Issue Three
1
DINGHIES
…..Nicolette Wong
…..…..–After Andrew Sarris and Rumi
After knowledge smothers the last of the flames our stories failed to contain, we throw splices into the sea, dream dinghies for polarized islands. Some song about Bowery and Canal on his land. At the corner yellow trickling down his throat: popsicle laugh with a new love, curled tongues on ice. Where the stoplight splits the crossing, I race through neon stripes of an expressway to follow.
***
There’s no better flavor than the abandonment of home. Sandwiches at The High Line. Or the wash of Waters Edge. What makes the fastest wedding ever in his photographs? Paintings at Our Lady of Pompeii R.C. Church, and blonde bobs drifting into sleep. The chorus is atoms that cleanse the reflections in wine glasses. Slice those faces; multiply the present until it bangs.
Trajectory to the freeway: a cardboard sign to my town. He, among other guests, walks right past it.
***
Today he will walk the dog with Alyssa. They will run until she clashes, falls beside an empty barrel at the garage to see her name painted over rust. Red prints on thighs beneath a polka dot skirt. The blood on his lips. Stroke by stroke I trace, in a language he no longer speaks, classical poems once singed on my sheets. About a girl who stands alone in green water, and vanishes.
***
All night my lungs hurt from Sarris on Ophuls: “There is no escape from the trap of time.” In that vignette of a page: fluorescent text from his memory. He must have flitted between those characters, who never lose their poise through the montage of abstract dance. The circus will cease as I sell my presence to the multitudes, in one long receding shot, the cumulative explosion of the romantic ego.
When the lights dim, I am a fish splashing to breathe dry sand. He chooses that.
2
MY BUM FOOT
…..Thomas Michael McDade
My twisted foot swelled
to the size of a quart of Bud
but I hadn’t been drunk
and there was no clumsy,
crippling slide stealing home
in a base softball game.
What tripped me up
was the barracks stairs
I was sprinting down in loafers
to get my girlfriend out of jail.
She’d been locked up on a drunk
in public charge thanks to sailors
slipping her booze as she worked
her carhop job at the Paper Box.
The Senior Chief lent me
his Toyota and twenty bucks
and a wise ass cook warned him
about my “heavy” foot.
After paying the fine I took her
to the apartment she shared
with a go-go dancer.
There were no tears of regret,
she was just hung over and tired.
A band in her building rehearsed
“Sloop John B.” as I left
for the base where I got sick
of drunken girlfriend stories.
We met after work
and I had a carton of Navy
Exchange cigarettes for her.
Dragging along my foot
like a chaperone I treated
us to dinner at the Rathskeller.
We got as high as 3.2 beer
allows never imagining ourselves
in the torch singer’s songs.
Winding down the night
with cheap wine, my bum foot
was propped up on a pillow
as if it were king.
3
EARTH
…..Nazifa Islam
4
LOVE AT SIXTY
…..Howie Good
1
The heart plucked
from your chest still beating
stumbles down the stairs
in mud-caked boots,
while I pause at the bottom
to think of the word,
what sounds like the killer hurricane
they say God commissioned
or, more likely, the noise
of a gunshot in a silent film.
2
Old, I am old, & a paraplegic angel
rides upon my back,
somebody else’s yearning
is growing in my chest
& bristles like the black scales
of a suit of Japanese armor
& sparkles even more
right after & when it rains.
5
MONSOON TOWN
…..Kushal Poddar
In the beginning the rain shows
the leaves, bamboos, grass
in a never seen before way.
Then we feel the grey.
A young person drowns.
The weeds colonize his lungs.
I boost a swimming cat’s spirit –
Swim, cat. Swim.
The only sport not involving our shadows.
Or our blood where the dead fish
flow towards our hearts.
In those soft organs
we keep our memories of earth.
6
JAZZY
7
ASHTRAY GRAVESTONES
…..James Claffey
“Ignorant boshtoon,” the Old Man yells at a passing van as it goes by us at a clip.
I keep my nose stuck in Treasure Island and say nothing.
“Calm down, Ronan,” Mam says, her hand on his knee, trying to comfort him. He puts his paw on hers, tells her not to worry herself, and sets off after the van. The whiskey from Jack’s Roadhouse is dangerous and when he zips by three cars and nearly goes into the ditch trying to avoid an oncoming funeral, Mam’s patience wilts.
“Are you trying to kill us all? Jesus, Ronan, I know you don’t want another mouth to feed, but this is ridiculous.”
“Shut your trap.”
He presses his foot on the accelerator with purpose. Mam is tensed in her seat and blesses herself in an attempt to stave off our deaths. I’m setting sail on the Hispaniola with Captain Silver and the crew running their flags up the mizzen masts.
Mam lights a cigarette and the car fills with smoke. She opens the ashtray in the middle of the dashboard and lipstick-stained butts stick out like tombstones. She sweeps the ash from her lap and the Old Man drives on, the dotted lines in the middle of the road disappearing behind us.
St. Christopher holds the baby tight as tehy swing from the rear-view mirror, afraid we’ll crash, I’m certain. The rotation of the medal makes it appear as if the saint is alive and rocking the baby from side to side in a slow dance.
At last we catch up and the Old Man keeps the horn pressed for a long time as we overtake the van. He gives the van driver the two fingers and Mam says, “God forgive you, Ronan.” He says nothing, his energy focused on the road ahead and our next stop for him to wet his whistle.
The cigarette-scented car is a prison for me and even though I’m a fearless pirate I know there’s no escape. Slowly, I open the wrapper of a Macaroon bar and remove the chocolate bit by bit with my teeth. In front of us the sinking sun disappears behind the nearing mountains and Mam crushes the cigarette butt in the ashtray, grinding it into the other gravestones.
8
THE DAIRY FARM
…..CL Bledsoe
A calf snakes its tongue to my daughter’s hand,
stumbles up her sleeve to her cheek. She squeals
and the calf jerks, its eyes all fear. My daughter reaches
a tiny hand, and the calf inches its nose
to her fingers. She caresses the furred snout, eyes wide
while my wife and I sniffle at the hay spread around the pens,
the silage and dust, the rank animal smell of the barn.
The calf’s mother committed suicide that morning,
two of the farm girls tell us, shaking their heads. It tried
to run through a closed gate. “Well you’ve had a rough
day,” my wife says with a tight smile. Later, the sisters show
us the herd, lounging in a pasture. Two cows, mothers
of other newborn calves we’ve just petted inside, stand
away, just outside the barn. “She made it to her hips.”
The girl points at a bent gate, and we glance from it to one
of the monstrous, worried-eyed mothers. “Stupid cow,”
the other girl says. Outside, my wife and I bicker over who
will carry the baby back to the main house where we’re
parked. My wife wins and straps her into a backpack. I lag
behind with the girls who keep glancing back to the barn,
each looking away before the other can see.
