FSF, December 2006

by Spilogale, Inc

  "Like the Pied Piper,” the Grandma says.

  Rachel shrugs and goes back to the couch. “It's just a bunch of the little kids,” she says. “Who's the Pied Piper?"

  The Grandma sighs. “Don't they teach you anything important these days?"

  Rachel shakes her head.

  "Well, it looks like I'll have to,” the Grandma says.

  And she does.

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Dazzle the Pundit by Scott Bradfield

  You remember Dazzle the dog, right? He debuted in 1988 in the British anthology Other Edens II, but more recently (in ‘99 and ‘02, to be precise) we published two of his capers, one involving his paternity and another concerning his adventures in animal experimentation. (Another tale, concerning his political exploits, is due to appear in the magazine Fence.)

  Now we find the clever canine enjoying life in the ivy-covered halls of academe—but academia has its troubles, too.

  Aficionados of Mr. Bradfield's animal tales should seek out Hot Animal Love, his most recent story collection, which contains a baker's dozen of his reports from the human/animal divide.

  Weh! Weh mir Unglcksel'gem!

  —Wagner's Tannhuser

  For a late-middle-aged mutt with barely three weeks of obedience school under his collar, Dazzle was as surprised as anybody to be awarded a Seymour Fischer Guest Professorship from the Free University in Berlin.

  "As awkward as it is to admit, Herr Dazzle, you were not exactly our first choice,” confessed Dr. Krantzbaum on the day he called to arrange the opening address. “But you would be surprised by how difficult it is to find a decent lecturer in Post-Humanist Studies, especially these days. When Oscar the Baboon canceled at the last minute, we found ourselves grasping at straws. We contacted internationally renowned cats, songbirds, dancing bears, penguins, gender-neutral pachyderms, and even a high-profile crow we once heard about, but they were all booked into the next decade. Then, just as we were about to give up hope, someone told us about you—and your history of iron-jawed protest against the forces of sapien-hegemony and control. And the movie deal, mein Gott, that really perked our ears. Be straight with us, Herr Dazzle. Is it true about Sean Penn playing the lead in your life story? If he's not too busy, perhaps you might even arrange a guest appearance for your class."

  While Dazzle had been giving the matter serious consideration for the last two weeks or so, he hadn't come close to making a decision until he heard Dr. Krantzbaum's strong, sensible voice reaching out for him through the speaker phone.

  "I'm genuinely tempted,” Dazzle said, sitting at his lawyer's desk in a large leather-bound swivel chair. “I really am. I've always wanted to visit foreign countries and learn about different cultures, and goodness knows I'm not getting any younger. But frankly, the idea of presenting a public lecture makes me queasy, and while I've always possessed the gift of gab, I might start feeling pretty intimidated if, you know. People actually started listening. What I'm trying to say is that I'd hate to be a big disappointment to you guys. Especially since you'd be putting me up in that nice apartment off the Rdesheimer Platz, and paying me such a hefty per diem and all."

  The transatlantic connection was as crisp and clear as a cold glass of water.

  "Ach, don't worry about it, old boy! How could our students be disappointed by a big friendly doggy like yourself? We are big dog lovers here in Berlin, Herr Dazzle. We love big shaggy doggies very much."

  Dazzle was sitting alone in his lawyer's office, gazing up at shelves of tightly bound legal volumes which likewise seemed to be gazing down at him. You make a few bucks, Dazzle reflected, sell a few pieces of yourself, and pretty soon it gets harder and harder to escape back into the woods for any decent length of time. There's always another contract to sign, or another call to take.

  "Herr Dazzle? Are you still there?"

  But then some pieces of yourself are easier to sell than others.

  "Yes, Doctor Krantzbaum, and one more thing. As embarrassing as it is to admit, you should know that I don't speak a word of German. This might prove something of a problem, considering I'm supposed to be giving lectures and all."

  The speaker phone breathed a long, happy sigh.

  "Ach, mein doggy freunde! Bother yourself no longer about this minor difficulty. Our students are very knowledgeable and hard-working, and their canine is quite excellent, as you will soon find out. Many of them, in fact, speak it even better than myself!"

  * * * *

  Dazzle's reception was held in the lecture hall of the Department of Comparative Cultures, a low-ceilinged, aluminum-sided, mobile-home-like structure set among many fragrant bushes and trees.

