The Annals
Page 26
He regarded this sensation as extremely dangerous and characterized by an enormous potential for destruction. When he was really loaded he used to joke about “marrying the detestable succubus to see if a man could bear the Sixth Sensation in so concentrated a form. Verily, it would kill him as certain as drinking a gallon of white lightning. Icarus beware, the Sixth Sensation is a deadly star that will send you to a fiery grave.”
THE EIGHTH PETRONIUS SENSATION: The Eighth Petronius Sensation is “an enchantment with something great, during which the wondrous source of enchantment becomes the sole ray of sunshine piercing the gloomy clouds of a man’s day-to-day life. (As best I can tell this is characterized by a state of mind rather than the object of enchantment, which can be fleeting (some, like Mack the Knife, lasting only hours). It was pretty easy to determine if Petronius was in the throes of his Eighth Sensation. When we went out drinking it was all he talked about. One week it was the “greatness of the Bushido honor culture.” He read some book about it. Attempts to change the subject were futile. All roads led to the Bushido. Lefty “Righty” Schlebrenski finally asked him for a demonstration of the proper method of hari kari. One weekend it was the “genius of Sextus Empiricus” (the founding father of ancient skepticism). Petronius became enchanted by the idea that you could “attain inner harmony by emptying your head of all beliefs rather than stuffing if full of nonsensical ones as most people are wont to do.” This culminated in a contest where we tried to see who could doubt the most beliefs. He won.
“The man blessed with my Eighth Sensation has found his Holy Grail. For days, weeks, or months it suffuses his life with meaning. It is the rain nourishing the roots of his being.”
“How is it any different from an obsession or perseveration?”I asked.
“Because it is not a pathologic condition, but a wondrous gift. To revel in the greatness of a thing is one of life’s greatest pleasures. And these wicked pygmies, these psychologists and psychiatrists want to cast a curse upon it with pejorative labels. I swear they will not rest until we are all toiling in cubicles, neither happy nor sad, and certainly never distracted by the genius of Bach or Mikhail Tal. We must all crawl to them, begging for closure or catharsis or whichever sham concept they have invented this week. What pitiable darkness covers this age: a man may not, on pain of institutionalization or chemical lobotomy, even speak of enchantment.”
THE TENTH PETRONIUS SENSATION: The Tenth Petronius Sensation is “pining for a better time while simultaneously recognizing that it was not a better time. Realizing that the Garden of Eden was a brier patch but longing for it nonetheless is a certain indicant of a noble spirit.” Here’s a classic example: Petronius always talked about “the inimitable grandeur of Rome.” He also acknowledged how the absence of flush toilets, anesthesia, sedans, and the music composed from 1600-1960 would have made it “grim indeed.” But he didn’t permit these minor considerations to “sully his sweet pining. To long for a golden age a man must overlook the trifling detail that it was, in many respects, an age of bronze.”
He was quick to criticize others for falling short of his noble Tenth Sensation, Sandy in particular. “She and her peers foolishly pine for the abominable 1960s by ignoring the horrors of Viet Nam and the destruction of American society by radical nincompoops. They instead focus on the tie-dyed dust kicked up by a culture writhing in its death throes”
“But suppose someone acknowledged the tumultuous nature of the sixties and still pined for it. Wouldn’t that be an example of the Tenth Sensation?” I asked.
“How is that even possible? If a wise man were to pine for any period in the ghastly twentieth century in America, he would, beyond certainty, long for a manly decade like the 1920s, the late 1940s, the 1950s, and of course the first decade.”
“But in theory one could experience the Tenth Sensation while pining for the 1960s?”
“No! My Tenth Sensation is an elevated state of mind, the bittersweet yearning of a noble spirit. It is not the flustered delusion of an agitated ne’er-do-well.”