9
HAND SCULPTURE
…..Linda Hofke
10
THE TRAGEDY OF LAUNDRY
…..James Valvis
The tragedy of laundry; I had no idea, says Tetsuro Shigematsu,
and I think of you forever humping hampers of whites or colors
down our hallways. Four kids with closets full of calamities,
a husband with stained shirts, your own beige brassieres
pairs of hammocks for hamsters. Always five-hundred socks
that must be matched, a mess that would sink Sherlock Holmes
into long bouts of cocaine and violent violin. What distance,
mother, there was between us. Down the long, sterile hall
you lurched, bending to reach into the machine’s mouth,
and when you straightened again you held a laundry ball
like a cloth child, shirt arms flung around your face,
collar pressed to your chest, as if this were your real family,
as if this wad of aseptic ghosts were all you needed to embrace.
11
STONES
…..Don Narkevic
In 1919 my grandfather carved
the lettering for both Carnegie and Frick,
clear, clean, and crisp as the ten commandments.
In ’37 my old man chiseled Mellon’s stone.
I visited it once.
Rain-spattered dirt and dead leaves
dirtied the slate-gray stone.
Just like everyone else’s.
My son, a computer software engineer,
tells me I’m the master of a dying art,
then laughs. I don’t see the humor.
When I hold the chisel
and the brass-capped mallet,
I feel the calluses of my forefathers,
how soon they disappeared
from the census, how with each tap
I journey closer to the end,
how white lung chips away at my last breath,
and how the lilies of the field
are the hardest flowers to carve.
12
CLARENCE
13
THE SEE-ERS ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN THE SAW
…..Jack Foster
…..
Alphabet No. 1, Tell Me What You See
A: Well, depending on what I write or draw or paint on it, I see something that could catapult me into ever-lasting fame.
B: Unless my eyes deceive me, you are holding an innocent, pristine, spotless, unsullied, untouched, virgin piece of white writing paper.
C: A sheet of sediment which results from the settling of a layer of disintegrated fibers, most commonly wood fibers, from a watery solution onto a flat mold.
D: Whenever I see a piece of paper I think of Ts’ai Lun’s good fortune. For at least fifteen hundred years, he was credited with inventing paper in 105 AD by using bamboo fibers and the inner bark of a mulberry tree. Then, in 1957, a piece of paper made from hemp fibers was discovered in a tomb near Xian, China. It was made a century or so before Ts’ai Lun was born. So he got fifteen hundred years of fame, while most of us will get, at best, only fifteen minutes. So I see good fortune.
E: The material that William Zinsser said writing is thinking on.
F: The material that Johann Gutenberg’s invention created a market for.
G: The material upon which letters like me have always felt most at home.
H: The material that, over the years, has proven more practical as a writing surface than papyrus, wood, stone, ceramics, sand, tree or plant leaves, wax, clay, plastic, cotton, wool, rayon, linen, bark, metal, silk, concrete, bamboo, animal skins, or glass (yes, glass).
I: The material most responsible for the rise of literacy in the world.
J: Chaos.
K: Order.
L: As Jonas Salk wrote: “The answer to any question ‘pre-exists.’ We need to ask the right question to reveal the answer.” Knowing that, perhaps you’d like to re-phrase your question.
M: It’s strange that you, of all people, should ask that question.
N: I wish I could honestly say I see something on that piece of paper, but I can’t.
O: I suspect you want me to answer, “A plain piece of white paper” or some such drivel, which would then give you the opportunity to expound at length about how things are not always what they seem, that the first answer that pops into our heads is seldom deep or profound enough, that we must always dig beneath the surface if we want to uncover Truth, but I’m not going to give you that chance. I see God. Now, is that deep and profound enough for you?
P: I don’t have to tell you anything, fella.
Q: I see what you gain if you venture it.
R: The cat’s pajamas?
S: The cat’s meow?
T: I see boundless freedom, for as Charles S. Peirce wrote: “We start, then, with nothing, pure zero. But this is not the nothing of negation. For not means other than, and other is merely a synonym of the ordinal numeral second. As such it implies a first; while the present pure zero is prior to every first. The nothing of negation is the nothing of death, which comes second to, or after, everything. But this pure zero is the nothing of not having been born. There is no individual thing, no compulsion, outward nor inward, no law. It is the germinal nothing, in which the whole universe is involved or foreshadowed. As such, it is absolutely undefined and unlimited possibility—boundless possibility. There is no compulsion and no law. It is boundless freedom.”
U: A silver lining?
V: So I come here hoping you’re going to use me and my 25 friends to write a poem that will change the world, and instead you ask us to identify the material on which you’re going to inscribe us for that poem. What a waste of energy.
W: An infinite caesura?
X: No, I won’t. Sorry. No offense.
Y: “The greatness of the philosophers of the scientific revolution,” wrote Arthur Koestler, “consisted not so much in finding the right answers but in asking the right questions.” Your question is either too simple or too profound to fall into that category.
Z: Well, depending on what I write or draw or paint on it, I see something that could catapult me into ever-lasting obscurity.
…..
Alphabet No. 2, Tell Me What You See
A: A good question opens the door to enlightenment. Yours is a good question.
B: The first thing I think of when a see a piece of paper—like the one you have in your hand, with nothing written on it—is something Lincoln Steffens wrote in 1931: “Nothing is done. Everything in the world remains to be done or done over. The greatest picture is not yet painted, the greatest play isn’t written, the greatest poem is unsung. There isn’t in all the world a perfect railroad, nor a good government, nor a sound law. Physics, mathematics, and especially the most advanced and exact of the sciences, are being fundamentally revised. Chemistry is just becoming a science; psychology, economics, and sociology are awaiting a Darwin, whose work in turn is awaiting an Einstein. If the rah-rah boys in our colleges could be told this, they might not all be specialists in football, petting parties, and unearned degrees. They are not told it, however; they are told to learn what is known. This is nothing.” I see great possibilities.
C: The greatest picture ever painted?
D: The greatest play ever written?
E: The greatest poem ever sung?
F: I am wary of questions that have obvious answers. They are usually traps that capture fools. Fs are not fools. Some of the other letters are; but Fs, never.
G: You’re asking a letter of the alphabet if she can recognize a piece of writing paper when she sees one? You ought to get a day job, my friend.
H: Sorry. My parents taught me never to talk to strangers.
I: Something as useless as gibberish.
J: Ruth Formanek wrote: “Answering questions can be a huge responsibility. Children think that their parents have all the answers. In the words of one child, children are ‘whyers’ and parents ‘becausers.’ ” I’ll play it safe and say I see “whyers” and “becausers.”
K: I see you holding one of the triumphs of the ancient world, one of the things that made possible (or at least practical) the passing on of knowledge from one generation to another.
L: I can make believe I see anything I want. So my answer is—I see anything.
M: I see the start of still another adventure.
N: A fairie?
O: I see that which Shakespeare thought there is much ado about.
P: The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind.
…..The answer is blowin’ in the wind.
