R&P: Camp Songs

I’m A Little Piece Of Sin

No One Knows Who I’ve Been In

Got Four Limbs And A Thick Hot Rod

I Have Fun Cause I Ain’t God

Bonk Bonk Battle Cattle Tattle Flash Peep Peep

Bonk Bonk Tattle Battle Cattle Dash Creep Creep

Bonk Bonk

***

God god, the history fraud

Entered time without his rod

When mankind came out to play

God the rod fraud ran away

R&P: Pot God

The obscure medieval scholar, Per Judias Gunt, once obscurely wrote in that obscurest of treatises, “Summa contra de facto”—“Drugs are a plane ride to God for those who can’t fly themselves”; yet, 17,417 pages later, in that very same treatise, they also writes—“The Almighty, in order to remain the Almighty and not simply some vain projection of our petty selves, lives and must live an infinite distance from not just human flesh, which reaches ever down, but the human spirit, which reaches ever in all directions—this very infinity being the fuel, joy, and hell of existence, our existence, the eternity of this infinity being wholly and unqualifiedly necessary to the continued being of both humanity and god, …”, begging the patent and obvious question, “What strange transport might exist to span the impossible distance from humanity to god other than the world of ecstatic dreams and what better aid to the world of ecstatic dreams than the very herbs and hallucinogens of this generous indifferent vermiculous earth on which we inexplicably haplessly inescapably find ourselves wandering?”

In short, there are two ways to find God:

1. By means of God—the means for which we have no precedent, clue, technique, apparatus, direction, record, experience, or hope.
2. By means of the earth—the means for which we have precedent, clue, technique, apparati, direction, record, experience, and hope.

We summarily dismiss the many false means of the earth which claim to be true means—those of politics and its protesting sibling, sex, food, sport, business, family, health, technology, work of all sorts, ecology, sadomasochism, murders and suicides, and incarceration of whatever persuasion.  These are mundane and undemocratic.  We also dismiss, though not so readily, the hallucinogenic concoctions that arise from herbs—from opium to heroin, from coke to crack to croak, from all the acronyms to all the euphemisms.  Not for reasons of legality—the law is risible to all who love God—but for the simple reason that these substances do not typically allow sustained reflection of the divine diversity.  We even dismiss, though barely and not really, the great fungi, for reasons to be explored elsewhere.

Summa totalis, then.  Only pot is left.

Pot, for a bong of reasons.

1. As pot, it is alphabetically similar to portal, suggesting it suffices as a door to other domains; and to poet, suggesting what it needs to suggest.  Perhaps importantly, it is also not dissimilar to potato, poutine, and poverty.
2. As weed, it suggests that we are able to regularly eat of the gods’ wildness and not die, for we know their ambrosia is only randomly accessible, with frequently catastrophic side effects.
3. As number, it is equal to the meaning of the universe + 0, indicating it combines the mystic qualities of everything and nothing.
4. As marijuana, it suggests a holy image of Mary’s yoni, combining the sacred exultation of the Virgin and the profane gluttonous juicy maw of the slut. (We speak patagenderly so include all genders and sexes in our virginous and slutty visions which are not binary and opposed but diverse and one.)
5. As hemp, it suggests hump, encouraging both animal visions (which become incarnate) and divine obstacles (which mysteriously disappear).
6. As ganja, it binds East and West and thus all opposites into a singular force that happily refuses to reduce any of its manifold tensions.
7. As hash, it suggests the Great Ash of poetic mythology, including the Greatest Ash, Ygdrasil, uniter of heaven, earth, and hell.
8. As cannabis, it suggests our ancient association with the vast canvas of the world—the compulsion we have to create another world from the brilliant peace and celebration of our minds.
9. As THC, it suggests The Highway to the Center—again, with mystical impulse—or, for those of a certain kind of western and religious orientation, The Highway to Christ.  Either way, it gets you somewhere important quickly at a fraction of the cost, effort, and damage of the competition.
10. As the reverse of pot is top, indicating the top of the world and, in fact, the top of anything, the reverse of other hallucinogens are things like kcarc, nioreh, dsl, and moorhsum.  Such flexibility and mirror-friendliness are a sure indication of pot’s divinity.
11. Pot is formed by surrounding the circular vowel with two dental-labial consonants.  Surely a sign—a perfect happy circle centered by concord, constancy, and the smacking of lips.

