Backbone > Quarter to Three
The Wise Man and the Troll
by Sparrow; Illustration by Thomas McDonough

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John,
Rap music drifts from headphones behind me, on this bus.
A person 71 years old (?) comes aboard with pictures of
tiny martini glasses on her socks.

“I’m physically in Kingston,” a woman says on her cell phone (to her son).

Sign on bridge: TRENTON MAKES; THE WORLD TAKES
(in giant white letters—does this indicate Trenton’s resentment?)

The man beside me puts on a hat to read a book. (H.P. Lovecraft)

Love,
Sparrow

Peace Family Movement
“Peace families” are groups of six to nine people (usually), not necessarily related, who work for peace. “By ‘peace’ we mean, ‘the prime goal of not-hurting,’” explains Adele Harter, one of the founders of Peace Families. “We’re not looking for shining saints, but for children and adults who strive to do good.” Peace families work in daily life and for national policy. “One may join a peace family for many reasons—an aesthetic dislike of war, Christian principles, the fear of imperialism,” remarks Adele.

Groups of peace families (generally six to nine groups) form “peace family clusters,” which meet regularly. For more information, contact Quarter To 3 c/o Chronogram, P.O. Box 459, New Paltz, NY 12561, or
e-mail info@chronogram.com.

7/22
Today I lost my wallet, or my wallet and I lost each other. Here’s what occurred:

I was riding south from Phoenicia to New Paltz. In Bearsville my friend Eddie entered the bus, and sat by me. We talked. In Kingston, we changed buses. The whole time we changed buses, we talked.
In New Paltz, I exited the bus and felt an anguished vacancy in my pocket. My wallet was nonexistent.

Quickly, I ran back up onto the bus. Eddie searched all around the seat, looking up helplessly. He had discovered nothing.

I continued down the street, toward my college class, into my walletless future.

In the wallet was: $4, four library cards (from the New York Public Library, the Mid-Hudson Library, the Stone Ridge Library, and the 92 Street Y Library), two hospital ID cards (from Gouverneur Hospital and Bellevue Hospital), a Blue Cross card, a voter’s registration card—plus my SUNY New Paltz ID card.

Now all of it is gone—my entire official validity! I was like an eight-pound baby, though 48 years old.

Definition
A Manhattanite
is someone
who believes in Manhattanism.

Orange Gladiator: A Play
A Roman gladiator stands in the center of an arena. He wears a helmet, a short gray skirt, a white belt, sandals, and a tunic. He carries a sword.
An orange is thrown at him. He slices it in half. Another orange is thrown. He also bisects it.
Three more oranges are thrown. He cuts two of them.
More and more oranges are hurled.
He cannot slice them all.
Curtain.

Poem (9)
obb

Derrida
In the current documentary Derrida, an unseen interlocutor asks Jacques Derrida: “Which philosopher would you want for your mother?”
Derrida begins to think. His eyelids flutter. “That’s a good question,” he says finally, smiling. Then he continues to think.

This scene is the longest scene of a French philosopher—or anyone—thinking that I have ever watched.

Inside his mind Derrida is like a woman trying on hats. As each philosopher appears to him—Socrates, Kant, Nietzsche, Heidegger—Jacques asks, “Could you be my mother?”

Then Derrida ends his thinking. “None of them could be my mother,” he reports. “All of them are fathers.” He says this quite sadly.

Nine days after seeing this film, I still recall Derrida thinking. Why aren’t there more movies of women (and men) engaged in thought?
I am tired of watching actors have sex, but I am anxious to see more “thinking-films”.

Minimum Moose
The minimum number of moose is one.

Bridge Of Hair
Three generations of women (circa 1100 CE) cut off their hair and braided it into a small but venerated bridge outside Pinggua, China. Later villagers lacquered the Bridge Of Hair with pine resin,
to preserve it.

Contest Report
In response to the Yield Bog Contest (a request for New Holidays), I received:

“More Day”—A true American holiday. On this day, you may help yourself to more—and still more!—of any pleasure. —Dr. D

Also, Noelle applied for The Lamont Collier Prize for Dreadful Poetry (but strangely failed to include the $300 submission fee) with this poem:

If I wasn’t already,
I wouldn’t be.

And announcing: the Futile Gauge Contest!
Suppose we had to rename the Metropolitan Museum of Art; what would its new appellation be? Send in your theories to: Futile Gauge Contest c/o Chronogram, Post Office Box 459, New Paltz, NY 12561, or e-mail info@chronogram.com.