Heresy Magazine: Premier Issue: December

By Judson Smedley

A serious philosophical statement, Heresy Magazine traces reality from before Creation, through Genesis and into the near future, and at the same time tells the coming-of-age story of Jackie Eighthstreet. The epic story is sprinkled with sections totalling almost 400 quotations, as well as poetry, song lyrics and pseudoscientific articles about questionable beginnings, predictions of the end, and family dynamics. There are also scientific, philosophical commentaries by a green cartoon monkey named Mickey.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Apr 12, 2011
• ISBN: 9781257582518

Book preview

FROM HEResy MAGazine PREMIERE ISSUE

There is one god. there are gods, there is no god

It all depends upon how you frame your inquiry.

Mathematically, prime numbers and rhythms exist, and nothmg else.

Nature is Triadic. not Duahstic

Information + Reason + Inner awareness = Peace + Love

Neutnno consciousness—Animal Vegetable Mineral Vacuum

Speed of light is material asymptote

The basis of racial bias is pheromonal

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OTHER TITLES BY JUDSON S. SMEDLEY

BLUNDERPOSH, or LivingInLosAngeles (A novel)

SPACETIME AND THE 7 HEAVENS

PARADIGMATIC HERESIES Against Scientific Hegemony

THE HERETIC’S TAPESTRY—SELF-HELP SKETCHES

PENTATEUCH, PSALMS, PROPHETS, GOSPEL: AN EXISTENTIAL POEM

PRIMER OF THE CHAOS OF ETHICS

THE BOOK OF JOY

EXPONENTIAL ENTITIES

PRIME NUMEROLOGY, Euclid to Fibonacci to Feigenbaum and Beyond (with E.H. Nutmint)

THE SCIENCE OF PSYCHOPHYSICS (A THOUGHT HERESY)

THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LITTLE ME, Chief of the Mid-Atlantic region Nopate Indians

THE SUCCESSFUL GURU, the Thief that Leaves You Richer.

WASH-ZEN: ENLIGHTENMENT AT THE LAUNDROMAT

RELATIVITY OF SOUL

THE SEARCH FOR THE PLANETARY SOUL

THE MANIFESTO OF THE INTERENTITY COUNCIL [Tract]

SON & SERF, My Relationship with my Father

TELEPHONE TREE: Root, Stem, Leaves, Flowers, Fruit, Seeds [Poetry]

THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF god, The story behind HEResy MAGazine

LA FLEUR D’ARGENT, LA MAUVAISE HERBE DE L’OR, Spirit and Capital

INSURANCE: SECURITY BLANKET OF THE FAITHLESS

LOVE & ADVICE, a Sgt. Joe Doe Mystery

UPDATE: Myths

HEResy MAGazine IS PUBLISHED OCCASIONALLY BY AZ FOR THE PURPOSE OF FACILITATING INTER-ENTITY UNDERSTANDING. THIS IS A PROGRAMMED FICTIONAL TEXT. SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE.

DEDICATION

To son, wife, father, mother, brothers, friends, partners, and to the One Great People of the 31st Century

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EDITOR’S FOREWORD

Thank you for reading this far in my book. HEResy MAGazine is a fictional book, and I, Judson Schuyler Smedley, am a fictional editor.

That said, let me ask: Does torrid sex pique your interest? If so, turn to Exodust page 167 and begin there. (There are other sexual passages before and after that, however.) If you are interested in puzzles, you may begin on Prologue page 211, though in a sense, the whole book is a puzzle. The first poem is in Prologue on page 121, and if you are the math-and-science sort, you may find something of interest in Prologue, page 220. In case you are looking for a reference source, try any of the Quotes sections (Tao Teh Queen, Quote of Arms, Fact-is-Fantasy Department, and Early Oat of Quizdom.) There are 26 sections of quotations, a total of well over 2000 quotes. Of course, by now the page numbers may have changed, but it is all there, or at least it was there earlier today. Also available is the HEResy MAGazine MUSIC VIDEO, and the soundtrack album.

It has been said that HERMAG will bring enlightenment to whoever reads it carefully. Please, what so-called Judleys say is one thing, but what I really want to do is to entertain, with information and theories doled out in appetizing chunks. Do not take any of this literally, although the quotations are copied faithfully, often from source documents.

This book is meant to insult you in places. Do not take offense. There are parts of me that insult myself. I mean to slap your beliefs in the face, and then kiss it and make it better.

My goal in writing HERMAG is to indicate the value to be found in constantly reevaluating your beliefs, regardless of conventional wisdom.

I posit that we as a species can maintain the planet Earth in our spare time, though it will take a great commitment as a species to modify our beliefs properly, and the original physical clean-up will require a short-term full-time effort.

That is my goal in writing HEResy MAGazine, to begin the process of Planetary Belief Modification. This is not ENLIGHTENMENT.

Actually, I only edited HEResy MAGazine. I am merely a vehicle for the book of Quantum god. Even I don’t have it all figured out (who does?), but I see clues from a god that is far beyond my comprehension. And I know that it is the EXPERIENCE that counts, not all the EXPLANATIONS. For only in the EXPERIENCE can bliss be realized. ENLIGHTENMENT comes only from EXPERIENCE.

There are two sayings that the so-called Judleys attribute to me, which, though I never said them, I wish that I had. They are: 1. Love is the deep secret; and, 2. Tune your experiences.

