5 Apr 2008

on postmodernism

these three protagonists who, separated by generation and geography, lead parallel lives. to what extent their lives are parallel we can only guess, for one is a Hasidic rabbi, another a transgendered person who elected not to undergo sex reassignment as hir coworkers informed hir that it would no longer be able to perform postoperatively, while the third is a bartender who practices a stringent asexuality, going so far as to attend porn theatres in order to resist masturbation. He possesses memberships in at least fourteen (of which we are aware) porn websites, again in order not to masturbate. These memberships constitute the whole of his recreational expenditures. The rabbi actually dreams of this as the apotheosis of his own effort, though he himself is married and possesses fourteen children. The hir is actually a model on one of said websites, the Tart Inversion, which the bartender finds the most challenging of all the websites; in fact, he forces himself to drink heavily in order to exacerbate his own effort, for generally he is a teetotaler. In actuality they are all of the same age, though it is a Baby Boomer, the rabbi among the first to move into the newly formed Jerusalem, and the bartender one of W.S. Merwin’s “coal miner’s pale children”. Nonetheless each feels is aware of leading a parallel life of which he or hir is entirely unaware. The rabbi, necessarily analogizes this experience with his own faith, metaphorizing his ‘other’ with the devil in which he does not believe, but feels, as many Christians do, is entirely necessary. The bartender is convinced that his ‘other’ is the life of all those with whom he might have slept - which he considers to be all people, unlike most people, who feel their field of potential sexual partners is much more narrow - in a ruminative gestalt. Hir is pretty sure it’s hir. Many live acquainted with this feeling, though his is certain hir is alone in this. It’s one of the things that makes hir rub hirself in certain nonexistent places. The place hir dances is called Hell, which hir is pretty sure is entirely unironic. The rabbi, despite his beliefs, believes in Hell, in fact longs for it, as he is certain that many deserve it and equally certain that the Old Testament god would heartily approve the idea. The bartender’s bar is also called Heaven. According to Euclid, parallels lines intersect in three dimensional space. Hence, they only really exist in two dimensional space, having been fundamentally contradicted upon appearance in three-d. Boy was Euclid ahead of his time.