The Email Project - More Lengthier Excerpts

...From Emails I've Received

Subject: Amusement For Me
sorry for lapse. tried to answer b4 but didn't feel up to it - my reply sounded all odd- deleted/sent I donšt know - so many hours later, with '2manydjs' in the shadow of my ear, i am feeling much better b/c: i decided to have a halloween party and base it on borges: 'the book of imaginary beings'. it will be difficult. my friends will hate me. but it will provide amusement for me.

bunuel: have just come back from a wedding in brussels that was a beautiful boschian mixture of 'the discreet charm of the bourg'. and 'la grande bouffe' (not bunuel, but whatever...also, no death - but there were some naked people in a swimming pool ...it is abominable and wrong i tell you when a drunken middle-aged french woman takes her clothes off)
Subject: A Modest Proposal
apropos of amusing pictures and job note: we got an interesting proposal the other day, long-awaited due to the tone of suppressed Crimean rage in the author's memorable phone calls, having aggressively pursued three editors in the office, including the director, before my supervisor assigned him to me so the rest of them could get some work done... So his ipso facto terra firma magnum opus arrived.. He suggests we publish his definitive history of the Karaite people from whom he is descended, which includes a comprehensive and probably polemic history of their oppression at the hands of, well, just about everybody, maybe even the Poles... To illustrate their vivid and distinct culture, Prof. Kefeli (of the fine Slippery Rock University; he actually teaches biology) included three photographs of Karaite artifacts.. They appeared to have been set up on a picnic table in his backyard, and included 1) a metal pitcher, an elegant but not breathtaking design, 2) some historical hero, probably on the order of Casimir Pulaski, and 3) a group of truly excellent fezzes. Guess which one I kept. I'll send you a copy of the (one-page, badly xeroxed) proposal if you like.

...Excerpts From Livejournal's of People Who Used To Love Me But Then Stopped And Disappeared And I Later Discovered They Had Simply Changed To A Different Livejournal, But Still Don't Love Me, And They Have No Idea I Found Their New Livejournal.

Entry One- Howling Fantods
I had a dream about Ronald Reagan figure-skating. It was terrifying. I remain chilled.

I was, in fact, so chilled that I forgot all about how weird it was seeing Dave today. I'm still so perturbed that I feel almost cured of my pessimism. I've got the fantods tonight, and the only solace seems to be apple juice and bright lights and stale soft pastries shaped like monkeys.

I have identified four gradations of insomnia:

The Chilly Willies.
When the airconditioning is set to freeze. I dream, unbidden, of voyages to the North, of tundra and borealis, penguin and polar bear. I am asleep on ice. A bear is there. It touches its nose to my nose...

The Creepy Crawlies.
Mottled and itching flesh proves that I haven't spent the night alone. I have concluded that my bedmates are conspiring cartographers, and that the bumps on my flesh form a map of planets yet unknown.

The Heebie Jeebies.
I have a dream about something or other and it forces me to come down to the living room and turn the lights on and sneak leftovers out of the refrigerator.

The Howling Fantods.
This is typically the result of a dead baby dream; or, worse, the dead-baby-in-a-box dream. If I were to see a dead baby in real life, I would be completely revolted. In these dreams, however, I'm always tempted to lay hands on the damn thing. Probe away at a dead baby long enough and you'll have the fantods too. I always wake with the conviction that something terrible is approaching and it's time to check the news. But nothing ever happens.
  • Good shit or am I missing something?

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