So okay scientists, go ahead, read my book, devise a test. Are my assumptions valid, my reasoning sound? Are my theories correct? I know, INCONCLUSIVE.

Thank you again for opening my book. Now read. The explanation rests.

Sincerely, Judson Smedley.

HEResy MAGazine

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A JOURNAL OF INQUIRY, A THEOLOGICAL RAINBOW ESSAY, A PROGRAMMED FICTIONAL TEXT, AND GITA OF SRI WARREN

PSALMS, SONGS, DREAMS, QUOTATIONS, ARTICLES, and A STORY

edited by Dr. Judson Schuyler Smedley

Volume I. THE ANCIENT WORKS 1-C

PROLOGUE (START HERE)

The prologue is the grace, Each act, a course, each scene, a different dish.

George Farquhar

Jackie Eighthstreet wants to get laid.

At times he succeeds, but…

HEResy MAGazine is a book about god. The TRUE god. Not the Islamo-Judeo-Christian god, not the Hindo-Buddhist god, not the Amerindian god nor any other all-encompassing god. It is about all these gods and more. HEResy MAGazine is about Quantum god. It is a serious book. At the same time it is a book of humor, insults, and profanity.

Alert Alert Alert Alert Alert Alert Alert Alert Alert Alert Alert Alert Alert Alert Alert Alert Alert Alert Alert

WARNING! INSULTS & PROFANITY

Alert Alert Alert Alert Alert Alert Alert Alert Alert Alert Alert Alert Alert Alert Alert Alert Alert Alert Alert

HEResy MAGazine reexamines the evidence of relativity and quantum physics, Chaos theory, and computer language and therewith attempts to redefine terms that have long been taken off the table by scientists. It takes the term god out of the Newtonian/Cartesian clockwork paradigm and, with great reverence to god but total disregard for common decency, relocates god in many more dimensions than simply the four of SPACETIME. It takes the word paranormal, so readily scorned, and boldly finds room for it in the creative probability vacuum that fills the void between the nucleus of the atom and the spooky electron shells. It calls consciousness an attribute of god alone in all of god’s show-tell-and-inquire, and as such makes no fundamental distinction between Animal, Vegetable, and Mineral (and Vacuum.) A seamless whole, you say. Indeed.

THE WHOLE POINT IS THIS: THE TERM god, THE CONCEPT OF god, god-THE-FATHER-ALMIGHTY HIMSELF IS USELESS UNLESS AND UNTIL IT/SHE/HE CAN BE DIRECTLY APPLIED TO THE WHOLE THING OF REALITY, THE WHOLE OF EXPERIENCE, THE WHOLE OF PERSONALITY, THE WHOLE OF SCIENCE, THE WHOLE OF POLITICS, THE WHOLE OF THE WHOLE OF THE SPECTRA OF ENERGY IN ITS MULTITUDINOUS MANIFESTATIONS.

In the first century of the common era, the apostle Paul travelled to Athens, where, seeing wholesale idolatry, he disputed in the synagogue and in the market with the Jews and others. Upon hearing him, a group of Athenians (identified as philosophers of the Epicurean and Stoick [sic] schools) took great interest in his ideas. They asked him to explain his new doctrine, and, it is written in the seventeenth chapter of the book of Acts:

Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars’ hill, and said, Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious. For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN god. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you.

god that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; neither is worshipped with men’s hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things; and hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; that they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us: For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your poets have said, For we are also his offspring.

So today, the god of our concepts has become calcified, and has hardened into an idol. We pray to gods of history, and make distinctions between your god and my god, between your religion and my religion, between your culture and my way. And so, once again, the true god remains unknown.

New wine in old bottles: Quantum god cramped into the conceptual framework of Newton and Descartes, of Hume and Hegel, of Adam Smith and Karl Marx, it is a tent revival of Aristotelian logic. Quantum god is new wine; it is heresy.

That’s what the followers of Jackson Saint Jake Jillson believe, at least.

Here are a few of many attributes of Quantum god of the Jillists, excerpted from the Jillite GITA OF SRI WARREN:

Quantum god needs no priests, and all written text is its scripture.

Quantum god recognizes no Bad Guys, no outsiders, no aliens; and requires no intercessor.

Quantum god hears all entreaties, smiles at blasphemy, and laughs at a good dirty joke.

Quantum god cannot be bought, is not appeased by indulges.

Quantum god is not intimidated by teasing or bluffing; it is wise not to bet against Quantum god in games of If-Then.

Quantum god cannot be fooled by faulty reasoning, recognizes no untrue premises, yet is not bound by Aristotelian logic.

Quantum god is a term in every equation, and can be neither canceled nor factored out. (1 + 1 + god = 2 + god. NaCl + H2O + god = NaOH + HCl + god.)

Quantum god operates in all dimensions, not merely the four of spacetime.

Quantum god, undisturbed, is like a super electron shell, filling the consciousness of the void with a gaseous cloud of grace. When called upon, Quantum god manifests as a wave, liquid love. When acting within the limited realm of spacetime, Quantum god becomes particulate, solid and miraculous.

The teaching of Quantum god is this: Beyond all the spacetime cause-and-effect, in the multidimensional continuum, random events—unanticipated, irrational, even cruel and tragic sometimes—have meaning. The meaning is often not readily understandable. Sometimes the meaning is only discovered years or even generations later, when many sections of some puzzle have been assembled. Yet ultimately the universe is on purpose. The purpose is at levels deeper than space and time. It is purpose of infinite intelligent consciousness. Nor is it fate—it is purpose. This purpose, in, turn is affected by our beliefs—quite paradoxical, actually. If you choose not to believe in it, it simply will not show up to you. Yet if you do, you are promised a rich existence, full of discovery.

