Poe To The People, Part 2

Twice Upon a Century Dreary

October 31, 2018

You have probably long forgotten part one of Poe To The People, written last winter, held over in order to have something to contribute during the quiet times that never came, and finally squeezed in early this past May.  Part two was planned to be published the very next day, but Prezident Tazmanian Devil has been on a perpetual terror spree since then, and I could not tear myself away from Kiluea-like ooze of the Chrump onslaught.  I thought Halloween might be a good time to cut it loose. Boo.

If you have not yet yanked your hair, your eyes or your brains from your head after digesting whatever the latest Poe-esque shenanigans perpetrated by our pornstar-plooking-prezident, settle in for part two of Paying Attention’s homage to the inimitable Edgar Alan Poe, where we continue to weave the current horror story of Life With Chrump into the fabric of some of Poe’s most popular tales of tribulation.

Poe ponders a threesome

 

The Tell-Tale “Hair”

True! – nervous – very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad? The presence of this ne’er-do-well had sharpened my senses – not destroyed – not dulled them. Above all was the sense of seeing acute. I saw all things in the heaven and in the earth. I saw many things in hell. How, then, am I mad? Hearken! and observe how healthily – how calmly I can tell you the whole story. But more than anything, I saw the “hair.”

It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain; but once conceived, it haunted me day and night. Object there was none. Passion there was none. I despised the old orange man. He had done naught but wrong everyone who had ever had the particular displeasure of being in his presence. For his golden commode, I had no desire. I think it was his “hair”! Yes, it was this bizarre construction atop his head! He had the tresses of an unnamable thing – a pale orange mass of withered straw, with a film of epoxy over it. Whenever it fell within my sight, my blood ran cold and the contents of my gut raced to my lips; and so by degrees – at first very gradually – I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the “hair” forever.

Now this is the point. You fancy me mad. Madmen know nothing. But you should have seen me. You should have seen how wisely I proceeded – with what caution – with what foresight – with what dissimulation I went to work! I was never kinder to the old man than during the whole week before I killed him. Even complimenting him on the perspicacity of the edifice that was his “hair”, the “hair” that drove me near to madness. 

The Putz and The Pendulum

I WAS sick – sick unto death with that long agony; and when at length I fully realized what had occurred, and I was permitted to sit, I felt that my senses were leaving me. The sentence – the dread sentence of a president called Chrump – was the last of distinct accentuation, which reached my eyes and ears. After that, the sound of the whiny elderly child seemed merged in one nightmarish indeterminate moan. It conveyed to my soul the idea of revolution -- perhaps from its association in fancy with the burr of a mill wheel. This only for a brief period; for presently I heard and saw no more. Yet, for a while, I saw; but with how terrible an exaggeration! I saw the lips of the black-robed judges. They appeared to me white -- whiter than the screen upon which I tap these words, whiter than Mike Pence -- and blimp-like even to grotesqueness; blobular with the intensity of their expression of nothingness -- of utter lack of direction -- of stern contempt of human nature. I saw that the decrees of what to me was Hate, were still issuing from those sphincter-like lips. I saw them writhe with a deadly locution. I saw them fashion the misshapen, misspoken syllables of my name; and I shuddered because no sound succeeded.

And then my vision fell upon the ridiculous hair from the last story. At first he wore the aspect of bigotry, and seemed white and nationalist angels who would skewer me; and then, all at once, there came a most deadly nausea over my spirit, and I felt every fibre in my frame sag as if I had touched the nose of a rabid rat, while the hateful forms became meaningless spectres, with heads of flame, and I saw that from them there would be no help. And then there stole into my fancy, like a rich musical note, the thought of what sweet rest there must be in the grave. The thought came gently and stealthily, and it seemed long before it attained full appreciation; but just as my spirit came at length properly to feel and entertain it, the vision of an election surrounded my very soul. Then silence, and stillness, a reason to go on with life steeled my being…for now.

I hope this helps you make it through the darkest times most of us have seen in our lifetimes.  Especially for those who have neither recollection of, nor the slightest inkling about the rise of Nazi Germany or the Holocaust.  Apparently, were you among these, you would not be alone.  Forty-one percent of Americans do not know what Auschwitz was.  That number rises to 66% for those in the 18-34 age group – and many people are saying that Auschwitz was worse than Chrump.  All I can say is, never again.

In case you think these nauseating numbers might be excused because the whole Auschwitz thing happened hundreds of years ago, or whatever, prepare to be equally impressed with polling on more current events.  Fifty-nine percent of Americans are unaware that Robert Mueller’s probe into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election has uncovered actual crimes, and indicted almost two dozen individuals, along with several guilty pleas.  Fifty-three percent “think” that Mueller’s investigation is politically motivated.  So, not so much never again as, why not now?  These polls have a margin of error of plus or minus we are so very fucked. 

Now we see the inspiration that is Chrump letting, no impelling loose the dogs of hate.  The maniacal Chrump-loving pipe bomber, the anti-Semitic murderer in Pittsburgh, all of whom feel emboldened by the hate spewing Colluder-in-chief – the unfeeling, soulless wraith that haunts our White House.  The creep whose first words (that were actually his own) after the synagogue killing spree was, "This is a dispute that will always exist, I suspect, but if they had some kind of a protection inside the temple, maybe it could have been a very much different situation. They didn't."  To paraphrase that great bigot Trent Lott, if all Jews had just been carrying guns everywhere they went, then we wouldn't have had all these problems over the years. Who wouldn't love to be shouting "Shoot 'em up Jewboy" every now and again?

Ed Venture
Managing Editor, Paying Attention