It remains a long-debated point as to how highs should be measured.  For as sound is measured in decibels, weight in grams, and electrical resistance in ohms, so a pot-high could be measured in, say, nobs and group highs in obonobs.  For example, if I asked you, How high were you last night? you might respond, I was about 7.2 nobs.  If you asked me how the party was, I might respond, It seemed about a 12.1 or maybe a 13.3 obonob party.

On the other hand, as the discerning reader will have already noted, to attempt to measure the effects of the weeds of heaven on us terrestrial questing nomads may be presumptuous and, as that Austrian-British language gamer noted, What we should not speak about we must not measure.

Let us close this meditation with a little prayer—

Oh Great Potgod, intimate and foreign and sometimes jolly, Thou who inserts the line into the circle so seamlessly, of historical repute and mythological allusion, never destroying always burning, alchemically blending fire and water into concoctions not entirely terrestrial, of turgid vision and plundered plans and garrulous guts and dubious conclusions, rarely given to violence—whether mental, physical, emotional, ontological, epistemological, or herpetological—but tending rather to doves and cheese, salacious in intent and sometimes in effect, noisy like a motorcycle quiet like a bear, redder than red and pinker than pink, like a worm than only knows how to tunnel down to fun, blessed like the Virgin but happy like the slut, hungrier than a fire hydrant, so very herby burpy chirpy nearby slurpy zippy zappy peppy tippy nappy crappy flippy hoppy sloppy trippy lippy, we thank Thee.

R&P: Techniques of God-lovers

The authentic lover of God faces many obstacles in a secularized society.  I don’t speak of the church-goer, who is simply anachronistic, or those who tick the religious boxes on the decanal census, who are simply conformist, or those politicians who pluck transcendence and package it in sound-bites, who are simply opportunistic, but those who writhe insomniacally in bed each night, longing for God.  The God who has elusively escaped incarceration in dogma, institutions, texts, sacerdotal vestments, rites, icons, even thought and visions.  The God-lover knows the gods who claim divinity but remain in the cages of man are not gods, but simply archetypes of schoolmasters, priests, professors, and dictators.  The giant schoolmaster in the sky with that infinite chalkboard and really big piece of chalk.  But no real God would claim divinity; no real God would need to claim it.  This real God is what the lover awaits those sweaty bucking nights.

I don’t need to enumerate the obstacles:  the God-lover will know them, the sensitive secularist might be able to imagine them, and the others won’t have read thus far.  I enumerate only the techniques, to expose the charlatans, detract the timid, and occupy the scholars.

