Sunday, July 16, 2006

Shenandoah

Went down to the Shenandoah one morning, early, expecting just the river and maybe some birds. The sun hadn't been up an hour. I saw a speck upstream out in the middle, coming around a bow, a flash of color. An umbrella. Then I saw that it was a person, a very fat person, wearing a red straw sunhat, in red and white striped bermuda shorts, riding an inner tube that must have been from a tractor, to which were tethered a brace of white styrofoam coolers, which floated along behind, loyal retainers. If he didn't weight four hundred, he weighed nothing.

He was reading the paper. The Washington Post. There is simply nothing to be said about an incident like this. You think, as I did, watching him float pharaonically by, that words--any words--would categorically fail. And you'd be right.

You'd still, however, have words themselves.

But now George W. Bush, surely a dude who knows which end of the bong to drink from, has just given a press conference with Mr. Putin.

Words, once the pretty tokens we used to transmit meaning, are now totally useless, having lost any relation to any antecedent reality.

Heaven help us. There is nothing more to say.
JTA

7 comments:

  1. Poot!

    jta, what have you done to Pundy's blog, it's broken. Been trying to comment for hours and now i've forgotten what I was going to say.

    Oh yes....

    Saw a bird fall out of the sky the other day, it landed on a car - I didn't know they did that. Die, I mean, mid air....no words, no words at all.

    Well, this probably won't go either. I could write some creative swear words all over the place but that would be rather childish, and then I shall just have to delete and start all over again.
    Blooger is a twat, I've eaten two chocolate bars whilst waiting, now I've got fat hips!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. That was 'Blogger'of course, what a twat!!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous8:33 pm

    I know Blogger has a lot to answer for, but I didn't know it had come to this.

    I had a VW that did that once. After years, it simply stopped one day on the interstate, coasted to stop, never to run again. Of course, I had--a few--words...

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous10:39 pm

    Of course I stopped, the bastard never listened to me. Ran me into the ground, never topped me oil up, neglected me over fandiculators and forgot to change the wassnames.

    He was young, I admit, he thought we could go on forever, man and machine in perfect harmony.
    Did he forget that like boats, all cars are, in essence, female...sucker!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous8:18 am

    Lies, all. The oil was always up, cause she just sipped it, even after almost 200K miles. She was a good old wagon, baby but she done broke down.
    Caught the Katey, left me this mule to ride.

    ReplyDelete
  6. DRINKING from the bong???

    Wow - I knew Pundy parties were wild and I've occasionally felt like licking ashtrays in my misspent past, but I haven't got round to drinking the bong water yet. Just goes to show ... there's always more life out there waiting to be experienced ...

    ReplyDelete
  7. Anonymous4:58 am

    I really enjoyed looking at your site, I found it very helpful indeed, keep up the good work.
    »

    ReplyDelete