Music today is without hush and without hush it cannot be worth dancing to. For only what is expressed during a genuine possession can be worth dancing to, and music without hush—music today—is not such an expression. There are, of course, no ways to express possession. There are positions to possess expressions—music today being the composite of these positions—but these are of a different order than what aims to resurrect the stingray, which is not a type of position but a different possession for every stingray washed ashore.
In the kitchen of an apartment where a party is taking place, a boy is spotted peeing out the window. Though this is the only spotted boy invited to the party, his peeing out the window is no clear indication of his having hush in his melody. There are melodies present at every party—and this party is no exception—that if peed out of this or that window might be a dead or a resurrected stingray, but most likely are fish without flesh, which, by their very nature, will never be resurrected, resurrection requiring a certain degree of cannibalism, cannibalism requiring, among other things, flesh. Though the boy spotted peeing out the window is spotted, his melodies, whether peed out of the window or not, are actually not worth spotting. He is spotted for all the wrong reasons. Whether the window is this window or that window, by the way, does not affect the presence or absence of hush in the melody. Hush is never affected. Either there is not hush, or hush is already there, breaking windows.
Dancing for exercise to music with hush to become possessed to resurrect the stingray is a melody of a different order than those generally played at parties to which only one spotted boy is invited and spotted for all the wrong reasons. At these parties, boys following boys shout, “That boy is drinking my vodka; he drank my whole bottle of vodka!” The boy drinking the “my vodka” with a “my whole bottle of vodka” is not dancing for exercise. This boy is dancing, but whether he knows it or not, his dancing is exorcising—he gargles and spits his flesh out on the dance floor. It is difficult and nearly impossible at parties to which only one spotted boy is invited and spotted for all the wrong reasons to dance for anything other than exorcisms. Whereas dancing for exercise is all about becoming possessed.
Hush is what is not given when anyone but Elizabeth Cotten plays “Freight Train.”
The problem with anyone but Elizabeth Cotten is that they are not aware of, much less possessed by the fact that they are without hush. Dancing for exercise is a positionless kind of dancing designed for realizing that you are without hush. But there is no getting hush. That isn’t what dancing for exercise is all about. Dancing for exercise is about becoming possessed by not having hush. Becoming possessed by not having hush, however, is no way to go about getting hush. There is no way to go about getting hush. Hush can only be given. If it’s ever going to have any hush, it’s got to be already in the midst of having hush. The stingray’s already resurrected, baby, all you got to do is give it hush.
Hush can only be given by someone completely possessed by not having hush, someone, in other words, dancing for exercise. Dancing for exercise both is and isn’t actually for exercise. Consider late winter and being stuck inside: this is the sense in which dancing for exercise might begin to have meaning. But dancing for exercise is for opening a gateway leading somewhere that can only be gotten to when dancing for exercise is already underway. It is a gateway leading to possession.
For dancing for exercise to take place, a melody must first be spotted. “Freight Train” is a melody that once spotted can be danced to for exercise. Other melodies, though spotted, cannot be danced to for exercise and if danced to lead only to exorcisms. Such a melody is usually spotted for all the wrong reasons, spotted for the sake of its having spots as opposed to its being spotting.
It is at the authentic restaurant that the menu is consulted. Clearly the most authentic items are among the seafood items of the menu. It is with the intention of ordering an authentic item, but hopefully an item less unappetizing than the items among the seafood items of the menu, that the server is solicited for a recommendation. Invariably, the server recommends the fish without flesh, which is today’s special, bones that have been coaxed into being edible. Seemingly the most authentic item on the menu, the fish without flesh is thus a melody very often erroneously spotted, spotted for the sake of its having spots as opposed to its being spotting—which it emphatically is not. Though it has been advertised as today’s special, the fish without flesh does not eat other fish without flesh—how could it if it is truly without flesh? The fish without flesh is as edible as the boy spotted peeing out the window is spottable; that does not mean it should be eaten.
True specials need no advertisement. True specials are spotted because they are being spotting, and spotting is its own reward, regardless of whether or not it is ordered as a result. True fish have flesh. Sharks eat sharks. Cannibalism.