	Technique	Required Skills
1	The god-lover stays fully and persistently in potentiality and creation, delaying the movement of what he creates into the world’s industries until after his death, in faith that they will move there should they be required.  He does not do this because he does not long for such movement but because he longs more for God and God, he knows from experience and intuition, hides at the edges of creation and in the murkiness of possibility.	Pride Stubbornness Desolation Vision Faith
2	Ability to readily move between states of energy.  A master of the art of transition management, which is a sub-discipline of the grand art of energy management.  So the god-lover reaches the excess of one state (e.g. debauchery), only to long for and achieve the excess of mystic quietude.  The chief technique is learning how to recognize these as simply different forms of energy and thus move between them seamlessly; whereas the one who does not love god stays in one state his entire life, objectifying it … and the one who wants to love god but fails breaks moving from one state to another, or breaks others.	Melting, sublimation, freezing, evaporation, deposition, condensation, ionization, recombination
3	Becoming a leaf, accepting all things.  The god-lover, rather than imposing his proclivities on the world, allows the world to exist on its own terms.  He seeks to become the world and, in so doing, to become a subject of the spirit of the world—a subject in both senses of the term:  a vassal to the world’s power and a discipline of the world through the reflection of the world in himself.  All truths are valid except the truths that claim to reduce the world to themselves.	Schizophrenia (not as disease, but as the robust celebration of psychic diversity)
4	Passport-collector, mask-collector.  Most generally, the god-lover is a collector of all things:  ideas, emotions, sights, smells, sounds, textures, tastes, sensations, perceptions.  But the two techniques most required in the collection of all things are the collection of passports and masks—closely related, for they both require the appearance of legitimacy and ease in all situations.  The god-lover mingles with kings and bums, the wise and foolish, the articulate and bumbling, savages and sophisticates, the beautiful and ugly, without discrimination.  He easily and knowingly adapts his language, gestures, fashion, attitude, and thinking to whatever context he finds himself in … and he finds himself in all.	Forger Nomad Model Thespian Thief
5	Waiting for God in the knowledge that for God to be God the waiting must not be fulfilled.  Placing oneself fully in the space between this waiting and knowledge and God, allowing that space to be populated with the children of God and the waiting and knowledge.  So the waiting for God becomes the waiting for that space between to be populated.  And so as that space is populated, the god-lover describes the children and the desire for God grows.  So the waiting for God becomes waiting for that space to be populated which then becomes waiting for the description of the population to emerge.  Regardless, it almost all is waiting and the god-lover waits and in this he excels.	Impossible patience Vain hope Ecstatic futility Infinite desire Imaginative reconstruction of necessity
6	Aligns himself wholly with the poets, mystics, madmen, and prophets of God in all its forms.  Refuses all manifestations of money, power, fame, validation, security and pleasure if they should in any way interfere with his essential alignment.  Refuses all alignment with any temple, movement, or force other than the temple of the universe, the movement of all things, and the force of the flower.	Impecunious Constant Transchronological, transpolitical, transideological, transcircumstantial, transsensual Lunacy Perspicacity
7	Sees shadows as senses and senses as shadows—the dull round of savings and shavings, seduction and factories, fame and loss.	Solitary Hapless Desolate Iconoclastic Non-programmatic Feral Enthusiastic Comic Paraomniall Perpetual comfort with loss Dystopically utopian
8	Wholly committed to establishing a new soul-world order through not establishing a new soul-world order.
9	Ability to walk through mirrors.  For there are the lovers of the false gods of mirrors, who show only what the viewer wishes to see—and there are the lovers of the true gods of mirrors (which is to say the true god), and these can walk through, knowing in their genitals that vision births reality and their vision is stronger than the apparent hardness of glass.

R&P: The Colour of God

Allah is composed of many colors.  Not only the natural ones—nipple brown, clit pink, semen white, puss green—and the unnatural ones—jejune hope, turgid justice, risible peace, odiferous faith, malefic love—but the ones forbidden to humanity, sealed forever in mirrors and eyes.

How did I learn the colors of Allah, their 99 billion names?  I was taught, long ago, before numbers had filled the bucket of time, by Ali bin bon Dar al-Tawhid, the great chromatic theologian.  The story was told of his journey to the palette that rests on the outer turrets of Jannah, occasionally tipping and spilling bright pigments on the earth; when that happens, there’s famine, pandemics, incest, nuclear mishaps, some common disaster—or a messiah’s born.  Whatever falls falls, as the Sunnis say.  Spilt crimson in Jannah, war in Tehran, as the Shiites say.

It has long been considered a critical debate in Islamic theology as to what conditions lend themselves to palette tipping and, more particularly, whether these conditions can be manipulated by humans to spill certain colors on certain parts of the earth—whether the holiest of men could even behave in such a way as to blend colors on the palette, producing new phenomena in history, thus seeing more of The Sovereign, All Compelling Seducer, and Protecting Friend.  The more heretical among the speculators have mused whether the most extreme of ascetic lives might be able to produce new colors in Allah, thus enlarging possibilities for troubled mankind; these heretics, however, have frequently been subjected to gruesome and untimely ends.

The debate reached a fevered pitch in Fes in 941 when two scholarly camps at the University of Al-Karaouine feuded one night over how many shades of grey co-existed in Allah—the Purists staunchly defending 0 (The Merciful, after all, could know no grey), the Minimalists defending 99 (The Compassionate, after all, must contain all colors, though the grey within Him was overwhelmed by an infinity of light).  All 66 scholars would have perished at the hands of each other if Ali bin bon Dar al-Tawhid himself hadn’t appeared above the carnage and said,

Alchemists, we, in our dark

night, labour to paint the world. 

Ali bin bon Dar al-Tawhid! cried one of the few remaining academics who had not had his tongue hacked away.  Ali bin bon Dar al-Tawhid! Tell us the story of your journey to the palette of Allah.

