After trying for what seemed an eternity193 to fully appreciate the implications (if there were any) of what he beheld, in the final analysis Bloom decided "he had more important things to do than stand there speculating on what the mystery parcel might or might not contain.194 Whereupon he reached with his right hand to toss it "unceremoniously" into the empty trolley (he was still using as a crutch) where it would soon be buried under the other "merde" Jayne would later speedread her way through in a day no more fruitful than the thousands preceding it. But in the middle of performing what should have been an act utterly devoid of consequence Bloom suddenly received (literally!) the shock of his life. When the hand he extended195 got to within an inch or 2 of the parcel a spark of such lightninglike voltage leapt across the gap it came close to electrocuting him! For a heartstopping moment196 He stood there horrified as his fingers were drawn inexorably closer to what he surmised would be their lethal embrace of that alltoo fatally197 attractive object of his (anything but) obscure desire. Once again however, he was pleasantly surprised when, after the dreaded embrace actually transpired, not only did the excruciating198 pain of being electrocuted gradually diminish; as it did so he also began to detect "a strange stirring sensation" in the hardened arteries, veins and capillaries he had written off long ago as a lost circulatory cause. "It was," he said, "as if some potent elixir was slowly seeping its rejuvenating way into parts of me whose function had become a fond—and in most cases exceedingly distant—memory."199 Considering what had so recently been the seemingly terminal state of his health into account any improvement in his prognosis gave Bloom some cause for hyperbolizing on its "grandiose ramifications." Hence what could be construed as the overlyhubristic spin he put on the affair by describing it as: "My phoenix- (or even Christ)like resurrection from the ashes of a defeat whose proportions were nothing less than Napoleonic, Nixonian and/or Ciminoesque!"200 On the other hand, when all the "earthshaking" events about to unfold are taken into account, the argument can be made (quite reasonably201) that: No matter what actually caused the turnaround in Bloom's previously outrageous fortunes his "Christlike" resurrection did in fact set off a series of "miracles" which couldn't have been more "Biblical" in their effect on the future course of human history."202
Not that Bloom's new lease on life lacked the perplexities he had dealt with during the 90odd years of his old one. The most pressing of these being the problem of what if anything he should do about the parcel he was holding in his hand now that he (apparently) had all the time, energy and "moral wherewithal" needed for acting upon the range of options which had become available to him in that regard. His instincts were, not surprisingly, opposed to any further delay. According to them he had absolutely no choice. If he ignored the manifestly providential implications of the "supernatural ordeal" he had just been through he would be permanently foreclosed from making any future claims to messianic fame. Like the ghost of Hamlet's father203 they exhorted204 him to "act like a man by doing of his own volition sooner that which he would surely be forced to do like a mouse later," namely: FIND OUT WHAT WAS IN THE MYSTERIOUS PARCEL BY SIMPLY OPENING IT!
Like most of us,205 however, Bloom had learned from bitter experience that the most routine decisions are seldom as "simpleminded" as they seem to be at first glance. Even such a "riskfree" act as crossing a perfectly trafficless street in the weeest hours of the morning after having looked both ways at least twice demands the utmost attention to even the minutest detail before one can totally exclude the possibility of being blindsided by some drunk driving a soundproofed roadhugging dark- or duskcolored car whose headlights are turned off.206 But beyond such pedestrian pitfalls, as a publishinghouse mailboy Bloom found himself suspended in a state of procrastinational paralysis resulting from the ethical tug of war being waged between his Code of Postal Honor and the sinful cravings of his human curiosity.207 If this rather "purplish" portrayal of his plight seems hard for you to credit it must be remembered that:208 In his 70plus years on the job Leo Bloom never once succumbed to the temptation of opening209 any of the mail with which he was entrusted. Admittedly the vast bulk of that mail fell into the "routine publishing business" category which, by its crassly commercial nature, was (more or less) of little or no interest to a man of Bloom's "loftier preoccupations." Nevertheless; seldom did a mail room shift pass—especially during those "good old days when letters really were letters"—without at least one or two items attracting Bloom's "professional" attention with their perfumed stationary, exotic postmark, rare stamps, intriguing stains, curious bulging, unusual handwriting and/or the amatory/politcoartistic implications that could be deduced as arising between certain pairs of senders and addressees.