To order from the seafood items on the menu, also known as attending parties to which only one spotted boy is invited and spotted for all the wrong reasons, is to order from a part of the menu where the boy drinking the “my vodka” with a “my whole bottle of vodka” most likely ordered. To order the advertised special is to listen to a melody without hush; it is to begin a dance that is, it cannot be helped, exorcising—gargling and spitting the flesh out over the dance floor; it is a way of becoming a fish without flesh, just another item among the seafood items of the menu, a boy spotted peeing out the window, an advertised special spotted for all the wrong reasons at the party to which only one spotted boy is invited.
Walk instead over the walkway over water. In the water swim sharks. Sharks eat sharks. To spot sharks eating sharks is to spot a melody that can be danced to for exercise. When Elizabeth Cotten plays “Freight Train” a melody is being spotted because it is spotting. A shark is eating a shark. “Freight Train” is nothing but the expression of Elizabeth Cotten being possessed by not having hush while dancing for exercise to music like ‘being eleven-years-old,’ ‘being something that will be dead,’ ‘Chestnut Street,’ ‘freight train,’ etc. Only once such a melody has been spotted, and spotted for all the right reasons, spotted like the man behind the man playing synthesizer who is, by its very nature, spotted for spotting the man playing synthesizer, dancing can be done for exercise. Dancing for exercise is a positionless dance for becoming possessed by not having hush. Being possessed by not having hush is the only way hush can be given and there is no hush if hush isn’t already given. Only a dead stingray, baby, washed ashore.
Of course, the walkway over water is not the only place to spot sharks eating sharks—if it were what chance would there be of resurrecting the stingray in music today? The party to which only one spotted boy is invited can shelter, unbeknownst to all, an unadvertised special, a man behind the man playing synthesizer, which, if spotted, can be danced to for exercise. Though not the boy to which ‘the party to which only one spotted boy is invited’ refers, the man behind the man playing synthesizer at the party to which only one spotted boy is invited is indeed not only spottable, but well worth spotting. This unadvertised special is spotting, and spotting is sometimes an early sign of pregnancy, which is also known as—but this should be whispered—having hush.
Just because one can spot the man behind the man playing synthesizer at the party to which only one spotted boy is invited does not mean there is no danger in ordering from the seafood items of the menu. As the boy drinking the “my vodka” with a “my whole bottle of vodka” clearly demonstrates, ordering from the seafood items of the menu is an almost surefire way to end up with a mouth full of bones, dissolving bones albeit, but bones nonetheless. This boy has bought the bait and bit the fish without flesh, ordered the advertised special, having spotted it erroneously, spotted it for the sake of its having spots—which of course it has—and not for its being spotting—which of course it is not. Buying the bait or biting the fish without flesh is akin to spotting the boy peeing out the window. Fish without flesh is to peeing out the window what sharks eating sharks is to the man behind the man playing synthesizer. And everything is potentially a synthesizer which is another way of saying everything is potentially this man behind the man playing synthesizer, spotting the man playing it, breast-aching, womb-waking, full-blown dancing for exercise.
A buckskin drum is potentially a synthesizer and is, as chance would have it, pronounced, soon after we find it, a synthesizer. The buckskin drum is found in the closet of the stall in the flea market where we are getting dressed and hiding from other customers. Like this buckskin drum that is pronounced a synthesizer, sharks eating sharks can be spotted lurking unadvertised in hidden corners of the seafood items of the menu. Of course, to order the sharks eating sharks off the seafood items of the menu presupposes a readiness to partake in cannibalism, which itself presupposes one be already dancing for exercise to music with hush, music like “Somebody Keeps Calling Me” by Mississippi Fred McDowell, music like Antwerp by J.M.W. Turner—by god J.M.W. Turner’s got hush—music like the yellow sweatshirt flapping in the sunlight spotted by Chloe, Chloe who is herself a prodigious sharks eating sharks whose very “you’re crushing my nostril with your kissing” is a dance for exercise for being possessed by not having hush to resurrect the stingray.