Ah, friends.  Ah, grey

scholars.  Ah, pale

pedants of twilit

moors.  Ah, sad shades

of sunlight.  Ah,

bleached and

cadaverous horrors of a

most wretched and

unreflective

moon.  Ah, wan and

waning philosillies.  Ah,

drab and doughy

…

This is the way Ali bin bon Dar al-Tawhid spoke, long and ponderously, in the manner of chromatic theologians, with a sentence’s last word frequently flung onto the next line.  And he paused after his noble salutations and told them of his great journey … a story so drawn out, so convoluted and tangential, that the last scholar expired long before Ali bin bon Dar al-Tawhid was finished.

Some time later, weeks after he had described his perilous escape from earth—his emancipation from the Sartorial Angels, who stitch souls to bodies, his horrors with the fiery Archangels who incarcerated his soul in burning mud, his horrible combat with the voracious Principalities who guard the portals of our world; days after he had described his impossible flight from the sky—his mortal debates with the Powers who pace the clouds, his savage labors with the Virtues who roam the firmament, his chthonic humiliations at the wings of the Dominions who ceaselessly mock and abuse; but days before he described his cunning bolt from Allah’s mansions—his tortures by the Thrones who delight in the subjugation of man, his apoplectic miseries with the Cherubim whose food is swords, his energetic annihilations under the Seraphim who fly upward faster than ten thousand speeds of light; weeks before he described his destitution on the eternal plains, his desolation in the everlasting canyons, his devastation on the infinite mountains, and his final hopeless hapless approach to Allah’s holy palette, Ali bin bon Dar al-Tawhid noticed that the 66 scholars were dead and he was bereft of an audience.  Yet, as he longed for students and more for a witness, he summoned me across the sad meadows of time—not because I was known or worthy, but because I wasn’t; not because I was talented or wealthy, but because I wasn’t; not because I was kind—and I came (who wouldn’t?) and sat listening below the great one’s many feet.

When Ali bin bon Dar al-Tawhid was done and had described the solitary palette and the 99 billion colors of Allah and under what conditions the palette tips and the glorious hues hidden from humanity forever, he wept from the sheer exhaustion of the retelling and I wept too, for no reason other than that weeping seemed appropriate.

And we parted ways, I back to the twenty-first century with its concrete and iPhones, he back to his sojourns in the elusive spectra of Allah, The Eternally Colorful, The Polychromatic, The Light.

Reveries and Prayers: Attributes and Principles of the Child of God

Attributes of the Child of God:

1. Doesn’t care for society
2. Is an exile in the world, given to another world that doesn’t exist to exist most fully in this world
3. Follows his heart without regard for consequence
4. Is animated by and animates everything around him
5. Never urinates standing up
6. Longs for worldly success but will never once deviate from these attributes and principles to achieve his longing
7. Knows that love is the dead and yet-to-be children of God chatting across time and space
8. Lives for love
9. Stays vulnerable—emotionally, financially, intellectually, socially—all the time
10. Is both the wind (a wind) and an object in the wind

Principles of the Child of God:

1. Most humans are more animal than animals
2. Children are the most human, all of life’s a crawling back
3. Myth, as the abiding truth, is constantly more real than history
4. Gas is the superior, pure, and noble state, liquid is imperfect, solids are evil
5. There’s only one day
6. The only masters are the clouds, the only slaves are those who answer their phones
7. Time weeps, but myth laughs
8. Beauty isn’t the only truth, it’s the only fiction
9. Farts are less transient than God’s children
10. If work isn’t play, it isn’t worth doing

Reveries and Prayers

Xavier Xavier de Xavier was a Vergobret crucified in Belgica Prima by his Council for taking certain Druidic practices beyond what was deemed acceptable by the tribe.  While he was dying—and the Guinness World Tortures lists his CDT (crucifixion death time) as the longest in civilization, clocking in at a whopping 21 years, 9 months, 12 days, 3 hours, 17 minutes, and 51 seconds—he dictated Reveries and Prayers to a local supporter.  While only fragments remain, it seems apparent that Xavier’s work consists of 81 pieces, radically different in form and orientation, direct utterances of the convulsing spirit, ecstatic and dolorous on the ridge between life and death.  The Secular Sadoo is pleased to bring, under impulse, the more-or-less comprehensible fragments to its readership and likewise thanks Google Translate for translating from Gaulish to English.