BUT BLOOM'S INSTINCTS WEREN'T BUYING any moreof what they characterized as his "Code of Postal Honor crap. Here we are," they complained, "about to finalize what future generations will call 'The Anything Goes Century' and you still can't accept the fact that in the making of money, history, love and/or even art—when moral push comes to pragmatic shove the end invariably justifies the means! How else," they asked, "can you explain the repeated triumph of brute force, fraud, mindlessness, materialism and vulgarity over the socalled 'forces' of virtue, honesty, erudition, idealism and culture? Please Bloom, tell us: How many more brick walls must you bang this hard head of yours against before you admit that to succeed at any enterprise—and especially the grandiose schemes about which you habitually delude yourself—a man must abandon his 'Christlike' scruples and venture boldly forth with the ruthlessness of a Genghis Kahn, a Julius Caesar, a Charlemagne, an Ivan the Terrible, a Frederick the Great, a Napoleon, a Wagner, a Picasso,210 a Churchill and—if needs be, yes!—a Lenin, a Stalin, a Mussolini or even a Hitler! Besides which, you fatuous old fart," his mutinous instincts persisted impertinently, "the die was cast, the Rubicon crossed and the (if you'll pardon our French) merde fanwardbound when you ransacked the office of that pathetic excuse for a sexobject. Not to mention the additional fact that at your age there are precious few—if any!—tomorrows left for attaining the Epiphanal Triumph which (according to your 'philosophy') can only occur at the tail end of a lifetime spent wallowing in the most abject failure.
"Furthermore," they went on, "it's not as if we'd be upsetting the goddamned Cosmic Scheme Of Things, breaking a Biblical Commandment, rocking the Establishmentarian Boat—or even violating some local, state and/or federal law!211 Unfortunately the odds are this 'mystery parcel' of yours will turn out to contain nothing more 'providential' than the manuscript for another trashy romance novel so badly written it would have trouble passing a Title and/or First Sentence Test administered by the lowliest of publisher's readers!" And before Bloom could utter so much as a single word of protest—or surrender—in response to this syllogisticd blitzkrieg his unruly instincts presented him with the following diktat: "WHEREAS IT HAS BEEN CONCLUSIVELY DEMONSTRATED that despite losing everything (including our shirt) in the Crapgame Of Life—and for reasons we find difficult to fathom212—fate seems to be giving us ONE LAST CHANCE TO STRIKE IT RICH with a single toss of the dice; AND, MOREOVER; since we have nothing (more) to lose and everything to gain WE HEREBY COMMAND, ORDER, DIRECT, REQUIRE & DICTATE that Leopold Bloom ascertain the contents of his 'mystery' parcel ASAP."
Taking advantage of the wiggleroom he was given by that "ASAP" loophole in the diktat, Bloom opted to complete his 6-3 shift as if nothing unusual had happened and then smuggle the mystery parcel past the main entrance security guards under the overlarge raincoat he kept in his locker for "meteorological emergencies." Only after successfully completing this little "cloak and dagger" exercise would he open the parcel in the privacy of his apartment; where such a suspensefilled act could be carried out in keeping with the sense of occasion it so richly deserved. Which, to further abbreviate the "shortened version" of the story he was telling, is exactly what Bloom proceeded to do.213
Intro Part 16 Return to Index
Footnotes
193 In retrospect Bloom estimates he actually spent less than 10 seconds pondering a myriad of hypotheses; among which were: (a) He was the target of a "practical joke" being played on him by the post office (and/or those fellow publishinghouse) employees in whom he had confided his "literary aspirations;" (b) This was just another example of the Machiavellian lengths to which some authors go in calling the attention of a publisher's reader to their unsolicited manuscripts; (c) It was all an hallucinatory aftereffect of the continuing trauma he had undergone since setting out for work on that accursed morning; (d) Some fool actually believed his manuscript deserved to be treated as if it were a priceless art treasure!