…..—Bob Dylan
Q: The Chinese invented the thing you’re holding, so it’s not surprising that Mao Tse-Tung used a blank-paper metaphor to describe the Chinese people, to wit: “Apart from their other characteristics, the outstanding thing about China’s 600 million people is that they are ‘poor and blank.’ This may seem a bad thing, but in reality it is a good thing. Poverty gives rise to the desire for change, the desire for action and the desire for revolution. On a blank sheet of paper free from any mark, the freshest and most beautiful pictures can be painted.” I see a beautiful picture.
R: If, as Socrates said—“All that we know is that nothing can be known”—how do you expect me to know the answer to that question?
S: I see the road not taken.
T: The Lost Chord?
U: I see something awaiting marks of some kind to reach its potential, to realize its destiny. Without marks, it is simply blank paper. With marks, it has a chance for immortality.
V: Paradise Lost?
W: Harvey?
X: Longfellow’s youth?
Y: I see the thank-you notes my kids are always forgetting to write.
Z: A frivolous question locks the door to enlightenment. Yours is a frivolous question.
…..
Alphabet No. 3, Tell Me What You See
A: I see ( ), or perhaps [ ], I’m not sure.
B: It looks suspiciously like something I’ve been head over heels in love with all my life—a piece of paper with nothing written on it. Yet.
C: I see you holding a piece of what Noah Webster describes as “a substance made in the form of thin sheets or leaves from rags, straw, bark, wood, or other fibrous material, for various uses,”
D: Neil Postman and Charles Weingartner wrote: “Once you have learned how to ask relevant and appropriate questions, you have learned how to learn, and no one can keep you from learning whatever you want or need to know.” I think your question is neither relevant nor appropriate.
E: If I tell you what I see, you’ll know who I am, and I’m not sure I want to reveal myself to you.
F: I have a friend who says that Jesus Christ is the answer to everything. Is “Jesus Christ” correct?
G: I have a friend who says that duct tape is the answer to everything. Is “duct tape” correct?
H: I have a friend who says that Allen Iverson is The Answer, period. Is “Allen Iverson” correct?
I: From here, it looks like a sheet of folio letterhead paper, i.e. paper that’s 8-1/2 by 11 inches. But it could be a demy letterhead sheet (8 by 10-1/2 inches) or even a note sheet (8 by 10 inches). It’s hard to tell exactly at this distance.
J: The way to find something, my uncle says, is to look hard for it. I’m looking hard for a toboggan. Is that a toboggan I see?
K: A trail?
L: A tiger?
M: A moon?
N: That’s one of those “beautiful, unanswerable questions” that Carl Sandburg said “Love, with little hands” asks you.
O: Asking a letter to identify a piece of writing paper is like asking a fish to identify water. Nuts.
P: What you’re holding reminds me of Billy Nye’s observations on space: “Space is very large. It is immense, very immense. A great deal of immensity exists in space. Space has no top, no bottom. In fact, it is bottomless both at the bottom and at the top. Space expands as far backwards as it does forward, and vice versa. There is no compass of space, nor points of the compass, and no boxing of the compass. A billion million of miles traveled in space won’t bring a man any nearer than one mile or one inch. Consequently, in space it’s better to stay where you are, and let well enough alone.” I see space.
Q: I see the thing that gives my life meaning. (No pun intended.)
R: You’ve got to know that we alphabets are a strange lot. We don’t like to be asked questions. We want to be given direction—told to say something beautiful, poetic, insightful, new, significant, intense, profound, earth-shaking, wise. So if I refuse to answer, I know you’ll understand it’s just that I’m not comfortable answering questions.
S: Probably a piece of the “wove” paper instead of the “laid” paper of the 1600s.
T: The 18-minutes and 30-second gap on the Nixon White House tapes?
U: I see the “Lost” in “Lost & Found.”
V: A picture of a polar bear inside an igloo.
W: I see something that reminds me of this—
…..Each morning my characters
…..greet me with misty faces
…..willing, though chilled, to muster
…..for another day’s progress
…..through the dazzling quicksand
…..the marsh of blank paper.
…..—John Updike
X: Oscar Wilde wrote: “Questions are never indiscreet. Answers sometimes are.” Not wanting to take a chance on being indiscreet, I’ll answer with another question—Why is the question mark shaped like that?
Y: I see what some have called the fifth element—quinta essentia.
Z: I see [ ], or perhaps ( ), I’m not sure.
…..
Alphabet No. 4, Tell Me What You See
A: On questions like this, I find I usually agree with the answers my friend Z gives.
B: An 8-1/2” x 11” piece of white, 90 brightness, 20 pound, computer paper.
C: The legendary tabula rasa.
D: I see a white lie.
E: I agree with Lester Bang, who wrote: “The only questions worth asking today are whether humans are going to have any emotions tomorrow, and what the quality of life will be if the answer is no.” Now, should you want to ask me that question, I’ll answer in the affirmative.
F: I see paper, one of the many things the Chinese invented that they actually get credit for, unlike umbrellas and wheelbarrows.
G: Take any piece of paper, like the one you’ve got, and with a pencil put two dots on it as close together as you can without them touching. Now—between those two dots, you can find infinity. I see the possibility of infinity.
H: The great novel everyone has in them?
I: Psychologists William James and Carl Lange posited that emotions—like sadness or happiness—are nothing more nor less than our awareness of certain physical and physiological changes in our bodies. Thus happiness, for example, is made up of changes in your heartbeat and blood pressure and breathing, how much blood sugar your liver releases, and things like that. Including, of course, a smile, and perhaps even a laugh. In other words, we don’t smile and laugh because we’re happy. We’re happy, at least in part, because we smile and laugh. To prove it, look at something that elicits no emotion from you whatever, like that blank piece of paper you’re holding, and smile. There—you’re now happier than you were before. I see happiness.
J: Who gave you the right to ask the questions, anyway?
K: King Lear, before it was written.
L: The Eroica, before it was composed.
M: A Rembrandt sketch, before it was drawn.
N: Spiderman, before he was conceived.
O: I see something that reminds me of that story about the poetry contest in Nara, Japan where the priests in the temple hand out blank sheets of paper to the townspeople and ask them to write poems. After everybody hands in a poem, the priests judge the poems and award prizes. Third prize is a rose, beautifully carved out of solid silver. Second prize is a rose, beautifully carved out of solid gold. First prize is a rose. Obviously, I see a rose.
P: Whatever is on that paper, it’s not visible to the naked eye. Might I borrow your magnifying glass?
Q: I see my fairy godmother.
R: C. S. Lewis wrote: “Can a Mortal ask questions which God finds unanswerable? Quite easily, I should think. All nonsense questions are unanswerable.” Since this is not a nonsense question, I suggest you ask God for an answer.
S: Proust wrote: “Perhaps it is nothingness that is real and our dream which is non-existent.” I see a dream.
T: I echo what Mark Twain wrote: “I was gratified to me able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I didn’t know.”
U: I don’t answer questions from telemarketers, either.
V: I see me.
