Saturday, 25 April

Blossom:

As for that passage all I can say is this....”mmmmm.” My main concern is with the reference to the Empire State Building. He claims that this event took place in the 1920s yet even the most dimwitted, glue-sniffer of a schoolboy knows that particular edifice did not open until 1932. Frankly I think the man is a liar -- not in the way Belkirk is, or Herman, the used car salesman who said the Hupmobile he sold me had been in storage for forty years not mentioning that “storage” meant sitting at a lake bottom after a drunken mishap on New Year’s Eve 1944 -- no, not in those ways, but he is a liar still and same. You would do best to burn that book. In fact, we could all stand to empty our shelves into a pyre wouldn’t you agree? Too many “loose” ideas floating around out there -- things need to be centralized.

Which brings me to this next part in which I state almost the directly opposite. You remember Old Hayfie don’t you? Bookish fellow with the pale skin? Well, they’ve asked me to write the introductory paragraphs to his latest title! (It seems he’s written some forty books in the intervening years and has, I am guessing, run clean out of people to pen those annoying introductions they seem to require. For, let’s own up to it, we were never quite very close and I did hang him with some unflattering nicknames such as “Sluppy” and “Mansty” which, upon reflection, have no meaning but sure must have stung at the time because tears were the invariable result of their use.)

In any event, I went and did as requested. Here then is my introduction to M.A. Hayfazer’s biography of Louis Ganly: Painter Prince of Princeton:

“Although I know nothing of this Ganly character or even what he was all about I do know a bit about his biographer Mr. Hayfazer and I will say this at the outset: if he decided to dither away two years of his life writing about someone, you may as well read it because the author is a top notch sort of fellow. And furthermore he knows his way around a sentence. Had it not been for the efforts of 'Old Hayfie' I know I for one would not have seen the other side of matriculation. Without his having written every word of my various term papers and essays I would still be back at Pembroke, shining the shoes of my betters or seeing to their other, more primal needs (as is the custom).

"No, Hayfie and his quick pen saved my lard on more than a dozen occasions. For the instance, after a night of acute guzzlement I stumbled into my rooms and threw myself on the bed. Suddenly I remembered that I had a presentation to make in less than two hours regarding the suppression of gases or some such matter. Thinking quickly, I kicked down Hayfie’s door and shook him from sleep. When he did not come ‘round right away, I jumped on his chest and started pummeling his face. 'Wake up you drowsy bastard and write me a goddamn paper!' Which he proceeded to do and for which I received a fine grading.

"But let’s not think it was all a 'one way street' in terms of services rendered. No, for his efforts we let Hayfie be a part of our crowd and at Pembroke there was no greater reward than that. (What is more, his efforts on our behalf helped him to refine the skills he displays in this tome on friend Ganly, whomever he may be.) When we all departed 'Old Pem' to ascend life’s grand stairway it was Hayfie who holed up in the proverbial garret and became a typical academic complete with nez perce and patchwork sleeves. Soon he was churning out volumes of minutia on the obscure and the unknowable while we flitted about in convertible coupes in the company of wayward socialite vixens.

"For these sacrifices alone it is important that you read this book, regardless of its contents, of which, admittedly, I have not yet availed myself. We must, all of us, take the time to wade through that which our more curious citizens produce if only to keep them at it and away from our social functions, but also to thank them for sacrifices made in the past.

"I give you then the life of Louis Ganly, as researched and written by M.A. Hayfazer. Read it as someday I hope to.”

Well, there it lays, like a collapsed wall on the chest of a fire fighter. Whether or not they use it I cannot predict -- it is out of my hands now.

Adieu,

Salvo

Letter the Current