194 For those who took the time to read Appendix A and are wondering why Bloom's "powers of postal clairvoyance" failed him when he needed them most, the fact is they didn't. At the very moment the "mystery parcel" caught the corner of his eye his instincts told him in no uncertain terms that "sealed within its kunstlerkraft and literary twine wrapping was the manuscript for the book he had been waiting his whole life to write." So momentous was this prospect, however, Bloom deliberately refused to entertain it because, he reasoned, it made no difference if his instincts were right or wrong: In his present emotional state he was just as incapable of coping with an epiphany as he was with what would be a disappointment of cosmic proportions. But, as you are about see, whether he knew it or not all of Bloom's subsequent actions did indeed flow from his initial "hunch" concerning "the providential nature" of the obscure object which "just happened" to catch the corner of his eye when and where it did. All of which means: While you may have been "swindled" into reading Appendix A it turns out your having done so wasn't (necessarily) the futile exercise it appeared to be vis-á-vis the aforementioned incongruity prompting this footnote.
195 In a manner not unlike that depicted by Michelangelo in his Cistine Chapel rendering of Adam stretching his hand toward God to receive the divine "spark" of life.
196 Like the man who sees his whole life flash before his eyes as he is drowning, falling through the trap door of a gallows—or experiencing an apotheosis —Bloom observed these events as if they were unfolding in super slow motion.
197 Once again, for Appendix A alumnae only: While most of you have no doubt correctly identified this "high voltage" episode as an epiphanal version of Bloom's previous "fingertiptingling" experiences with manuscripts destined for literary greatness, given the literally shocking state he was then in Bloom can, I think, be excused for failing to make the elementary deduction you made while sitting in the comfort and (relative) safety of your armchair, sofa or bed.
198 Bloom was rather more ambivalent (or hyperphallocentric?) in describing the sensation as being "quasiorgasmic."
199 A phenomena presumably not unlike the one Victor Frankenstein's "monster" experienced while recovering from the shock of having been awakened from the dead when his lifeless heart was suddenly jumpstarted by a bolt of lightning.
200 A reference to Michael Cimino's colossally fiascoed attempt at directing Heaven's Gate—the film he truly believed would turn out to be "The Greatest Of All American Movies."
201 As Jayne later did to herself when she calmly critiqued the "shaggy dog story" Bloom was now telling her.
202 Leading as they did to the publication and worldwide bestsellerdom of Morons Awake!.
203 And, as the very next sentence indicates; with results that were just as frustrating.
204 In Bloom's own words—"They were haranguing me at the top of their bloody lungs!"
205 Since you've managed (so far at least) to avoid every one of those fatal snares confronting an "ordinary" housewife by their hundreds in the course of making it safely through just one of the "uneventful" days comprising her "lackluster" life, I'm presuming that some of your successes in so doing didn't result from that "dumb luck" to which middleaged Morons attribute their longevity. The average Moronic life span being 36.3 years.
206 As implausible as this hypothesis might appear, Bloom actually did come within an inch of losing his life in just such a scenario on no less than 3 separate occasions during the previous 12 months alone while taking his early morning "constitutionals." Although a strong case can be made that the eyesight and hearing of a nonagenarian are anything but a paradigm for pedestrian safety it is also true the modern automobile has been so mufflerized and streamlined as to make it nearly as undetectable as a stealth fighterjet.
207 To hear Bloom tell it: "Not since Pandora was enticed by the tantalizing contents of her mythological box has any mortal been more sorely tempted by the gods than I was to take a peek inside that most enigmatic of their parcels."
208 Only by the readers of Appendix A.
209 Or even reading the penny and/or picture postcards which were not uncommonly used to transmit the most intimate messages during the Roaring 20s, the Thrifty 30s and (first 5 of) the Fabled 40s.
