Fakes: An Anthology of Pseudo-Interviews, Faux-Lectures, Quasi-Letters, "Found" Texts, and Other Fraudulent Artifacts (5 page)

             The windows are one of the more complex structures of the house and consist of glass (as was mentioned), mullions of metal or of wood milled and lap-jointed, putty, and in some cases hinges and latches for windows that open and close, and paint or stain inside and out. They may also be weather-stripped in the case of windows designed to open and close, or merely caulked in those windows that will remain fixed for all time. Windows may also be covered at various seasons by screens, awnings, storm windows, all for various reasons—suggesting the sunglasses, hat brims, etc., of the Marriage. But windows are in all characterized by a quality which is of supreme advantage to those, the Husband and the Wife, who jointly inhabit the house, and that is that one obtains a better view looking out of the windows from inside than looking in through them from outside, an effect which is enhanced by the quadri-focal bi-stereoscopic vision innate to the Marriage itself, as summed up in the saying: two can see better than one. Thus not only can one see better from within looking outward, not only that—there is also the matter of simply being inside while the objects or persons outside are outside, for inside one can communicate in low tones without fear of being overheard, while outside one is not only bi-stereoscopically visible but subject to certain unexpected resonating configurations in the shrubbery, fences, and walls that can serve to project one’s softest words right into the house, and in this effect lies the supreme strength of the Marriage over others, who know now how much they are being watched, how much overheard.

The Children.
As you know, my dear, I have taken it upon myself to limit the number of our Children to two, one Son and one Daughter, the greater part of whose care I entrust to your apparently sound maternal instincts. There is thus little I can offer by way of advice or recommendation except to say that I do not wish to meet them more than once or twice a day and preferably toward the end of the day and preferably at that part of the end of the day when they are being put to bed, which is also near the hour I have at last managed to dismiss most of the greater concerns of the day and thus am able to summon up the strength to once again introduce myself as their Father. They are, at this time in their lives when they are particularly subject to beneficial influences—I am pleased to note—learning. It would help of course if you would refer to me regularly throughout the day by pointing to me through the windows as I work out in the yard or as I get in the car and drive away, or as I pass by close to the house on the way to get a tool from the garage or return one I have finished with. In such manner they will become accustomed to viewing me at various angles and distances, and in various postures, or moving now slowly, now rapidly, by foot or by car. You may now and then—but perhaps no more than once a day—wish to carry them out in your arms so that they may have a close view of me in direct sunlight—or, as one of them seems to be walking after a fashion, send him for a brief ramble down to the garden walls and let him (or her) peer through the cracks in the gate, staring and blinking, before you call him (or her) back. And when they are old enough to speak in complete sentences and thus to understand them when spoken to them, you might consider reading them aloud, once a day or so, selections from some of my published horticultural pamphlets, particularly
Garlic Questions Finally Answered
and
How to Garden Without Bending Over
. These things must not be hurried, however. There is plenty of time for the Children to get to know me, and I see no reason why they should be rushed into the matter when all of life is yet ahead of them.

             Although we will have no more Children—we already have 0.3 too many as it is, statistically speaking—it may nonetheless be said that every day lived within the house, thus within the Marriage, is one of utmost pregnancy. For as you go about your way within the house cleaning and dusting, washing clothes and dishes, and I go about my way outside making repairs and tending the yard and garden, we bear within ourselves, the Husband and the Wife, images or effigies of each other, the Husband of the Wife, the Wife of the Husband, and carry these images about with us while we work. And as the pregnant mother-to-be will have no clear idea of what her future child will look like, or how it will behave, imagine what she will, until it is actually born into the world, so too will neither you nor I have any clear idea of what the other (with whom we have been pregnant all day) will look like or how the other will behave until that moment when we meet again at the end of the day, in that daily birth or rebirth which is the encounter of the Husband and the Wife in the house and in the Marriage. And in this state of unending pregnancy so too must you take care not to eat things that will upset your stomach while at the same time keeping up your breathing exercises, resting when necessary, so that when the moment comes you will be in good physical condition, relaxed and fearless, and able to face the ordeal with the conviction that all will come out well. For to neglect these things in the daily pregnancy of the Marriage is to open oneself to the possibility of not only great pain but the premature or the miscarried as well, in which the image nurtured in pregnancy is too small or is ill formed in comparison with the strapping reality, suddenly strong and overpowering and demanding beyond all preconception.

