Dispatches from Terra Incognita 1
A New Genre
Having two projects forthcoming in print, and having just finished another manuscript, which collects the best of my hybrid essays from Substack, I have lately obsessed over what to do in the future. After choosing the best short fragments from previous “Terra Incognita” posts into the below one and adding a few more, I became extremely excited about focusing exclusively on the “dispatch” as a genre. Certainly, other authors’ short prose has been juxtaposed in books, and yet I feel this is a new genre of sorts—one that is especially suitable for Substack. Think of my “dispatches” as notes from a bottle sent by an aging humanist stuck on an island of uncertainty, as he tries to make sense of a world where the grand narratives he has lived by and satirized are fading faster than an aging action hero’s career.
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Dispatches from Terra Incognita
Saturday, cold as a witch’s you know what, and I’m at the Lab to give a urine sample.
No one here but a muscular woman, about forty-five, with long black hair tastefully streaked with a touch of grey. Not a beauty parlor job, but an idiosyncrasy gifted to her by the Author of All Things Cool.
She leads me to a room with 60s hard rock music playing loudly. She examines me as if she’s going to remove my appendix instead of draw some blood. She seems happy, probably one of those glass-half-full people I’ve always hated.
“You don’t look like you’re 73,” she says.
“I take care of myself,” I say.
“Is the music too loud?”
“No, I grew up with it. I saw Zeppelin and the James Gang in 1969 at a place called Kleinhan’s Music Hall in Buffalo, NY. The acoustics were amazing.”
“Who else did you see?”
I offer the obligatory old-guy litany of concerts, then say, “What does it matter? I was too wasted to appreciate them.”
“You’re kidding right? If you told me I could see Zeppelin’s first tour if I killed my husband, he’d be six feet underground tomorrow.”
She laughs hard, then notices my surprise. “Relax, sweetie. I’m just kidding.” She hands me my plastic cup, and on the way to the toilet I imagine her husband. He’s buried in the woods somewhere in NH, the tips and buckles of his black engineer boots poking out from a hastily dug grave. Meanwhile his wife is in Buffalo, wearing bellbottoms and a tight white halter top, listening to “Dazed and Confused,” genuflecting before the whine of Jimmy Paige’s 1959 Fender Telecaster.
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The atheist and misanthropist E. M. Cioran, wrote books with upbeat titles like, The Trouble with Being Born, A Short History of Decay, Drawn and Quartered, and On the Heights of Despair. He also championed some controversial arguments for and against suicide. His reward for delving into such difficult topics? God, and I’m talking about the God who happens to have a sense of humor and a celestial affection for dark irony, condemned Cioran to live until he was 84.
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Look for comedy among the ruins, or vice versa.
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People can’t accept that life is messy. And who can blame them? In a messy universe, your Truth can’t always be the “right” Truth, because acceptance of messiness means that other people have Truths, too. Which would mean that Real Life, which is of course messy, would involve everyone bringing their respective Truths to the table and, through mutual cooperation and respect, discovering a “truer” and more authentic Truth.
Unfortunately, this takes time, and there is so much to do: binging Netflix series, for example, or constantly toying with your cell phone, so that, while sitting in a venue like a packed movie theater or lecture hall, you appear to be playing with yourself.
In a similar vein, the poet Charles Simic writes of people’s love of the absolute as follows: “First you simplify whatever is complex, you reduce reality to a single concept, and then you start a church of some kind. What surprises me endlessly is how every new absolutism, every one-sided world view is instantly attractive to seemingly so many intelligent people.”
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One reason why I don’t trust the Old Testament: No way would a woman ever be tricked by a snake to eat a forbidden apple. Only a man could do something that narcissistic and dumb.
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The sand dollar! One of the only sea creatures with no predators. One could write a history about its labyrinthine complexities if one had the time. One legend suggests that the five slits on the surface of the sand dollar represent the five wounds of Christ. Another legend argues that sand dollars are really coins that have been lost by mermaids, or, even better, currency used by the people of Atlantis. If I were a sand dollar, I’d prefer the mermaid story, or to be left alone until my insides dried up on some quiet Maine beach, after which I’d discover myself in a glass vase owned by some nice old Yankee lady, surrounded by other sand dollars who, if I would listen carefully, will recount the history of their complex lives.
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Yesterday I fell in love with a naked mannikin in a storefront window. God had placed her there, knowing my penchant for athletic builds and small breasts. It didn’t take long to feel her shame or invent a history for her: a straight-A student with a strong belief in medieval symbolism and in how disjointed narratives can transform a vibrant culture into a terra incognita of idiots.
Nothing to do but smash the window and take her home, where she stands now waiting for my imagination to put her into motion.
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When the Saint finally appeared, he said, “Think of me as phantom pain”—a declaration still being studied by hemorrhoidal philosophers. (I use the word hemorrhoidal in the broadest sense of the word with deference to its many etymologies and permutations).
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I know a woman who thinks she invented Impressionism because she can make heads turn when she walks into a room. I want to say to her, “Oh, darling of my heart, my little alley cat,” but instead, “Every book should be a danger”—my attempt to appeal to her good breeding and love of the Word.
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Anything I need to know about philosophy or human nature I can find at the zoo.
I really believe that.
You can find Peter Johnson’s books, along with interviews with him, appearances, and other information at peterjohnsonauthor.com
His most recent book of prose poems is While the Undertaker Sleeps: Collected and New Prose Poems
His most recent book of fiction is Shot: A Novel in Stories
Find out why he is giving away his new book of prose poem/fragments, even though he has a publisher for it, by downloading the PDF from the below link or going to OLD MAN’S homepage. His “Note to the Reader” and “Introduction” at the beginning of the PDF explains it all: Observations from the Edge of the Abyss
Schopenhauer said, "some day you will be rescued by death." He never appeared at the Comedy Store despite being invited several times.
Always a (bizarre) boost, Peter!