THE FIFTEENTH PETRONIUS SENSATION: The Fifteenth Petronius Sensation is a contemplative state achieved by Solomon and Marcus Aurelius with wildly different results. “Few souls can withstand it, much less name it. When a man reflects upon an earlier era, realizes that nothing remains, and then extrapolates the vaporous trajectory of his life and all that surrounds him, he is experiencing the Fifteenth Sensation.” Petronius maintained that this isn’t necessarily an unpleasant mindset. “Solomon lamented the vanity of life while the great Marcus Aurelius comforted himself with my Fifteenth Sensation on the battlefield.” One can’t fully experience the Fifteenth Sensation “if deluded by ravings of afterworlds, reincarnation, or maudlin drivel about surviving through his children.”
THE SIXTEENTH PETRONIUS SENSATION: The Sixteenth Petronius Sensation is convulsive hilarity while experiencing the Fifteenth Petronius Sensation. “Most often, a man turns to puerile diversions to hide from the Fifteenth Sensation. The Sixteenth Sensation is the heroic response of the great man who recognizes that the vaporous trajectory of all things is the funniest joke ever told.”
I don’t get this particular joke, probably because I’m barred from the Fifteenth Sensation by my belief in an afterworld. I asked Petronius why such a thing, if true, wouldn’t be tragic or sad.
“First of all, some things are not intrinsically funny, but how a man responds to them tells us volumes about his character. Second, the humorous element is derived from encountering the exact opposite of what one would expect to find. Behold a species that will someday not exist, lost in a universe which itself is destined to perish, yet countless of its members fret obsessively about the appearance of their abs.”
“And this is funny to you?”
“Funnier than the inscription on the prophylactic dispenser. But one must reflect upon it a long time before hilarity seizes him.”
• • •
THE EIGHTEENTH PETRONIUS SENSATION: The Eighteenth Petronius Sensation is “the truly tragic sensation. Oedipus would take comfort upon hearing of it. Sophocles, Euripides, and Aeschylus would gouge their eyes out with their styli upon beholding it. Job would shake his fists at the heavens using multisyllabic obscenities. A woeful synergy of rage, confusion, and dread, its roots have never grown in the garden of our language. Until recently, no man has had the fortitude to name it.”
I can only explain this one with examples. I don’t think it’s one of his best discoveries, but nothing pissed him off quite like it. Sandy’s mom was always asking him to put stuff together for her. She ordered furniture online that required assembly. One item, a huge dresser, must have had over a hundred parts. It was delivered in three separate boxes filled with boards and dozens of bags containing hinges and fasteners. The instructions had sixty-four steps.
“After hours of agonizing toil in that cramped bedroom I was finally finished. Just as I was preparing to test the drawers, I discovered a bag of screws and fasteners beneath the bed. It must have slid under when I tore the boxes open. The instructions were so vague, so ineptly written. Holding that bag in my hand, looking at the irreversibly completed dresser — several of the steps involved glue — a paralyzing chill ran through me: the first of nine stages.”
“So what?” I told him. “It was still in one solid piece. You built a better mousetrap. Sandy’s mom will never know.”
“I thought so too,” he said, stirring the ice in his drink, not looking up. “That is when the second stage begins: bargaining.”
“Bargaining?”
“I had not tested any of the drawers yet. While Sandy’s mother brought me another beer and lavished praise on the beauty of my creation, I bargained with the jailers controlling this torture chamber of a world. I promised them anything if all six drawers functioned.”
“And?” the bartender asked, spellbound.
Petronius poked at the ice cubes, splashing his shirt with whiskey. “It seems the screws and fasteners performed a
role vital to the function of the top two drawers.”
The bartender and I burst into laughter.
“And this is the ninth stage. Galling mockery from a man’s inferiors.”
I can’t remember what stages three through eight are. He didn’t like elaborating on his Eighteenth Sensation. It was too painful. Another example happened when he installed a car stereo for Beth (Sandy’s sister). He was normally pretty good with those but in this instance he probably had his mind on other things. When he finished he discovered, to his “terror and dismay, a long green wire that had not been utilized correctly and played an integral role in the transmission of the signal.”
• • •
Petronius really hated movies. “To his eternal credit, the visionary Gustav Mahler refused to compose any music for the Vitascope. He correctly deemed it beneath his genius and foresaw how no good would ever come from it.” Petronius especially hated how they force you to listen to awful music as part of the soundtrack. On the other hand he hated it when they used great music because the movie was never worthy. That’s why he expected you to listen to a variety of pieces while reading his book. “If a lousy movie can force you to listen to bad music, a great book can expect you to listen to great music.”