Since the closet in the stall of the flea market where we are getting dressed and hiding from other customers is, by its very nature, a place where sex is in danger of being interrupted, it is the prototypical party to which only one spotted boy is invited and spotted for all the wrong reasons, the prototypical seafood items of the menu; in short, it is music today. Music today is defined by the various positions to possess expression that comprise it. In other words, it is everyone but Elizabeth Cotten playing “Freight Train.” Even Elizabeth Cotten is often not Elizabeth Cotten. Though hush is always already given, hush is less and less often given even to Elizabeth Cotten; even to J.M.W. Turner hush is not often given, not in the closet in the stall of the flea market where we are getting dressed and hiding from other customers. When J.M.W. Turner is not J.M.W. Turner it is because sharks eating sharks have been ordered off the seafood items of the menu, whether foolhardily or inadvertently, by a sort of boy drinking the “my vodka” with a “my whole bottle of vodka” who is not ready for cannibalism, who is not already dancing for exercise. The consequence of such a misstep is suffered not merely by the President of the United States of America, who is immediately devoured, but additionally by the sharks eating sharks who devour the President of the United States of America, and this is because the President of the United States of America has become, in light of music today, a fish with an increasing degree of fleshlessness and who thus can feed sharks eating sharks only a meager mouth full of bones.
When sharks eating sharks are fed a mouth full of bones they are imprisoned, which is different from becoming fleshless. Becoming fleshless is what happens to something that has been imprisoned so long and fed only bones for so long that its flesh seems to have never been there. When the flesh seems to have never been there, it means the bones have been coaxed into being edible. This is known as the end of the line. At the end of the line, which is always only a particularly powerful dream, sex has been interrupted, every melody is without hush, every dance is comprised of positions, and the only benefactor of the world wide exorcism of the flesh is, of course, music today.
Concerning what is washed ashore, stingrays are more and more often not getting resurrected. Increasingly, more and more sharks eating sharks are ending up with mouths full of bones. The waters are contaminated to such an extent that wives marrying wives are only reluctantly agreeing to honeymoon near the walkway over water. The man who has exposed himself in public has been imprisoned. But the closet in the stall of the flea market where we are getting dressed and hiding from other customers is not, by its very nature, a place where sex has been interrupted, but a place, by its very nature, where sex is in constant and immediate danger of being interrupted. Where there were once fish with flesh, where there were sharks eating sharks, where the man has been behind the man playing synthesizer, the stingray can always be resurrected. Everything is potentially a synthesizer. Imprisonment is never for life. Resurrecting the stingray, however, given that it is late winter, requires you follow the guidelines for listening to a poem entitled “For Chloe (February 14).” It must be realized that the particularly powerful dream called the end of the line is a dream, which is also known as having Cash.
Having Cash requires remembering cephalopods. The squid has already been held, but music today means, among other things, not remembering it. The holding of the squid has to be remembered if anything is going to ever be resurrected concerning what is washed ashore. It must be remembered that the octopus has been placed under the hat if Mississippi Fred McDowell is going to be Mississippi Fred McDowell. It is only by remembering cephalopods that anything can be a synthesizer.
True, the zookeeper had to take the squid back. The man who asks why he is in prison for having exposed himself in public is in prison. The house to which returns the man with the octopus under his hat is not on the street he’d prefer it to be on. This is all just what is meant by music today. These are positions that possess expressions. Sex is in constant and immediate danger of being interrupted because there are other customers. With or without remembering cephalopods, dancing to music today, also known as being alive, is a perilous undertaking leading to many more exorcisms than exercises.
This is precisely why the piranha must be observed and studied for the efficacy of its jaw, the piranha jaw in the process of dismantling a dead piranha. Watch the piranha closely: first it bites off the face; next the jaw is a scissors that severs the body horizontally; finally, before the horizontally severed body halves are utterly dissevered, the piranha severs the piranha vertically from the gut up.
