This Was the Species that Was

cbpotts asks: How does one go about separating the creative act (art, writing, etc) from the act/self-awareness/performance aspect of being a creator -- and more importantly, should one?

Since infancy I am a windup toy
set whirling to delight the bourgeoisie
and stoke parental pride: a gifted boy
whose singular métier would seem to be
discernment and fulfillment of such acts
as make the grown-ups smile: singing a hymn,
playing the piano, citing obscure facts
re angels' differences from cherubim—
and making sonnets. Surely such forays
could hardly have resulted otherwise:
My every work is meant for human eyes.
When writing, an imagined spotlight stays
spot on me through each pirouette, each phase,
each put-on voice, each fauvian disguise.

(Note: 'fauvian' is a made-up word. I was alluding to fauvism, the early 20th century art movement led by Matisse. If you're uncomfortable with the form, substitute 'wavian' as adjective for 'of or related to Evelyn Waugh'.)
( more ansverse here )

I promised to respond in verse. So:

Q: How does one gain an audience with Thee? How can one bask in Thy greatness?

A:
Admittance to Oz's great throne
Was a cinch as compared with my own:
But my guard at the gate
Can be made to deflate
If you throw him the right kind of bone.

Go to, sirrah. Our greatness, indeed! Heehee. We are duly flattered.

If you're visiting D.C., just holla and we shall summon you for dinner or sechlike.



Q: How do you introduce yourself to someone you meet for the first time?

A:
In social situations, I will smile
and shake the person's hand (a solid grip
to demonstrate my grunting manhood) while
his/her name, stealthy, serpentine, will slip
and slither from my brain into the void.
Each meeting is a panic, just contained:
though life is such that one cannot avoid
these things, I'd rather everyone refrained
and forged new friendships medias in res!
But as regards self-presentation, I
bestill my tongue, forgoing to supply
my vitals, save when one elects to press
for them. The formula is static: 'Hi,
I'm Gordon.' 'Jordan?' 'Gordon.' 'Gordon?' 'Yes.'



Q: Ha ha! Just to be a jerk, I'll ask you another question: how do you stand yourself, being so smart, talented and good-looking?

A:
Oh, ask me a hard one.

Answer: I don't.

Follow-up Q: You have to answer in verse. Or in the form of a question, Alex.

A:
Well! I beg your pard one.

Answer I won't!



Q: Will you Love me? Will you love me forever? Do you need me? Will you never leave me? Will you make me so happy or the rest of my life? Will you take me away? Will you make me your wife? I gotta know right now. Before we go any further. Will you love me? Will you love me forever?

A: [Full disclosure: edited since first posted]
I didn't know you cared! One ersatz girl,
At call, awake, comin' up! Didn't we
Agree the name of Gordon Geise (that's me),
While lovely, doesn't have the mad'ning twirl
Or attitude of 'Dummy Lovelit Anally'?

[The above verse is a precise anagram of:

I couldn't take it any longer; Lord, I was crazed,
And when the feeling came upon me like a tidal wave
I started swearing to my god and on my mother's grave
That I would love you till the end of time.

Check it if you don't believe me.]

1. March is question month. G'wan, ask me stuff.

2. Little Anthony and the Imperials is celebrating their 50th year of making music. But someone stole my record player. Now how do you like that?

3. Having been recently re-singled, sunsmogseahorse really, really needs to stick his cock up my ass right the fuck now.

4. I woke up early this morning and took Metrorail and -bus out to the ass end of SE DC, to the DMV office in Penn Branch Shopping Center. I meant to be there at opening, but it took more than an hour to get there, and a middling line had already assembled by the time I walked in. Still: only about 5–7 minutes to get sorted and assigned a number (C009); filled out my application for a renewed/replacement driver license; and maybe another 10 minutes waiting to C009 to be called. The moment of truth.

See, I woke up earlier this week to a walking nightmare, whereby I found myself in possession of neither a driver license, a birth certificate, nor a social security card. To get a replacement social security card, I learnt, I needed to supply a birth certificate. To get a replacement birth certificate, I needed to supply a driver license. And in order to get a replacement driver license, I needed to prove my social security number.