Again, if to this you say Bullshit, I can’t help you anymore than to say to you, You know? You’re a real fuckin’ asshole.

[And a furry, green simian voice breaks into your mind, saying:]

Quantum god accepts blame for nothing. He just shrugs his shoulders as if to say things happen in spacetime—so it goes.

In fact, Quantum god is a fucking clam! He just sits there and he sits there and he does nothing and he says nothing. And you ask an open-ended question and then you wait expectantly. You ask, Soooo?. . . What? And you go into your expectant stare—you raise your eyebrows a little and you stare. You do not accept an I don’t know. That’s absurd. Certainly god knows. You do not let him off when he asks you, Is that all? Or Are you through? Or May I go now? You just stare. And you count while you wait. Thousand one, thousand two. . . It gives you something to do, something to concentrate on while you wait so you don’t get bored or lose patience. And god may say, No, wait. Look over there—wars, pestilence, disease. But you just wait him out until he gives you a satisfactory answer.

The fact is god is neglecting this planet. It is benign neglect. He knows it. We know it. But we cannot let him get away with it. He needs to know what we expect of him. When god stands, you rise slowly from your seat. You do not want to appear to challenge him. You maintain eye contact, though. Eventually he must address the issue at hand.

You know.

If everybody on the planet stood and stared at god in unison, you can be sure that he would take notice. Don’t ask for anything, just stare at him. All together, now.

[And your mind sizzles back to normal mode.]

The word Heresy is defined as an organized theory based either on 1. information additional to the database of the orthodoxy, or on 2. an unusual and compelling interpretation of the known facts of reality, which causes its conclusions to be anathemic to the essential philosophic thrust and fiscal viability of the fucking pigs. It may be so defined and it may not. And that is the beauty of heretical thought: it is untrammeled by objective fact, and this because it is limited neither by current objective fact nor by orthodox fancy.

The basic heresy of HEResy MAGazine is this: those things that are linked in thought are, in a deep quantum gestalt, linked in fact. All of reality, and there are more than four dimensions to it, is a seamless whole. At quantum level, reality becomes a probabilistic blur, material particle/waves mingling with thoughts, with feelings, with paranormal manifestations. In a cloud there still exists distinct points in space, though they appear to be a blur. Not so in quantum reality.

There really is a blur, a blur of patterns, of relationships.

And that which humankind experiences as Spacetime is as a bubble in multidimensional reality, a colloidal suspension, if you will: a gelatinous mass of energy, a four-dimensional dot-to-dot puzzle, coherent in itself, but with vast interstices—at least nine more dimensions of interstitial stuff. Each entity in Spacetime is an integral part of the colloidal whole, connected to it by a silver cord, yet infused with it to the microscopic level.

The heresy of the Quantum god, as taught by Dr. Judson Smedley in HEResy MAGazine, claims to combine both possible bases for the definition—additional information and reinterpretation. On the one hand, by superimposing the Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum reality onto the dog-eared and yellowing map of theological possibility, Smedley concludes: There is one god; there are gods; there is no god. It all depends upon how you frame your question. (This is PROBABILITY THEOLOGY.)

At the early stages of quantum theory, in the era dubbed ERA PALEOQUANTIQUE by Oliver Costa deBeau-regard, Niels Bohr proposed a model of the hydrogen atom which explained its spectrum. It worked, but it was the result of inspired guesswork. And so, lacking method and protocols, we find ourselves in the field of Probability Theology.

Judson S. Smedley, PARADIGMATIC HERESIES.

And on the other hand, Smedley reinterprets Number Theory, by stripping it down to its essentials, and comes up with two basic tenets of his PRIME NUMEROLOGY: There are Prime Numbers and there is rhythm, and nothing else; and, the base prime is 3, not 2, that is, the universe is Triadic, not Dualistic. (So far, so good.)

This is heresy. Everyone has individual heresies, admitted or not. In the recesses of the mind, there are unorthodox ideas of some kind. Heresy is in the mind of the heretic, conspiring not against god, but conspiring with god against the idolatry of religions.

Yet you idolize religions in your minds. Thus we have the religion of the Snake, the religion of the Fan, the religion of the Tree, of the Wall, of the Rope; but few heretics subscribe to the religion of the Elephant—fewer still to the religion of the Quantum Elephant.

The gods that comprise the Quantum Elephant are not snakelike, nor are they fannish, nor walloid. The gods of the world’s religions are related to Quantum Elephant god in a fashion more like its blood, its lymph; its skin, its bones; its nerves, its mind. More like elephant atoms of carbon, of oxygen, of calcium. They are not organs of a body, but groups of subatomic particle/waves; god1 is the sum of all protons in Quantum Elephant, god2 is the sum of all negative pions, and so forth.

The gods of worldly religions are all integrally bound together in Quantum god.

What we call consciousness results from excited states of parts or all of Quantum god.

Saint Jake Jillson prescribes the antidote to certain types of religious bias: "The Wise Man disparages not the religion of another, nor his god, nor even the drug that another uses to get in touch with his god."

