The Great 1908 Hoax.

 

I.

'But I drove her.
I sped her.
I caned her along. She was good. Then I got back. I could see the road all right. There were no cars. One there was. He wouldn't move. I bumped him. I got my road. I had all my way. There again and back. They shoved out of it. I kept on the straight. There was no mixing it. Not with her. She was good. She went with me. She don't mix it with me. I use my hand. Like that. I get hold of her. I go where I go. She took me there. She brought me back.
I got back all right.
[...]
Can't see. I can't see. I can't see.'

-Harold Pinter, The Room

1908 does not exist. If 1908 existed, you would have been there by now.

You cannot trust 1908. You cannot take a step without 1908 (let alone any number of them).

1908 is a menace. 1908 melted the muskeg.

1908 set out four times. Returned five. Six voyages taken. Seven bounties received.

Capturing an essential of 1908. Creating nothing out of catastrophe. Out of catalepsy. Out of creation.

1908 cannot track down. It cannot mix up. 1908 can kill a fence, and it can dismantle a tree. You can see 1908, but it can't see you. You can't hear it, but neither can 1908.

Take it apart and put it back together. Lose all possible paths and make a forest instead. Break a leg. Good luck; you'll need it.

(Parenthetical. Happy?)

I can assure you, this won't be pleasant. It won't even be unpleasant. Taken for what it is. Taken out of context. Taken for a ride. Taken for granted.

For a spin. For a nickel. For old times. For to never again. What is the word? WHAT is the word.

 

II.

'& ladies
in boots
who wear
coifs to keep
the sun from burning
their necks'

- Charles Olson, The Maximus Poems, II. 56

Cantankerous and diffident is 1908. Could not care less. Not careless.

Mad as hell. Take it for all it's worth.

Nothing to lose, nothing to gain. Zero-sum is a victory in its own right. Of its own rite.

This-alonewrite.

1908 is a wraith. Forgiveness is foreign and revenge nondescript and discreet.

The future of music is descried. A whored word is unleashed.

Pauvre pigeon.

The Diaries Of 1908. Of little interest, but of even less interest. Standing by themselves. On their own five legs. Like an excessively-cautious stool.

Samples available in the lobby. Fresh. Try some. Talk about. To err was divine, once, too.

To divine was human. Too human, but not 1908.

A different tack. Without tact. Without feck.

Pleasing to the eye; pleasant to the ear.

(Parenthetical. Enough.)

(Enjoy. There aren't a whole lot less of these nowadays. A veritable glut. An abhorrËd market. The abortion.

Yet without recourse to doubt, to superstition, to illusion, to the unuttering, to the agenda, to comfort, to thanklessness, to self-satisfaction, to complacence, to dignified silence or to stoic divisiveness.)

Taken for what it is. 1908 is what it is not.

No less.

No more.

—1908