210 Wagner's unscrupulous pursuit of operatic grandeur is epitomized by the (in)famous statement he made concerning his "swinishness" toward the untermenschen (ordinary mortals) he trampled on while jackbooting his way to Valhalla—"kunst über alles!" (art above all else). Picasso's case is somewhat less egregious—if only for the smaller circle of people it involved and the larger dimensions of his Iberian soul. Replying to the "constructive criticism" made by Dora Maar about the shameful way he neglected his children he stated: "When a painter becomes a living god—as only I and a handful of other legendary artists have—his pictures are his children! And in that regard, my dear Dora, not only will Pablo Picasso be remembered as having been the most doting of fathers, but the most prolific as well!"
211 It could be argued that, given his lifelong concerns about America's role in the decline of Western Civilization, the generic nature of the mystery parcel's address—"TO: WHOM IT ('it' being the decline of western civilization as evidenced by the everwidening spread of America's cultural wasteland) MAY CONCERN (assuming she/he became a 'lowly' publisher's reader for the loftiest of all reasons)"—legally entitled Bloom to open it. As for that minor problem having to do with the "lowly publisher's reader" at least 2 theories might be offered to explain it away: (a) This wouldn't be the first time an explosive device masquerading as a manuscript was addressed to a publisher's reader by one of her previously rejected authors—in which case Bloom was obligated to investigate its contents, and; (b) The "providential" circumstances— whether real or delusionary is of no judicial consequence—in which Bloom found himself legitimized his actions in accordance with that Highest of All Laws: the Divine Will Of God Almighty expressed in what has come to be known as the "Manifest Destiny of Nations and Men."
212 Not that there's a shortage of literary precedents for such lastminute reprieves and/or execution stays. Orpheus' deal with Pluto/ Proserpine to rescue Eurydice from Hades, Scheherazade's lifesaving storytelling stratagem in Arabian Nights and the chess game Death agrees to play at the Knight's request in Bergman's The Seventh Seal are all examples of the rule that, for poetic purposes, such dubious scenarios are perfectly plausible. But even if we accept Napoleon's 100day imperial encore following his escape from Elba and/or Nixon's 20 years of postWatergate pseudorespectability as exceptions to that rule, they only serve to confirm the one Bloom's instincts were presumably relying upon when forming their opinion that in real life the kind of death sentence Bloom was under proved to be 100% fatal.
213 Although I
seriously doubt it, I'd like to believe some of you may have
noticed there are several potential problems with this scenario. If, by some
miracle then, any of my readers have developed the habit of questioning every
word they read, this
footnote213s1 won't have been written in vain. But before begin our discussion
of what is known in the novel publishing (and moviemaking) business as
"verisimilitude" and/or "continuity"—both of which are euphemisms for
perpetrating an artistic fraud on the public—it must be stipulated between
us that reality itself abounds with anachronisms, discrepancies,
inconsistencies, implausibilities, incongruities and improbabilities which,
if we stop to think about them, would result in a credibility crisis exceeding
that occasioned by the loss of our vaunted military manhood at the hands
of a ragtag army of pajamaclad Vietnamese. [For more on the effects losing
the Vietnam war has—or should have—had on our national
psyche see (a) and (b) of subfootnote 213s2 hereafter.] After all, here we
all are careening our way through a frozen, airless, pitch black and infinite
void on a speck of stardust so tiny according to the cosmic scheme
of things that, in terrestrial terms, it makes a microstate like Moronia
look like the Holy Roman Empire! And if this isn't enough to raise some serious
(if not terrifying) metaphysical eyebrows about the "benign" nature of that
"divine" masterplan from which our universe was (supposedly) made there are
the everyday perils posed by the earthquakes, floods, typhoons, droughts,
firestorms, tornadoes, volcanic eruptions and plagues whose daily toll of
human victims numbers in the hundreds of thousands. Not to mention the distinct
probability that someday soon another asteroid will do unto us what was done
only a short time ago (geologicallyspeaking) to the dinosaurs. Nevertheless,
like an audience of moviegoers—or the readers of a novel—we willingly
suspend our critical judgment about what would be the "manifestly fatal flaws"
in any play or opera predicated on such an absurd scenario and continue blithely
believing these briefer than any candle ever dreamt of by Shakespear lives
we live are imbued with some "grandiose" purpose!