Smedley explains the need for a planetary metareligion:

You think you have to worship, but that is not what god wants. Do you actually hear god, that still small voice? If you say you don’t, it merely means you have not tuned yourself to resonate to god. If you could hear god, it would say, "Listen up, SHIT-FOR-BRAINS. You don’t understand. You can’t understand. I can’t explain it in simple enough terms for you to understand, I guess. Some of your metaphors and analogies come close, but you mythed the point.

"Fix up the planet you have now. Care for its inhabitants. Don’t worry about me, I am here, and I’ll be here if and when you really need me. But in the meantime, love your family, worry about your neighbors, care for your enemies, be kind to animals: because you are all brothers and sisters. Seamless whole, get it? Nature is one big quasicapitalistic democratic socialist commune.

"The eye doth not say to the hand, ‘I have no need of thee.’

She and he that hath ears, let them hear."

The one term that evaporates in this theocosmological explanation is evil.

Evil is the opposite pole of good and, being dualistic in conception, not triadic, becomes moot. Having rid us of the assumption of evil, the author provides the space necessary for the planet to live in peace, one biosphere, working out its priorities and cleaning up its act. [So says Dr. Smedley, and blah, blah, blah. . .]

As the song goes:    A PLANET DIVIDED AGAINST ITSELF

CANNOT STAND.

We all should know that by now.

A PLANET DIVIDED AGAINST ITSELF

CANNOT STAND.

We all should know that by now.

We all should live in harmony,

We all should live in peace.

Every living thing should live

Without fear of me.

There is only one human race

There is only one earth.

A PLANET DIVIDED AGAINST ITSELF

CANNOT STAND.

Everybody oughtta know that by now.

This is quite heretical, but there is no need to fear a planet undivided. Is this not what we all wish for when we are not worrying about our own little bailiwick, our own fiscal solvency, our own family pride? Or about the state of our magazine subscriptions?

HERMAG

ATTENTION: HEResy MAGazine & BetterG ames&Mazes HAVE MERGED.

RASPY COCKNEY PIRATE:    " ‘Coincidental, perhaps,’ says you.

‘But meaningful, nonetheless,’ says I."

[You know what’s going on, don’t you. The history of the planet is hanging in the balance, precariously, and you try to convince yourself that you are somehow just another faceless something-as-others-of-your-ilk. And then Ayn Rand comes up, blows smoke in your face and says, you are truly someone special but only if you want to be. You can realize, that is, you can make something to become real. You can affect the world. She continues.

"Your life can be the helpless butterfly’s wing whose beating changes the course of the whirling wind of chaos. Or you can be AVATAR OF UNDERSTANDING.

"But first you must understand. You must understand how far your thoughts, even your most sincere and clearest thoughts, how far your concepts, can take you from the truth."

And you squeeze your eyes shut and shake your grimace and then you press in on your eyes, you take a deep breath and say what the fuck are you talking about, you’re not making any fucking sense. And of course, what you mean is, IT’S not making sense to ME, not yet is it not so?]

Let’s talk of things we dare think of. Imagine hard and speculate. J. S. Smedley

circle

The following program, B.S. in Broadcasting, moderated by the aNNOUNCER, is another installment in the ongoing series for credit towards a baccalaureate of science degree in Educational Philosophy.

WELCOME TO THE SCHOOL OF THE MIND, the radio program that brings together many streams of thought, a confluence of the Mississippi, the Nile, the Ganges, the Amazon, the Danube, and others. The ultimate goal is ENLIGHTENMENT. Every Saturday and Sunday evening at this time K-A-Z brings you another installment of SCHOOL OF THE MIND. And so, to our program.

GOOD EVENING. THIS IS THE aNNOUNCER.

ON THIS PROGRAM WE PRESENT A READING OF THE TRANSCRIPT OF A BOOK REPORT ON THE OPUS ENTITLED HEResy MAGazine, WRITTEN BY DR. JUDSON SCHUYLER SMEDLEY. THIS ORAL REPORT WAS GIVEN LAST THURSDAY BY A SEVENTEEN-YEAR-OLD TENTH-GRADE REMEDIAL ENGLISH STUDENT, A FIRST-BORN SON OF AN UNREASONABLE AND PIOUS MAN OF UNCONSIDERED ROUTINES. THE STUDENT’S NAME IS F. WHITEY SMITH. IT IS TEN O’CLOCK ON A SUNNY SPRING MORNING WITH BIRDS TWITTERING AND SONGS OF FECUNDITY PLAYING ON THE RADIOS OF A CAMPUS PARKING LOT. WHITEY SMITH IS STANDING IN FRONT OF ELEVEN STUDENTS AND ONE ELDERLY TEACHER, UNMARRIED FEMALE, NAMED EVELYN GRUMP.

IT IS THE LAST DAY OF SCHOOL BEFORE FINAL EXAMS AND MOST OF THE STUDENTS SEEM TO BE RUNNING AND LAUGHING AND GATHERING IN CARS. BUT WHITEY STANDS AND HIS DELINQUENT COLLEAGUES AND MISS GRUMP SIT IN A SECOND-STOREY ROOM IN THE BRICK-FACED HIGH SCHOOL ANNEX, WITH THE BREEZE FROM THE OPEN WINDOW THROUGH THE OPEN DOOR BLOWING A FLAG OF UNKNOWN NATIONALITY.

WHITEY’S SHOULDERS SLOUCH BACK AND HIS HEAD BOBS AS HE LOOKS AROUND THE ROOM— DIRECTLY AT STUDENT FACES AND OFF INTO SPACE AND AT INANIMATE OBJECTS.