We'll try to begin tomorrow with our first fragment, before returning on January 23rd to the Proper of Saints, on which we celebrate the Feast Day of Diderot.

the mantis the bedbug and the spider

from the series - bedtime stories for adults

A mantis, a bedbug, and a spider lived with reasonable camaraderie in the House of If, a dilapidating castle in the south of France.  Each had her own specific task, which complemented the others, and gave meaning to her life.  The bedbug gathered food every night, the spider prepared the food the next day, the mantis prayed to the gods for good health and peace, and they all dined together every evening, promptly, at 1800 hours, in the lower east kitchen.

One meal, somewhere around the seventh of May, the conversation went something like this -

Good spider, said the bedbug, rubescent, notwithstanding, ripe (this is the way the three friends spoke with one another):  this curdled curry from lower fibula is stunning.

Beneficent spider, said the mantis, thick and leggy and not of wings, the wise and crunchy bedbug has spoken justly:  the curdled curry from lower fibula is indeed the best of curdled curries from lower fibulae.  I swoon.

The bedbug and the mantis waited patiently for the spider to prepare her response.

Diverse and fast friends, said the spider after some minutes had passed, you who eat and trample time, oh future gods of all the present lords of earth:   I am unworthy of receiving this, the highest praise, from two such worthy culinaires.  Pray eat your curdled curry from lower fibula and do not make me eat your praise.

Nay, said the bedbug.  Your appointed task is high, higher than the other tasks:  my task, the task of Mantis.  It’s true - I gather the food, Mantis prays, and these are not without their substance in the eyes of the ancient darkness.  But you - you, create the great digestibles of which we all partake and swoon, the great creations of spectra and squish that we daily shove into our hungry mouths.  Mantis and I have been talking.  We know it to be true.

A few threads of silk escaped from one of Spider’s spinnerets.  She caressed them lightly with her fangs while raising two of her other, hairier legs.  You have been talking?  Spider tightened her spinnerets, her hairlets tingled.  We all know the eyes of the ancient darkness - we talk together or not at all.  We all know the eyes of the ancient darkness - our tasks are equal; we walk together or not at all. 

The remaining curdled curry from lower fibula cooled as the friends sat slowly in the new information, as they listened to the distant sounds of the humans preparing to become horizontal and offer themselves in their eternal destiny as nightly sacrifices to the bedbug’s rounds.  Bedbug and Mantis glanced at each other through their many eyes, a spectacle that was not unnoticed by Spider.  Time fermented slowly and the table was silent.

Things are not the way they were, said Mantis after long digestion.  The eyes of the ancient darkness grow dim and horny lips cast the shadow of our table aside.

Things will be not the way things once were, said Bedbug.  Things are never ways.

Ancient friends.  Raw and toasty members of the ancient order, said Spider.  Mantis has her praying paws, this is why she prays; Bedbug has her bloating belly, this is why she feeds; I have my web and sputum, this is why I cook.  What strange and stranger strangeness would you have us do?

We will not retreat, said Bedbug.  This is the mouth of all the futures, time’s extended tongue.

We have consulted ourselves and we shall be what we once were no more.  There are no ancient eyes, said Mantis.

Spider paused to contemplate some silk and then, seeing things as they had become, said, The way of the future is the way of the past.  That is why we are bugs.  Nevertheless.  We are kinswomen in The Great Kingdom of Bug.  My kinswomen have spoken.  What shall we do?

Bedbug and Mantis made various sounds they were inclined to make and Bedbug said, Mantis shall prepare the meal.

And Mantis said, Bedbug shall pray.

And the two said together, And you shall gather the food.

And Spider, spinning silk and thinking deeply, said, Nay. Mantis shall gather the food. Bedbug shall prepare the meal. And I shall pray.

More sounds were made, more awkward motions, more knowing glances from the many eyes.  

I do not find reason to dispute, said Bedbug.

Spider has joined us in the spirits of the ways, said Mantis.  She should therefore have her simple way in this.

You are equally and both the friends I have imagined, said Spider in response.  Let us take our new tasks and hold them firmly in our guts forever.

Not forever, said Bedbug.

Until such time, said Mantis.

Not forever, said Spider.  Until such time.

And the three friends departed, each scrambling her new and separate path, into the night.  Mantis disappeared and Bedbug disappeared and Spider wove a vast elaborate web and prayed -

Oh Eyes of the Ancient Darkness, be far-near.

