The Planet Camazotz

This one time, James Franco was on the planet Camazotz 

where all these little boys 

were in front of their ticky-tacky houses, 

bouncing their matching balls

of yellow, blue, and red.

All the balls hit the ground 

at exactly the same moment, 

every time.

James lit a cigarette 

and all the boys turned 

at the same exact instant

and they went back to their identical houses.

Except for one boy. 

Outside all alone,

his ball rolled forlorn into the street,

his mother all nervous and shit, 

she came out and wrangled her son,

invited James in for some coffee.

***

Harold and Maude

Dilettante has a son Harold & a daughter Maude.

The oldest movie he’s ever seen is Forrest Gump, from 1994.

He’s only seen 17 films, from beginning to end.

         America needs a 2nd party

Dilettante once dreamed he was inside a Klingon television show,

portraying a human being from the united federation of planets.

Dr. McCoy says, "wallets wrapped in amber" & it appears,

"apparently anything that can be created

which is also aesthetically pleasing, is created

Upon its signifier's utterance..."

This planet is run by fashionistas, etsy crafts folk.

WTF Klingons?

Which reminds Dilettante of the episode of Frasier

where Frasier ends up speaking at his son’s bar mitzvah

because his baby mama is named Lilith

jewish & but frasier

pisses off his friend who was supposed to translate his speech,

so his friend translates it, but into Klingon.

Which reminds Dilettante he wants to make a short story with this premise.

Dilettante says Sam Harris's motto is --

Tolerance (n):

The virtue of those who believe in nothing.

That the Great Person should be able to appear & dwell among

you again & again.

That is the sense of all your efforts here on earth.

That there should ever & again be men & women among you

able to elevate you to your heights:

That is the prize for which you strive.

& if you are not yourself a great exception well then be a small

one at least!

& so you will foster on earth that holy fire from which genius may

arise.

Friedrich Nietzsche.

Dilettante decided to experiment with Evolution, to at least read a

book about it, against the better notions of his parents, his pastor,

& his teachers.

He read Darwin's On The Origin of Species

under the covers at night so that no one would find out.

He became a Darwinist & things were good, & more importantly,

made sense.

For a while. 

Excited For Some Reason

Unfurling before our eyes

expands an endless array of Dilettantes,

a buzz at the front door sharpens things

as the Dilettantes coalesce into

one hirsute instance of the nigh cryptozoological

Dilettante

a buzz from the neighbor who lost her keys

Dilettante hesitates,

not to be rude, but cuz he’s awkward

dont know her name, sorry

only been living here for 3, 4, 5 years

i said sorry

i should know her name for crying out loud

(bend it like Dilettante)

i’m going to my room

to your room?

open the door, dude, it’s your “turn”

i opened it last time

i don’t remember that

yeah cuz it was 3 weeks ago

wait

i just got a text

he’s going to be here any minute

who

lots of baseball signs,

he’s like a third base coach

what the fuck is he trying to say

dissolve, choronzon, into nothingness

sound & fury

nothing

godot

multiple Dilettante heads pop out of each doorway,

in a long series of doorways,

leading down a seemingly infinite hallway,

there must be mirrors,

it can’t actually be infinite

can it

Godot?

did somebody say godot?

it’s pronounced Gold STEEEEEEEEEEEN.

& the Dilettantes arrange themselves in a congo line,

excited for some reason.

***

Calling to you who wanders aimlessly, or wonders,

Calling to those lost on the flotsam of eternity:

    You are a donkey that shall die in a terrifying bray.

How to Rearrange the Deck Chairs on the Titanic

Dilettante is currently working on a series of photographs,

no biggie,

of wild animals praying to various dieties,

sundry iconographies,

& doing other things generally agreed upon

by most

to be outrageously ridiculous.

The caption, under the photos:

“It looks ridiculous when you do it, too.”

Dilettante has a tremor,

but its mildly endearing.

  

He once "accidentally" shook a pot of coffee so violently

that it spilled onto the hands of the Catholic priest

who's coffee Dilettante was pouring.

How does Dilettante live with himself?

  He has to, that's how.

Fidget's Fifth

Dilettante writes semifictional children’s books about the inner lives of zoo animals.

Giraffes, he writes, almost exclusively dream as unicorns.

Dilettante was up late all we long, putting together the final touches on a special edition DVD box set of his brother’s third marriage, complete with bloopers, outtakes, behind-the-scenes glimpses of the consummation, et cetera.

Instead, he was kidnapped,

Taken to a place,

Taken under (drugged),

woke up in a room full of actors

First thing he says is,

"Is this place real? Is this

Virtual reality?"

Not knowing why he thought to ask at all.

"You can leave,"

Said a booming voice

Dilettante determined to be a mannish woman,

From an adjacent room.

"but you only enter another room

each room is diffferent

And has, therefore,

Rules unique unto me itself.

No two rooms are remotely alike,

Due to Fidget's Fifth."

"Fidget's What?"

Far Out, Frasier

Dilettante once asked, “Did you know people still use actual, physical greeting cards?”

“Really, people still use em.”

“What are they?”

Dilettante of course remembered the original campaign to ban physical greeting cards because they were obviously less important than trees, not to mention books. 

The campaign was a series of all these different people talking about what they did with the ridiculously large amount of money they had lying around once they stopped buying greeting cards for every single occasion, & instead, when the spirit moved them, sent an e-card or somesuch.

“I once thought of making a supercut version of the Sci-Fi television series Fringe, edited by me, chopped up to tell a different story.”

“Right. You could do that. That’s a great idea.”
“I wanted to call it Lunatic Fringe.”

“You gotta be kitten me. I had the same title idea, but it was for a story about this mad genius who kidnapped people and performed experiments on them in his supernaturally large, possibly infinite mansion, normal-sized from the outside.”

“That’s far out, Frazier.”
“You’re kitten me. No, no, no, you godda be kitten me. That’s another idea I had. A supercut, but about the show Frasier and how far out he is, in the Alan Watts sense of the word, like totally committed to his character, his ego, despite the fact that he’s clearly just god differentiated into individuated matter in order to know itself.”

“Right.”