Chorus:
“That’s when I learned that words were no good; that words don’t ever fit even what they are trying to say at. When he was born I knew that motherhood was invented by someone who had to have a word for it because the ones that had the children didn’t care whether there was a word for it or not. I knew that fear was invented by someone that had never had the fear; pride, who never had the pride; this and that, who had never had the this and that. Thus words being no good had to have been invented by someone who had never had any idea just how no good words were. Someone who had experienced just how words don’t fit even what they were trying to say at wouldn’t care whether there was a way to say so or not. And so it is just as soon as I, the dead mom, invent a way to say it, I’m catapulted right on over to other—the dead mom no longer exactly the dead mom, the dead mom having no need to say just how no good words are. My son is right to say, ‘My mother is a fish.’ I am a piranha eating a piranha, being who I’m not, making to be what I wasn’t, eating what I was, though what I never really was, since, insofar as I lay dying, this and that is a particularly powerful dream happening only in order to feed the invention of a way to say this and that. I am dancing for exercise. I am lying as I lay dying. The this and that are, hereby, pronounced synthesizers, and the dream where we had had to use one another like spiders dangling by their mouths from a beam, swinging and twisting and never touching, is declared a dream. The dead moms are eating the dead moms whose not being what I am betrays the not being what they are of the spiders in music today. This is my biting off the face. Biting off the face does not mean merely the dead mom not being the dead mom. Biting off the face means biting off the face of the dead mom being or not being the dead mom to begin with. By biting off the face, the dead mom shows that being or not being the dead mom, just like sex being or not being in constant and immediate danger of being interrupted, is just a face that can and should be bitten off, such that spiders dangling by their mouths become cephalopods placed under the hat and clinging to the collar of the shirt—the dead mom resurrected. Thus: when I knew that I had Cash, I knew that living was terrible and that this was the answer to it.”
Undeniably, having Cash is indispensible, but it is not enough: biting off the face is just the first of three steps. The piranha jaw has two more bites to take. With the second bite, the piranha proves its ability to sever the piranha horizontally, which means spotting the unadvertised special in the seafood items of the menu with which it is faced. The third bite, however, which is a step leading right up to the walkway over water, is all about speed. The piranha thus represents the apogee of ability and speed in perfect equilibrium. Simply having the ability to spot the man behind the man playing synthesizer or simply having the speed to be already dancing for exercise will not suffice. Only with the perfect equilibrium—like the perfect equilibrium achieved by the piranha—the perfect equilibrium between ability and speed will the boy spotted peeing out the window not be spotted erroneously and will Mississippi Fred McDowell be Mississippi Fred McDowell when dancing for exercise is attempted to a melody such as “Somebody Keeps Calling Me.” Without the equilibrium achieved by the piranha, any dancing, be it to a melody like Antwerp by J.M.W. Turner or to a veritable fish without flesh, will become just another position for possessing expressions, an exorcism, a gargling and spitting of the flesh onto the dance floor, the dance floor here being the only benefactor of the flesh, the only actual possessor of expression benefitting from the positions of the President of the United States of America’s dances—the dance floor here being music today.
But sex has not been interrupted; it is only in constant and immediate danger of being interrupted. The world wide web, along with the spiders that dangle from it, is not necessarily a world wide exorcism because the end of the line is only a particularly powerful dream. Though the zookeeper took the squid back, the squid was nevertheless held, just as the man who asks why he is in prison for having exposed himself, though in prison, is also asking why. Achieving the equilibrium achieved by the piranha between ability to spot the buckskin drum and pronounce it a synthesizer and speed to be already dancing for exercise to become possessed by not having hush rests entirely upon the remembrance of cephalopods, remembering the way, for instance, the squid tangled its tentacles in the collar of the shirt, the way when the zookeeper took the squid back the tentacles grew taut with tension, how tense it became, strings vibrating with varying intensities, suction-cups tenderly tensed to the collar of the shirt with rapt and utter attentiveness; only by remembering the cephalopods can the piranha’s equilibrium be achieved, can cannibalism be prepared for, the face bit off, the unadvertised special spotted among the seafood items of the menu and ordered, while dancing for exercise is already deeply in the midst of happening for the sake of becoming possessed by not having hush in order to resurrect the stingray by conferring hush upon the sharks eating sharks lurking unadvertised in music today, wherein music today will capitulate to music for tomorrow, sex will be in no danger of ever being interrupted, and Jesse Kohn will expose itself in public.