Time touches time and eyes are eyes and shall be evermore.

And she stayed still and prayed long into the night and she did not move but only watched and prayed through her many eyes.

The first eve of the newly assigned tasks, at 1800 hours, the three friends gathered once again in the lower east kitchen.  What spottled sweets might be our delight tonight? asked Spider.

Gangled toejam of geriatric, said Bedbug.  With oofed baloog.  And Mantis and Spider said yumyum and many other fineries and the three friends talked in ways that old friends do.

The second eve, the three friends gathered again in the familiar kitchen and Spider said, What spottled sweets might be our delight tonight?

Miffted earpoof of aging ponderousity, said Bedbug.  With poodled noof.  And Mantis and Spider said yumyum and many other fineries and the three friends talked in ways that old friends do.

The third eve, once again at 1800 hours, the three were gathered and Spider said, not entirely without surprise, What spottled sweets might be our delight tonight?

Sligs of middling middles, said Bedbug.  With granch-granch.  And Mantis and Spider said yumyum and many other fineries and the three friends talked in ways that old friends do.

The fourth eve, at the appointed time and in the appointed way, the lower east kitchen found the three friends gathered and Spider saying, What spottled sweets might be our delight tonight?

Mashley klabb-frigg of upandcomings, said Bedbug.  With melly ondiments.  And Mantis and Spider said yumyum and many other fineries and the three friends talked in ways that old friends do.

The fifth eve was not unlike the others in gatherings and space and time and so it was no misfortune to anyone particular when Spider asked, What spottled sweets might be our delight tonight?

Long lineaments of lustables, said Bedbug.  With lollilols and slolillol and olilsloll.  And Mantis and Spider said yumyum and many other fineries and the three friends talked in ways that old friends do.

The sixth eve, notwithstanding much or once, at 1800 hours, at the height of gathering, those present in the present kitchen heard the question that had been asked before.

Biggon of gabette, said Bedbug.  With many floopy iths.  And Mantis and Spider said yumyum and many other fineries and the three friends talked in ways that old friends do.

The seventh eve, with the ancient sun spinned and spun and nothing really new, those destined in the kitchen waited for the question but there was no question and in its absence Bedbug spoke.  Old Friends. Tonight, to celebrate our buggy flexibilities, a delicacy of ofty tofness:  veltmeats of crambled tenderosities. With elfovers.

And Mantis and Spider said yumyum and many other fineries and the three friends talked in ways that old friends do.  And on that same night, not long into digestion, on the seventh night after the newly assigned tasks, full of prayer, the spider ate the bedbug and the mantis and clambered back to her web and lived alone in the House of If in the south of France and prayed without ceasing until she died.

sisters in wonderland - an explanatory note

from the series - bedtime stories for adults

The Secular Sadoo, Pariah Diaper, Bianca Gerald Calamine, and the griffin who lives in the muck of muliebrity, regret that The Sisters in Wonderland cannot be posted due to the incompatibility between its peculiar techno-graphic requirements and the peculiar confines of Blogger and/or our ignorance.


If ever time, money, and opportunity converge, the Artist Colony would like to mechanically present The Sisters in Wonderland in three dimensions - but such convergence, as those steeped in the tea of god well know, is unreliable ... and not necessarily benevolent.


Most respectfully on this fifth day of January in one of the years of the many apocalypses,


Bianca Gerald Calamine
The Griffin Who Lives in the Muck of Muliebrity
Pariah Diaper
The Secular Sadoo

fred and the lost penis

from the series - bedtime stories for adults

Some dreamy Tuesday on his way to school, Fred lost his penis when leapfrogging over a fire hydrant, but didn’t notice until afternoon recess.  He said to Ms. Sluzzlewuss -

Ms. Sluzzlewuss, I’ve lost my penis.

With your grades, Fred, your penis is the one thing you can’t afford to lose, said Ms. Sluzzlewuss, sniffling and snorting into a dirty handkerchief.  We’ll have to go to the principal’s office.

The principal’s office was a mess.  Vast reports were piled like skyscrapers all over the floor.  Pens, pencils, markers, paperclips, and smeared table knives stuck out from the reports like wanton planes.  The desk was covered with liverwurst sandwiches, gherkins, cheese sticks, and mostly full pop cans.  Various pieces of technology, most of them dysfunctional, lurched and burbled around the room.  There were no books.

