A Vision of Happiness (Pt 1)

I wanted to slaughter every sesquipedalian-slinging pretentious fuck that came through the bookstore doors and bought the new edition of 100 year old books. "The author is dead!" I would say. "Go find a used book suppository." And they didn't get that joke because they hadn't seen that movie. So it goes.
For them, the act of owning the book, the art, was more important than reading it, looking at it. If you sold 10 Moby Dicks in a week, 1 would get read. They would bring it every day to the coffeeshop and thumb through it, as if they would chance upon greatness like they did on the genetic lottery for their parent's trust funds.
Always. Every day is exactly the same. And now you know that this one won't.
It started with on a beach. More accurately, it started with a glimpse of a woman on the beach. And, even more accurately, it started with a glimpse of part of a woman on the beach. A disembodied arm had washed up on the shore. The hand was palm down, stuck in a claw shape like a kafkaesque insectoid being. A scorpion. I'm a Scorpio, but don't you believe that I believe in that. Just a coincidence. That in an of itself wasn't that unusual, back in the that time, that time before we had the order we have now. And I mean the time when I was orderly.
So, no. A disembodied arm was not a normal thing. I don't even think it was ever a normal thing, save from the remnants of Kublai Kahn's fleets or a battle like at Lake Trasimene. Though such bloodshed being normal is anathema to me.
Usually.
In any case. I was on the beach, where dirt meets water. I don't know why I was there and I can be hardly blamed for not remembering considering that I had just found the arm of a woman. And I could tell it was a woman, due to the delicate nature of her hand and its adult size yet hairless and feminine appearance. I know I know, one could shave one's arms. And that's possible, but the presence of that light hair on the pale skin belied that it was not a shorn arm, but rather an arm of a woman. These are all generalizations, I know I know.
So I brought it to work. I had intended to bring it to the authorities but as I stood outside the police station I knew that I had fumbled. I should have called the police with my mobile before picking it up and carrying it to them, like I was some kind of domesticated dog bringing a dead animal--a rabbit, for example--as a gift to the family.
My heart is filled with failures. It is a crowded heart. This is one of them. I could outline them all but like the voices tell me over and over again but that is not the purpose of this narrative. You are not reading this to get to know me or my neurosis. I am reasonably sure that you are reading this despite that. You are reading about the arm. The asset of my narrative is this arm. That is what it is.
I shouldn't have brought the arm to work. But the shells were talking and told me to. The shells on the beach. I cannot be blamed for their insistence. It was for the best as I might be late for my shift and the boss said "Don't be late again or I'll steal your glasses and never give them back." I wasn't egregious with what I had absquatulated. I brought it in plastic bag so that any fluids would not leak and soak through the backpack that I carried everywhere. I double bagged it. And, for the record, it did not leak. It wasn't hermetically sealed, no no. Not at all like that. Just that there was no blood or whatever fluids or bile that she may have contained.
No, the story doesn't end with some co-worker discovering the arm. The story doesn't end like that. No-one found the arm. I just brought it to work which we all know and have discussed as being unwise. Have we? Unwise, then, I am. Though compelled. 
Pt 2 to come.

Uncovered

Need a new cover. Hmm. edit: I realize this was indulgent. Trying this on my Kindle.

Abashed Hawking of an eBook

Well, here we go. I know what happened this Christmas. You got one of those neat Kindle thingies or an iPad or a nook or a Sony Reader or another electronic reading kind of device. You got one of those things and played Angry Birds enough to get frustrated. Then you downloaded whatever "Classics" that you totally intend to read. You maybe even polished one of those off as part of a New Year's Resolution to "get cultured." You have Sense & Sensibility and whatever translation of War & Peace you managed to download and they're going to sit there collecting virtual dust because it's hard to get into a Victorian corset or 1800s Russia in the 5 minutes you spend on the toilet. 

I get it. And so here you are. Completely getting cultured is tough. I get it. I've got those same books on my tablet. I've been reading Anna Karenina for a year. 

Those are long books. And you don't have that kind of time.

What do you know? I'm a provider, girl. So I put I Have a Dog Named Gus: Vol. 1: Short Attention Span Literature on the Amazon site for sale as a Kindle eBook. It doesn't even cost a dollar. And it's got a whole bunch of stories from this site and www.danielrobertmaurer.com already in it, so you don't have to deal with Blogger's wonky formatting and being online to read another one. There are a couple new stories, yes. And they are awesome. Or at least I thought so when I wrote them. 

So you want? Great. 

Oh, wait. A Kindle? You don't have one of those? You have [UNDEFINED_READING_DEVICE], which doesn't support the Kindle format. Or you don't like Amazon's business practices. Fair enough. I understand. I can take that. I adapt. Like I said, I'm a provider. 

See, I did not sign up for any Amazon thing that says I cannot provide the eBook elsewhere. I was tempted. Lord yes, I was. But I resisted the devil of Capitalism. Oh yes, I did. 

So, if you are thusly inclined, you can paypal me (at danlowlite@gmail.com) the 99 cents and I will email you the file. All is kosher. Or copacetic. Or whatever. 

And that's all. I'll stop now. 

All right, I feel gross. Time to wash my hands. 


Edit: Yes, I do need a new cover. 

Inevitable Delays

I made up a cover and decided that I didn't like it. I need to find an appropriate picture of said dog...I have thousands of pictures. I suppose I could just take another one, but that might be too easy.

I'll learn not to open my damnable mouth one of these days.

Selections of Nietzsche from Untimely Meditations

I have a certain special place for Nietzsche. I don't agree with everything, obviously, but there is something about how he wrote that seems sublime. His earnestness is so integral that every sentence is pure passion pushed through a portal of time. And, of course, a good translation helps. So when I found this long QOTD from his Untimely Meditations (via, portions of the original view-able here), I read it, mouthing the words as I do so. I do that because I think it helps with the rhythm and helps keep my place in the longer sentence structure than I am used to in my usual reading. It also helps me stay mindful about what I am doing and prevents me from getting distracted as easily. The habit of distraction is so easy.

I haven't read this work of his, so, I must confess to an ignorance of context, but...anyway, selections:

Artists alone hate this sluggish promenading in borrowed fashions and appropriated opinions and they reveal everyone’s secret bad conscience, the law that every man is a unique miracle; they dare to show us man as he is, uniquely himself to the very last movement of his muscles, more, that in being thus strictly consistent in uniqueness he is beautiful, and worth regarding, and in no way tedious.

And

And if it true to say of the lazy that they kill time, then it is greatly to be feared that an era which sees its salvation in public opinion, that is to say in private laziness, is a time that really will be killed: I mean that it will be struck out of the history of the true liberation of life. How reluctant later generations will be to have anything to do with the relics of an era ruled, not by living men, but by pseudo-men dominated by public opinion; for which reason our age may be to some distant posterity the darkest and least known, because least human, portion of human history.

Lastly

One has to take a somewhat bold and dangerous line with this existence: especially as, whatever happens, we are bound to lose it. Why go on clinging to this clod of earth, the way of life, why pay heed to what your neighbor says? It is so parochial to bind oneself to views which are no longer binding even a couple of hundred miles away.

I dunno. It's not new stuff, but I like it. And that is sufficient, I think. I think I'll have to dig my copy of this out and finally read it. I think I have it.