WHITEY’S MOMENTARY DAYDREAM:    HAZE

FOCUS

PALM OF HAND

MAP

TERRAIN

ATOM

HAZE

AND FINALLY HE LOOKS AT EVELYN GRUMP.

[I HOPE YOU’RE NOT THE IMPATIENT SORT, ARE YOU? REALITY TOOK A LONG TIME TO DEVELOP INTO WHAT IT IS TODAY, AND SO TO EXPLAIN REALITY CAN AT TIMES SEEM LONG AND TEDIOUS, AND THE CONNECTION MAY SEEM SLOW IN COMING. BUT ONLY BELIEVE IN SUPERLUMINAL SIGNALLING, HAVE FAITH IN Qgod, AND PRACTICE FOCUSED DIAPHRAGMATIC BREATHING, AND THE WORLD WILL BE TRANSFORMED.]

WHITEY SPEAKS:

DEAR TEACHER. Here is my fucking book report.

A MILD SHOCKWAVE PASSES THROUGH THE CLASS. NO ONE APPEARS TO KNOW HOW TO REACT TO THE PRESENT PARTICIPLE OF THAT TETRAGRAM. PUZZLED, SLIGHTLY FRIGHTENED GLANCES ARE EXCHANGED. WHITEY CONTINUES.

I know that you always seen me as the punk who sits at the back of your classroom; an asshole in a black t-shirt, bluegenes . . . (that’s jee-ee-en-ee-ess genes) . . . and motorcycle boots; a generally disRUPtive influence. I know I never done nothin’ in your class before, but this is the first time I ever read a book worth reportin’ on.

The book I read is HEResy MAGazine, written supPOSedly by Dr. Judson Smedley. This guy is IN the book, too. He’s got this gorgeous babe of a wife, you hear about her all the time, but SHE’s not in the book. Not even a picture, if she’s so fuckin’ gorgeous and all.

HERE THE CLASS BUBBLES WITH A-TWITTERS AND TONY THOMAS SITS WITH HIS ELBOW ON THE DESK AND HIS HAND OVER HIS MOUTH, AND SAYS, YYYYEAH! WHITEY LOOKS AT MISS GRUMP AND SHE SITS STONY AND STERN, WITHOUT MOVING. HE LOOKS AT THE CEILING FOR A MOMENT THEN CONTINUES.

Judson Smedley is some kind of a physicist or somethin’. Here, let me read it to you.

AND WHITEY WALKS BACK TO HIS DESK AND GETS A MAGAZINE FROM A FOLDER. IT HAS A PALE PURPLE-BLUE COVER, ON WHICH IS WHAT APPEARS TO BE A CIRCLE-WITH-GOGGLES ON IT. THE TOP OF THE CIRCLE IS DARK BLUE, AS IS THE RIGHT SPACE OF THE GOGGLES, WITH A RED DOT FOR AN EYE. THE LOWER PART OF THE CIRCLE AND THE LEFT GOGGLE SPACE ARE RED, WITH A BLUE DOT. THE GOGGLES THEMSELVES ARE YELLOW. ACROSS THE TOP OF THE FRONT COVER OF THE MAGAZINE ARE THE WORDS

"HEResy MAGazine

Premier Issue

DECEMBER"

IN BRIGHT RED BLOCK LETTERS.

THE ROOM RUSTLES NERVOUSLY, A SINGLE SPITBALL HURTLES OVER WHITEY’S HEAD AS HE RETURNS TO THE FRONT.

NOT ON THE LAST DAY OF CLASSES, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, SAYS MISS GRUMP, A QUARTER STATEMENT/A QUARTER QUESTION/A QUARTER PLEA/A QUARTER INDICTMENT.

CHAIRS SCRAPE ON THE FLOOR, AND SILENCE ENSUES RATHER QUICKLY.

Now let me read you this. It says,

AND WHITEY SCANS THE FIRST COUPLE OF PAGES,

it calls this Smedley guy a goggled physicist/performer-cum-reluctant-guru, I like that word cum. See-you-em. Cum CUM CUM.

AND THE CLASS ERUPTS INTO HOWLS AND WHISTLES AND FOOT-STOMPS.

CLASS? COMES MISS GRUMP’S VOICE. AFTER A FEW MUFFLED COUGHS, QUIETUDE.

He’s got these people, these followers, called Judleys. I really didn’t understand a lot of it.

See? The reason I started reading this book was an ad I saw that said DIRTY WORDS, GRAPHIC KILLING AND VIRGIN SEX. I read the whole thing and there was some neat stuff, dirty words and all but most of the book was sumpd’n else.

Plus it wasn’t very long—it IS a magazine, which I should of realized from the beginning—but when I got to the end I found it that it’s continued, and I said, SHIT! And then, you know, I realized that it came as a boxed set of five magazines, five issues of HEResy MAGazine, and the first one had most of the sex, and I couldn’t figure WHERE it was tryin’ to go, the plot and all, and the rest of the issues had less story and more articles and shit. It wasn’t until the second magazine that the time traveler shows up, you know? But, shit. . . .

AND MISS GRUMP ASKS WHITEY, DIDN’T YOU SEE THE WORDS ‘Premier Issue’ ON THE FRONT COVER?

You know, I never read a magazine cover before. I read mostly just the sports page and the funnies in the newspaper. And sometimes the astrology section. But I should’ve known sumpd’n was up, because it didn’t have any ads in it. Just a couple pictures. You know, none of Smedley’s wife, not tits and no beaver shots, actually there was one section of pictures that looked like curtain-patterns, it called it the mental . . . the, uh, the, wait a second.

