SELECTIONS FROM THE KING'S NOTEBOOKS: PART ONE
Self-Savagery no. 444: Never fail as you are expected to fail. Always find new and exciting carriages of underachivement; new methods of being wrong. Never be buried in the coffin that fits.
With this in mind, a little exclusive:
SELECTIONS FROM THE KING'S NOTEBOOKS; AUGUST 1977
'The King speaks in plurals,' they're saying, 'and it ain't no Royal We.' The implications being that yours truly is losin' some of the glass coloured balls that are gathered precariously in his lap, when in all truth, folks, Ah'm only just beginning to see the light of day.
For truly, mah twin has arisen and mah future is cojoined to his. Ah is we, mah hell is his.
But how many coaches long is our train of misery? When will the whistle sound? And when, all in all, will that engine disappear into that tunnel? Ah'm feelin' right now that conspiracies abound, and that those around me have answers to these questions. Indeed, ah've been offered suggestions by various less-than-trustworhy sources. You got trust, but if you take tea like the British, an' one of mah boys talks up his Scottish parentage on one side an' his Devonish ancestry on the other, well, if you take that T from trust y'all be hearing right when y'all find that what is left is rust. And rust expands like cavities, sweetheart, it does for sure.
Ah see how the brain can terrorise itself if it is occupied with only this kind of nonsensical deliberation. Ah'm gonna ride it out on mah horse, sweat it out in racquetball, carve it out in chords on the piano... but it doesn't work. That contraption within mah skull whirrs and buzzes and ah'm tick-tick-ticking mah way to blessed confusions.
Ah have ascertained, from various nocturnal computations, that we are players in a game; Ah have forseen this in mah dreams. Of a night, Ah will sit in the chair ah have placed in Cilla's room, at least on the nights that she is not staying there, and ah will dream. Ah dream not of the wondrous and sinewy future; but of the dull tomorrow, the real-life, very next day tomorrow ; And so every word that anyone says arrives at my eardrums as old news. These hobo minds around me are speaking from a script. Their actions are directed from a supernatural page.
Mah deliberations began with the example ah will give you first; with Annie's song. Annie, mah beautiful coloured nurse, with her rainbow smile; her simple holy outook and her gorgeous bulk; ah love her like a nanny. It was her, without any realisation on her part, that aroused me to the curious happenings in mah dreams. And forthat ah will salute her eternally.
When Annie prepares me breakfast, she'll say, every time, 'batton down the hatches, a sharp wind is a'comin'', and then she'll barrel in through mah bedroom door. Every morning, the same.
But this mornin' the other day, she was muttering away to herself, instead. Indeed, she rolled into mah room quite without announcin' her dubious entry, and did not pause to check her incroachin' trajectory over mah private airspace. She just carried on a-mutterin' and a-whisperin' to hesself as she walked, smilin away but somewhere else altogether. She put the tray down on mah side table.
'What's that you sayin' there now Annie?'' Ah asked, not a little cantankerously, having had mah slumber interrupted in such an unusual fashion. Now happens ah do not like to raise mah voice to mah staff; not like mah daughter, who' d threaten to have them fired for the wrong type of pancakes of a morning. No sir, it's wrong. This was as angry as ah ever got. And Annie, such a subtle mind usually, with an eye for every nook of every personage in that there house, well, she didn't pick up on mah irate lines and carried on with herself.
She was animating, with that sing-song voice of hers, some lyrics that ah remembered immediately:
'Now this is the Law of the Jungle -- as old and as true as the sky;
And the Wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the Wolf that shall break it must die.
As the creeper that girdles the tree-trunk the Law runneth forward and back --
For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack.'
Now the reason ah remembered so easily is that these words had been in mah very dream, the one she had awoken me from. It was a dream in which ah, along with mah mentor, spiritual advisor and karate teacher, Kang Rhee, were taking on some unblessed dark spirits in some unholy part of the United States of America; using breathing exercises, we were putting these blackened spirits up to the most irregular of examinations. And all throughout, as we set our feet and elbows into their evil personages, a-kickin' and a-punching with righteour vigour, mah master was a talkin' to me, most calmly. A lesson, it seemed, so I listened, ah committed to memory, ah examined the contents. Ah believed, at the time, to be hearing some proverb of Eastern philosophy; but upon waking, and hearing Annie sing-alinging the very same words out over mah room, ah knew that her limited education did not extend to covering any scriptures from Asian lands, God bless her heart and lungs, except those of the disciples themselves, bound up by King James.
Annie denied any knowledge of what she was saying; said she must have picked it up from one of the boys. Now ah may be in a period of suspectin' these boys around me, and so mah judgments may be bruised; and ah may reckon on the fact that ah do not know their tastes and motives as well as ah may or might; but ah am sure that they do not qoute such poetics around the other hired help. Or at any time, indeed.
Presently, mah cousin called from back home, telling me about little Johnny and his efforts at his schoolin; Ah'm interested in the little fella, he's a good kid, and ah believe we must take an interest in the educations and ruminations of our brethren and their flocks. So ah probe mah cousin further, askin' for details of said little Johnny's efforts; and upon probin' her further, she regales me with the tale of his reading to a packed school hall, a verse by an English poet by the name of Rudyard Kipling.
'You might know it, Elvis,' she said to me, 'It's all about the law of the jungle, and how the strength of a wolf is in it's pack. Ah don't recall it word for word…'
… don't worry, now, cousin, ah said, through mah shiver of horrible coincidence; don't worry yourself, for ah know the exact same poem you are referrin' to.
The whole business got me to thinkin' that ah should take a notebook with me to mah dreams, so as to heed the happenings therein. What it all meant was anyone's guess, blessed with education or otherwise. But ah knew that conventional schoolin' was not up to the task; ah knew somethin' more sinister and enraged was afoot.