  "You should know right off that I'm not a trained scholar. Heck, when I was a pup? I barely learned how to roll over and play dead, which led to some pretty uncomfortable confrontations with my first (and only) human family, the Davenports. No, I'm what you'd call an autodidactic sort of dog, which is probably what makes me so skeptical about authority figures and so forth. Political leaders, say. Or movies, newspapers, the world-wide-web and, well, I hope this doesn't sound rude, but even highbrow academic-types such as yourselves. I simply don't believe anything I can't see, hear, taste, and sniff for my goddamn self. It's not that I think I'm better than anybody else. It's just that I never met anybody who's any better than me—if you can dig the distinction."

  They were probably the best-looking group of human beings Dazzle had ever seen in his life: well dressed, well fed, and attentive. But it didn't seem right somehow. All these attractive young people sitting politely in hard foldable chairs and wasting their formidable concentration on him.

  "I guess what I'm saying is that I believe in honest advertising, and to be totally honest? I probably don't have anything interesting to teach you guys except, of course, what it's like to be a dog in a human world. So I hope I won't be too boring, or distract you too much from the very useful work you're probably doing in your other classes. And, well, at this point I should probably ask if there are any questions and so forth. And if there aren't any questions, I can let you all go home."

  Dazzle was already starting to climb down from his awkward perch on the rim of a rickety pine table when he saw a hand go up. The young woman attached to that hand was so beautiful and well-formed that she could put a dog off other dogs.

  "I am Agatha Meineke, Herr Professor Dazzle, and I was wondering—"

  "Please. Just Dazzle."

  She blushed. “If you don't mind my asking, what happens to dogs in America when they refuse to roll over and play dead?"

  Her yips and arfs, despite a weird inflection, were almost perfect.

  "Nobody feeds them,” Dazzle explained simply. “Nobody loves them. They get sent to extermination camps. And if they manage to dig their way out under the fence, they spend the rest of their lives on the lam, running from one garbage can to another. If they're lucky, like me, they might make a nice life for themselves in the woods. But most of them aren't lucky. They get picked up by the Man. They get run over by cars."

  Three more hands went up. Four. Five.

  "Are you sure you are providing an accurate representation of canine life in America?” enquired a young man with a spiny Norwegian burr. “Many of us receive a different impression entirely from your highly entertaining television programs, in which dogs are profound and witty creatures adored by everyone. Billionaires leave them mansions in their will. They live like kings and queens in the lap of luxury."

  It was almost sweet, Dazzle thought. Some Norwegian kid believing what he saw on American TV.

  "Television,” Dazzle replied simply, “only imagines what can't be believed. Otherwise, why would there be so many freaking commercials?"

  "Are you claiming that in the Land of Liberty, freedom does not exist for everyone?"

  "Only if you can afford it."

  A buzz of reflected glances and whispers. Then, from the back of the room, another hand went up.

  A
nd signaled that the buzz was over.

  "Yes. You in back."

  The audience emitted a long, collective sigh. A few even rolled their eyes.

  "Heinrich Mandelbrot,” the young man said. He wore black from head to foot: black turtleneck, black jeans, black loafers. “Abstract philosophy."

  "How's it hanging, Heinrich."

  Heinrich leveled his pupil-filled gaze at Dazzle, as if aiming a rifle.

  "When you label yourself an empiricist, are you referring to empiricism of the logical or moral variety? And wouldn't you say that contemporary research into the combinatory nature of public perception has proven conclusively—"

  "Oh jeez, Heinrich. I don't think I can answer this."

  "Please let me finish. How can you believe what you learn for yourself when you lack the intellectual, moral, or political grounds for knowing who you are to begin with? I'm speaking in a meta-linguistic framework, of course."

  "Oh,” Dazzle said with a slow, wise nod of his head. He felt a little woozy and out of breath. “The meta-linguistic thingy. Like how do I know I exist outside my head, or something like that?"

  The entire audience subsided slowly, as if all the air were being let out of their tires.

  "No, Herr Dazzle, I am merely seeking a critical self-appraisal in terms of post-Descartian discourse. I'm sure you're familiar with Habermas. I'm sure you're familiar with the Frankfurt School of Social Research."