There are, of course, many other
examples supporting the proposition that: Not only is truth sometimes stranger
than fiction, it is frequently far less
convincing.213s2 But getting back to the business at hand, namely: the continuity
problems raised by Bloom's plan to smuggle that mystery parcel past the main
entrance security guards wrapped in his raincoat. For starters the intelligent
reader will have asked herself why no mention was made of these "main entrance
security guards" when Bloom arrived at work—which he did by entering
directly via the mail room door. Next there is this "raincoat" Bloom
conveniently keeps in his locker for "meteorological emergencies" and would
now be used for a more devious purpose. Ordinarily no self respecting
author would stoop to answer such pettyminded
criticisms.213s3 In this case, however, with the fate of Western Civilization
hinging as it does on the credibility of this (nonfiction) novel; I feel
it my editorial duty to offer you the following explanation: As for the
Entrance/Exit Anachronism let us just say: "That for reasons of
economy213s4 and Bloom's
unblemished213s5 70plusyearlong trackrecord as a mailboy the company's
main entrance was only open (and manned by security guards) after 8
a.m.—which meant that while he was able to enter through the mail room
loading dock door at 6 a.m. with a personal key his exit at 3 p.m.
was subject to the Standard Security Procedures for all
employees.213s6
The Raincoat/Meteorological Emergency
issue, however, raises questions of a somewhat thornier nature since nowhere
in Bloom's story did he mention any rain falling on that morning. The
easiest way of dealing with this oversight (and the one I'm choosing for
the sake of brevity) is to retroactively put the following words into
Bloom's mouth: "Calling their attention to the everpresent threat of a sudden
downpour convinced the security guards there was nothing at all suspicious
about the bulky raincoat I carried under my arm as I exited via the main
entrance."
Having tied up all of these loose continuity ends we
(if indeed I haven't been holding this conversation in a vacuum) can now
fully refocus our attention on Bloom's "Amazing Tale Of The Providential
Role [He] Was Fated To Play In Not Writing The Great American Novel" as it
rapidly builds toward what will truly be, trust me, a climax of orgasmic
proportions!
Subfootnotes
213s1 Which, by the way—and God willing—I intend to be my last one. And since that is the case I might just as well make it a real doozie! Believe me, dear reader, no one is more surprised than I am by what has turned out to be this "loveaffair" of mine with the very device whose extravagant use by the author I've hectored him so unceasingly to curtail. Not that his exploitation of the humble (and frequently down trodden) footnote as a tool for cultivating the most fertile kind of rapport between himself and his readers isn't the spunkiest literary innovation since James Joyce filled those 768 pages of his seminal masterpiece, Ulysses, with that uninterrupted stream of ejaculatory ruminations on the mythic dimensions of a single day in the life of a—more or less—ordinary Irishman (who happened to be named Leopold Bloom). Can anyone doubt that in the aftermath of Morons Awake! most (if not all) novels will be liberally footnoted—and perhaps sub footnoted? Consequently; while I may be guilty of overdoing a good thing and/or engaging in some editorial hypocrisy, I think I'm entitled to plead as a mitigating factor that I only did so before the laws pertaining to how footnotes can and/or should be used in a novel (and/or the introduction to one) were fully codified.
