of entry been a hair more stringent Marcia might easily have graced the hippo category. Still.) Yet Randy discerned a redemptive quality in my choice of spouse.
“Just so long as it’s not one of those godawful boys next door, sweetheart,” he told me when the company finally had the telephone lines operating in the correct manner.
“He’s nice,” I said in the high light voice with a giggle at the corners of it that I use with Randy when I want something out of him. “You’ll like him. Tee hee.”
“Ah, your laugh’s a tonic, Jinny.” He paused and became very serious. “Just assure me on one score, sweetie. I can appreciate his interest in hunting for subatomic particles, but I must be certain…does he bite?”
Strange query, from the father you love. That you dote on. When you’re trying to con him. After all, it wasn’t as if Spot had rabies. I decided to treat the matter as a rather coarse attempt by Papa to protect his pocketbook while pretending at levity: i.e., that by ‘bite’ he was employing the demotic locution for ‘seek undue financial advantage through abuse of personal connections,’
Coolly, therefore, I told Father, “He has money of his own, these days. His work on the correction of pitting in nuclear power containment vessels has brought us a comfortable stipend from Con Ed and certain other sizeable corporations.” No call to tell Randy every detail. “Rest assured, Daddy. He won’t ‘bite’ you.”
“No, no, nothing like that,” Father said, “perfectly okay. No, pet, it’s just in that case I hope his quark isn’t worse than his bite.” And the terrible man began to shout and shriek with mirth down the line at his own excruciating silliness. Marcia must have told him about quarks, mispronouncing the word to rhyme with ‘bark,’ because I know for certain that Randy is no intellectual giant. His talents lie instead the direction of making money, large amounts of which he expended to make my wedding the happiest day of my life.
1973: the purloined letter
MOGADON BLUES The Journal of Pharmacological Remorse
is published at bleary infrequent intervals by Joe Williams [still here at #11, 1121 Drummond St, Carlton, gang, down the sleazy end where no one has wonderful academic parties, unless it’s me] for “the usual”: trade quipu, locs, a buncha stamps for the postage, and if the worst comes to the worst and inspiration fails you and you need more than Mogadon to chase down dem debbil blues, $2 for five. We have no bananas. This is MB number 6, if you’re counting, and the last stencil was typed on Sunday, 23 September, 1973
OH GOD, IT WAS IN THE BREAST POCKET OF MY GRAY SUIT ALL ALONG
I just keep drifting back to Caroline when the Moggy Blues come pounding down the track, or perhaps it’s the other way around. As I write this it’s Wednesday the 19th, which is a sort of horrid anniversary. The usual rationale, friends: why tell you about it? Why not. It purges the soul. I strut my conscience on the mimeo stage and wait for your curses, your applause, or maybe some sage advice, commiserations, or None Of The Above—blank silence at the mailbox, embarrassment in the street if I chance to stumble across you in the Real World (Aargh!). Moggy Blues is a Journal of Record.
Five years ago, as I say, to the day, I was involved in an atrocious and unseemly fight (no fisticuffs, only bitter words) outside the Casualty entrance of the Royal Melbourne hospital, in Royal Parade, with Caro’s parents. Their daughter lay in a nearly catatonic condition upstairs in the Psychiatric Ward, zonked on Largactil and barbiturates, looking white and dead and mumbling sluggishly when she could be persuaded to recognize anyone outside her own jangled brainpan. The Muirs explained to me that all this was an utter surprise, that the doctors had told them it was like a virus, coming out of nowhere, that Caroline had always been a difficult and fractious child. I was in a
“Just so long as it’s not one of those godawful boys next door, sweetheart,” he told me when the company finally had the telephone lines operating in the correct manner.
“He’s nice,” I said in the high light voice with a giggle at the corners of it that I use with Randy when I want something out of him. “You’ll like him. Tee hee.”
“Ah, your laugh’s a tonic, Jinny.” He paused and became very serious. “Just assure me on one score, sweetie. I can appreciate his interest in hunting for subatomic particles, but I must be certain…does he bite?”
Strange query, from the father you love. That you dote on. When you’re trying to con him. After all, it wasn’t as if Spot had rabies. I decided to treat the matter as a rather coarse attempt by Papa to protect his pocketbook while pretending at levity: i.e., that by ‘bite’ he was employing the demotic locution for ‘seek undue financial advantage through abuse of personal connections,’
Coolly, therefore, I told Father, “He has money of his own, these days. His work on the correction of pitting in nuclear power containment vessels has brought us a comfortable stipend from Con Ed and certain other sizeable corporations.” No call to tell Randy every detail. “Rest assured, Daddy. He won’t ‘bite’ you.”
“No, no, nothing like that,” Father said, “perfectly okay. No, pet, it’s just in that case I hope his quark isn’t worse than his bite.” And the terrible man began to shout and shriek with mirth down the line at his own excruciating silliness. Marcia must have told him about quarks, mispronouncing the word to rhyme with ‘bark,’ because I know for certain that Randy is no intellectual giant. His talents lie instead the direction of making money, large amounts of which he expended to make my wedding the happiest day of my life.
1973: the purloined letter
MOGADON BLUES The Journal of Pharmacological Remorse
is published at bleary infrequent intervals by Joe Williams [still here at #11, 1121 Drummond St, Carlton, gang, down the sleazy end where no one has wonderful academic parties, unless it’s me] for “the usual”: trade quipu, locs, a buncha stamps for the postage, and if the worst comes to the worst and inspiration fails you and you need more than Mogadon to chase down dem debbil blues, $2 for five. We have no bananas. This is MB number 6, if you’re counting, and the last stencil was typed on Sunday, 23 September, 1973
OH GOD, IT WAS IN THE BREAST POCKET OF MY GRAY SUIT ALL ALONG
I just keep drifting back to Caroline when the Moggy Blues come pounding down the track, or perhaps it’s the other way around. As I write this it’s Wednesday the 19th, which is a sort of horrid anniversary. The usual rationale, friends: why tell you about it? Why not. It purges the soul. I strut my conscience on the mimeo stage and wait for your curses, your applause, or maybe some sage advice, commiserations, or None Of The Above—blank silence at the mailbox, embarrassment in the street if I chance to stumble across you in the Real World (Aargh!). Moggy Blues is a Journal of Record.
Five years ago, as I say, to the day, I was involved in an atrocious and unseemly fight (no fisticuffs, only bitter words) outside the Casualty entrance of the Royal Melbourne hospital, in Royal Parade, with Caro’s parents. Their daughter lay in a nearly catatonic condition upstairs in the Psychiatric Ward, zonked on Largactil and barbiturates, looking white and dead and mumbling sluggishly when she could be persuaded to recognize anyone outside her own jangled brainpan. The Muirs explained to me that all this was an utter surprise, that the doctors had told them it was like a virus, coming out of nowhere, that Caroline had always been a difficult and fractious child. I was in a
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