  Now Dazzle wasn't entirely unfamiliar with post-war German philosophy. As a pup, he had browsed vigorously through many books that fell in his path, and had even snuck off to a college lecture or two. But it all seemed so terribly far away, he thought now. And the idea of those well-meaning German exiles wandering the sun-struck streets of Santa Monica just made him feel lonely.

  Sometimes, he thought, it's not what you say that matters. It's simply making the effort to say anything at the exact same moment when someone's waiting to hear it.

  "Excuse me, Heinrich. I'm not what you'd call a systematic thinker, but perhaps I can answer your question. But only with another question."

  It was like snapping on all the lights in a dark room—causing the audience of really attractive people to look up with an expression that Dazzle didn't often find in the faces of human beings.

  Hope?

  "And that question is this: Don't you think it's time you and your pals led me to some of this Weissbier and sauerkraut I've heard so much about? We've got all term to discuss epistemology, but after traveling fifteen hours baggage class in the bowels of a jumbo jet—hey. This little doggy is starved."

  * * * *

  From that day forward, Dazzle liked to say that he had Berliners eating out of his hand. But then, nobody enjoyed an inverted metaphor more than Dazzle.

  "When I saw my first canine dumping ground at the Tiergarten,” Dazzle told his class during one of his typically aimless, unprepared lectures, “I couldn't believe my eyes. Unlike those dead spaces you find in the States, it wasn't carpeted over with broken bottles, hypodermics and whatnot, or located in the worst part of town. It actually had flower beds, and a little doggy water fountain, it was classic. I'm not saying you guys got it perfect here in Berlin; that's not what I'm saying at all. But compared to the States, you still have this fairly workable notion of public life. Public parks, public playgrounds, public transport, even socialized medicine—and it works. Whoever woulda thunk it?"

  Dazzle realized that his lectures probably didn't qualify as very educational. He was simply gabbing aimlessly about whatever struck his fancy. Yet students were always thanking him for his time and patience; the prettier girls openly scratched him behind the ears and cooed sweet endearments ("What a nice big doggy!"), even during office hours with the door open; and meals at the University cafeteria were surprisingly tasty—though nobody in this far-flung and not-quite-fallen empire seemed to realize that there was such a thing as green vegetables.

  It was only Heinrich, really, who reminded Dazzle that he wasn't measuring up to his role as intellectual mentor. At times, he even made him feel quite guilty about it.

  "Herr Professor Dazzle! One moment of your time!"

  "Please, just Dazzle. Or poochie-dog. Everybody in the States thinks they can call me poochie-dog—you might as well call me poochie-dog too."

  "I'm so sorry, Herr Professor, but I was thinking about our discussion yesterday and I still don't understand. Let us imagine, as we were saying, that your doggy consciousness is a goldfish in a goldfish bowl. Is that acceptable?"

  "Sure, Heinrich; whatever. But I have this problem with abstract speculation, see. Ideas about ideas about, you know, ideas."

  "Now inside this goldfish bowl, everything feels cozy. Your gravel, your ceramic castle, your bubbling air filter, even your benignly puckered reflection in the mineral-streaked glass."

  "I think I follow, Heinrich. Nothing but goldfish bowl. So far as the eye can see."

  "But beyond this glass, everything is different. Space, weight, distance. It's inhabited by huge, distorted creatures. Sometimes they notice you; but most of the time, they don't."

  "We're not talking ontology, are we, Heinrich? Not about knowing the world, or its reality. But simple communication, right? You speaking to me; and me speaking to you."

  "There is a quite fascinating story about Goethe and Schiller, who were discussing, if I remember correctly, the difference between experience and ideas—"

  "Goethe and Schiller,” Dazzle said slowly. He could finally see the thronging crowds of the Metro station just ahead. Middle-aged men and women in muted primary colors; college kids in backpacks and denim. He felt himself hurrying toward it. “As much as I'm enjoying our little discussion, Heinrich, I'm afraid this is where I get off."

  "Formbewusstein,” Heinrich enunciated harshly. “Surely not an unfamiliar concept for you, Herr Professor. You being such an internationally renowned intellectual and all."

  "Form-buh-whatsit,” Dazzle muttered thickly. These Germans sure like ideas, he thought. “Meet me in my office just before class, and I promise. This time I won't be late like, you know. The last couple times."