If I hadn’t intervened, Annals would have been almost incomprehensible due to his insistence on using his new punctuation additions. Just as he maintained there aren’t enough names for all the important sensations a man feels, he believed our “inadequate, half-baked punctuation system restricts our ability to express our thoughts.” These are just a few examples, from his essay “A Critique of the Underachieving Father of the Semicolon, Aldus Manutius (1449-1515).”
< > Indicates that the next passage must be read while listening to the piece of music listed inside the < >. For instance, if the Reader comes upon
{ } Indicates that the Reader needs to consume whichever type of beverage is listed inside the { }. So if he sees {CB} at the beginning of a chapter, he must have a Caffeinated Beverage before proceeding. {MC} would indicate a glass of Michael Collins, and so on.
_|_ Indicates that the Reader is to read the next passage while standing.
_//_ Indicates that the Reader is to read the next passage while pacing.
_—_ Indicates that the Reader is to read the next passage while jogging.
… … Was inspired by the modest … but indicates that the Reader is to pause in silent contemplation of what he has read for the period of time listed. (At the end of Part II he wrote …1 month…).
It wasn’t the elements I objected to, but his insistence on complex conjunctions of them: {2vodka Martini}
“If an awful movie can expect a man to hurl two hours of his life into a sewer, a masterpiece of literature can humbly request him to sip a vitalizing elixir while listening to great music.”
“I think sipping martinis and listening to Mahler while standing is a great idea,” I told him. “But the chance you take is alienating the average reader.”
“No doubt they told Copernicus that his revolution would alienate the average stargazer.”
“But your revolution is far more radical. Wait for a second edition. If the reader is offered a tantalizing glimpse of what you had in mind, he’ll beg for it.”
“Perhaps you are right. That way I will have one foot in the old world. The first edition will serve as a requiem for the deceased system of punctuation; the second edition will baptize the new one.”
• • •
The rest are the sensations, theories, and inventions included in Petronius’ book.
PETRONIUS’ BLENDER: Petronius’ Blender was crucial to many of his positions. With it, “the profoundest ideas of man can be mixed and pureed to produce original and superior recipes.” In some instances it reconciled contradictory positions: “It lets the Stoic go tomcatting and drive a Fleetwood, it lets the Buddhist collect firearms and drink Martinis, and it lets a man dream of a libertarian emperor.”
QUIETUDE: Quietude is “a state of mind tranquil and serene, yet confident and affirmative of life despite its precarious nature.” It comes from a variety of philosophic traditions “mixed and pureed” in Petronius’ Blender.
THE FIRST PETRONIUS SENSATION: The First Petronius Sensation is when you’re “overwhelmed by the inexpressibility of things.” It’s the sudden and alarming recognition that even if you exhaustively described everything you “saw, smelled, heard, and thought, something frustratingly integral would remain untouched.” This doesn’t have to be the experience of something incredible. It’s characterized by a desire to share an experience and the painful awareness that you can’t. Petronius recognized that “to some degree all experiences are like this — one simply does not notice or care most of the time.” It’s the “rare, mystical, and irksome times when you notice and care that constitute the First Petronius Sensation.”
PETRONIUS’ SHOVEL: Petronius’ Shovel “penetrates the illusory surface and digs straight to the root of Reality to reveal the primordial strangeness of all things.” When confronted by painfully strange circumstances, ask yourself, “Is this situation stranger than the existence of life itself? Is it stranger than the fact that anything exists?” The answer, invariably, will be No. But if it isn’t stranger than the two most obvious things there are, how can it be strange? “Rather than giving it a pejorative but meaningless label and running about in a tizzy, it is simply a matter of becoming inured to it.”
PETRONIUS’ GENERAL POTATION THEORY: Petronius’ General Potation Theory maintains that after a nap in the afternoon following a night of drinking one will feel better than if he hadn’t been drinking the previous night. “Imbibing polishes the marble halls of a man’s mind but he must wait until it dries before he can see the shine.”