W: A piece of Erasable Bond on which someone had written the ten secrets of happiness. And then erased them.
X: I see a lot of things that could be on it— a recipe for cheese cake, a note from an old army buddy, the second paragraph of Tomas Wolfe’s Look Homeward, Angel!, a villanelle about lilacs, a dunning note from the bank, an essay about God, instructions on how to assemble a tricycle, an electricity bill, a rap song (if “song” is the right word for it), directions on how to get to Michigan, four dirty limericks, a short short story about a cat, the answer my fellow I is going to give in Alphabet No 8, the telephone number of a laundrymat in the city of Auckland in the North Island of New Zealand, the number of bananas sold every month in Utah, 100 stupid TV shows, the definition of “jejune,” the first question on Jeopardy, the square root of 13, the Greek alphabet, Edna St. Vincent Millay’s First Fig, a list of the root vegetables, a description of Robert E. Lee’s hat, 3.14159265358979323846264 . . ., my wife’s social security number, the lyrics from Cole Porter’s You’re The Top! —indeed, if there is such a thing, I see infinity.
Y: It makes me think of what a friend of mine’s wife said to him the morning after he came home drunk. “She looked at me across the breakfast table and said nothing,” he said. “And then she repeated it.” I see what she repeated.
Z: On questions like this, I find I usually agree with the answers my friend A gives.
…..
Alphabet No. 5, Tell Me What You See.
A: Old rags, wood pulp, and bleach.
B: There are always, it seems to me, at least three ways of looking at things. (1) You can look at a thing for what it is—in this case, a simple piece of blank paper. (2) You can look at it for what it represents—in this case, one of the staggering sights in the history of the world, the single greatest achievement of mankind—words, type, the alphabet (my blushes), language. Or (3), you can look at it for the impression it makes on you—in this case, nothing.
C: “Don’t fire ‘til you see the whites of their eyes.” I see eyes.
D: “Dear John . . . . “ I see a broken romance.
E: “We regret to inform you . . . . ” I see sadness.
F: I see what is, in theory at least, a gentleman who holds all the colors of the rainbow in the hollow of his hand—Roy G. Biv.
G: “Writing’s easy,” said Gene Fowler, “all you have to do is take a blank sheet of paper, put it in your typewriter, and stare at it until a tiny bead of blood appears on your forehead.” I see blood on your forehead.
H: “I always start writing,” said Patrick Dennis, “with a clean piece of paper and a dirty mind.” I see a dirty mind.
I: “Faith,” said Charles Blount, “is like a blank piece of paper whereon you may write as well one miracle as another.” I see a miracle.
J: A remarkably accurate photograph of The Invisible Man?
K: It reminds me of my mom’s crisp clean sheets. She used to iron them in the summertime and put them in the extra icebox we had in the basement, and when she’d put them on your bed on a hot August night and you’d get in and crawl in between them, it was heaven. I see a crisp clean sheet.
L: A piece of paper. What the hell am I supposed to see?
M: Less than you can imagine.
N: I see ten thousand angels dancing.
O: The Forgotten Man?
P: The world entire.
Q: I dislike questions to which there are myriad answers.
R: My letters! all dead paper, mute and white!
…..And yet they seem alive and quivering
…..Against my tremulous hands which loose the string
…..And let them drop down on my knee to-night.
…..—Elizabeth Barrett Browning
S: I see an unprinted official paper or report, often the result of an inquiry or a policy study, issued by a government or another organization or agency.
T: First, you tell me what you see.
U: The third movement of Schubert’s 8th symphony?
V; I see milk and flour and sugar and baking powder and whipped egg whites.
W: “Am I now a butterfly dreaming I am a man, or was I then a man dreaming I was a butterfly?” I see a butterfly.
X: I see what you’re holding, I also see your hand and fingers and fingernails and wrist and arm. I see your ring and your watch. I see the wall behind you and the pictures on the all. I see the room we’re both in. I could go on for a long time, so perhaps you better narrow your question.
Y: I have this recurring dream where I’m walking down the street of this big city and an airplane comes flying over dropping down leaflets, thousands of them, and nobody pays any attention or picks them up to look at them until this one guy reaches down and picks one up and looks at it and says, “Why there’s nothing on it! There’s nothing on it!” He picks up some more. “There’s nothing on any of them! Nothing!” And suddenly this big paddy wagon pulls up and three policemen get out and grab the man and throw him inside and drive away. I see tyranny.
Z: Old rags, wood pulp, and bleach.
…..
Alphabet No. 6, Tell Me What You See.
A: That depends. If you mean, “What do you see on this piece of paper?” I see nothing. If you mean, “What do you see in my hand?” I see a single piece of white paper with no marks on it. If you mean, “What do I see in front of you?” I see too many things to give an accurate answer in such a little time and small space.
B: A picture of the Lost Tribes of Israel?
C: I see snow, cold, wind, an avalanche, felled trees and buried homes, suffocation, death.
D: Let me tell you a story—
…..Years ago I was working with a friend, Hal Silverman. Hal is an artist, one of those irritating people who can draw what he sees. He was drawing a chair. “Boy,” I said, “that looks great—just like a chair. I wish I could do that.”
…..“Do what?” he said.
…..“Draw something that looks like what it is.”
…..“Why can’t you?”
…..“I don’t know; I just can’t. If I tried to draw that chair it’d probably come out looking something like a chicken.”
…..“You got something the matter with you?”
…..“What d’you mean?” I said.
…..“Can you print numbers and the alphabet? Can you write your name?”
…..“Of course.”
…..“You got Saint Vitus’ dance or arthritis or dyslexia or something?”
…..“No.”
…..“Your eyes are OK?”
…..“Sure.”
…..“Then why can’t you draw what you see?”
…..“I don’t know; I just can’t.”
…..Hal shook his head. “If there’s nothing physical that prevents you from drawing that chair, it must be something mental that prevents you from doing it.”
…..“Huh?”
…..“You’ve got a good command of your motor functions, your eyes are fine, you’re not in pain, so the reason you can’t draw this chair must be because you’re not seeing the chair.”
.
….“Of course I can see the chair.”
.
….“Agreed. You can, but you’re not.”
…..“What d’you mean, I’m not?”
.
….“If you really saw it, you could draw it. It’s because you weren’t really seeing. You were simply looking. Not looking for, just looking. Looking requires no effort at all. It’s as easy as breathing. Seeing is different; it requires effort. And commitment.
…..“Here,” he said, picking up the chair and handing it to me, “look at it for ten minutes. Study it. Take it apart in your mind. Then put it back together. Study its design, its shape, its form, its size, its materials, its construction, its colors. Look at how each piece of wood joins with every other piece. Notice how these pieces here are curved inward and these are curved outward. Concentrate. Take mental notes. Note that the back is longer than the legs, that the seat is wider than the back, that the front of the seat is wider than the back of the seat, that the legs splay outward slightly, that the back rest is bent backward. Count the cross members, notice how the turning on the legs is different from the turning on the arms. Look at it upside down, sideways, backward. Look at it. Work at it. If you do, you’ll probably learn more about that chair in the next ten minutes than you have about any chair in your lifetime. And when you’re through, you’ll be able to draw something that actually looks like the thing you’ve learned about.”
