Donald O'Donovan's Blog: The Novel as Graffiti

I shall cultivate the radish and the turnip
Mahatma Suzy, her glorious hair awash, her swollen nipples pup-tenting her mauve turtleneck, nibbled a previously-owned Kalamata frittata and leisurely turned the pages of Catherine de Medici’s Book of the Hours. “I have done with war,” she muttered into her beard, then springing from her downy couch, she gazed out over the Jornada del Muerto, a burning desert from which no man, once having entered, has ever emerged alive. “From this day forward,” she proclaimed, her kissy-wet lips glistening with the same sheen that in bygone days had sent a thousand ships sailing to Byzantium, “I shall cast my lot with the humble peasants of Egdon Heath whose lives are enriched by the simple joy of backbreaking toil and unending hardscrabble poverty. I shall cultivate the radish and the turnip…” “Turnip! Food of the gods!” cried Young Lochinvar as their treasure ship sank like a rock to the bottom of the Adriatic Sea. But the wily Odysseus, being of sound mind, sat him down among the bulrushes and stirred his Mai Tai with a radioactive isotope. And these events were duly recorded in Book of the Ages by the coldly-handsome gray-eyed Hjaarrelson (also known as Haroldson or Heraldsen) in a coin laundry near the rubbish collectors quarter of Kalamazoo in the year 1591 as he supped on cold radish soup and braised mung bean.

More news of Mistress Kimilya
A boisterous clutch of livid sparrows winged their weary way toward Brest-Litovsk in the cold gray dawn of a sultry July morning in October, 1957, as Dmitri A. Veletnikov (an illegitimate son of Peter the Great, he spoke only Serbo-Croatian) and his lovely bride, Anjanette Plantagenet (née Von Richthofen), sat down to a simple but nourishing supper of braised turnips in their humble cottage on Egdon Heath at the foot of the Big Rock Candy Mountains, a fortnight’s ride and six furlongs from Lohengrin Castle where Young Lochinvar, his right hand resting on the hilt of his dagger, nervously paced the floor of the great hall and dictated a memo to his (perhaps imaginary) friend Ngowdi (a one-armed Egyptian dwarf, he had lived the better part of his tragic life in the rubbish collectors quarter of Cairo), and mentally composed a letter to his demented sister Miriam or Marian (he had forgotten her name) in Sebastopol who had recently lost five toes to leprosy. All of the above the coldly-handsome Hjaarrelson recorded (or is reputed to have recorded) in the Book of the Ages while living with the raven-haired Mistress Kimilya, a popular 18th Century dominatrix, at her pleasure-dungeon, a marvel of Tudor architecture with its tall narrow windows and many-gabled, steeply-pitched roof, flanked then as now, by the gray foggy trees of Liverpool and formerly, in classical times, the summer home of Gaius Plinius Secundus (better known to students of history as Pliny the Elder), Commander of the feared Sixth Legion under Caesar’s adopted son, Octavius.

We shall feast this night on turnip
Now, starting in or around mid-October in the Year of Our Lord 1594, on a sunny June day in late July, as the early April sun was beginning to melt the snowcapped Big Rock Candy Mountains, deep in a secluded valley a fortnight’s ride from Westminster Abbey and five furlongs east of Brest-Litovsk, Mahatma Suzy began to be a great one in the land. Her heart having been hardened against her brother Young Lochinvar, Eighth Earl of Devilshire, Thane of Cawdor and alleged cat’s-paw of the Tudor princes, she marched on Lohengrin Castle (thus violating an edict issued in 1661 by the Comte de Guiche) with a great contingent of her fierce warrior women, some twelve thousand strong, a detail which did not escape the keen-eyed Hjaarrleson who was picnicking with Anjanette LeFontaine (née Plantagenet), fifth wife of the Mighty Achilles and mother of the Third Earl of Devilshire, on a glacial murrain some sixteen furlongs southeast of the Jornada del Muerto, a burning desert from which no man, once having entered, has ever emerged alive. Meanwhile, in a humble cottage on Egdon Heath, five furlongs and a fortnight’s ride from the aforementioned coin laundry in Kalamazoo, Young Lochinvar, his right hand resting on the hilt of his dagger, munched a previously-owned buttermilk biscuit as he studied an aerial photograph of the extinct volcanoes near Mung Lake and half-listened to the urgent pleas of a strangely twisted (and perhaps purely imaginary) little man named Haroldson or Heraldsen, who entreated: “Great Achilles, I fear the Mahatma’s siege engines will try the long preserved virginity of Lohengrin Castle, bursting, as it were, the hymen of our defenses, whereupon, thrusting deep into the tender flesh, so to speak, they may create a considerable friction which can only lead to—” “An orgasm,” Young Lochinvar gasped, “of destruction!” “You prophesy well, Sahib,” spoke the coldly-handsome Hjaarrleson, whose broad back, only that morning in Mistress Kimilya’s pleasure dungeon, had known the deadly kiss of the sjambok. “We shall feast this night on turnip!” cried the wily Odysseus, raising his tankard high. “Mortals, fill your hearts with dreams!”

