A Wall
Preposterous rot out of the California revolutionary horde of one. “Talks.” Noxious presumptuous rot. “The professor who takes up the jargon of the revolutionary doesn’t achieve thusly a revolutionary’s consciousness, but simply uses that jargon as a professor would.” Ah, the patent and unrelieved narcissism of duly positing one’s own absence as a political act, and efficacious too!
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Rather sit glumly with my single beer and read “Stabs at Bewilderment.”
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Did not Diderot say, “A taste for the extraordinary is characteristic of mediocrity.” About the avant-garde and its meddlesome rank hankerers? Its socialites?
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E. M. Cioran: “To think is to run after insecurity, to be demoralized for grandiose trifles, to immure oneself in abstractions with a martyr’s avidity, to hunt up complications the way others pursue collapse or gain. The thinker is by definition keen for torment.
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Never comprehend the glee of tasking after the various whipping boys: lately, the Poetry bunch of rich snakes. Why rattle so the sabers about a dyspeptic and nigh-defunct codger like that? All groupuscules petrify: isn’t that what groupuscules are for? For institutional solace in petrifaction-time? And, relatedly, the idea of participating in a “gathering” of seven thousand or so writers? Druther, as un vieux pote d’antan’d say, get a new asshole drill’d.
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Druther poke around in Coleridge the insane: “. . . my Peter Pounce who had just come from the Moon / 8 miles high / volcanos—people wear asbestos, & wash themselves in liquid Storax / Have their fire conducted into their houses by great stone pipes, as we have water / exactly like the people of this world in every thing else except indeed that they eat with their Backsides, & stool at their moiths / in consequence they are all sans-culottes, but then they are all cowled or veiled, a whole Planet of Nuns & Friars—their Breath not very sweet—but they do not kiss much & custom reconciles one to every thing /” (Notebooks, c. 1802)
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How precisely apt to find, in the morning delivery, Theo Scratcher’s “How to Know the Poets”:
That a great head is an omen, or a sign of a sluggish Fool; a little head, of a subtile knave; a middle head, of a liberal wit; a round-head, of a senselesse irrational fellow; a sharp head, of an impudent sot.
That an hard hair signes, or ominates one valiant; and a soft hair, effeminate; and a thin hair, luxurious; and a thick hair, churlish; and a curled hair, covetous; and a plain hair, prodigal; and a white hair, timorous; and a black hair, violent; and a yellow hair, ingenious; and a red hair, treacherous.
That a great face signes or ominates an epicure; and a little face, a flatterer; a fat face, a sluggard; a lean face, one envious; a long face, injurious; a broad face, litigious; a round face, light; a smooth face, deceitful; a wrinckled face, distrustful; a red face, riotous; and a pale face, malignant.
That a broad forehead signes or marks a poet stupid; a little forehead, unconstant; an high forehead pertinacious, a low forehead, lascivious; a square forehead, bold; a round forehead, loud; a wrinckled forehead, thoughtful; and a smooth forehead, jocund.
That great eyes portend, or signifie shamelesse; and little eyes, covetous; gray eyes, fearful; yellowish eyes, fierce; blewish eyes, pusillanimous; greenish eyes, stout; black eyes, crafty; red eyes, cruel; brown eyes, impudent; spotted eyes, perfidious; rolling eyes, angry, and lustful; twinkling eyes, irresolute; set eyes, stupid; skewed eyes, envious; purblind eyes, perverse; prominent, or goggling eyes, simple; and hollow eyes, dissembling.
That the eye-browes or lids, if they hang down, mark or note one intemperate; if thick, shamelesse; if broad, foolish; if little, crafty; if they bend towards the nose, austere and rigid; if to the temples, jeering, and dissembling; if long, arrogant; if thin, silly.
That great eares presage or note a foole; and little eares, a knave; and long eares, a babbler; and hanging eares, a clowne; and prick eares, a meddler; and red eares, shamefast; and plain eares, rude; and soft eares, easie; and hard eares, inexorable.
That a very great nose is a marke or figure of a poet that is given to admire himself, and deride all others; a very little nose, signes a poet mutable; a long nose, bold; a strait nose babbling; a crooked nose, crooked conditions; a thick nose, impudent; a flat nose, pretending; a bottle nose, dull; a hook nose, dissembling; a broad nose, churlish; a sharpe nose, teasty; a round nose, vainglorious; and a hawk nose, venereous; and a red nose, a lover of strong drink.