213s2 A few of the most flagrant being: (a) AMERICA'S FARCICAL REPETITION OF FRANCE'S "INDOCHINA FOLLY." Only months after the French humiliation at Dien Bien Phu we embarked on a "Southeast Asia" policy that would come to an identically disastrous finale known as the "Tet Offensive;" (b) CAN 56,000 AMERICANS BE DEAD WRONG? While one of Washington's most popular tourist attractions is the black granite wall memorializing those killed in Vietnam not a single monument has been erected to honor the only two senators (Ernest Gruening of Alaska and Wayne Morse of Oregon) out of 100 who, if their arguments and votes opposing the nowinfamous Tonkin Gulf Resolution had prevailed, would have eliminated the need for that wailing wall—and the 56,000 needless deaths it represents; (c) HITLER'S HOODWINKING OF THE GERMAN ELECTORATE. Could the plot of any political satire—or cautionary tale—be harder to swallow than that wherein a nation which produced the likes of Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Wagner, Brahms, Mendelssohn, Bruckner, Hindemith, Mahler and Strauss dances its way doomward to the tune of Deutschland über alles played by a (distinctly Chaplinesque) Pied Piper posing as a 20thcentury avatar of Siegfried, Attila, Barbarossa and Frederick the Great?; (d) DICK NIXON'S HOODWINKING OF THE AMERICAN ELECTORATE. While Watergate may not have been an American Götterdämerrung it wasn't for lack of trying. Those who voted for "Tricky Dick" knew (or should have known from even their sparse knowledge of history) they were playing with the same kind of fire that had burnt so many Germans—not to mention their victims! So the question can be fairly asked: How could the nation that chose such solid citizens as Adams, Jefferson, Lincoln, Wilson and Roosevelt to occupy its White House also allow that Presidential Palace to be desecrated by someone from whom it wouldn't (at least literally) buy a used cart?; (e) AN EDUCATION SYSTEM THAT PRODUCES GRADUATES WHO, IF THEY CAN READ, RARELY, IF EVER, CHOOSE TO DO SO. What sense can it possibly make to teach the virtues of "literacy" in a society where "literature" itself is, if not a dirty word, one that is generally considered "better left unspoken in polite company?"; (f) THE WORST OF ALL NIGHTMARE SCENARIOS. After nearly 400 years of pursuing the "American Dream" we have only succeeded in turning what was once an Edenesque wilderness abounding with natural resources into a vast cultural wasteland. Is this not the very stuff from which only the most far fetched of gothic novels and horror movies are made?
213s3 Shakespeare's
Rosenkrantz&Guildenstern flimflam for instance; whereby he never deigns
to tell us (or Horatio) why those 2 villains would continue their voyage
to England sans Hamlet when their original (and only) purpose
for such a journey was as his escort. [And although Tom Stoppard wrote a
witty play based entirely on this faux pas I'm not sure he didn't overlook
the same paradox in his own effort to set the bardish record straight.] A
similar snafu occurs in Tosca. Why, it must be asked, do the characters
go to the trouble of putting on what proves to be such a lethal charade when,
since they were all presumably in on the "phony firing squad ploy" from its
genesis, there was no need for actually staging it? But without a doubt the
most (in)famous of all the phony plots ever written was the one foisted on
the American and/or Moronic moviegoing public by the makers of
Casablanca I ask you, dear reader: Could any "happy" ending be less
credible than that final "fogshrouded aerodrome scene" in which Rick Blaine
willingly surrenders Ilsa Laszlo—the love of his life!—to Victor
Laszlo; a man whose marital claims on her are strictly technical at best
and at worst those of a cradlesnatching college professor who shamelessly
took advantage of his superior intellect and academic authority to seduce
an impressionable young coed? And if that weren't enough to cast a moral
shadow over Laszlo's "antiNazi" credentials there were those sinister
geopolitical implications arising from what must (if we assume that prior
to 1939 Laszlo was a cardcarrying member of a Prague intelligentsia known
throughout Europe as "a hotbed of socio/cultural radicalism") have been his
Marxist/Leninist "leanings" in prewar Czechoslovakia which Rick could (and/or
should/would) have factored into his (according to Captain Renault)
"uncharacteristically sentimental" decision to relinquish the claims he had
established on Ilsa's body, mind and soul during their "unofficial Parisian
honeymoon"—when they both believed Laszlo had died a martyr's death
in some Nazi concentration camp.
From a credibility standpoint Laszlo's "fortuitous escape"
from that concentration camp also warrants our closer scrutiny. Given the
Gestapo's reputation for Teutonic efficiency in such matters, can we really
believe that after snaring "Europe's most charismatic freedom fighter" in
their clutches they would allow him to slip through their ironfisted fingers?