Four and twenty blackbirds shall peck at your swollen nipples
“Are you afraid of nothing, Mistress Kimilya?” “There is but one such,” replied the fiery-eyed dominatrix: “A fourteen-inch jelly rubber strap-on manufactured in Mogadishu.” “Besides that, I mean.” These were the words that Hjaaroldsen heard in a dream as he slumbered in a Kalamazoo laundromat in October, 1956. “But let me tell you something about my early years,” muttered the mighty Achilles, noisily munching a Kalamata frittata. “I was born, as I’ve already mentioned, in Brest-Litovsk in 1848, educated at Oxford, and subsequently I spent twenty-one supremely happy years living with the Mbuti Pygmies of the Ituri forest, where I became fluent in the Likuba dialect of the Bobangi language and learned to wield the sjambok.” And with that they repaired to the Boar’s Head Tavern where they quaffed huge tankards of ale. But Haroldsen was uneasy. “I care nothing for the foppery of the Tudor princes,” he declared, with a stern glance at the wily Odysseus. “My loyalties lie with the hardy people of Egdon Heath whose lives are enriched by the simple joy of backbreaking toil and unending hardscrabble poverty.” Young Lochinvar’s eyes flashed dangerously, and his right hand went to the hilt of his sword. But Hjaarelson, undaunted, added: “I have often supped with them in their primitive cottages, reveling in my good fortune as we feasted upon turnips and radishes.” “The turnip is an excellent fruit,” the wily Odysseus agreed. “I should like to write a thousand pages about the merits of the turnip.” “Please don’t,” snapped Mistress Kimilya as she blew a kiss to Pliny the Elder who, at that precise moment, was embarking on a journey to the Hanseatic city of Danzig. At this, Young Lochinvar’s anger was piqued. “Ungrateful woman!” he muttered fiercely. “Four and twenty blackbirds shall peck at your swollen nipples!” But the beautiful harem queen could not be intimidated. “Speak to me not of love,” she murmured with a lissome smile, “for I must to war!” (As the raven-haired Kimilya spoke, I felt her slender aristocratic fingers gently caressing my Medulla Oblongata.)

The rightful master of Lohengrin Castle
Suddenly Hjaarrelson’s thoughts were interrupted as Young Lochinvar appeared at the portal of Lohengrin Castle, his sword held aloft, his fine eyes sparkling with the ardor of youth. “Mung is funny stuff, Sir,” he remarked. “You spread a bit of mung on Melba toast, add a kippered herring and some romaine lettuce and you’ve got yourself an inexpensive lunch. But in large quantities…” “Your point being?” “Mung Lake is nine miles long, Captain. Better than a mile deep in some places…” Now the mighty Achilles stepped forward and drew a map in the dust at their feet with the point of his lance. “Lohengrin Castle is in the Territory, and the Territory is in the Kingdom, and the Kingdom is in the World, and the World is in the Galaxy, and the Galaxy is in the Universe, and the Universe is in…” His voice trailed off as Young Lochinvar raised an admonishing hand. “Lohengrin Castle is easily defended from the West,” the lion-maned warrior proclaimed. “He who commands the Big Rock Candy Mountains and Mung Lake commands the Territory, even the Kingdom, and perhaps even the World.” These were the words of Young Lochinvar, faithful in love and dauntless in war, eighth husband of Countess Christina Orlovska (née Von Richthofen), Thane of Cawdor and rightful master of Lohengrin Castle. And his wise sayings were duly recorded the following year by the coldly-handsome, gray-eyed Hjaarrelson in the Book of the Ages, translated from the Latin by Gaius Plinius Secundus, better known as Pliny the Elder, in the year 33 AD.

