Several Web Post Cards: On the Tales of Idiots

"It is a tale told by an idiot," that is what I heard the Bard say as he pronounced those words from his own play on modern human futility. Idiots occupy a special place in Oppermann's and my own mythologies: generally they are scoundrels, robbers (Walserian), or like Lenz himself, or Timothy Treadwell. Post cards are sent by idiots to idiots. It is the only defense we can have in the political world, in the cynical world: where liars call liars liars.

There is still friendship in the abyss. In the abyss of time: and in the course of time since my last entry I wrote Oppermann a book on friendship. That was an almost desperate act, and yet words came easy because we have endured so much of each others stories, we have, as it were, hung round in the same boat, hauled by the same terrible shroud-sail, pressed forth by the breath of Artemis: the fair innocent goddess, to the land of Troy, to fight the good citizens there, the land of perdition. But do not think too long on it. Even the liars who call liars liars must sometimes stop and fall asleep and dream of innocence, and in the corner of some dream in the midst of this great obscene fornication, there is some innocence, a breath of fresh wind to stir the sails of our shrouds.

Part One: the Kafka/Oppermann Card


Part Two: Borges and Artaud (Oppermann believes that Artaud's posture and attitude reflect his own ecstatic posture when he was embroiled in the circles of Arcadian... I will have to look for a suitable photograph, this is a delicate matter, but Oppermann did have this slouching brilliance of Artaud in college, unquestionably).


Part Three: Deleuze, Chuang Tzu, and Spinoza


Part Four: Two Cannova Nudes and Robert Musil


Part Five: Dream of Klaus Kinski



I leave you my unfinished Kinski post-card, because Oppermann suggested that the latter portion, where I rail on the Hawaiian Modern house that I grew up in as being an Un-dwelling. I also added the faces of the Pastors (Lenz's pastor and Werner Herzog, and my own "pastor"), which I believe Oppermann rejected as being "overburdened"... but nonetheless furthered the relation between the idiot and his expression in a significant body of work.