.
….I did what he said. And he was right. After ten minutes, I was able to draw something that looked like a chair. Granted, the legs had a decided chicken-like quality to them, but still—it actually looked like a chair.
…..So, if I stop looking at what you’re holding and start to see it, really see it, I think I see a chicken.
E: A photograph of an albino cat, sleeping on a white sofa. Of course, it could be painting of one, too, I suppose.
F: “This is the way the world ends.”
G: No comment.
H: I forgot.
I: So some reason, it reminds me of driving across the highlands of north-eastern New Mexico with my great-uncle Jim in his Model-A Ford—this was during the Great Depression, and we were the only ones on the road—and he stopped to watch the sun go down over the Sangre de Cristo mountains, and you had to swing your head around from side to side to see it all, and we stayed there while the colors fell into themselves and smoked away, and until the stars started to make holes in the sky. I see a hole in the sky.
J: I see the “Before” in “Before & After.”
K: If I had a pencil and you’d let me write on that damn thing, I’d tell you; but without the pencil, I simply don’t know, and will never know.
L: Tomorrow?
M: I’m blind, so I probably see less than most others do. Or maybe a lot more. Who’s to know, really?
N: The moving finger writes; and having writ,
…..Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit
…..Shall lure it back to cancel half a line,
…..Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it.
…..—Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam by Edward FitzGerald
O: None of your damn business.
P: An egg shell? A cloud? Whipped cream? Tom Sawyer’s fence? Sunshine? Ivory soap? White lightning? What?
Q: I see something that might be some sort of secret code.
R: Well, every time I look at nothing—or as close to nothing as you can get, like the tile wall I stare at behind the toilet in my bathroom when I’m taking a leak, or a real foggy morning sky that’s so thick I can’t even see the eucalyptus trees next to my house, or the piece of blank paper you’re holding now—well, right away I see something, and every time I look at something— anything at all that’s interesting—really hard and long, I end up seeing nothing; so I wish you’d show me the David or the Mona Lisa or something like that, ‘cause then I’d be able to answer, “nothing,” and the worse you would think of me is that I’m unimaginative. But this way, looking at nothing, I’ll eventually have to say, “everything,” and you’ll probably think I’m some kind of liar or nut or visionary or something.
S: You’re kidding me, right? This is a put on, right?
T: “The pilgrim soul in you.”
U: When there is nothing on something, as there is obviously nothing on the paper you are showing me, and someone asks me to say what I see, I assume that person wants me to project what might have been on the paper before it was erased. Well, projection’s not a U’s strong suit. We dissect and analyze; we don’t project. Sorry.
V: Every now and then, someone asks me a question I have no answer to, and a hundred answers to; and the no answer is just as valid and true as any of the hundred. I see a hundred things.
W: What will I get if I answer right?
X: Thomas Wolfe wrote: “Each of us is all the sums he has not counted. Subtract us into nakedness and night again and you shall see begin in Crete four thousand years ago the love that ended yesterday in Texas.” I see the love that ended yesterday in Texas.
Y: Eternity?
Z: Nothing.
…..
Alphabet No. 7, Tell Me What You See.
A: The thing every writer starts with.
B: My Uncle Jon, a Jesuit priest, used to ask me simple questions like that, thinking, I suppose, that simplicity is the mother of profundity, and that by asking me something the answer to which was obvious, he’d unearth a universal truth; but, in truth, all such an answer reveals is the obvious—you are holding a blank piece of computer paper, period.
C: In 1649, Charles (then Prince of Wales, and later Charles II, King of England, Scotland, and Ireland) tried to save the life of his father (Charles I) by giving Parliament a signed blank sheet of paper, in effect granting whatever terms Parliament might request. The attempt failed. I see Prince’s blank piece of paper before he signed it.
D: About Mr. Osmond’s little daughter, Henry James wrote: “She was like a sheet of blank paper—the ideal jeune fille of foreign fiction.” I see an ideal jeune fille.
E: I see the reason the quill pen was invented.
F: A tree’s leap to immortality.
G: Wintertime in Vermont?
H: I see a list of all the honest politicians.
I: Zero divided by 13. Or multiplied by 13, for that matter.
J: It’s not the end of the beginning, so it must be the beginning of the end.
K: Something that cannot be folded in half more than eight times.
L: I used to line my students up against a wall in our classroom, give them bond note paper like that, and ask them to make paper airplanes and toss them across the room to the opposite wall—about 20 feet away. They’d make all sorts of planes but they were never able to get one to go that distance. Then I’d say, “OK, you guys, now watch the world champion long-distance paper airplane builder in action.” Whereupon I’d wad up a piece of note paper into the size of a golf ball and pitch it underhand to the wall. Bingo. Who said paper airplanes have to look like paper airplanes? I see a paper airplane.
M: About writing fiction, Hemingway wrote: “You have the sheet of blank paper, the pencil, and the obligation to invent truer than things can be true.” I see truth.
N: The first step of an origami lesson?
O: The passenger list of The Flying Dutchman?
P: I see something my sight created. It exists only because I see it. Should I turn my back on it, or close my eyes, it would cease to exist.
Q: “Why is there something rather than nothing?” It’s the question Martin Heidegger characterized as the most fundamental question of philosophy. I see a fundamental question.
R: A whole lot of nada, zip, zero.
S: “If they give you ruled paper,” e. e. cummings wrote, “write the other way.” I see a piece of unlined paper. Now what way do I write?
T: I remember—it was wintertime and cold, and I was fourteen—sitting in our attic in Illinois in a summer chair with a down comforter over my shoulders, holding a sketching pad of papers like that one in my lap, writing with a number-two pencil faster than I’ve ever written in my life, while the thoughts, the ideas, the insights come pouring forth like water from a pump, faster than I could grasp them and get them down on paper, suddenly, all at once, unexpectedly, a surprise, a wonder, rushing now, gushing up from a deep well I never even knew existed—Where did that come from? How did I know it? Did I read it somewhere? Was I born with it? I see thoughts, ideas, insights.
U: You must be a teacher—they always ask you questions they already know the answers to.
V: If I told you true, you’d think me odd.
W: I refuse to answer on the grounds that I might incriminate myself.
X: I see a fool. That’s someone who asks foolish questions.
Y: Well, now, there was a time when I’d answer questions like that with the first thing that popped into my mind, but I’m 82 now, and if you don’t mind, I’d like to reflect on the consequences of any answer I might give before I give it.
Z: The thing every artist starts with.
…..
Alphabet No. 8, Tell Me What You See.
A: Sorry. I ‘m busy right now.