Silvery birds descended from the skies and shat upon my head
My name is Hal Hjaarrelson. I am also known as Harold Haalstrom, Hal Haroldson and Herald Haalston. I was born in Brest-Litovsk in 1848. My father’s people were fierce Visigothic warriors, my mother’s pastry cooks and sausage stuffers from Les Halles. Le charcuterie, vous savez. The signal event of my life took place on a cool October morning in late September, 1957, when, as I breakfasted on culebrita and chorizo near the Great Wall of China, I felt Anjanette Plantagenet’s supple aristocratic fingers gently caressing my vermiform appendix. “You were never the same after that, Captain,” said the mighty Achilles, not unkindly, as his cool dandruff eyes flicked lightly over the naked body of Countess Christina Orlovska (née LeFontaine or possibly Von Richthofen). “She’s got a good udder on her,” he remarked offhandedly, with a nervous little laugh. I had reason to believe that the gods were laughing too, for at this precise moment, a number of silvery birds descended from the skies and shat upon my head. But enough of this! Do I miss the gray foggy trees of Liverpool and Sebastopol? Do I miss the typhoons? The leisurely breakfasts of Kalamata olives and kidney pie? The buttermilk biscuits? My dear demented stepsister Miriam from Westminster who lost five toes to leprosy? Her husband Ngowdi, a one-armed Egyptian dwarf who lived out his tragic life in the rubbish collectors quarter of Cairo? The carefree days in Brest-Litovsk? The sizzling sausages? The culebrita and the chorizo? The sweet caresses of my beloved Anjanette Plantagenet, Young Lochinvar’s third wife and erstwhile mistress of the mighty Achilles, who passed away in 1957 in Kalamazoo’s shabbiest 24-hour coin laundry? My palazzo on the Grand Canal? Do I miss the carnival of lights that once was Venice? Or the splendor that was once Lohengrin Castle? My answer to these questions, and others like them, must inevitably be: yes and no. “Evasive!” exclaimed Young Lochinvar, and his right hand went to the hilt of his sword. An uneasy moment to be sure, but peace was soon restored as someone whispered, “It comes with the territory,” in Mandarin Chinese and a catering truck arrived with buttermilk biscuits for all.

The Expedition encounters Mung
But what of brave Achilles, you may ask. Although his flight from Lohengrin Castle had been headlong and his horse the swiftest in the land, before a fortnight had passed the shining hero and his war party found themselves mired in mung. "What is it?" Hjaaraldson asked. "It's mung, Sir." "Mung? What do you mean by mung?" "I mean mung, Sir." "Are you sure it's mung, Captain?" "It's mung, Sir. In fact it's worse than mung." "Worse than mung? What could be worse than mung?" "Monkey mung, Sir. Monkey mung is worse than mung." They rode on for several furlongs to a meadow that reeked of pinot noir and blue cheese where sporadic contractions of extinct volcanoes spattered moondust on their helmets and spewed thousands of live coals into a buttermilk sky. “See the lovely spiderlike lizards with purple pinfeathers,” proclaimed the brave Achilles. For those not familiar with the Book of the Ages, these extraordinary creatures were performing a sort of moonlight ballet that was incredibly touching (so Young Lochinvar wrote to his demented stepsister in Sebastopol who had recently lost five toes to leprosy). “Captain, secure the dummies,” Heroldson said (or perhaps he only imagined that he said it). “We have arrived.” “Arrived where?” cried the virginal Anjanette LeFontaine (née Plantagenet), Harrelson fourth wife and young Lochinvar’s betrothed, but her words flew away on the wind, destined to merge, in a distant but mellow land, with a moonlit matrix of sparrow droppings, and the stones did not answer. All of which brings up a fascinating subject: Is it heretical to question the cosmic legality of God’s actions, assuming that there is a God, or, if we assume that there is no God, is it at all practical or prudent to enumerate His or Her allegedly illegal activities?

Return to Lohengrin Castle
In a dim subterranean grotto beneath a concrete model of Jupiter's moons Young Lochinvar rode sidesaddle on a darkly dappled goose-stepping roan, his veins distended with jets of cool mercury and a ham sandwich in his portmanteau. His fiercely drooling eyes marked time with the churning pistons of a tireless machine floating five miles above Westminster Abbey (or so he imagined) as he approached, or thought he approached, the legendary Great White Way leading to the entrance of Lohengrin Castle where Heraldsen (also known as Haaraldson or Hjaaroldsen) was either waiting or pretended to be waiting. As he cantered forward, sword held high, sparrows weeping in the apocalyptic twilight announced the presence of a raven-haired prince or princess whose soulful gaze seemed to say: "There'll be no more buttermilk biscuits on Thursdays."