AND WHITEY OPENS THE MAGAZINE AND HOLDS UP TO THE CLASS A SERIES OF PAGES, ONE PAGE AT A TIME, WITH TURTLE PATTERNS AND PAISLEYS AND SUCH.

This is called the . . .

AND HE READS FROM THE CAPTION

. . . MAN-DEL-BROT set. That’s all the pictures there are, ‘cept for a couple like cartoons and a diagram or two. When I start readin’ this book, well, let me read you another name it gives itself on the first inside page. It says,

"HEResy MAGazine, A JOURNAL OF INQUIRY, A THEOLOGICAL RAINBOW ESSAY, A PROGRAMMED FICTIONAL TEXT, AND GITA OF SRI WARREN."

See, I kept lookin’ for the sex scenes, and there are a few good ones, but mostly its like magazine articles about god or science stuff and there’s sections of famous sayin’s, and there’s poetry and junk like that. I don’t really get into that kind of stuff, you know, I skipped through most of it. But sometimes I saw some stuff I liked, like . . .

AND WHITEY FLIPS THROUGH SOME PAGES.

Like . . . Okay, like this.

HE FOLDS THE MAGAZINE BACK ON ITSELF, CLEARS HIS THROAT, AND READS.

"First sciPSALM

[RED—RIGHT? AND BLUE]

When I SEE RED

Do you SAY ‘red’?

Of course you do.

But what if blue

Is what you see?

Then certainly

You wouldn’t know;

Which goes to show

That maybe all your life you’re wrong

And never know."

Now I don’t really know what it means, deep inside, but it’s short, it’s got color in it, and the color words have some splash to them. Reminds me of me and my parents. I don’t know . . .

AND A BRIEF MOMENT OF TRANCE PASSES OVER WHITEY’S FACE LIKE A MASK.

And there are parts of the book that talk about havin’ kids, about music, and some things that are sort of history, I guess, only it seems to be in the future.

SOMETHING INSIDE WHITEY RETURNS AND HIS PACE PICKS UP.

I don’t know, it’s kind of weird. There are parts of past, parts of future, all mixed up together. There are people who are alive today, but they are much older in the book, and shit like that. WEIRD shit.

And there’s a cassette tape that comes with the book, with some strange music. I wish there was more real rock and roll, but some of it was pretty rockin’, like this one song with a slow pounding beat, I memorized the words and all. It goes like this:

It starts with a drum, and and then this voice starts screaming with the rhythm, "WHO ARE these cynical gods you pray to? WHO ARE these cynical gods you pray to? . . ." and over and over again, well, actually four times, and then it all stops for a second, and then this deep synthesizer and a bass comes in with the drum BAM. . . BAM. . . BAM. . . BAM, and then a guitar plays this dettadettadettadetta and then this song comes on about a planet divided against itself.

I gave it to my sister. She plays it in her car on the way to work.

THE SOUND OF A SIREN AND AN AIRHORN PIERCE THE BREEZE, AND BRUNO TYRANNOSAURUS JUMPS UP AND RUNS TO THE WINDOW.

"Fuck, MAN, THERE’S SMOKE COMIN’ FROM CITY HALL."

ONE MORE STUDENT BEGINS TO RISE FROM HIS SEAT, BUT A QUICK AND DIRECT "Sit" FROM MISS GRUMP RETURNS THE CLASS TO ORDER, AND AFTER A BRIEF INTERLUDE OF MURMURS AND A COUPLE COUGHS, THINGS SETTLE DOWN. THE SIREN FADES INTO THE DISTANCE.

WHITEY’S FACE LIGHTS UP.

Oh . . . oh. Wait a minute. There’s one part I want to read.

HE FLIPS THROUGH HEResy MAGazine BUT SOON GIVES UP THIS SEARCH.

Anyway, there’s this one part, one article, where I read that it’s okay to say some things that I always thought were bad. Like the word Fuck. Smedley says it’s okay to say it. He says look at it. Ef-you-see-kay. Big deal. And say it. Fuck. It’s not pretty sounding. But neither is duck, or truck, or stuck. Or buck . . . or hockey puck. So what’s the big deal?

He says think of Fuck like you do Luck, and it makes it okay. Or sumpd’n like that.

He says god doesn’t care, so why should anybody else? Big fuckin’ shit.

THE CLASS LAUGHS AT THIS, AND MISS GRUMP DOESN’T REACT.

INSTEAD, SHE ASKS WHITEY, IS THERE A STORY TO THE BOOK?

Yeah, with all the science and poems and god shit, and a bunch of different parts with sayin’s from famous people, there is a story. But y’know what?

I learned some other neat shit readin’ HERMAG. Do you know that people actually used to eat muscles and guts of animals? Yeah, they called it meat. And they never really thought about it. I just can’t believe it. It was almost like, Well, you know, they’re ONLY animals. WE’RE the people around here, the crown of creation. WE’RE the top of the foodchain. FUCK THEM. And you know what happened to turn it around?

Insurance companies started giving VEGETABLE-ONLY DISCOUNTS on life insurance. See? THEY EVEN HAD A WORD FOR NOT EATING ANIMALS—VEGETARIAN! Ssshyew! It’s crazy.

