Gone.

This post has been removed while being considered for publication elsewhere.

Do I Wish Laurie Anderson Was My Mother?

Damn straight.

Tub.

There was a bath tub. That was the main thing. The room was otherwise empty, with three large rectangular windows punctuating the far wall.

But the most important thing was the tub, which was filled with hot water. I stood over it, holding a sachet of brown powder in my hand. I tore the sachet open and sprinkled the powder into the water. The steam curled upwards like a crab claw.

Then - and I have no idea how this happened - I was in the tub. Some time had passed. I knew this because the water I was lying in was now cold. I also couldn't open my eyes. They seemed glued shut somehow. I had a thought that filled me with utter dread, and that thought was: 'Uh oh.'

The tub was full of eels. Thousands of black, baby eels. Had this happened before? The situation seemed familiar somehow. I couldn't see them, but they were there all right, entwined in my hair; clustered at my scalp, my groin, armpits, eyebrows, eyelashes. For now they were asleep, but I knew that any movement - even the opening of my eyelids - would wake them.

I began to lift my hand out of the water, in an achingly slow arc. There was a technique for getting oneself out of a situation like this - which I'd read about in a textbook or magazine - if I could only remember it. It involved math, as I seemed to recall. Something to do with angles.

I'd always hated trig.

Barrel.

Sometimes the barrel will be held up by shoulder-straps, like a giant wooden pinafore. Other times it will seem to hover about your torso as if kept aloft by an invisible gust of wind from below, Marilyn Monroe-style.

Naturally, you will be nude beneath the barrel - that goes without saying. It's also likely that you will sport a waxed moustache or pipe or cloth cap of some description, although these details are to some extent negotiable. What is certain is that your nakedness will be accentuated by the comical addition of shoes - maybe even a pair of argyle socks with garters.

There may be a musical accompaniment. You might hear a jig or flourish of harps when you wear the barrel. Alternatively, there might be complete silence, as if all the air in the world just stopped moving. No one knows for sure which it will be. These things are determined on a case-by-case basis.


Carlie Lazar

Mission.

Answer telephone. Pull note from envelope. Unfold paper. Read instructions. Book plant ticket. Acquire passport. Adhere fake moustache. Meet with contact. Accomplish task. Kill opponent. Memorise intelligence. Destroy evidence. Return to safe house. Report to Control. Remove disguise. Unpack briefcase. Clean weapon. Eat bran muffin.



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[This story also appears in HEAT 7]

Tasks.

There are a few things I'm going to ask you to do. Tasks I wish you to undertake. There will be danger, oh yes, and not all of you will make it back alive. But remember this: I loved you. I truly, truly loved you.

1. Go witness some genius. Regrettably, I don't live anywhere near NYC - but if you do, I absolutely insist that you to go see Michael Barrish read his story The Letter at the Bowery later this week. Go as my proxy and report back posthaste. Do some courtroom sketches on a napkin. I want diagrams.

2. Get rocked. If, on the other hand, you're in Melbourne, you might like to see Perth band the Tucker Bs when they're in town. They begin a national tour for their new album in a fortnight, and play at the Tote on Wednesday, November 27th with Disaster Plan and Thursday the 28th at the Rob Roy with Architecture in Helsinki. They're also playing on the following Saturday and Sunday, but details are unconfirmed at this stage. Y'all should come. They're kinda Pavementy, or at least they were when I saw them last.

3. Make me number one with a bullet. International Superstar Pop Icon Davey Dreamnation's hit song Hot Soup Girl (a musical tribute that continues to both humble and delight me) has been sitting at the #4 spot on the LoFi chart at MP3.com for weeks now. If you'd like to see it rocket to number one, such a thing might be accomplished if, say, a bunch of people visited the site and downloaded the shit out of it.

Just sayin'.

4. Make a Thomas Pynchon paper doll. "Pynchon likes to use money to buy things. Things Thomas Pynchon can buy with money include: fresh fruit and vegetables, movies starring Molly Ringwald, allergy medication, road maps, fake moustaches..."