Category Archives: Allusion

No Fatherhood Without Childhood

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Sometimes I cannot use specific words. I can’t stand to read them. I do not want them to exist.

Children, he said. Without children I would not be the Father. No Fatherhood without childhood. I never wanted it, it was thrust upon me. Tribute of a sort but I could have done without, fathering then raising each one of the thousands and thousands and tens of thousands, the inflation of the little bundle to big bundle, period of years, and then making sure the big bundles if male wore their cap-and-bells, and if not observed the principle of jus primae noctis, the embarrassment of sending away those I didn’t want, the pain of sending away those I did want, out into the lifestream of the city, nevermore to warm my cold couch, and the management of the ___, maintenance of public order, keeping the zip codes straight, keeping the fug out of the gutters, would have preferred remaining in my study comparing editions of Klinger, the first state, the second state, the third state, and so on, was there parting along the fold? and so on, water stain and so on, but this was not possible, all went forth and multiplied, and multiplied, and multiplied, and I had to Father, it was the natural order, thousands, tens of thousands, but I wanted to wonder if if if I put a wood pulp mat next to a 100 percent rag print would there be foxing and whether the rumblings of the underground would shake the chalk dust from my pastels or not. I never wanted it, it was thrust upon me. I wanted to worry about the action of the sun fading what I valued most, strong browns turning to pale browns if not vacant yellows, how to protect against, that sort of thing, but no, I had to devour them, hundreds, thousands, ____, sometimes their shoes too, get a good mouthful of childleg and you find, between your teeth, the poisoned sneaker. Hair as well, millions of pounds of hair scarifying the gut over the years, why couldn’t they have just been thrown down wells, exposed on hillsides, accidentally electrocuted by model railroads? And the worst was their blue jeans, my meals course after course of improperly laundered blue jeans, T-shirts …

Believe me, the Dead Father said, I never wanted it, I wanted only the comfort of my armchair, the feel of a fine ________ paper, the cool anxiety about whether I had been cogged if if if with a restrike or not, whether some cunning fellow had steelfaced an old copperplate and run off the odd thousand extra impressions, …

if if if if—-

–DB, TDF

You may take my meaning, but for myself I withhold that which defines you. For the fire.

Apostasy

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Allusion Two

The United Nations Commission on Human Rights, considers the recanting of a person’s religion a human right legally protected by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights:

The Committee observes that the freedom to ‘have or to adopt’ a religion or belief necessarily entails the freedom to choose a religion or belief, including the right to replace one’s current religion or belief with another or to adopt atheistic views […] Article 18.2[5] bars coercion that would impair the right to have or adopt a religion or belief, including the use of threat of physical force or penal sanctions to compel believers or non-believers to adhere to their religious beliefs and congregations, to recant their religion or belief or to convert.[6]

 In some countries apostasy from the religion supported by the state is explicitly forbidden. This is largely the case in some states where Islam is the state religion; conversion to Islam is encouraged, conversion from Islam penalised.

  • Iran – illegal (death penalty)[7][8][9]
  • Egypt – illegal (3 years’ imprisonment)[9]
  • Pakistan – illegal (death penalty[9] since 2007)
  • United Arab Emirates – illegal (3 years’ imprisonment, flogging)[10]
  • Somalia – illegal (death penalty)[11]
  • Afghanistan – illegal (death penalty, although the U.S. and other coalition members have put pressure that has prevented recent executions)[12][13]
  • Saudi Arabia – illegal (death penalty, although there have been no recently reported executions)[9][14]
  • Sudan – illegal (death penalty, although there have only been recent reports of torture, and not of execution)[15][16]
  • Qatar – illegal (death penalty)[17]
  • Yemen – illegal (death penalty)[17]
  • Malaysia – illegal in five of 13 states (fine, imprisonment, and flogging)[18][19]
  • Mauritania – illegal (death penalty if still apostate after 3 days)[20]
  • Morocco – illegal to proselytise conversion (15 years’ imprisonment)[21]
  • Jordan – possibly illegal (fine, jail, child custody loss, marriage annulment) although officials claim otherwise, convictions are recorded for apostasy[22][23][24]
  • Oman – legal in criminal code, but according to the family code, a father can lose custody of his child[25]

The only way to get out of a mirror-maze is to close your eyes and hold out your hands. To write this allegedly ultimate story is a form of artistic fill in the blank, or an artistic form of the same. [jb, 111]

For the first time in that night alive with signs and stars, I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world.  Finding it so much like myself. [c ts 122-123]

All these creatures spend their time explaining, realizing happily that they agree with each other. In Heaven’s name, why is it so important to think the same things all together? [s n 8] I am beginning to believe that nothing can ever be proved. These are honest hypotheses which take the facts into account but I sense so definitely that they come from me, and that they are simply a way to unify my own knowledge. Slow, lazy, sulky, the facts adapt themselves to the rigor of the order I wish to give them. I have the feeling of doing a work of pure imagination. [s n 13]

Allusion

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AllusionWhen the water touched my brow and Adam’s sin left me, I contrived by strain like defecation to bring tears into my eyes–but felt nothing. There was some simple radical difference; I hoped it was genius, feared it was madness, I devoted myself to amiability and inconspicuousness. I was seized by the terrifying transports I’d thought to find in toolshed, in communion-cup. The grass was alive! The town, the river, myself, were not imaginary; time roared in my ears like wind; the world was going on!  James Joyce once wrote.  I’m going to scream.