4

One Thousand Words on Why
You Should Not Talk
During a Fire Drill

Mark Halliday

FIRST OF ALL,
I should point out that the topic of why you should not talk during a fire drill is such a large and complex topic that I cannot do full justice to it in only one thousand words. In only one thousand words I will only be able to scratch the surface of this very interesting topic which has so many important and sensitive aspects. There certainly is a great deal to be said about why a person should not talk during a fire drill, even when everybody knows it is just a drill and even if there is not a teacher talking to us at the time.

One outstanding reason for not talking during a fire drill is because the fire drill is a practice session for when there might be a real fire in which case all the students would certainly need to be very quiet so they could hear the instructions from teachers such as Mrs. DeMella who would be shouting out some important messages. She might be shouting about how we should stand in alphabetical order on the ballfield with the ninth grade closest to the flagpole. If you are talking when Mrs. DeMella shouts about this then you might not hear the instructions and possibly, with the black smoke billowing out the windows of the burning school, if this was a real fire and not just another drill, you might then become confused and forget where to stand, even though the whole school has practiced this entire thing about a thousand times, because at such a time your brain could become overheated and you might run in circles like an insane dog. For this reason you would fail to stand in exactly the place where Mrs. DeMella wanted you to stand, in which case the teachers might count the students and come to the mistaken conclusion that you were absent and that you were roasting in the flames, running around trapped in the burning gym like a human torch, and as a result Mrs. DeMella might go insane with grief about her lost student, thinking that she should have shouted even louder about where everybody should walk and stand, all because you were selfish and kept on talking to your neighbor.

In a sense, the above explanation reveals very much of the essence of why a person should not ever talk during a fire drill, but of course there are further aspects of this interesting topic which can be explained and which will be explained. The concept of not talking during a fire drill is closely related to the concept of silence and to the concept of the value of silence or what we call quiet. In a quiet situation there is a great opportunity for people to hear what someone else may have to say, such as your teacher. In a sense this is the same idea as was studied in the preceding paragraph but there is definitely more to be said about silence or quiet or what we may call the absence of sound. Silence is a situation which gives us the chance to rest our ears, and our minds, which are so busy during most of the day listening to words, words, words, and other noises, like the squeak of chalk on a blackboard (which is actually a green board) or Mr. Perkins clearing his throat which seems to involve a remarkable amount of phlegm or mucus or what have you. After a few hours of hearing so many sounds, some of which are remarkably unpleasant, not to mention the voices of our teachers helping us to understand the Constitution and the methods for determining whether two triangles are congruent (side-angle-side, angle-side-angle, and side-side-side) (but not angle-angle-angle), there is a need for silence, or quiet, and it is a very human need. Thus if a student is talking during a fire drill, that student is ruining a golden opportunity to experience silence, because after all a fire drill is a time when silence is golden, and mandatory, except of course for a teacher like Mrs. DeMella who has the job of shouting instructions to everybody very loudly just in case someone may have forgotten the fire drill procedure from the last fire drill which took place one month ago.