Starting from Kalamazoo
In the crowded lavatory of Kalamazoo's most upscale laundromat the shade of Bo Peep hung like a harbinger of doom while gray foggy trees bleated in Liverpool and Sebastopol—Harrelson thought—and as an effervescence such as he had never known began play like a blue flame around his plunging white thighs a voice that seemed to come from somewhere inside the bronze skull of an 18th Century Buddha sculpted by the nephew of Michelangelo's self-obsessed sister's husband during a snowstorm in Venice (an event later known as Napoleon's Folly) spoke (or seemed to speak) the words: "Those tiny black objects your mother steadfastly maintained were Kalamata olives were in fact rat turds." Minutes later as Harrelson or Hjaarlson (he had forgotten his name) was swept out to sea in the arms of a typhoon he recalled the word "magma," which Mahatma Suzy, munching a Kalamata frittata, had scrawled on the Great Wall of China that fateful October day in 1956 as her slender fingers caressed his middle brain. Meanwhile, miles from Lohengrin Castle, second hand kidney pies and stolen crystal beakers of ice-cold whale sperm hidden in a fluffy pillowcase enabled Kalamazoo cover girl Annette or Annjanette Plantagenet to easily traverse the glacial murrain even though the keel of her mother ship had been loosened by savage tremors emanating from fissures in the bedrock below Sebastopol and Reykjavik as recorded in Harrelson's or Hjaarlson's personal papers executed under the aegis of Lohengrin Castle’s "Old School," more fully described in Hal Heroldsen's or Harold Haalston's account of his imaginary life in a palazzo on the Grand Canal: "A carnival of lights (written by his sister Annjanette on her death bed), a celebration of life, and a sitz-bath more scintillating than sitting on a prickly pear." The grief-stricken Harrelson later wrote in letters of blood and fire in the sky, "Rest in peace, my beloved sister, Margaret or Marguirite or Miriam Heroldsen or Hjaarlson (he had forgotten her name).”

Armand and Vickie,

Here are the lyrics for my youtube spoken word number, "Telemarketing Blues."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Gtle1...

Thanks for asking!

Telemarketing Blues

I was looking to buy a bling-bling
For a girl who’s turning tricks
I didn’t want to go to Sing Sing
Like them gangsters in the flicks
So I got the morning paper
To try and find a gig
Next to the photo of a baby raper
I seen somethin I could dig
If you can sell your sister
Try telemarketing
I heard a small voice whisper
This looks like just the thing
Past a sea of tattooed faces
Down a dirty flight of stairs
It looked like one of them places
Where shady ladies sell their wares
Everybody dialin
Like monkeys in a zoo
The boss man he was smilin
What can I do for you
I said sir I don’t wanta steal and rob
But I need money fast
He said son I can offer you a job
My name is Mr. Crass
You’re bound for success he told me
With a Tony Robbins smile
Take it from Obie Kanobe
And all you gotta do is dial
He was the slickest operator
That ever blew my mind
A human carburetor
I think you might know his kind
Now here’s a little gadget
Let me introduce you to
Son you’re lookin at the magic
Handy Dandy Dipsy Doo
Mr. Crass can you enlighten me
What on earth is this thing for
In a voice that kinda frightened me
He said it opens cans and more
Why it’ll do the dishes and clean out the sink
Turn on some music and pour you a drink
Take out the paper and bring in the chickens
Make your hair grow like the very dickens
Row your boat when you’re lost in the fog
Paint your nails and flurk the dog
Pick the lint out of your navel
Deal straight aces under the table
Give ya plenty of huggin and kissin
Tell you where the cat’s been pissin
Feed a fever and starve a cough
And if you don’t watch out it’ll jack you off
So I started out sellin the Dipsy Doo
I was makin sales and plenty too
Mr. Crass said I was gonna get a bonus
Fer displayin what you might call the opposite of slowness
I kept on sellin and sellin and sellin
I had big dreams cookin in my melon
So you can imagine how I almost freaked
When I got my check at the end of the week
My pay was anything but immense
Fourteen dollars and fifty-three cents
I said Mr. Crass there must be some mistake
He said son there’s no cause to bellyache
I said I guess I’m just not educated
Tell me how was my bonus calibrated
He said son just so’s there ain’t no doubt
Here’s the way it all shakes out
A percentage of your total sales
Minus fifty percent to balance out the scales
Divided by twenty percent for deficit spending
Plus any penalties for money lending
Minus half a dozen cancellation fees
Minus whatever assets we decide to seize
Divided by sixteen times the depreciation
As determined by your financial association
Then you take the number of Nazis in all of the Reichs
Divide by the price of the three sharp spikes
That nailed Baby Jesus to the cross
Minus fifteen percent for cumulative loss
Well I got a call from a lady in Poughkeepsie
She said there’s somethin wrong with my Dipsy
It fried the laundry and killed the cat
Failed to melt away my baby fat
The problems in fact were rather myriad
It caused my daughter to miss her period
Left us stranded at a busy junction
And gave my husband erectile dysfunction
I said Mr. Crass this operation
Don’t resonate with my vibration
It ain’t nothing but a great big scam
And the Dipsy Doo aint worth a goddamn
So I’ll see you around the quad Mr. Crass
And you can take your bonus
And stick it up your ass

© Donald O’Donovan 2010