With this in mind, a little exclusive:
SELECTIONS FROM THE KING'S NOTEBOOKS; AUGUST 1977
'The King speaks in plurals,' they're saying, 'and it ain't no Royal We.' The implications being that yours truly is losin' some of the glass coloured balls that are gathered precariously in his lap, when in all truth, folks, Ah'm only just beginning to see the light of day.
For truly, mah twin has arisen and mah future is cojoined to his. Ah is we, mah hell is his.
But how many coaches long is our train of misery? When will the whistle sound? And when, all in all, will that engine disappear into that tunnel? Ah'm feelin' right now that conspiracies abound, and that those around me have answers to these questions. Indeed, ah've been offered suggestions by various less-than-trustworhy sources. You got trust, but if you take tea like the British, an' one of mah boys talks up his Scottish parentage on one side an' his Devonish ancestry on the other, well, if you take that T from trust y'all be hearing right when y'all find that what is left is rust. And rust expands like cavities, sweetheart, it does for sure.
Ah see how the brain can terrorise itself if it is occupied with only this kind of nonsensical deliberation. Ah'm gonna ride it out on mah horse, sweat it out in racquetball, carve it out in chords on the piano... but it doesn't work. That contraption within mah skull whirrs and buzzes and ah'm tick-tick-ticking mah way to blessed confusions.
Ah have ascertained, from various nocturnal computations, that we are players in a game; Ah have forseen this in mah dreams. Of a night, Ah will sit in the chair ah have placed in Cilla's room, at least on the nights that she is not staying there, and ah will dream. Ah dream not of the wondrous and sinewy future; but of the dull tomorrow, the real-life, very next day tomorrow ; And so every word that anyone says arrives at my eardrums as old news. These hobo minds around me are speaking from a script. Their actions are directed from a supernatural page.
Mah deliberations began with the example ah will give you first; with Annie's song. Annie, mah beautiful coloured nurse, with her rainbow smile; her simple holy outook and her gorgeous bulk; ah love her like a nanny. It was her, without any realisation on her part, that aroused me to the curious happenings in mah dreams. And forthat ah will salute her eternally.
When Annie prepares me breakfast, she'll say, every time, 'batton down the hatches, a sharp wind is a'comin'', and then she'll barrel in through mah bedroom door. Every morning, the same.
But this mornin' the other day, she was muttering away to herself, instead. Indeed, she rolled into mah room quite without announcin' her dubious entry, and did not pause to check her incroachin' trajectory over mah private airspace. She just carried on a-mutterin' and a-whisperin' to hesself as she walked, smilin away but somewhere else altogether. She put the tray down on mah side table.
'What's that you sayin' there now Annie?'' Ah asked, not a little cantankerously, having had mah slumber interrupted in such an unusual fashion. Now happens ah do not like to raise mah voice to mah staff; not like mah daughter, who' d threaten to have them fired for the wrong type of pancakes of a morning. No sir, it's wrong. This was as angry as ah ever got. And Annie, such a subtle mind usually, with an eye for every nook of every personage in that there house, well, she didn't pick up on mah irate lines and carried on with herself.
She was animating, with that sing-song voice of hers, some lyrics that ah remembered immediately:
'Now this is the Law of the Jungle -- as old and as true as the sky;
And the Wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the Wolf that shall break it must die.
As the creeper that girdles the tree-trunk the Law runneth forward and back --
For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack.'
Now the reason ah remembered so easily is that these words had been in mah very dream, the one she had awoken me from. It was a dream in which ah, along with mah mentor, spiritual advisor and karate teacher, Kang Rhee, were taking on some unblessed dark spirits in some unholy part of the United States of America; using breathing exercises, we were putting these blackened spirits up to the most irregular of examinations. And all throughout, as we set our feet and elbows into their evil personages, a-kickin' and a-punching with righteour vigour, mah master was a talkin' to me, most calmly. A lesson, it seemed, so I listened, ah committed to memory, ah examined the contents. Ah believed, at the time, to be hearing some proverb of Eastern philosophy; but upon waking, and hearing Annie sing-alinging the very same words out over mah room, ah knew that her limited education did not extend to covering any scriptures from Asian lands, God bless her heart and lungs, except those of the disciples themselves, bound up by King James.
Annie denied any knowledge of what she was saying; said she must have picked it up from one of the boys. Now ah may be in a period of suspectin' these boys around me, and so mah judgments may be bruised; and ah may reckon on the fact that ah do not know their tastes and motives as well as ah may or might; but ah am sure that they do not qoute such poetics around the other hired help. Or at any time, indeed.
Presently, mah cousin called from back home, telling me about little Johnny and his efforts at his schoolin; Ah'm interested in the little fella, he's a good kid, and ah believe we must take an interest in the educations and ruminations of our brethren and their flocks. So ah probe mah cousin further, askin' for details of said little Johnny's efforts; and upon probin' her further, she regales me with the tale of his reading to a packed school hall, a verse by an English poet by the name of Rudyard Kipling.
'You might know it, Elvis,' she said to me, 'It's all about the law of the jungle, and how the strength of a wolf is in it's pack. Ah don't recall it word for word…'
… don't worry, now, cousin, ah said, through mah shiver of horrible coincidence; don't worry yourself, for ah know the exact same poem you are referrin' to.
The whole business got me to thinkin' that ah should take a notebook with me to mah dreams, so as to heed the happenings therein. What it all meant was anyone's guess, blessed with education or otherwise. But ah knew that conventional schoolin' was not up to the task; ah knew somethin' more sinister and enraged was afoot.
posted by The Legendary Black Marquis at 5:50 am
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