At this point the important issue of why you should absolutely not talk during a fire drill has certainly been clarified in more than one way. However, there is no doubt in my mind that more can be said on this issue which has fascinated the minds of various thinkers since mankind became civilized and outgrew the habits of apes and related primates. If a tribe of monkeys were to participate in a fire drill they would probably go right on chattering and scratching their armpits and hopping on each other no matter what Mrs. DeMella said, and this would be terribly upsetting for her and the other teachers because the high noise level would make them think all the monkeys would get burned to a crisp in the event of a real fire. But fortunately thanks to Charles Darwin and his assistants mankind has evolved and has discovered the concept of self-control which is very beautiful. Surely we can feel proud of the human species when we see the entire ninth grade standing in alphabetical rows by the flagpole with nobody saying a single word, standing there in a condition of total and complete silence and pretending that something important is going on even when everybody knows there is no fire and we could all do the entire drill in our sleep.

In conclusion, possibly a few words should be said on the question of why a person might make the mistake of talking during a fire drill. Here is an example. Bryce Carter grabbed my Screaming Blue Messiahs tape and I had to get it back fast before he wrecked it.

5

Problems for Self-Study

Charles Yu

1. TIME T EQUALS ZERO

A is on a train traveling due west along the x-axis at a constant velocity of seventy kilometers per hour (70 km/h). He stands at the rear of the train, looking back with some fondness at the town of (6,3), his point of departure, the location of the university and his few friends. He is carrying a suitcase (30 kg) and a small bound volume (his thesis: 0.7 kg; 7 years).

Using the information given, calculate A’s final position.

2. Assume A is lonely. Assume A is leaving (6,3) in order to find someone who could equal his love of pure theory. A says to himself, “No one in a town like (6,3) could possibly equal my love of pure theory.” Not even P, his esteemed adviser and mentor.

      A suspects P is a closet empiricist, checking his theory against the world instead of the other way around.

      A once barged in and caught P, hunched over his desk, with a guilty but pleasured look on his face, approximating, right there in his office.

3. RELATIVE MOTION

Across the train car, A spots B. Assume B is lovely.

   (a) A immediately recognizes that B is not a physicist.

   (b) Still, he calculates his approach.

   (c) A wonders, Into what formula do I plug the various quantitative values of B?

Could B, A wonders, though she dearly lacks formal training in mechanics, ever be taught, in some rudimentary sense, to understand the world as I do?

   (d) A notes her inconsistent postulates. Her wasted assumptions. Her lovely inexactness.

   (e) He decides to give her a test.

   (f) A says, If a projectile is launched at a 30-degree angle to the earth, with an initial velocity of 100 m/s, how far does it travel?

   (g) B notes his nervous and strange confidence, his razor-nicked chin, his tie too short by an inch, an uncombed tuft of hair. She is charmed.

   (h) B humors A.

   (i) B says, Well, doesn’t it depend on how windy it is?

   (j) Ignore the wind, says A.

   (k) But how can I ignore the wind?

   (l) Ignore the wind, says A.

   (m) Are you saying there is no wind?

   (n) A says, The wind is negligible. He says this with a certain pleasure. The other passengers roll their eyes.

   (o) A says, It does not matter for the purposes of the problem. Besides, A says, it makes the math too hard.

   (p) A looks at B’s dumb, expectant, beautiful face. He feels pity for her meager understanding of physics. How can he explain to her what must be ignored: wind, elephants, cookies, air resistance. And: the morning dew, almost everything in newspapers, almost everything owing to random heat dissipation, the taste of papaya. And: the mass of the projectile, the shape of the projectile, what other people think, statistical noise, the capital of Luxembourg.

   (q) A wonders, Can I be with a woman who, however lovely, does not understand how to hold all else constant? How to isolate a variable?

A thinks:

i. she will see it my way;

ii. she will change for me;

iii. I will educate her.

B thinks:

iv. he is lonely;

v. I can make him less so;

vi. I will change for him.

4. A spent seven years (2,557 days, 4,191 cups of coffee) in the town of (6,3).

   He was writing his thesis (79 pages, 81 separate equations). A’s thesis is on nonlinear dynamic equations.

   (a) In it, he discovered a tiny truth.

   (b) When he had written the last step in his proof, A smiled.

   (c) A’s tiny truth is about a tiny part of a tiny sliver of a tiny subset of all possible outcomes of the world.