I think not. No. The more likely scenario is that Laszlo was tortured
(and/or blackmailed) into becoming a Fifth Columnist for the Third
Reich. Which would also explain his otherwise inexplicable eagerness to reach
the USA via Lisbon when he should have remained behind the enemy's lines
to lead the Allied Resistance Movement—as we can pretty safely
assume—Rick is planning to do from occupied North Africa when he tells
Ilsa "I've got a job to do. Where I'm going you can't follow. What I've got
to do you can't be any part of. Ilsa I'm no good at being noble, but it doesn't
take [a Tom Paine or Albert Camus] to see that the problems of three little
people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. Some day you'll
understand that. [But until then] here's looking at you kid."
While Casablanca is far from being a cinematic
(or any other kind of) masterpiece, not unlike Hamlet and
Tosca, it has managed to bridge its credibility gap (in
Casablanca's case more like a GrandCanyonsized chasm!) so artfully
as to become a film "classic" of (pseudo-) mythological proportions in (what
precious little there is of) the average American's and/or Moron's "cultural"
ethos. This despite (or is it because of?) the fact that these same average
Americans/Morons haven't the slightest difficulty finding all sorts of "fatal
flaws" in such genuine artistic masterworks as Picasso's Guernica,
Kafka's The Trial, Milton's Paradise Lost, Miller's Death
of a Salesman, Beckett's Waiting for Godot, Shaw's Man and
Superman, Camus' The Stranger, Büchner/Berg's Wozzek,
Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress, most of Mahler's symphonies and
every one of Schubert's lieder! [Before we leave Casablanca
I should mention that, like Stoppard's Rosenkrantz And Guildenstern Are
Dead, an obscure play entitled Fundamental Factors was written
(by an equally obscure dramatist) which attempts to solve Casablanca's
Happy Ending Problem by rewriting it as an "art film" that might have been
made by Bunuel, Bergman or Fellini. It should have come as no surprise to
the author (although in fact it traumatized him) that despite his success
in elevating Casablanca to the status of at least a minor artistic
masterpiece Fundamental Factors closed after its first 3
performances—while the original Hollywood product with all of its continuity
warts continues to entertain millions of American and Moronic television
viewers.]
213s4 Part of the fallout from the downsizing of corporate America in the early '90s.
213s5 Notwithstanding his chronic VDOM problems which, from top management's patriarchal viewpoint, "were unrelated to Bloom's job performance." As were Bill Clinton's unpresidential pecadillos to his.
213s6 This still leaves unanswered the question concerning how I managed to routinely arrive at my "Salt Mine" before regular business hours. But since there must be some limitation placed on the degree to which one establishes even the absolute credibility needed in these "life and death" literary affairs I prefer leaving that little mystery for your imagination to solve! And that goes for any other discrepancies I may be overlooking in what is, after all, my retelling of someone else's story! I see now that no single footnote—even one augmented by all these subfootnotes (some of which could actually be subsubfootnoted!)—can ever fully deal with what is probably the infinite number of problems (and subproblems) arising from what should be this simplest set of "facts." Nothing less than an appendix (and a lengthy one at that!) would be needed for doing intellectual justice to all of these proliferating perplexities. Which is a task (no doubt a thankless one in the bargain) I adamantly refuse to undertake! No, ladies and gentlemen: The time has come for me to put my foot firmly down! What began as this wellintentioned and "brief" introduction of mine is—like Eve's forbiddenfruit, Pandora's box, the Sorcerer's Apprentice's broom, Faust's pact with Mephistopheles and Frankenstein's monster —threatening to become a metaphysical quagmire in which we are all about to drown. As an editoress I should have known better than to think I could play with the kind of literary matches used by the author of Morons Awake! to ignite his blaze of artistic glory. So; from now on—along with my previous promise to desist from the practice of footnoting—I hereby solemnly swear to you there will be no more appendices, parenthetic remarks, epigrams, metaphors, similes, words of more than 5 syllables, baroque, (including neoBaroque and postneoBaroque) sentences, and/ors, and/or fine print of any kind! In a nutshell then: The time has come for me to tell you what remains of this story as all stories should be told—in accordance with the wellestablished and unbreakable editorial rules for storytelling.