  It was just about the only lie Dazzle had told anybody in years. And the funny part was? It didn't bother him at all.

  * * * *

  "The sad fact of the matter,” Doctor Krantzbaum explained over a friendly, intercollegiate lunch at Caf Einstein, “is that nobody wants to swim in the goldfish bowl with poor Heinrich. He is simply too much Sturm und Drang, even for us Germans. He is too much dasein-en-sich and fur-en-sich, too much unterheimlich, too much schadenfreude, too much Weltanschauung and definitely, definitely too much Wagner. Perhaps you have not noticed, Mein Doggy, but our new Germany is a far more lighthearted and unassuming place than it once was. We have taken the lead in the common market, and opened our collective hearts to Super Mario and American Pie. We have even adopted many hip expressions from you laid-back California-types, such as “go with the flow,” “tell me about it,” and “let's get it on.” If I were to boil this cultural sea-change down to a simple analogy: today's Germany is far less Goethe and far more Friends. You know, as in that weekly assembly of footloose, wacky, and perpetually inter-pollinating youths who enliven our otherwise drab television programs many nights of the week.” Dr. Krantzbaum leaned back and gazed at the bright, chandeliered ceiling, his voice suddenly hushed and reverent. “Now that's what I call a proper Isolde, Mein Doggy. The sloe-eyed, sharp-tongued one who stole Brad Pitt's heart a few years ago. She is definitely the unattainable fulfillment of all my trans-celestial yearnings."

  Dazzle liked the Caf Einstein, where they kept the long-stemmed glasses filled with fruity red wine. He liked the shiny white linen tablecloths, the gilded mirrors, the pervasive whiff of coarse-ground sausage, and the multiply reflected images of very old men accompanied by youngish, dyed-blonde second wives wearing too much jewelry.

  "I'm not saying that I dislike Heinrich,” Dazzle explained distantly, scanning the wide hand-writte
n menu with barely concealed bemusement. (Pork venison beef beef lamb pork pork chicken and fish.) “But he does make me feel like a charlatan. Here he is, coming to class every day with so many intense, well-prepared questions about the truth of perception, and the meaning of reality, and here I am, supposed to be his teacher, and I don't have a thing to tell him. I look at Heinrich, I look at the clock on the wall, and I simply don't know how to shut him up. Like just yesterday—what was old Heinrich on about yesterday? Something about nature's excess of sensation. According to Heinrich, nature pulses with so much raw experiential stuff that our meager animal senses can't possibly take it all on board. Heinrich calls it a ‘reality-deficit disorder,’ and according to Heinrich, this is why our lives continually reverberate with insufficiency and loss."

  Dr. Krantzbaum was already brooding into the final sips of his Black Forest Burgundy. For one long moment, Dazzle thought the good doctor might be getting as tired of Dazzle as Dazzle was getting of Heinrich.

  Finally, Doctor Krantzbaum replied softly: “Insufficiency, yes, in the face of all our Isoldes. And now, if you do not mind, I will place my order for the pork roast and mashed potatoes with gravy, and thus distract myself from that smug grin I see before me always on that barbarian, you know. That movie star who goes by the name of Brad Pitt."

  * * * *

  According to Herr Doctor Krantzbaum, Heinrich's peasant-stock Mom, a vender of homemade pottery in Tabruk, had been engaged (non-matrimonially-speaking) by Heinrich's errant Bavarian father enroute to an international hang-gliding competition on the Greek Isles, where he promptly soared from the rocky cliffs like Icarus and fell just as hard. As a result, Heinrich grew up envisioning Germany as more than a metaphoric and always-absent Fatherland; it was the fulfillment of identity toward which his overhuge heart always yearned. He grew up reading German poetry, listening to German opera on his Walkman, reading German culture pages, and replaying Fassbinder on his video until he knew every halting line of dialog and every swooping camera-fugue by heart. Eventually, he attended German schools on a DAAD fellowship, and during his third year at his dead papa's alma mater in Cologne, produced a highly regarded honor's thesis, entitled Hegel, Kant, Marx and Adorno: When Is Too Much Not Enough? which won him a State Arts Grant to Frankfurt, where he completed his baccalaureate at seventeen on the subject of Ossian.