Goddamit

Colbourne (colby@online.net.pg)
Sun, 29 Mar 1998 21:47:29 +1000 

Goddamit Camille! Can't you turn your goddam emoticons around the right
way? You have to rotate it ANTI-clockwise. To the left! You sure are
giving us vegemite-faced Australians a bad name (only kidding). You
wouldn't see little Alfie Langer throwing a dummy to the sideline would
ya? Camille, haven't you noticed a hell of a lot of Unskilled Laughter
on Good News Week lately? It really gets to me. McDermott says '3
points!' and the audience chokes in hysterics.

Here in Papua New Guinea I have no choice but to catch a festering
starved dog to school. I say 'catch' because our canine transportation
rarely actually stops for us and we must thrust out a stray hand in the
hope of grabbing the beast by the bollocks and clinging tenaciously to
his love spuds all the way to school. Because of the dominance of pot
holes, the journey is not so much an attempt to avoid pot-holes as an
attempt to avoid the occassional bitchumen plateaus that once
constituted a road. Then our adventure is not unlike the ride at
Dreamworld, the river raft one, where that bloody elephant tries to spit
water in you face, and you try to avoid it but you haven't quite
recovered from Nessie in that cave so you just sit there. Here, we dodge
spitoons of beetlenet - a sticky, red mouth-cancer-inspiring substance
that looks strangely like blood when it inevitably splatters across the
front of your school uniform, which has been meticulously tailored from
the finest tent off-cuts money doesn't buy. What I wouldn't give for the
old familiar lift to school on a Kangaroo, bounding down the road to the
pleasing roar of the Kookaburra in the trees, the kookaburra that laughs
hysterically at the Messerschmitt Magpie attempts to relieve your eye
sockets of their much over-rated burden.

I can't help but agree with Holden on the Romeo and Juliet thing. I hate
the bastards. Mercutio is the only one that deserves any consideration.
Screw the rest of 'em. It should be called 'The Mercutio of Verona' or
something similar. Mercutio is just such a Legend.

The Catcher in the Rye The Movie. I don't have any problem with that
whatsoever, provided that Salinger can save a space for me, perhaps
squeeze me in somewhere between Phoebe and Holden on their Atom Bomb, as
we sit right the hell on top of it. I'll volunteer for it, I swear to
God I will. Maybe if we aim for Room 507, and we survive the initial
shock-blast, Seymour can finish us all off! And the Academy Awards!
Geez-Arse Christ! All around the world, the Antolini's and Thurmer's and
other Bananafish acquaintances stood cautiously by on Suicide Watch.

>> [Salinger] who permeates our little community with a kind of ethereal

>> presence, who we all look towards for a sign of redemption (the
publication
>> of Hapworth, perhaps?), who we sometimes feel is looking over our
shoulder,
>> and who has been known to Move in Mysterious Ways

Spot on! But the Zen student who looks to his Master for redemption will
Fall in an Even Mysteriousyier Way. You see, I've been studying. I'm
quite sure that I don't understand Zen now, which probably means that I
am well on the way to becoming a proper student. Thanks for the
answer-dodging encouragement everyone! I hope that I can return the
favour some day, maybe inspire a banana or two.

How is it that Seymour's happiness got in the way of his journey? Isn't
it part of the goal? What exactly was the goal? Why did Seymour concede
to marrying Muriel, despite his acknowledgement of the the intolerable
Happiness of it all? It was a small Western picket-fence concession
wasn't it? Muriels' Father's Uncle, or whatever, the little cigar dude,
he was happy and he didn't redecorate his hotel room. Why not? Was he
already Home? Speaking of Home Base, but in a different context, I once
drew a slight and still unconsidered parallel between Mary Hudson's
positions on the baseball field and that American slang thing with the
bases and stages of sexual progression. You know the one - "Did you get
to Home Base with her?" I'm not exactly sure what each of the bases are,
but if anybody knows, are they in anyway relevant to Mary Hudson and the
Chief? I don't think they are. Incidentally, why is she always 'Mary
Hudson'? Not 'Mary' or 'Ms. Hudson'?

Could somebody please tell me who Cartman's real Dad is? Not Without My
Anus. That kills me.

>>> (At the same time, perhaps I may point out - defensively -
         that there are still quite a lot of people in these parts who
treat
        Salinger's characters as if they were living acquaintances
poised
        afresh each day on the edge of their individual dramas.  From
        *my* point of view, the heat & anxiety aroused on their behalf
        looks as involving as any `professional reader' could possibly
>>>  wish.)

Maybe this is me? Is it a good thing, or is it one of those attributes
that eventually leaves you in a bell tower with a .22 rifle waiting for
a clear shot?

If somebody should play Holden, I wouldn't accept anybody but the Man
Himself. Without any make-up or 'Digital Enhancement', J.D. would play
our beloved adolescent without any changes whatsoever to his present
appearance or state of mind. That's the only way you'll get me to watch
it. It would be perfect.

Why 'J.D. Salinger' or 'A.A Milne'? What is it that makes a writer
initialise his first two names? Could somebody please tell me?



The person who needs to say Goddamit alot during this phase of his
development,



Godot.