That thick cheeks betoken a vain trifler; and fleshy cheekes, a sound eater; and red cheekes, a notorious drunkard; and thin cheekes, a false treacher; and round cheekes, a wanton deluder; and smooth cheekes, an easie nature; and hairy cheekes, an harsh humour.
That thick lips fore-speak a foolish talker; and thin lips, a cunning pretender; a prominent upper lip, an injurious slanderer; and a prominent under lip, a vain boaster; an hare lip, a cunning cheater; a pouting lip, a peevish scold; a purse lip, a scraping sneak; and a blabber lip, a nasty slut.
That a great mouth is an omen, or presage of one manly or warlike; a little mouth, of one effeminate, or wanton; a pouch mouth, of a great talker; a purse mouth, of a great lyer; a wide mouth, of a great eater; a narrow and contracted mouth, of a great envyer.
That a little chin signes one envious; and a short chin, perfidious; and a long chin, loquacious; and a round and smooth chin, muliebrious; a dissected, and retorted chin, libidinous; and a square and hairy chin, valorous.
That if the teeth be long, sharp, thick, thin, broad, narrow, fast, loose; they signe long lived, or short lived; and mixtly, gluttonous, audacious, lying, suspitious, envious, versatile.
That a long tongue speaks a poet garrulous; a short tongue, dumpish; a broad tongue, liquorish; a narrow tongue, querulous; a quick and voluble tongue, rash, and hasty; a slow and drawling tongue, dull, and reserved; a stuttering or stammering tongue, ignorant, or but half witted.
That as the voyces of poets are great or small, high, or low, quick, or slow: so are they to be argued for angry, or gentle; true, or false; audacious, or timorous; modest, or impudent.
That to be facile of speech notes levity; and to be difficult of speech, morosity; short speech, notes passion; and long speech, affectation; to speak through the teeth, notes folly, and fantasticknesse; and through the nose, lying, and dissimulation.
That a long and lean neck, notes one for talkative, foolish, fearful; a short neck and fat, for rude, and voracious; a thick fleshy neck, for angry, and ireful; an hard neck, for indocible; a fat neck, for docible; a stiffe neck and immoveable, for pertinacious; a straight neck, for proud and contumacious; a crooked or wry neck, for penurious and malignant; a neck leaning to the right hand, for shamefast; to the left hand, for shamelesse.
That a sharp and narrow throat signes a poet light, and loquacious, a wide throat, voracious, or greedy; the bunch upon the throat, if it be outwardly prominent, signes a poet malepert; if it be inwardly contracted, it signes him difficult, and troublesome.
That a great breast is marking and figuring a poet strong, & magnanimous; a little breast weak and pusillanimous; a broad breast, wise and honest; a narrow breast, witty and subtile; a fleshy breast, timorous, and lazy; an hairy breast, libidinous; a smooth, effeminate; an out breast, unconstant; an hollow breast, deceitful; a red breast ireful; swagging breasts, drunken, and whorish.
That a great belly and fleshy shews one gluttonous, drunken, lustful, proud; an hard belly, rude and gluttonous; a soft belly, honest and magnanimous: a mean belly, prudent and ingenious; an hairy belly, lustful, light, instable.
That strong ribs signe manly; weak ribs, womanish; slender and short ribs, pusillanimous, malignant, voracious; puft and swollen ribs, loquacious, and nugatious; fat ribs, sottish; lean ribs, wily.
That a great back is a signe of a poet strong and stout, and a little back, of one wretched, and timorous; a lean back witty: a fat back, lazy; an hairy back, rigid; a bunch back, malicious.
That broad shoulders signe valiant; narrow shoulders, illiberal; high, or out shoulders, arrogant; cromp shoulders, malicious.
That long arms betoken a poet ambitious; short armes, malevolous; brawny armes, dull; and veiny armes, venereous.
That short thighes signe envious; and hairy thighes lustful; and leane thighes, peevish; and thick thighes, sluggish.
That loose knee’d, signifies lascivious; and baker knee’d, effeminate.
That fat and fleshy hips signe mulierous; leane and lank hips, malignant.
That the spindle legg’d, are fearful; hairy legg’d, lustful; stump legg’d, servile; bow-legg’d, various.
That the long footed are fraudulent; and short footed, sudden; and splay footed, silly; club footed, naughty.
That long and lean toes signe rude, and unwise; short and thick toes, rash, and heady; toes that clinch together signe covetous and luxurious; toes that start asunder signe light, and loquacious.
Huli Man with Hair and Feather Wig and Sulfur-crested Cockatoo
(Photograph by Patricio Robles Gil)
(Photograph by Patricio Robles Gil)
