“Let loose my weird feeling that deconstruction is coming

again, with a vengeance, you wait.”[1] Alright. Alright, alright.[2]

“‘Febreeze.’ To cover up the cigarettes.” The heteroglossia

is alarming. So is memory. We cannot let this go on much longer.

See what even just a little whiff of the enemy can let in? It can

overwhelm. But. There will be an after. He is right; we should

have a plan. We will start with ambition: how to fix everything.[3]

Nothing else will do. It is forever we are talking about.

We can court distraction, waver in deciding our demise,

or else just give in to all the spoilers. Does your affect

really matter that much? Distorting around all the creepy

surveillance and manipulation, the microphones mapping

our thoughts, hopes, fears. Your tired aesthetic minimalism.

Good grief.

---

[1] See “2015.13,” 39. Also see Gregory R. Jones-Katz, “Derrida at the Limit of the Historicist Chronotype: A Gumbrechtian Reading,” MS.

[2] Professor Houston.

[3] See Propagandhi, How to Clean Everything (San Francisco, CA: Fat Wreck Chords, 1993), LP.

***


Bradley J. Fest is assistant professor of English at Hartwick College. He is the author of two volumes of poetry, The Rocking Chair (Blue Sketch, 2015) and The Shape of Things (Salò, 2017), along with a number of essays on contemporary literature and culture. More information is available at bradleyjfest.com.