PETRONIUS’ SPECIAL POTATION THEORY: Petronius’ Special Potation Theory is an observation of the unique ability of alcohol to “alter a philosopher’s outlook from dyed-in-the-wool misanthropy to near misanthropy.”
THE THIRD PETRONIUS SENSATION: The Third Petronius Sensation is how “once a man begins a grave undertaking some of the urgency dissipates. He can savor the rapture of completeness: nothing more is necessary, or even possible, for the acquisition of his goal.”
PETRONIUS’ CRYSTALLINE AND IRREFUTABLE REFORMULATION OF THE ANTHROPIC PRINCIPLE: Petronius’ Crystalline and Irrefutable Reformulation of The Anthropic Principle will “fill even the most hardened Skeptics with awe at the ingenious and philanthropic nature of the gods.” In lieu of marveling at how our universe was fine-tuned for the evolution of intelligent life, substitute ‘sensate beings capable of enjoying fellatio and cunnilingus.’ “Verily, it will inspire all willfully ignorant and congenitally obtuse atheists to run outside and carve a graven image. O miracle most divine, what were your odds?”
THE FOURTH PETRONIUS SENSATION: The Fourth Petronius Sensation is “a wearying synergy of woe and agitation begot of the recognition that there is much to be done and one is not doing it.” (It’s important to notice that the Third and Fourth have a yin-yang relationship.)
PETRONIUS’ THEORY OF THE CONTRARIAN PATH TO TRUTH: Petronius’ Theory of the Contrarian Path to Truth loomed large in his thinking. “Being a contrarian is, a priori, virtuous. Most mortals are mongoloids. Holding an opinion contrary to a majority view ipso facto places one closer to the bosom of Truth.”
PETRONIUS’ WHEELBARROW: Petronius’ Wheelbarrow separates the literal meaning of a phrase from its actual meaning. “Like a wheelbarrow, an expression should not be mistaken for what it transports.” For instance, “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush” acts as a wheelbarrow to carry a message; it doesn’t pertain to the current price of birds.
PETRONIUS’ LATTICE: Petronius’ Lattice is his discovery of the metaphysical structure of reality, which “can only be
safely traversed via a network of tangents. The philosopher cannot, on pain of becoming hopelessly enmeshed in a dense web of ontological goo, plunge headfirst.” He “must meticulously navigate the catwalks of reality spider-like, stepping from one tangent to the next.” This is a new philosophic method “far superior to the much-ballyhooed Socratic method. The meandering nature of reality renders all straightforward approaches futile.” (It’s also controversial. Our psychology professor asked Petronius if it was necessary to devote eleven pages of a fifteen-page paper on behaviorism to a blistering critique of Stravinsky. “Necessary? said Petronius. “Is it necessary to travel through South Milwaukee when driving from Cudahy to Kenosha? It can scarcely be avoided.”)
THE SEVENTH PETRONIUS SENSATION: The Seventh Petronius Sensation is “Schadenfreude before the fact, the pleasure derived from the expectation of another’s failure or misfortune. Note: the occurrence of failure or misfortune must be probable. Mere fantasies of them are in a separate category.” (Petronius was particularly proud of this discovery.)
PETRONIUS’ CRITERIA FOR TRADITION SELECTION AND REJECTION: Petronius’ Criteria for Tradition Selection and Rejection conclusively resolves a legion of social and political issues. “Since both Reason and emotion can lead a man astray, the steadfast rudder of tradition is not to be shunned thoughtlessly. Ideas tested and perfected in the great laboratory of Time deserve precedence.” “The questions of consummate importance are how to select from competing traditions and when Reason should override tradition.” (In the absence of Petronius’ Criteria, there’s little more than brute force to go by. Arguably, this is his greatest contribution.)
THE UNNUMBERED PETRONIUS SENSATION: The Unnumbered Petronius Sensation is the bliss of “getting away with something. Often, it’s only experienced in flashes, moments of overconfidence when you’re not worried about being apprehended. Its intensity is usually but not necessarily proportionate to the severity of the offense.”