   (d) When A brought it to his adviser and mentor, the esteemed P, P smiled. A’s heart leapt.

   (e) P said: What it lacks in elegance, it makes up for in rigor.

   (f) P also said: What a wonderful minor result.

5. A and B are sliding down a frictionless inclined plane. They are accelerating toward the inevitable. Domesticity. Some marriages are driven by love, some by gravity.

6. THE THREE-BODY PROBLEM

Things continue to get more complicated for A, now traveling in an elliptical path around B. B remains fixed, giving birth to their first child. Doctors and nurses orbit B periodically.

   (a) Given the mass of A (now 80kg) and the mass of B (now 55kg), calculate the gravitational force between A and B using Newton’s universal gravitational formula: Fg= G(mA)(mB)/r2, where R is the gravitational constant.

   (b) Imagine the situation from the stationary perspective of B. As bodies whirl around you, you focus on the pain, the quiet place, the baby. Look at A, who so lovingly paces around you, worried about your health. You wonder: What is A thinking?

   (c) Now imagine the situation from A’s perspective. You wonder: What if the child turns out like its mother? What if the child does not understand theory? You’ve spent so many nights lying awake with B, trying to teach her how to see the world, its governing principles, the functions lying under it all. Hours spent with B as she cries, frustrated, uncomprehending.

   (d) This is what is well-known in the field of celestial dynamics as the three-body problem.

   (e) Put simply, this is the problem of computing the mutual gravitational interaction of three separate and different masses.

   (f) Astronomers since the time of Kepler have known that this problem is surprisingly difficult to solve.

   (g) With two bodies, the problem is trivial. With two bodies, we can simplify the universe, empty it of everything but, say, the moon and the earth, an A and a B, the sun and a speck of dust. The equations are solved analytically.

   (h) Unfortunately, when we add a third body to our equations of motion, the equations become intractable. It turns out the mathematics gets very complicated, very fast.

   (i) A has only recently begun to feel comfortable predicting B’s path, B’s behavior, her perturbations and eccentricity of orbit. And now this, he thinks. Another body.

   (j) B screams with the agony of natural childbirth. She looks into A’s eyes. What is he thinking, her A, her odd, impenetrable husband? Will he make a good father?

   (k) A thinks generally about the concept of pain. A has a witty thought and would like to write it down.

7. MOMENT OF INERTIA

   (a) A and B are not moving (VA = VB = 0). A is in his study, hidden in the corner. He is talking in a low voice.

   (b) B, across the house, is watching television.

   (c) A is talking to J, who is married to S. S is a good friend of A.

   (d) J is thinner than B. S is older than A.

   (e) B is listening to A. S is listening to J.

   (f) Also listening: the neighborhoods Theta and Sigma, Delta and Phi.

   (g) Also listening: the social circle: Phi, Chi, and Psi. Eta, Zeta, and Nu. Even Lambda has been known to listen.

   (h) Others, just speculating, say that A and J would make a good-looking couple. A says no, thinks yes. J blushes.

   (i) S exerts a force on J. A exerts a force on B. A wants to exert a force on J, and J would like it if A would exert a considerable force on her.

   (j) B is walking down the hall. A can hear B. B can hear A’s voice growing softer with each step she takes. A freezes in anticipation, ready to hang up the phone.

   (k) B changes velocity, turns, goes into the kitchen, pretending not to hear.

   (l) A does not move. B does not move. The forces cancel out. Everyone remains at rest.

8. PARTIAL SOLUTIONS

   (a) renovate the kitchen;

   (b) renovate themselves;

   (c) go on safari;

   (d) go to a “seminar”;

   (e) make large purchases of luxury durable consumer goods;

   (f) make small overtures to an object of lust at work;

   (g) take up golf;

   (h) find a disorder and self-diagnose;

   (i) get a purebred dog;

   (j) get religion;

   (k) landscape the backyard;

   (l) have another child.

