“The Scorpion”
by
Paul Bowles
An old woman lived in a cave which her sons had hollowed out of a clay cliff near a spring before they went away to the town where many people live. She was neither happy nor unhappy to be there, because she knew that the end of life was near and that her sons would not be likely to return no matter what the season. In the town there are always many things to do, and they would be doing them, not caring to remember the time when they had lived in the hills looking after the old woman.
At the entrance to the cave at certain times of the year there was a curtain of water-drops through which the old woman had to pass to get inside. The water rolled down the bank from the plants above and dripped onto the clay below. So the old woman accustomed herself to sitting crouched in the cave for long periods of time in order to keep as dry as possible. Outside through the moving beads of water she saw the bare earth lighted by the gray sky, and sometimes large dry leaves went past, pushed by the wind that came from higher parts of the land. Inside where she was the light was pleasant and of a pink color from the clay all around.
A few people used to pass from time to time along the path not far away, and because there was a spring nearby, those travelers who knew that it existed but not just where it was would sometimes come near to the cave before they discovered that the spring was not there. The old woman would never call to them. She would merely watch them as they came near and suddenly saw her. Then she would go on watching as they turned back and went in other directions looking for the water to drink.
There were many things about this life that the old woman liked. She was no longer obliged to argue and fight with her sons to make them carry wood to the charcoal oven. She was free to move about at night and look for food. She could eat everything she found without having to share it. And she owed no one any debt of thanks for the things she had in her life. Continue reading ““The Scorpion,” a strange fable by Paul Bowles”
A Krazy Kat strip by George Herriman. The scan is from Krazy Kat by George Herriman, Henry Holt and Company, 1946.
My wife’s grandmother recently passed away and my wife took a bunch of her old photos and papers, including this DOD pamphlet from 1966. The scan above is the back cover/front cover. Here’s the first inside page, with a cheerful note from LBJ:
Here’s my favorite section:
I the Father which wert in heaven conjure and command thee
O Legba master of the crossroads to connect this cowboy’s circuit to Guinea and summon forth:
Cousin Zaka who will parch their fields and slaughter their livestock and make their herd winding up the Chisholm stumble into a Twilight Zone
O Gu rust their fire firearms and cause their horseshoes to slip off the animals’ hooves
O Judas Iscariot who ratted on the Ghoul give me the treachery to turn this town upside down and spill evil from all its pockets
O Jack Johnson give me the power to rise for the bell until Yellow Back Radio is down for the count
O Doc John, Doc Yah Yah and Zozo Labrique Marie Laveau the Grand Improvisers if I am not performing these rites correctly send the Loa anyway and allow my imagination to fill the gaps
O Mack Hopson blood of my blood teach me the secret of the 12 rabbits and the cheesecake
O Baron-La-Croix grip Drag Gibson so that every other day last rites will be requested
O Johnny of the delicate feet
Red-Eyed Ezili
Marinette of the dry arm send the dead swiftly to make my vengeance so complete and artsy craftsy that I though an amateur will be admired by houngans the world over
O General Dig, bury Drag Gibson in the stomach of swines next to George allace
O Black Hawk American Indian houngan of Hoo-Doo please do open up some of these prissy orthodox minds so that they will no longer call Black People’s American experience “corrupt” “perverse” and “decadent.” Please show them that Booker T and MG’s, Etta James, Johnny Ace and Bojangle tapdancing is just as beautiful as anything that happened anywhere else in the world. Teach them that anywhere people go they have experience and that all experience is art.
A hoo doo spell/curse/prayer from Ishmael Reed’s 1969 novel Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down.
Biblioklept 