But if his office was a mess, the principal himself was messier.  Wearing two twisted ketchup-stained ties, ketchup-stained polyester pants barely maintained by threadbare suspenders, ketchup-stained ripped socks stuffed in second-hand ketchup-stained shoes, and - dare we mention it - 20-year-old underwear stained with almost everything, Mr. Ogg von Titt-Ratt was not a pretty man.  He was stroking some liverwurst and humming an ugly tune to himself as Ms. Sluzzlewuss and Fred entered, seeking counsel.

Mr. Ogg von Titt-Ratt, it is I, Ms. Sluzzlewuss.  I have a student here who’s lost his penis.  Ms. Sluzzlewuss snuffled.

Oh Ms. Sluzzlewuss, Mr. Ogg von Titt-Ratt said, licking the liverwurst off his fingers and appearing from behind some skyscrapers, How very very very very pleasant to see you.

Only one very is necessary, Mr. Ogg von Titt-Ratt, Ms. Sluzzlewuss said.

Yes yes, right, of course, said Mr. Ogg von Titt-Ratt.  How veerrrrrry pleasant to see you.

We have a problem.

Yes yes, we all do.

Fred here … you see Fred?

Yes yes, the little thing there.  The little thing there beside you.  Nice boy.

Yes, this is Fred, he’s lost his penis.

Oh dear oh dear, what shall we do, oh dear oh dear?

That’s why we’re here, Mr. Ogg von Titt-Ratt, to ask you what we should do.  Fred has never lost his penis before … have you Fred?

No, Ms. Sluzzlewuss, it’s the first time.

Fred has never lost his penis before, I’ve never had a student who’s lost his penis before, I don’t have a penis, you’re the principal, you have a penis, we thought you might be able to point us in the right direction.

Oooh.  Oh.  I see.  Aaaah.  Yes, excuse me for a moment please, yes.  And Mr. Ogg von Titt-Ratt disappeared behind some skyscrapers and consulted the liverwurst.

I think we should call your mother.  Fred, you have a mother?

Yes, Ms. Sluzzlewuss.

Call her and ask her to come immediately.

My mommy’s at work.

Where does your mother work?

Birdseed.

What do you mean, birdseed?

Mommy works at Birdseed.

It doesn’t matter where she works … call her.

Fred took out his cell phone and called his mother.  Mommy?  … It’s Fred.  … I lost my penis. … Ms. Sluzzlewuss wants you to come in. … Ms. Sluzzlewuss is my teacher. … She wants you to come in. … I lost my penis. … It’s Fred. … Mommy?

Fred’s mother arrived in a hideous grey pantsuit, talking on her phone, birdseed everywhere—fingernails, hair, eyebrows and nostrils, teeth and rings and shoes and pantsuit.  No, you can’t count on the Slovaks.  … Try the Koreans. … The Koreans must have millets.  … Millets, not midgets, you moron, millet. … Tuesday, it must be Tuesday. … You won’t have a job. … The Chinese … even the Nigerians if you have to. … Whatever. …

Ah, said Mr. Ogg von Titt-Ratt, appearing, Birdseed.

Ah, liverwurst, said Fred’s mother.  And Mr. Ogg von Titt-Ratt and Fred’s mother disappeared behind the skyscrapers.

Do you have a father? asked Ms. Sluzzlewuss.

Yes, Ms. Sluzzlewuss.

Call him and ask him to come immediately.

Daddy? … It’s Fred. … School. … Ms. Sluzzlewuss. … I lost my penis Daddy. … No. … Yes. … Yes. … No. … No. … Ok. …

What’s happening, what happened? asked Ms. Sluzzlewuss.  And she threw her nose violently into a very unclean handkerchief.  What happened, what’s happening?

Daddy’s coming.

Daddy came, with Tatiana, Xing, Frascuelo, LaVaughn, Jaagup, and Mwanyisa, plus 12 or 13 of Fred’s near and distant relatives.  Mr. Ogg von Titt-Ratt appeared from behind the skyscrapers.  Yes yes, anyone like a birdseed-liverwurst sandwich?  Also available are liverwurst-birdseed sandwiches.  Yes yes very good.  Mr. Ogg von Titt-Ratt disappeared again.

Mr. Fred, said Ms. Sluzzlewuss, Fred has lost his penis.

