a point
where someone with a different viewpoint is persecuted like Joan of Arc. No
society can function like this. Therefore, propaganda should be the national
religion. All it requires is a ruthless disregard for truth. Propaganda is a
virus that will bring the so-called civilized world down. Our species will be
erased. The world will become pristine again. We are a failed species, but we
did help bring newspeak and agitprop into being, which proved to be the DNA of
our undoing. Propaganda is the wicked genius of fiction. It is to be regarded
with great respect, and the flourish of a hand in a white parade glove.
Q: Have you ever worked in a mine?
A: Do you mean mine, or mind? I’ve worked in a number
of mines, and minds. I discovered a vein of gold in a bus driver once. He was
totally incompetent. He kept driving the bus over the sidewalk. I descended
into his mind and discovered his whole secret depended on pessimism.
Q: How do you feel about the American embassy in
Morocco?
A: It’s a crumpling temperament, a fragile disaster of
soap. I can taste the apricot in the mouth of the traveler at the end of a long
day exploring the streets of Tangiers. I see William S. Burroughs seated behind
the desk, fanning himself with a multicolored bamboo fan and offering a lump of
hashish on a silver platter to his guests and applicants. I offer a salute. And
thank him for his service.
Q: What are your feelings about music?
A: They’re mostly red, the kind of red you see at
Christmas, or on the nose of an alcoholic butcher with a passion for Bach. When
I listen to Karen Carpenter I want to run around the house naked trailing a
bright red scarf. Jimi Hendrix makes me foggy, like tomorrow’s pants, red of
course, with hundreds of pockets and a parachute. John Cage opens my mind. J.J.
Cale blows my mind. Keith Richards conducts mass with a boogie piano and a bell
tower of chapped percussion.
Q: How do you feel about Jerry Lee Lewis?
A: I become incandescent and masturbate.
Q: Do you understand electricity?
A: I don’t, no. I think it’s got something to do with
electrons or something. Is it onions? It’s a dramatic medium, isn’t it? It’s
not exactly Dada. It’s so purposeful. All those wires leading up to something.
Toasters, tortillas, and tacit assumptions. Have you ever been shocked? The
muscles ripple with its energy. I don’t know. Maybe the secret of electricity
is Dada. Electricity is the mother of Dada.
Q: What do you think Heidegger meant by “Transcendence
constitutes selfhood?”
A: I haven’t the faintest idea. Let me ask you
something: what are you doing this for?
Q: Doing what?
A: Interviewing a dead man you’ve never met and trying
to pass it off as some sort of journalistic éclat or literary feat. Don’t you think that’s
a little pretentious, not to mention dishonest?
Q: Ok, you got me. I’ve been exposed. But isn’t this
fun?
A: It’s fun. Yes. I’d like to go back to being dead
now if you don’t mind.
Q: Sure thing. Thank you for your patience.
A: hi ho Silver! And away!
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