Self Portrait, with help from Borges

Date: 2 Jul 1993 21:16:51 GMT

Something is wrong. The backpack, for instance, hovers a couple of inches farther away from his back than the laws of physics would normally dictate. The shoes, well perhaps the shoes are the mythical pair of Air Jordans that they use while filming the TV commercials for they cause him to bounce into the air with each stride, with no apparent help from his spindly legs.

The spindly legs are unfortunately well visible, and are untanned. You might even be tempted to say that they were white were it not for the blindingly white T shirt and shorts which cause casual observers to frown and put on shades on an otherwise cloudy day. Perhaps they are atomic! Or perhaps they, like Jupiter, actually reflect more light than they absorb. And slowly the thought comes to you that these clothes are made out of nothing less than the very Platonic Ideal of the Color That Contains All Other Colors ...

No matter. The clothes do not make the man. They are artifacts kindly bestowed by the gods on this caricature of a human carved out of jello, this quivering mound of pretension [*] Do not stare for too long, or you will see him dissolve before your very eyes!

-Thomas C

[*] Some of the learned claim that this is literally true and argue that the subject of this essay totally lacks the quality of tension. We disagree and keep to the orthodox text, plagued though it is by historical and logical inconsistencies.