So up to counter #6 I step and explain that my previous, about-to-expire license had been pinched, in my wallet, in Nwalins, Loosyana, just a week and change ago. I offer my passport; the clerk tells me that's fine but I also need to prove my social security number. Having grabbed everything I could find on paper from my filing cabinet at home, I had with me my annual 'Your Social Security Statement' 4-pager. She gives this a cursory look and says, 'But is your number printed on here anywhere?' I open to page 2 and say, 'Well, here it says "only the last four digits are shown to help prevent identity theft"...'

She look at that sentence, and at the last four digits of my social security number.

And she says, 'That's fine.' And a moment later: 'How will you be paying?'

Less than 5 minutes later I am OUT of the damn DMV with my new driver license in my wallet.

Pinch me.

From madknits:

1. Is your LJ name a reflexion of your own uncut state, or a statement of wannabe-ness, or a statement of your fondness of headcheese?
2. Anonymous 4: like 'em? love 'em? hate 'em? and why?
3. Favourite sixteenth century composer?
4. Let's talk about sex: when you are with a man with whom you are enjoying carnal pleasures, what do you like most in the world, and what do you dislike most?

J'ai soutaité plaintivement des questions
Et comme une psychologue, on m'en a bombardé!
Mais ça c'est bon, ça me soulage d'inaction:
Et de répondre à tous, je bien essayerai!
Moi, je suis circonci—comme l'enfant J. Seuss,
Mon propre glans du pénis n'est point encrassé
Du smegma, parce qu'on a volé mon cher prépuce
À ma naissance! Oui, je l'ai toujours manqué!
Mais non, pour ce fromage, je n'ai aucun penchant.
J'adore mieux les Quatre femmes Anonymes,
Ces belles oiseaux portant le nom coïncidant
Que le compositeur de loin le plus sublime
Du 16ème siècle. Enfin, pour mon recul:
Rien est mieux que perdant ma langue dans ton cul.


[I'm sure there's some horrendous Frenssh in there, and a couple extra syllables, but.]

Anyway, that's not exactly fair, because a few corollary questions went unanswered: I like Anonymous 4 based on my ownership of and listing repeatedly to precisely one record of theirs, "On Yoolis Night"—but if everything else they've ever done sucks, I'll keep liking them for this stunning collection of medieval carols.

And I lied about thinking "Anon." the best 16th century composer. It's hard to pin down just one; Palestrina is rightfully worshiped, but if such adulation takes glory from (say) Victoria's star, well, I've got some grumping to do. Ditto Lassus, Gombert, Stoltzer, Giovanni Gabrielli, and that sublime psychotic, Gesualdo.

Finally, I suppose the thing I like least in bed is when somebody who clearly likes playing table tennis with his own huevos assumes everybody else likes the same and starts manhandling mine accordingly. I have one of the most sensitive scrota of anyone I've ever met, and apart from oral stimulation of my perineum, there is absolutely no possible pleasuring of my balls, which go from indifferent to OW QUIT IT! at warp speed.

peregrin8 wants to know: Do you ever think about quitting drinking again?

I drank a bit last night. Three pints of stout,
Two steep shots of tequila, and some piss
(Figurative, alas) occasioned doubt,
As ever drinking do, re the abyss.
It's been five years since my last month-long break
And doubtless would my liver bless me madly
Were I teetotalage to undertake
Anew. Yet as regards behaving badly,
I'm happy I no longer drink till mean
And rarely to the point of smoking crack;
I think this indicates that I have been
Improving, not in temperance, but in knack.
So while I'm sometimes tempted to go dry,
Yet there but for the grace of me go I.


Defenseless 'gainst the allure of limericks, timehole asks: Do you know anyone from Nantuckett?

I know plenty folks up in Hancock,
And some who on Capes Cod and Anne dock,
But from Nantucket Isle
Only one makes me smile
With his sesquipedalian man-cock.