9. GEDANKENEXPERIMENT

   (a) Imagine A is building a spaceship. He is tired of being pushed, pulled, torqued, accelerated, collided on a daily basis. Losing momentum. He is tired of his thesis failing, time and again. Every day an exception to A’s Theorem. Every day he recognizes it a little less—once a shiny unused tool, a slender, immaculate volume. Now riddled with holes, supported with makeshift, untenable assumptions. A’s Theorem has not so much predicted the future with success as it has recorded a history of its own exceptions.

   (b) It is simplest to approach the problem of satellite motion from the point of view of energy.

   (c) Every night for a year, A and B eat dinner in silence. Every night for a year, A lights a cigarette, opens a beer, goes to the garage to work on his imaginary spaceship. Sometimes, he has doubts. Sometimes, he gets frustrated, wondering if it is worth all the imaginary trouble.

   (d) And then, one day, A finishes his spaceship. Even imaginary work pays off.

   (e) A turns on his imaginary vehicle, listens to it roar. It makes a lot of imaginary noise. B tries to talk over it, but the engine is deafeningly loud.

   (f) B shouts at A right in front of his face. A sees B gesturing wildly. Why is she acting so crazy?

   (g) The energy of a body in satellite motion is the sum of its kinetic and potential energies. It is given by the following:
E=K+U=1/2mv2-GmN/r2

   (h) A watches B moving frantically around the garage. A notes that B looks rather desperate, as if she is trying to stop him, trying to hold him, trying to keep him from leaving Earth.

   (i) A’s spaceship is heating up. It is time, he thinks. He holds the imaginary levers and calculates his trajectory. He enjoys for a minute the low frequency hum as it vibrates through his whole body. His future opens up in front of him.

   (j) He is moving now. His past sealing itself off, trailing farther and farther behind him.

   (k) The escape velocity, vesc, of a projectile launched from the surface of the earth is the minimum speed with which the projectile must launch from the surface in order to overcome gravity and leave the vicinity of the earth forever.

   (l) His imperfect theorem, his imperfect credit, his imperfect house, his imperfect bladder, his imperfect hemorrhoids, his imperfect gum disease, his imperfect career, his imperfect penis: gone. Also gone: the history of his interactions, his past collisions, his past. A has finally achieved his major result. He is free from the unceasing pull of gravitational memory.

10. A is in deep space. The solar wind is at his back, pushing him along at a rate of 0.000000001 m/s.

At this rate, it will take the rest of his life to travel a distance of just over eight feet. B is on a space rock, watching A drift by glacially. Imagine you are B.

   (a) Imagine you are 20m from A. Close enough to see his face. Close enough to know his shape. Close enough to imagine Contact.

   (b) You have a rope. If you can throw it just right, you may be able to tie yourself to A, turn his course, affect his trajectory. You will not be able to stop him, but you may be able to make sure that wherever it is he drifts to you end up there as well.

   (c) Assume you are of average strength. Assume you are of above-average compassion, patience, will, and determination.

   (d) If you throw the rope and miss, what happens? If you never throw the rope, what happens?

   (e) Imagine you will spend a period of eighty years within a few meters of this astronaut, a man in an insulated space suit. Imagine it is possible to drift by this man, staring at him, as he makes his way into the infinite ocean of space.

   (f) You will never know any other points, other problems, the mysteries of biochemistry, the magic of literature, the pleasures of topology. You will know only physics.

   (g) You will never know what it feels like inside his suit.

   (h) You will never know why you are on this rock.

11. INITIAL CONDITIONS

A is on a train traveling due west along the x-axis at a constant velocity of seventy kilometers per hour (70 km/h). He is carrying a suitcase (30kg) and a small bound volume (his thesis; 0.7 kg; 7 years).

He stands at the rear of the train, looking back at the town of (6,3): a point full of sadness, an origin of vectors, a locus of desire; a point like any other point.