WHITEY STARES AT THE NUMBER 3 ON THE CLOCK AT THE BACK OF THE CLASSROOM AND BEGINS ROCKING SLOWLY, HIS EYES PIERCING THE VEIL OF THE NUMBER THREE AND ENTERING SOMETHING LIVING.

AFTER A BRIEF BUT ETERNAL MOMENT, A SMALL METALLIC BELL RINGS, AND WHITEY’S EYES FALL TO A BOUNCING-FLIPPING-OSCILLATING-LANDING-TAILSIDE-UP PENNY ON THE FLOOR AT HIS FEET. IT IS A RARE LINCOLN PENNY, DATED 1999, AND WHITEY’S MIND COMES OUT OF AN INSTANTANEOUS MERGER WITH THAT OF THE az [A WORD FOR THE CONSCIOUS ESSENCE OF ANY ENTITY] OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN, THROUGH A TINY BEARDED FACE, BETWEEN PILLARS OF THE LINCOLN MEMORIAL, TO THE WHOLE OF A PENNY’S ROUNDITY AND COPPER-COLOREDNESS.

LUCY PEREZ QUICKLY SLIDES SIDEWAYS FROM HER SEAT, AND RETRIEVES THE COIN.

WHITEY OPENS HIS EYES WIDE, IN-GASPS, HOLDS HIS BREATH BRIEFLY AND EXHALES FIRMLY THROUGH PURSED LIPS. HE INHALES AGAIN AND ROLLS HIS HEAD ON HIS NECK. THE ASSEMBLY OF VERTEBRAE AND DISKS CRACKS. MARGARET TRUAX AND SYBIL SZEBRITCZNI LET OUT COMPLAINING OooooooooooS.

And another thing that used to be—there was heavy controversy about CAPITALISM and SOCIALISM. And then they like merged. But before, they had some trip about shit like that. I don’t understand. I mean, what’s the big deal? These so-called Capitalists believed that people actually OWN shit. And then somebody would come along with a gun and point it at ‘em and say, "You used to own that."

So this whole crazy planet had this saying: The reasonable man must carry the biggest weapon.

But you know. These people were crazy. Remember, they ate animals, for christ’s sake.

I guess somebody finally said, What are we really after? And can a greedy son-of-a-bitch like me make the planet better and still be satisfied?

And then I guess somebody, maybe it was Einstein, came up with the idea of WORLD UNITY. And then some people started thinkin’. And somebody came up with feedin’ the world. And, somebody said, Raisin’ animals for food is inefficient. (Remember, most people probably ate animals without really thinkin’ about the whole thing, about different stuff, about animals bein’ part of it and all.)

And so gradually, people stopped eatin’ meat. There were certain uh, economic, uh, DISLOCATIONS at first. This Capitalism/Socialism shit. But look at the world now. Eatin’ animals—fuckin’ shit!

And that’s about the time that Judson Smedley first thought up his computer program to save the world—Planet Earth Fix.

AND WHITEY TURNS AND STANDS FACING THE BLACKBOARD. HE REACHES DOWN AND PICKS UP A PIECE OF CHALK, SCANS THE DUSTY SLATE AND PRINTS P-L-N-T-E-R-T-H-.-F-I-X.

HE PUTS DOWN THE CHALK, AND LOOKS IN SURPRISE AT THE DUST STILL ON HIS FINGERTIPS. RECOVERING QUICKLY, WHITEY RUBS HIS FINGERS ON HIS JEANS AT THE FRONT OF HIS CROTCH. HE SQUEEZES HIS LEGS SHUT AROUND HIS HAND AND LEANS FORWARD A LITTLE.

And then I guess somebody thought—probably somebody like Jake Jillson,

AND WHITEY OPENS THE COVER OF HEResy MAGazine AND READS HIS OWN HANDSCRAWL:

We would get along better if the purely tribal differences that separate us were eliminated.

People used to live in like tribes, groups that varied shitloads. Inside a group they would dress alike, eat the same things, talk a different language from most other people’s. It’s no wonder they couldn’t get along between groups.

You know, I DID GET a lot of the shit in HEResy MAGazine. I just wanted to read all the sex stuff. But it showed me why they started doin’ some of the things that we now do without thinking.

All those things that everybody does without thinkin’, like the daily dose of I LOVE LUCY, or PIZZA NIGHT, or the LYSERGIC ACID YEARLY, actually came from different cultures. Or like, MIXED GLEE CLUB. It used to be that only SOME people sang.

Didn’t you ever wonder where the idea of puttin’ babies into watermelon rinds got started? It makes sense in a way, but when you think about it. . . . Well, all these things were part of different countries at one time or another. I guess people thought that they were somehow different just because of where they came from or which tribe they belonged to, or because their eyes were different colors, I guess. I don’t know.

I guess I haven’t mentioned Jake Jillson before. Yeah, he’s in the book, too. The same Jake Jillson that plays center in the NBA, the big guy with glasses. Only in the book he’s called Saint Jake Jillson, they call him the first SUPREME UNIVERSAL SERVANT, he doesn’t wear glasses, and he’s this old guy.

That’s what I meant when I said about history in the future. It’s weird, I feel sort of unstuck in time. In the book, he’s a fat old man, leader of some kind of religious cult, called the Internal Church of Ecstasy. He says that there are three what he calls MODES OF ATTENTION—Meditation, InQUIry and Jubilation—and he would control whole shitloads of his followers at the same time with these what he called ANCHORS that put the people into the different modes.

He would walk into a packed auditorium and lift up his right hand and put his head down, and the room would all shut up. The people would space out until the whole room was breathing in synch.