B: We all see what we want to see. The thing shown is not the important ingredient in determining what that thing is. The important ingredient is the person that thing is shown to. You may think it self-evident that you are showing me a blank piece of paper, but what I see are all the things not written on that paper. I see universal love and peace. And the end to suffering and poverty and injustice and cruelty and hunger and hostilities and sickness and hopelessness and despair. I see compassion. I see consideration for others. I see—ah, I have run out of room. Do you have another piece of paper to show me?
C: What have other letters said?
D: I see the thing that made palimpsests obsolete.
E: A blank document, which by the way, is either worthless or priceless depending on who owns it.
F: As the astronomers say: “Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.” I don’t see enough absence to convince me there is nothing on that paper.
G: Prima facie.
H: That paper looks suspiciously to me like the first page of the Lost Hemingway Manuscripts—the ones stolen from his first wife, Hadley, while she was coming on a train to visit him at the Lausanne Peace Conference in 1922.
I: Paper with absolutely, positively nothing on it. Unless, of course, someone has made and incredibly tiny mark on it.
J: I suspect many would answer “Nothing.” But there’s no way to test the hypothesis “There is nothing.” After all, such a test would have to observed, and any observation would necessitate the existence of an observer. And the existence of an observer means there is something. And since there’s no way to test it, we must assume it doesn’t exist. As Victor Hugo wrote in Les Misérables: “All roads are blocked to a philosophy which reduces everything to the word ‘no.’ To ‘no’ there is only one answer and that is ‘yes.’ Nihilism has no substance. There is no such thing as nothingness, and zero does not exist. Everything is something. Nothing is nothing. Man lives more by affirmation than by bread.” So I, for one letter, refuse to answer “Nothing.”
K: A new kind of Rorschach test?
L: Wan-visaged thing! thy virgin leaf
…..To me looks more than deadly pale,
…..Unknowing what may stain thee yet,—
…..A poem or a tale.
…..—Oliver Wendell Holmes
M: I see an echo.
N: I see an angel’s shadow.
O: The image Dracula reflects in a mirror?
P: Let go of that thing and I’ll see gravity.
Q: The ether?
R: I see the guitar my little nephew plays.
S: California ex-governor Jerry Brown once said: “The volume of paper expands to fill all available briefcases.” I see all available briefcases.
T: Most educators believe that the three prime questions are: Why? (The Relationship Question) and How? (The Problem-Solving Question) and Which? (The Decision-Making Question). Unfortunately, What? (The Identification Question) is not on that list.
U: If one picture is worth a thousand words, one question must be worth a thousand answers.
V: MYOB.
W: It reminds me of that story about the Japanese artist (whose name escapes me) who was commissioned by the Emperor to draw him a dove on a piece of plain white paper like the one you’ve got in your hand. The artist went away to his studio in the mountains and wasn’t heard from for two years. Finally, the Emperor became impatient and went to the artist’s studio and demanded his drawing. The artist affixed a paper to his easel and with three quick swipes with his brush produced a breathtaking drawing of a dove. “What?” said the Emperor. “I had to wait two years for this? Why didn’t you give it to me at once?” The artist answered by opening a huge wall cabinet wherein were stacked thousands of drawings of a dove. I see the drawing of a dove.
X: The back side of a mirror?
Y: As the politicians say when someone asks them a difficult question: “I’m glad you asked me that question.”
Z: Sorry. I’m busy right now, too.
…..
Alphabet No. 9, Tell Me What You See
A: I’ve learned to be wary of questions that look easy to answer. Besides, why are you asking me, for heaven’s sake? Ask Z. She’s smarter than I am.
B: Approximately 1/500th of a ream of plain white paper.
C: Approximately 1/24th of a quire of plain white paper.
D: We do not see things as they are. We see things as we are.
E: It all depends, as Bill Clinton might have said, on what you mean by “see.”
…..Do you mean “to perceive by the eye, to have the power of sight?” (He cannot see—he is blind.)
…..Do you mean “to perceive an idea or situation mentally?” (I see what you mean.)
…..Do you mean “to be attentive; to take care; to heed?” (See to it that you pay your bills.)
…..Do you mean “to make a call upon; to visit?” (I’m going to see my friend.)
…..Do you mean “to accompany in person; to escort; to wait upon?” (I’ll see her home.)
…..Do you mean “to perceive or be contemporaneous with?” (You’ll see a lot of cheating here.)
…..Do you mean “to imagine; conceive of; see in one’s mind?” (I just can’t see her acting like that.)
…..Do you mean “to cover or call or match a bet?” (I’ll see your raise.)
F: I see something that makes me think of this—
…..O body swayed to music, O brightening glance,
…..How can we know the dancer from the dance?
…..—Yeats
G: The opportunity to create?
H: I see more than is dreamed of.
I: Something that when folded in half makes a folio—four pages of a book or a manuscript.
J: Something without which at least one art form could not exist—origami.
K: George Bernard Shaw said: “Some people see things as they are and ask, ‘Why?’ I dream of things that never were and ask, ‘Why not?’ “ I see things that never were.
L: Samuel Goldwyn said: “A verbal contract isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on.” I see a verbal contract.
M: Here are a few of the unpleasant’st words
…..That ever blotted paper!
…..—Shakespeare
N: It reminds me of the V-Mail our neighbors, the Roths, received from their son in 1944. It was postmarked the day before the Air Force said later he was shot down over Germany. He had addressed the outside but written nothing on the inside. I see the inside of an old V-Mail.
O: Is this a trick?
P: You’re a magician, so it’s something you’re going to turn it into a rabbit wearing a top hat and holding a deck of cards, right?
Q: “Where were you fellows,” Fred Allen asked writers who heavily edited his script, “when the paper was blank?” I see a bunch of writers who are not around.
R: I talk to strangers, but I seldom tell them anything.
S: Shhh. I’m meditating—trying to think about nothing, which is, of course, impossible since thinking requires the existence of something—an object or an idea or a situation or an event, or a some thing—to be contemplated; but I’m trying, nonetheless.
T: Not a damn thing.
U: P. G. Wodehouse wrote: “Never put anything on paper, my boy, and never trust a man with a small black moustache.” I see a man with a small black moustache.
V: It reminds me of Edwin A. Abbott’s Flatland.
W: It could well be the start of something big.
X: Well now, I’m certainly glad you asked me that question, for it is truly one of those great questions that deserves an answer, but I’m sure you’ll understand if I must respectfully decline since, if I gave you the answer, you’d know what I know, and I’d lose the one advantage I, the questionee, have over you, the questioner.
Y: The ultimate rejection slip, with not even a “Dear author” or a “Thank you for your submission” or a “Sorry, not for us” written on it.
Z: I’ve learned to be wary of questions that look easy to answer. Besides, why are you asking me, for heaven’s sake? Ask A. He’s smarter than I am.
…..
Alphabet No. 10, Tell Me What You See
A: Rumor has it that you asked other alphabets this same question and got some pretty stupid answers.
B: A sheet of writing paper, obviously.
C: I see the heart of a melody, for, as Pablo Casals said: “The heart of the melody can never be put down on paper.”
