The Secret Life of Biro pt 2

A further extract from Edmundo Bagel's twilight years memoires, charting his keen fascination with pens, pencils and other writing instruments. in fact he had an extensive collection, all carefully catalogued and even some very valuable examples of German Art Nouveau fountain pens but alas the bulk was sold off to satisfy a blackmail demand from a clique of former close friends who were also- alas- chronic [bad] gamblers. The text as discovered by Lynx [with footnote] runs as follows:

Parker fountain pens are the most wonderful objects. True articles of the fusion of Function, Art and God.

Such wonders can issue from it's finely crafted nib; the greatest sketches, the finest words of love sent to a lost [and violently spiteful] former lover and, of course, words about anit-dysporian intellectual stand points where one argues that God is god but maybe not; god is Man or maybe man is man or maybe man is god or is there in fact more than one God there are in fact Gods: is there a three multiplicity or are there on reflection, many aspects of Man?

I ask myself these questions many times in the day and end up saying to myself: ' of course they are Bagel, all of your ideas are right!'

Then I feel stupid and slap myself across the face a number of times and find I quite enjoy it and so do the same again but then I realise I must centre myself. This is getting silly and so I make the shape of an Iris and slump into my favourite- if rather torn and stained- armchair.

But Spirits come from the nib of a Parker pen, I am convinced of it.

Spirits that chase rainbows; to a world where blue children live.

Oft have I dreamt of such sylvan skies and toast and jam served by small bears in little hats....

I am also oft called a dualist and I do not know why because there is only one me, there is, there is only one me and my pens. When I look in the mirror I see me- apart from God- the non-god, the Pencil Sharpener.

The me that would like to fire bomb the local University’s Philosophy Department and the Me, that Me, that had a chance to become a successful soul singer but was -cruelly- thwarted.

As such I assess this argument to be flawed because there may be me, but of course conversely there is not because it is all an illusion.

It's clearly obvious.

The mirror lies.

It is mere glass with a silvered wooden backing, probably from IKEA price 12 GBP but I prefer my Heal’s hall mirror 650 GBP because the quality of it's reflectiveness is so much more... pure.

I joined an embroidery circle recently.

A strange thing for a man to do I admit, but I am continually trying to push out the boundaries of my existence, to go beyond the God/human experience to push, no less, the cosmic envelope and so going cross gender in terms of the bourgeoisie's perception of recieved wisdom industrial activity seemed to be a logical starting point.

I did not of course dress as a woman. In all modesty my legs are quite good but the make up and wig just did not work so I went as a proud, equalitist man.

I did of course have my two pencils, three pens and my cherished pencil sharpener with me so I felt fortified and although at first nervous, I began to quickly enjoy it, embroidering pictures of cottages, anchors, eagles and only once did the word 'wank' emerge.

I was at first all fingers and thumbs and would frequently find myself explaining the dormant potent power of my pencil sharpener to the ladies but they were friendly and supportive until my fifth session when one of the ladies suddenly stood up and shouted: 'What have The Romans ever done for us!'

We were all quite stunned and I reached instinctively for the comfort of my pencil sharpener and found itin the left pocket of my Harris tweed jacket and felt its strength.

I was rather inclined to stand up and reply:

'Do you not mean God? Rather than the Romans, are you in fact not asking by a juxtaposition of historico-spiritual terminology what has God ever done for us?'

I am thus well fired up and prepared for a functionalist anti-reductionist debate but hold my tongue. Only to recover consciousness a few minutes later realising I was actually holding my tongue and rolling around on the floor salivating profusely.

Later on in the hospital I considered my predicament in relationship to God and The Lack of Reality.

I began to understand after seven days that the combination of Port, Vodka and Seroxat may have played a big part in The Illusion. However at some point I reached for my jacket and found my pencils, pens and most importantly my silver sharpener were still there so I felt as if Reality may really be here, but I equally realised that I had to keep writing the books becauseI needed the money...

Ed's note: Well that's enough for this installment I suppose. It's interesting to add though that Bagel, after the sexual and intellectual strictures of Latvia, the BDSM experiences of his University lectureships in Germany and then Brooklyn, ended up for some time in California in the seventies and, being musically inclined, fell in with a funk-soul crowd for a while. One of his best friends was in fact the legendary Lou Rawls and it is widely acknowledged [although of course entirely unprovable] that Bagel wrote the line 'you'll never find, another love like mine,' after many tequila's and a session in the tub.

Of course he was never credited for it, Rawls has always streniously denied it and so his steady decline into an alcohol and perscription drugs fuelled depression began that lasted for most of the eighties.

But such is life...or maybe not as the illusionists believe, eh ;-)