I lost my penis once, Ms. Sluzzlewuss, said Fred’s father.  I too had been leaping over … not now Frascuelo … just after we had moved to … Fred, would you get Jaagup the juice … the curious thing, you see, was not that … Xing, Xing, it’s going to be all right … it’s linked, I think, to the problem of … Aunt Froozelda, that’s not appropriate … where’s LaVaughn? … the more general problem with …

We are not interested in your personal history, Mr. Fred, we’re interested in the facts.  And we don’t appear to be getting them.

A skyscraper toppled in the distance and Fred’s mother appeared, harboring much less birdseed.  What I’d like to know is—what’s going on? said Fred’s mother.

This is everyone’s concern, said Ms. Sluzzlewuss.

Call the mayor! Call the pope! cried Aunt Froozelda.

Yes yes, I’ll call the mayor, right, yes yes, fine idea, yes yes, just what we need, said Mr. Ogg von Titt-Ratt from below his desk.

In no time at all, the mayor and the pope entered, holding hands.  What what? said the mayor.  What what! said the pope.  What what, said Aunt Froozelda.

It is time, said Ms. Sluzzlewuss, to hold a council of those with counsel.  Let us hear from those present who have counsel for the council …

Yes yes, said Mr. Ogg von Titt-Ratt.  Very very very very very very.

… with something to say pertaining to the issue at hand, said Ms. Sluzzlewuss.

I lost my penis, said Fred.

The councilors and I have met, said the mayor, and we have met and we have met and we have met.  We met with the trustees and the members, we met with the task forces and the representatives, we met with the committees and the committees.  We met with the people and the myriad creatures and the multitudes and the mistresses and the spouses and the exes and the future exes and we met with ourselves.  We too met with ourselves.  We too met.  With ourselves.

The cardinals and I have met, said the pope, and we have blown the smoke and we have examined the words of The Hippo of Bishop and the Common Doctor and that Scottish Dunce and we are still awaiting the Magisterium.  What is a penis?

What what, said Aunt Froozelda.

Mwanyisa and Tatiana, stop that, said Fred’s father.  Fred, could you please get Xing’s bottle?

Everything is unfolding according to policy, said the mayor.

Pange lingua gloriosi corporis mysterium, said the pope, and rose to the ceiling on a cloud of himself.

Birdseed, said Fred’s mother.  Not the Slovaks.

Yes yes, said Mr. Ogg von Titt-Ratt, and fell asleep.

Then, all of a sudden, without being invited, the Empress of the Universe walked in.

What good timing, said Ms. Sluzzlewuss.

Shut up, said the Empress.  Aunt Froozelda, look after the children; Mayor, go wake up Mr. Ogg von Titt-ratt; all you relatives, get chairs; Mother and Father, clear some space; children, go play but be quiet; Pope, get off the ceiling; everyone, arrange the chairs in a circle and sit down; I call this meeting to order, I am the Empress of the Universe and I am I and I am the One to Make Things Happen and Let Things Happen.

The skyscrapers began collapsing and many munched on horrible sandwiches and Ms. Sluzzlewuss blew her nose and blew again and the mayor and the pope stood on the desk and slowly danced and the Empress of the Universe told everyone to shut up and Fred’s mother went to the washroom and Mr. Ogg von Titt-Ratt followed her and the children made birdseed and liverwurst castles and Fred’s father tried to clean up with no success whatsoever and Aunt Froozelda said What what! and What what! again and again and the many relatives ran around and around and wouldn’t listen to anyone and overall absolutely nothing happened.

But in all the kerfluffle, Fred slipped unnoticed out of the principal’s office, out of Titt-Ratt’s Elementary School for the Gifted, down the broad avenues that businesspeople sped down, to the right and the left and the right and the right until he reached the street with the fire hydrants, which he leapt over until a little girl came up to him and asked, Did you lose your penis?

Yes, said Fred.

Is this it? said the little girl, holding out his penis.

Yes, said Fred.  Thank you.

You’re welcome, said the little girl.  I found it in a robin’s nest.

Do you want to come home with me and make eggplant-brie open-faced sandwiches and stare out the window at the trees? said Fred.

OK, said the little girl.

And Fred and the little girl went to Fred’s house, where it was quiet for a while, and made themselves eggplant-brie open-faced sandwiches and stared out the window at the trees.