D: Something that, with a pencil or a pen, could make me immortal.
E: It reminds me of what an English professor wrote on a student’s paper: “I am returning this otherwise good typing paper to you because someone has written gibberish all over it and put your name on top.”
F: A piece of unmarked paper on the other side of which someone has written: “On the other side of this paper is the answer to all your prayers.”
G: John Ciardi wrote: “A good question is never answered. It is not a bolt to be tightened into place but a seed to be planted and to bear more seed toward the hope of greening the landscape of ideas.” I see a seed.
H: The emperor’s clothes?
I: The hole in a doughnut?
J: I see what some say marriage is.
K: Angel dust, assuming there are such things as angels, and assuming further they leave dust in their wakes.
L: I see a hard copy list of all the people in Omaha, Nebraska (or any other large city, for that matter) who have never lied.
M: Does any question have only one answer?
N: Does any question have an answer that is always correct?
O: Does any question have an answer that is always wrong?
P: Does any question not have an answer?
Q: Does any question not have many answers?
R: Positivism maintains that the only true knowledge is scientific knowledge, that metaphysical questions, or semi-metaphysical questions such as the one you’re asking, are unanswerable. So there.
S: Thoreau used to put a piece of paper like that under his pillow, and when he couldn’t sleep, he wrote in the dark. I see what Thoreau wrote in the dark.
T: I see what Allen Ginsberg saw just before he wrote: “I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked.”
U: I see plenty of nothin’ / And nothin’s plenty for me.
V: What do I see? I see a fool holding a piece of paper asking another fool what he sees. Ridiculous.
W: It reminds me of Sister Cecilia—she who did the single nicest thing for me anyone has ever done.
…..It was our last week of school in eighth grade. There were twenty of us boys in her Latin class. A couple of days before we graduated, she told us she had a special assignment for us.
…..“I want you to write down on paper something nice, something good, something you like or admire about every boy in this class. Put the boy’s name down, then write something about him. It can be short or long, I don’t care. Then leave a space, and do the same thing for the next boy. Use as much paper as you want. You must not skip anyone. When you’re finished, hand the papers to me. If you finish early, you may leave and go to the play yard.”
…..Well, now. For a couple of those guys—Leo Murphy and Tommy Sullivan are two I remember—that took some doing. But I stayed at it and found something nice to say about Leo’s straight teeth, and Tommy’s encyclopedic knowledge of baseball.
…..A week later, during graduation, there sat Sister Cecilia up on the platform with a shoebox on her lap. As I marched up to get my diploma she reached in and handed me an envelope with my name on it.
…..I kept that envelope for over twenty years until I lost it while moving. Inside it were nineteen slips of paper, each inscribed with something nice, something good, something someone liked or admired about me.
…..I see Sister Cecelia.
X: The thing that smothers rock and is cut by scissors.
Y: I do not see what I am looking for, but as Francis Bacon wrote: “They are ill discoverers that think there is no land when they see nothing but sea.”
Z: Rumor has it that you asked other alphabets this same question and got some pretty profound answers.
…..
Alphabet No. 11, Tell Me What You See
A: In explaining his philosophy of life, Sid Ceasar’s character “The Professor” says there are the NOW, the WAS, and the GONNA BE. As the beginning letter in the alphabet, I have eyes only for the GONNA BEs. What you’re holding is the GONNA BE.
B: I see something that can be bent, turned, folded, twisted, crumpled, cut, torn, molded, impregnated, enameled, creped, water-proofed, waxed, glazed, sensitized, dissolved, macerated, embossed. It can be colored, coated, printed, painted, charcoaled, crayoned, inked, varnished, watermarked. It can be laminated with itself and with fabric, plastic, and metal. It can be opaque, translucent, or transparent. It can be made to burn or be made fire-resistant. It can be a carrier or a barrier or a filter or an insulator. It can be made tough enough to withstand acid, weak enough to blow smoke through, hard enough to walk on, soft enough to soothe a baby. It can be read from, laid on, worn as a garment. It can be used as building material, packing, sound-proofing,. It can disintegrate or it can be re-used, but it is biodegradable and comes from an infinitely renewable resource.
C: A first class ticket to wherever.
D: Potential confetti.
E: The thing counterfeiters start with.
F: The whole world can be divided into two types—the askers and the askees. Most letters—nay, 90% of us—are askees. I, an F, am one of the rare ones who is an asker. So go ask some other letter. Go ask G. She loves to be asked questions.
G: I’m glad you asked me that question, as it gives me a chance to parade my knowledge, prove my mettle, establish my worth. I see paper.
H: My favorite answer to any question is Charlie Brown’s: “I know the answer! The answer lies within the heart of all mankind! What, the answer is twelve? I think I’m in the wrong building!”
I: If, as the cliché goes, “A truth is just as comforting as a lie,” then I see a truth. Or maybe a lie.
J: If, as the cliché goes, “Making a decision is better than making no decision at all,” then I decide to see a partridge in an orange tree.
K: What’s left unsaid.
L: I see all those “Lost Positives” (as Kenneth G. Wilson called them)—words, like gruntled and traught and jected, that may have existed once but now are nowhere to be seen unless one cuts off the negative prefixes of familiar words.
M: In explaining his philosophy of life, Sid Ceasar’s character “The Professor” says there are the NOW, the WAS, and the GONNA BE. As one of the two middle letters in the alphabet, the letters before me are now SAWs, those after me are GONNA BEs; and so I have eyes only for the NOWs. What you’re holding is the NOW.
N: I agree with M.
O: The key that Edward Elgar’s Enigma Variations was written in.
P: The world that Emily Dickinson lost “the other day.”
Q: I see what one of my uncles was good for.
R: A bleached sawbuck?
S: A chalk drawing of a snowfall?
T: Thank you for asking. But I must decline to enlighten you because you forgot the rhyme my mother taught me: “Two little doors open with keys / One says ‘Thank You.’ the other, ‘Please.’”
U: Thank you for asking. But as you’ve already discovered, what a letter in some alphabet sees is more dependent on that letter in that alphabet than it is by what that letter is looking at.
V: I see all or nothing at all. Whichever.
W: I see something that’s my only choice at a supermarket checkout stand besides plastic.
X: I see something without which scores of industries would go belly-up—everything from bookbinding and printing to packaging and shredding, from wallpapering and wrapping to photographing and mailing.
Y: Too bad you didn’t ask me that earlier, as I like to think I’d give the answer letter O in Alphabet No, 1 gave. But maybe not.
Z: In explaining his philosophy of life, Sid Ceasar’s character “The Professor” says there are the NOW, the WAS, and the GONNA BE. As the last letter in the alphabet, I have eyes only for the WASs. What you’re holding is the WAS.
…..
Alphabet No. 12, Tell Me What You See
A: Like Alice, I say: “I see nothing.” And like the Cheshire Cat, you should reply: “My. You have good eyes.”
