vehicle, having met a lane divider, had become inoperable. I made my way to the Steamboat Inn, and apparently I was not so impaired that I could not book a room, and I had a line of credit available to me back then that was somewhat more reliable than it became later on, so that I could pay in advance, and so I was shown the room by the innkeeper, who was called Suzanne, after which I went out to try to get some food and perhaps further libation, and when I came back to the Steamboat Inn, at 11:00 p.m., let’s say, I was unable to operate the key to my room. I managed to get in the main door, which had not been locked yet, but I could not get into my room.
Now, there are two kinds of people in the world, and the kind of person I am is the kind who under circumstances like this—locked out of his room, unable to operate the key card in the Steamboat Inn of Mystic, Connecticut, not far from the world-famous Mystic Seaport—would elect not to go to the front desk to demand that he be granted admittance into his room, for which he has paid $108 (it would probably be more like $195 now), but would be likely, instead, to make do with what was available to him, and so I stretched myself out before the door of my room, to listen to the sound of the HVAC in the hallway of the Steamboat Inn, to hear the inrushing of coolant, the breath of God, Te-ai culcat din nou, iar acest lucru este patul tău și ar trebui să stea în ea. So it was until the person came around about 6:45 with copies of that morning’s Providence Journal and gave me a kick, and I was stirred. All of this because of key design.
And so: When you try that card, and that card has, for example, no arrow upon it but rather some kind of advertisement upon it, and therefore you cannot think of what direction the thing ought to be run through the scanner lock, think of me sleeping on the floor of the Steamboat, and when you can’t get the little red light to light up green, think of me, and when you get the thing turned around the wrong way, and you’re on the twenty-third floor, and you’re going to have to go back to Reception, think of me, and when you demagnetize, think of me. Do not, I have been told, carry a credit card near your key card. Do not carry a cellular telephone near your key card. Do not carry keys near your key card. Do not carry quarters and dimes near a key card. I have even been told that the magnetic field of the human body can demagnetize a key card. Demagnetizing is a fact of life. Which means that on occasion, the subatomics are at work. Atoms are mostly space. ★★★ (Posted 12/8/2012)
The Equinox, 3567 Main Street, Manchester, Vermont, October 1–3, 2001
Of the use of the lodgings of North America for illicit liaisons we must now sing. The popular sentiment is that these liaisons occur mainly at motels noteworthy for hourly rates. But this is prejudice, because who does not commence his illicit liaisons in landscapes of affluence, power, and repose? Once upon a time, I was infatuated with a certain professor of the language arts, as they call them now, and this professor was lodged with presumptive tenure at a certain former girls’ college in the southern part of a New England state, and in due course, this infatuation became a searing, abasing sequence of illicit liaisons. One of those days, one of those occasions, had to be the first illicit liaison, the first such event, which is in retrospect like the time-lapse photography of flowers opening to the dew, or like the chrysalis in which the caterpillar performs its striptease and emerges as the Hyalophora cecropia . So much work, most of it in the area of self-deceit, has gone into the preliminaries necessary for the illicit liaison, and you can see the principals convulsed in want, waiting for the decision to be made, tying themselves into such involutions, such elaborate confections of self-deceit, that it’s as if they will never again be able to stand still, and it’s a
Now, there are two kinds of people in the world, and the kind of person I am is the kind who under circumstances like this—locked out of his room, unable to operate the key card in the Steamboat Inn of Mystic, Connecticut, not far from the world-famous Mystic Seaport—would elect not to go to the front desk to demand that he be granted admittance into his room, for which he has paid $108 (it would probably be more like $195 now), but would be likely, instead, to make do with what was available to him, and so I stretched myself out before the door of my room, to listen to the sound of the HVAC in the hallway of the Steamboat Inn, to hear the inrushing of coolant, the breath of God, Te-ai culcat din nou, iar acest lucru este patul tău și ar trebui să stea în ea. So it was until the person came around about 6:45 with copies of that morning’s Providence Journal and gave me a kick, and I was stirred. All of this because of key design.
And so: When you try that card, and that card has, for example, no arrow upon it but rather some kind of advertisement upon it, and therefore you cannot think of what direction the thing ought to be run through the scanner lock, think of me sleeping on the floor of the Steamboat, and when you can’t get the little red light to light up green, think of me, and when you get the thing turned around the wrong way, and you’re on the twenty-third floor, and you’re going to have to go back to Reception, think of me, and when you demagnetize, think of me. Do not, I have been told, carry a credit card near your key card. Do not carry a cellular telephone near your key card. Do not carry keys near your key card. Do not carry quarters and dimes near a key card. I have even been told that the magnetic field of the human body can demagnetize a key card. Demagnetizing is a fact of life. Which means that on occasion, the subatomics are at work. Atoms are mostly space. ★★★ (Posted 12/8/2012)
The Equinox, 3567 Main Street, Manchester, Vermont, October 1–3, 2001
Of the use of the lodgings of North America for illicit liaisons we must now sing. The popular sentiment is that these liaisons occur mainly at motels noteworthy for hourly rates. But this is prejudice, because who does not commence his illicit liaisons in landscapes of affluence, power, and repose? Once upon a time, I was infatuated with a certain professor of the language arts, as they call them now, and this professor was lodged with presumptive tenure at a certain former girls’ college in the southern part of a New England state, and in due course, this infatuation became a searing, abasing sequence of illicit liaisons. One of those days, one of those occasions, had to be the first illicit liaison, the first such event, which is in retrospect like the time-lapse photography of flowers opening to the dew, or like the chrysalis in which the caterpillar performs its striptease and emerges as the Hyalophora cecropia . So much work, most of it in the area of self-deceit, has gone into the preliminaries necessary for the illicit liaison, and you can see the principals convulsed in want, waiting for the decision to be made, tying themselves into such involutions, such elaborate confections of self-deceit, that it’s as if they will never again be able to stand still, and it’s a
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