Chapter 34.
While Bonanza Jellybean was cross-state in Fargo, closing the goat cheese deal, she stopped at a rummage sale and picked up a gang of old dresses and hats. The cowgirls were trying them on in front of the bunkhouse mirror. Kym mugged in a floppy pink chapeau that looked like a cross between a strawberry chiffon pie and a blood-hound. Using up her mirror time, Jody palpitated in a frilly green kimono. Delores inquired sullenly if there was anything in black. Elaine and Linda...
Wait. Wait a moment, please. Even though we agree that time is relative; that most subjective notions of it are inaccurate just as most objective expression of it are arbitrary; even though we may seek to extripate ourselves from the terrible flow of it (to the extent of ignoring an author's plea to "wait a moment, please," for a moment, after all, is the little lump of time);even though we pledge allegiance to the "here and now," or view time as an empty box to fill with our genius, or restructure our concepts of it to conform with those wild tickings at the clockworks; even so, we have come to expect, for better or worse, some sort of chronological order in the books we read, for it is the function of literature to provide what life does not. In light of that, then, your author is calling "time out" to inform you that those events described in the opening chapters of Part III, as well as most those reported in the various Cowgirl Interludes of Parts I and II, occurred
after Sissy Hankshaw Gitche had come to the Rubber Rose and gone again.
Conditions at the ranch were a bit different when Sissy arrived for her modeling assignment back in September 1973. Ostensibly, Miss Adrian was still in charge then, the Rubber Rose still functioned as a beauty ranch and the number of cowgirls there was no more than fifteen. Drastic changes had been made, to be sure, in the Countess's original plans for the spread, but it was not the same configuration of appetites nor had it the same mood or significance as the place about which the author has been sporadically writing.
If he has confused you, the author apologizes. He swears to keep events in proper historical sequence from now on. He does not, nowhere, disavow the impulses that led to his presentation of cowgirl scenes out of chronological order, not does he, in repentance, embrace the notion that literature should mirror reality (as the bunk-house looking glass mirrored young cowgirls in old clothing, whatever the continuity). A book no more contains reality than a clock contains time; a book may create an illusion of reality as a clock creates an illusion of time; a book may be real, just as a clock is real (both more real, perhaps, than those ideas to which they allude); but let's not kid ourselves -- all a clock contains is wheels and springs and all a book contains is sentences.
Happily, your author is not under contract to any of these muses who supply the reputable writers, and thus he has access to a considerable variety of sentences to spread and stretch from margin to margin as he relates the stories of our Thumbelina, of the ranch a douche bag built and -- O my children, cock your ears to this! -- of the clockworks and its Chink. For example:
This sentence is made of lead (and a sentence of lead gives a reader an entirely different sensation from one made of magnesium). This sentence is made of yak wool. This sentence is made of sunlight and plums. This sentence is made of ice. This sentence is made from the blood of the poet. This sentence was made in Japan. This sentence glows in the dark. This sentence born with a caul. This sentence has a crush on Norman Mailer. This sentence is a wino and doesn't care who knows it.
Like man italic sentences, this one has Mafia connections. This sentence is a double Cancer with Pisces rising. This sentence lost its mind searching for the perfect paragraph. This sentence refuses to be diagramed. This sentence ran off with an adverb clause. This sentence is 100 percent organic; it will not retain a facsimile of freshness like those sentences of Homer, Shakespeare, Goethe et al., which are loaded with preservatives. This sentence leaks. This sentence doesn't
look Jewish... This sentence has accepted Jesus Christ as its personal saviour. This sentence ounce spit in a book reviewer's eye. This sentence can do the funky chicken. This sentence has seen too much and forgotten too little. This sentence is called "Speedoo" but its real name is Mr. Earl. This sentence may be pregnant, it missed its period This sentence suffered a split infinitive -- and survived. If this sentence had been a snake you'd have bitten it. This sentence went to jail with Clifford Irving. This sentence went to Woodstock. And this little sentence went wee wee wee all the way home. This sentence is proud to be a part of the team here at
Even Cowgirls Get the Blues. This sentence is rather confounded by the whole damn thing.
Chapter 35.
The trouble with segulls is that they don't know whether they are cats or dogs. Their cry is exactly midway between a bark and a meow.
No such ambivalences exist in the Dakotas.
...
[via Even Cowgirls Get the Blues]
God damn (context willing I don't think it matters much) do I love that
Tom Robbins fellow. Especially when accompanied by a big bowl of
edamame, a mug of green tea, and a lazy Saturday.
...which reminds me -
Love is a lyric.