B: Each time I blink, I shut eyes for 0.3 seconds, which means my eyes are closed at least 30 minutes a day just from blinking. I’m sorry, but you asked me during one of those 30 minutes. Came back later.
C: I’m one of the one in 12 males who is color blind, so any answer I give would be suspect. I hope you understand.
D: What the hell do you mean? I see your hand holding a single piece of blank paper. What is this—a flimflam?
E: I see a thin material mainly used for writing, printing, drawing, painting, insulating, folding, cutting, or packaging.
F: Looks are deceiving. Only a fool would stake his reputation on what he perceives. And Fs are not fools. Some of the other letter are, but not Fs.
G: Yesterdays?
H: I see the boat on which knowledge sailed from one century to another.
I: I see a lot of printing presses. Here’s why—
…..Had we but paper enough, and time—and, of course, the kind of printing press described by George Gamow in One, Two, Three, Infinity “that would continuously print one line after another, automatically selecting for each line a different combination of the letters of the alphabet and other typographical signs”—we could print, according to Gamow, “everything, gibberish and all . . . that ever has or ever will be printed in English: every line of prose and poetry, every editorial and advertisement in newspapers, every ponderous volume of scientific treatises, every love letter, every note to a milkman . . . .”
…..It would take a bit, though. Indeed, if we had one such press for every atom in the universe, and if each one of those 300, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000 presses started printing 10, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000 lines (at 65 characters per line) per second the instant the universe was created, today we’d have only about one-thirtieth of 1% of the total needed.
J: A love letter written in invisible ink.
K: I see a material that could help me immortalize my thoughts about chocolate-chip cookies.
L: If you don’t know, how in the hell would I know?
M: Franz Kafka wrote: “A book should be an ax for the frozen sea within us.” I see what could be a piece of an ax.
N: I’ve been thinking about my fellow letter I just said, when she quoted George Gamow’s contention that we could build printing presses that would print “everything, gibberish and all . . . that ever has or ever will be printed in English.” Pfui! All it takes to refute such a claim is to print the word “thirteen” over and over again, ad infinitum.
O: As some of my fellow letters have suggested, it is a very difficult question, indeed, for it broaches the concept of nothingness. And nothingness is something that many philosophers doubt can be possible because it presupposes the existence of something.
P: 无线, or Wu.
Q: { }
R: I see something that was not there until you asked me the question.
S: A piece of deinked pulp.
T: I see something that could be made into a paper-mache bracelet.
U: As the Buddha said: “There are these four ways of answering questions. Which four? There are questions that should be answered categorically [straightforwardly yes, no, this, that]. There are questions that should be answered with an analytical (qualified) answer [defining or redefining the terms]. There are questions that should be answered with a counter-question. There are questions that should be put aside.” Yours is one that should be answered with a counter-question—“Who gives you the right to ask?”
V: I think I see something that looks like a white napkin. But I’m sorta guessing ‘cause I’ve got macular degeneration, and, lately, things are not always as they appear to be.
W: Sorry. I’m involved with something right now—I’m collecting words beginning with the only multi-syllabic letter in the English alphabet.
X: I see you waving a piece of paper around like a madman.
Y: I see what might have been, if only . . .
Z: There are, according to Benjamin Bloom, five categories of questions— Knowledge (Who, What, When, Where, Why, How? Describe); Application (How is it an example of, or related to? Why is?); Analysis (What are the parts or features of? Classify according to? How would you design a new? What would happen if you combined? What solutions would you suggest for?); and Evaluation (Do you agree that? What do you think about? What is the most important? Place the following in order of priority? How would you decide about? What criteria would you use to assess?) Yours, in case you haven’t guessed, falls in the Knowledge category.
…..
Alphabet No. 13, Tell Me What You See
A:
B:
C:
D: Ah ha! I see the following—
…..An alphabet, when asked what it sees,
…..Has so many answers that please,
…..…..That the asker, aghast
…..…..At responses so vast,
…..Forgot the ABC’s.
E: Fermat’s Last Theorem states: xn + yn = zn has no zero integer solutions for x, y, and z when n > 2. Fermat wrote this theorem in a book and added: “I have discovered a truly remarkable proof which this margin is too small to contain.” The proof has never been found. I think Fermat’s proof is on that blank piece of paper you’re asking us about.
F: I see a piece of paper without—as anyone can see—a mark on it. Of course, there are many things—like sound waves and ultra-violet lights and Kirlian screams and magnetic fields and other things, perhaps, that we as yet know nothing about—neither humans nor alphabets see, so it might contain the wisdom of the ages. Who can tell?
G: Samuel Johnson wrote: “There are innumerable questions to which the inquisitive mind can in this state receive no answer: Why do you and I exist? Why was this world created? Since it was to be created, why was it not created sooner?” If all you can ask is what I see, you hardly have an inquisitive mind.
H: I got so interested in Fermat’s Theorem, I forgot what you asked.
I: Atlantis?
J: Bygones?
K: A page of vodka. Or perhaps gin. I can’t be sure unless I taste it. Hell, for that matter, it could be petrified snow.
L: The tooth fairy?
M: Assume for a minute that I see a piece of paper, OK? But even if I do see a piece of paper, it doesn’t mean I’m going to tell you I see a piece of paper, for there is a world of difference between what people see and what they say they see. Else, why would five witnesses to an accident report five different happenings? Why have so many of my fellow letters told you they see different things? Seeing is not believing. Seeing is opinionating. Ergo: it is my opinion that the thing you have in your hand is a faded picture of Woodrow Wilson. Or perhaps Liberace. One or the other.
N: Frozen silence?
O: I don’t see any words, if that’s what you mean. And, being a letter, words are what I live for. Next question.
P: Marianne Moore wrote that a poem is “an imaginary garden with real toads in it.” I see imaginary toads.
Q: On October 31, 1944, Winston Churchill arose in the House of Commons and said: “At the bottom of all the tributes paid to democracy is the little man, walking into the little booth, with the little pencil, making a little cross on a little bit of paper—no amount of rhetoric or voluminous discussion can possibly diminish the overwhelming importance of that point.” I see a vote not cast.
R: Horace wrote: “Brave men lived before Agamemnon, too, all unwept and unknown, lost in the distant night since they lack a divine poet to sing their praises.” I see stories of brave men lost in the distant night.
S: I have no idea. Ask Jeeves. Or Google it.
T: My brother-in-law seems to know everything. Ask him.
U: I see 29, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, or twenty-nine thousand quatrillion, combinations. That’s the number of different ways you could combine us 26 letters on that paper. If there were room, of course.
V: A whole slew of unwritten rules and laws.
W: A whole slew of imaginary numbers—square roots of negative numbers.
X: A whole slew of fantasies.
Y: I see all the news that’s not fit to print.
Z: Ah ha! I see the following—
…..An alphabet, when asked what it sees,
…..Has so many answers that please
…..…..That the asker, aghast
…..…..At responses so vast,
…..Lies down and catches some Z’s.