Then, after a while, he’d lower his hand and say, So. And after a few heehees and yuk-yuks, they would get real, uh, real . . . attentive. He talked straight. There was a light around his head. And the people would laugh at his jokes, let out a big sigh when he would smile, and, and, and . . .

WHITEY’S MIND LEAVES FOR A MOMENT, THEN QUICKLY RETURNS.

And finally, after an hour or so, he would say, It is so, and raise both fists in the air, and people would get wild.

THE DISTINCT SMELL OF WOOD-AND-OIL SMOKE BEGINS TO FILTER IN THROUGH THE CLASSROOM WINDOW, BUT ONLY BRUNO NOTICES IT AT FIRST. HE LOOKS AROUND AT THE OTHERS IN THE ROOM. THEY ARE ALL STATUES EXCEPT WHITEY, WHO IS TALKING.

So Jake Jillson is supposed to be like three hundred years old in HEResy MAGazine, with long, white hair and pink skin, and he must have been very fat because he wore these orange-ish robes, and he had big oyster-eyes that drooped down over his cheeks.

And he had these followers called Jillists who had a religious book of sayings or sumpd’n like that. And he talked for hours on end . . .the Holy Babble . . .and said things like, the ONLY thing people NEED is love, and let’s see what we can do to bring the planet flowers . . . shit like that.

Oh, and there was this other saying, like his only rule, sumpd’n like Take whatever anybody gives you, or like, uh, wait a second, it’s right here. Okay, I’ll read it. Oh, yeah . . . okay, here it is.

Express appreciation at every contact, recontact regularly, and acknowledge all gifts.

Well, actually I guess that’s three rules, huh?

Anyway, it was all written down in this book . . . and, uh, they called him Old Thunderbrain. Like, he makes a lot of noise, but lightning strikes somewhere else.

WHITEY BEGINS ROCKING FRONT AND BACK WHILE SHAKING HIS HEAD.

Fuckin’ outRAGEous.

BRUNO COUGHS EXAGGERATEDLY, BUT NOT ONE STATUE NOTICES.

And then there’s Judson Smedley, the guy that wrote the book. The main story takes place before he really got goin’ on his Planet Earth Fix computer program, but there are parts of the book that go into future times, like the 31st century, when some of the computer’s suggestions have been done, things like the Virginal Deflowering Ceremony, things like the Great Uprooting and Reassignment, things like the weekly Concert for the Bugs. . .

And some of his famous sayings are in the book, too. Like the one that goes, First things first, and Whenever I reach a MAYBE I put in a WHAT IF, and the one about don’t worry about god, worry about others, worry about yourself, shit like that.

And Judson Smedley heads up a group called the InterEntity Council, which I guess is supposed to make everybody get along with everybody else—people with other people, with animals, bugs, plants . . . rocks, atoms. Big companies, governments.

He says all there is is light, and that the only reason for stuff is so that there is shadow and so that this shadow can strut. It all gradually starts to fit together.

And his followers, the Judleys, meet all the time, and this is where the main character of the book comes in, uh, Jackie Eighthstreet—he’s sort of a Judley.

Different Judleys have different ideas about what Judson Smedley does with his time. It’s weird. One guy says that he spends all his time travellin’ around the world helpin’ with disasters and headin’ up a team of computer experts; another guy says he’s always alone in his pad with his family, cookin’ and readin’ and meditatin’; some people say he spends all his time entertainin’ important people with this gorgeous babe of a wife that he has; and then he has this musical bunch—they say he spends all his time with his band, SOLID LIGHT, rehearsin’ and shit. Some guys think he does a combination of these things and other stuff.

But everybody agrees, and they don’t seem to think that it’s impossible he could be one person and be sumpd’n different to each different Judley. Sumpd’n about parallel universes. Like I said, it’s fuckin’ weird.

NOW, BESIDES BRUNO TYRANNOSAURUS, BARRY BARUDIN AND TONY THOMAS START TO COUGH. MISS GRUMP, SMELLING THE SMOKE FAINTLY, ASKS BRUNO, MISTER TYRANNOSAURUS, PLEASE CLOSE THE WINDOWS. HE GETS UP, WALKS TO THE WINDOW, THEN GRABS HIS THROAT IN TWO HANDS AND MAKES EXAGGERATED CHOKING SOUNDS. THE CLASS BEGINS LAUGHING. BARRY FALLS OUT OF HIS SEAT AND STARTS CHOKING ON THE FLOOR.

THIS IS YOUR FIRST AND ONLY WARNING, SAYS MISS GRUMP. SHE KNOWS IT IS THE LAST DAY OF CLASS BEFORE FINALS, AND SHE KNOWS SHE HAS BECOME A BIT ATTACHED TO THE ANTIC-RIDDEN REMEDIAL CLASS. SHE CONSIDERS CUTTING THEM A BREAK JUST THIS ONCE, BUT NO, IF THEY CONTINUE IN LIKE MANNER, CHILDISHLY, FLOUTING THE RULES OF DECORUM, and blah, blah, blah . . .

BARRY QUICKLY ARISES, AND BRUNO SHUTS THE WINDOWS GENTLY, AND THEY BOTH SIT IN THEIR SEATS.

THANK YOU, GENTLEMEN.

THE WHISPERS ACROSS THE AISLE ARE SHORT AND NERVOUS, BUT THEY FINISH QUICKLY, AND THE