I imagine it’s rather intoxicating, all those plaudits coming your way from our contemporaries, for whom reading at speed is not only a need: it’s a creed.
And so once again I find myself inhabiting a position in which I’m so often cast these days: reluctant Cassandra.
A voice crying out from the wilderness of the nosebleeds: “The umpire not only has no mask, chest protector, shin guards, steel-toed shoes, or jock strap with marsupialian pouch into which he inserts not his joey but, rather, the contoured cup built to his joey specs, that it might protect the strong-docked affair from the errant hard or the wily knuckle ball—not only does he lack all this, why, he’s further absent cap, cape, polo, slacks, socks!
(The crowd gasps as, courtesy my coaxing, they finally grok the umpire’s c*ck.)
I didn’t ask to be the lone voice of reason in a world gone to pieces. But my hand’s been forced.
To that end, I here invoke the adage “haste makes waist.”
You heard me: the more fast one goes, the more mass one grows.
The greater the churn, the less calories burned.
A hay second in one’s vision map, forever alchemized as dewlap.
This is no chicane: the more books one drains in a given time spain, the less one’s brain attains, and the more freight—that is, weight—one gains.
I can’t explain, for underemployment has slain the parts of my brain I relied on to, I’ll say again, explain. I know it pertains to daisy chains of cell membranes; I recall it being both inhumane and inane, not fit to entertain; you’d not sustain interest in the “why and wherefore” train; no, you’d complain, initiate against me a coup de main—punch me in the windowpane, grab and strain my jugular vein, exercise a suzarain, leave me with a vegetating brain.
I’ll say it plain: it bears the mark, that is the stain, of Cain, whose attempts to read were in vain, for he was preliterate and insane; and there were no books back thain, so even if he were sane, and his head contained a literate brain: from where would he attain a book on which to train? In the main his eyes and brain—and the former, what of their strain? For the Bible makes it not plain that, for that swain Cain, poor eyesight, not Abel, ‘twas his existence’s bane.
(Exegetes have ascertained it’s why Abel was slain: for that ur-Tory Cain took his brother for Sinn Fein, and did from his quiver drain the darts he’d obtained to dart the brain of he who Cain could not plain tell from Adam. Then again, they were consanguine, Adam and Abel; and he, Cain, wasn’t the first to jumble the twain. Though it’s here germane that Abel and Adam were, to Cain, brother and father—which makes it less sane that he should permute or commute the twain. This plus the fact that Cain, Eve, Adam, and Abel, were, back thain, the only four who persisted, that is to say existed, on Todd’s [that is, God who reigned, for, back thain, He was testing the inane “Call me Todd”; though, after centuries of smiting they who complained, He Himself came to disdain and therefore abstain from and thenceforth ordain all to: “REFRAIN! ALL YE STILL TODDING ME WHO REIGNS—I’M PLAIN ‘GOD’ AGAIN! I WON’T AGAIN EXPLAIN”] earthly plane.
For recall, Todd the God had, re: His domain, entrusted it not to Cain, but to Cain’s old main, Adam. But Eve, Cain’s old womain, she got peckish and couldn’t refrain, that is to say abstain, from noshing not on grain or on a fried plantain, no, on an apple, fair and plain! One that she’d obtained from the Tree of Brain, a mighty Edenic Plane, a species that, in the main, attained three hundred feet, root to shoot. Isn’t that insane?
He [the tree] considered himself urbane, though his chitchat was mundane, for he’d follow a thought train through every kind of terrain and back again. And his ego? Insane! For he [again, the tree] maintained that he'd along the way obtained, within his wood grained brain, from seedling to full plane, every fact to be attained. That is, he’d plumbed every vein of knowledge on our earthly plane.
“This I do not feign!” maintained the Tree of Brain. “Quiz me, if you fain or deign. And you’ll see, plain as rain, there’s not a branch or vein that I haven't—“
“HEY, WHAT THE F*CK’S HE SAIN?” thundered Todd the God who reigned. “EVE, IGNORE THE TREE OF BRAIN…FOR, MY ME, TALK ABOUT VAIN! ONE MUST TAKE WITH A SALT GRAIN EVERYTHING HE’S SAIN.”
Todd the God here again reminded Eve what He’d ordained: abstain from the fruit of the Tree of Brain—
“HEY!” Todd of God was sain. “F*CK’S THAT IN YOUR HAIND?!”
But it was plain for Todd the God to apprehained: ‘twas fruit from the Tree of Brain.
Todd the God moved to distrain, that is to say obtain, the apple from Eve’s haind; Eve, moving quickly, drained the juices that remained.
Todd the God profaned.
Upon Eve’s head He rained thunderbolts and rain; He even entertained persisting til she lay slain—but ultimately refrained.
Long story short, Cain, who from his quiver drained his darts into the brain of Abel [whose refrain of “Cain! Refrain! For that’s my brain!” were in vain], ascertained on approaching the slain that it was no Sinn Fein—it was Abel, his brother main!
“Twas my eye strain!” he to Adam and Eve maintained. ‘Twas an excuse they’d not sustain. “That’s what they’re all sain,” was Adam’s refrain.)
Cain should’ve been arraigned, but no courts existed thain.
So he again took up:
1) Cultivating grain (what Abel—who did always about his flock complain, maintaining shepherding was inhumane—referred to as “Cain’s gravy train”);
2) being insane;
3) putting his eyes under terrific strain;
and
4) daily absorbing his parents’ disdain.
And though Cain was, on this plane, now one of merely three extant brains, he did somehow obtain, by some feat of legerdemain, during a trip to Spain: a son.
“So Cain,” spake Eve, at the Party Where The Name Is Ordained, trying to feign excitement as she drained the last from her glass of champagne. “What name shall you ordain?”
“Yes, Cain,” spake Adam, attending his heap of cocaine, “hast thou begotten a junior Cain? Didst thou beget the beget train?”
Adam, who snort-took his cocaine, spake, once he’d recovered, “birdbrained.”
“And please explain,” spake Eve, “where on earth did Penoch attain his red mane?”
“The mark of Cain,” said Adam, with disdain.
And here’s where Cain, he burst a vein: “It is I who shall ascertain the Cain of Cain,” he misspake, then said, “Sorry, I’m addle-brained. For I’m trying to sleep train wee Enoch, who—“
From further speech he here refrained, until the laughter waned.
“I shall ascertain,” continued Cain, “what marks the mark of Cain.”
“This I must attain,” spake Eve.
“Yes,” said Adam, from within his cocaine, “state it clear and plain.”
Cain, he racked his brain.
In all the sturm und drang, he’d not given his brain time to entertain, what, of all the marks one might obtain and ordain, might mark the mark of Cain.
A deadly cowbane?
A medley from Bahrain?
A doomed jet plane over the Atlantic?
A perfumed vet named Wayne not over Titanic?
The collapse in his lover's bed of a once-squeaky-clean politician?
The relapse of a recovered-dunce/pothead-turned-sheik’s-dean-of-munitions?
A dominant ankle repeatedly sprained?
A prominent, rankled, overheated Dane?
All these scenarios to entertain, when, for reasons Cain couldn’t explain—perhaps it was the eye strain, or the dearth of books on which to train, or maybe just his being insane, but he saw it clear and plain, as if through a Windexed pane: his mark would pertain to, that is to say would stain, all future lamebrains who wouldn’t deign to heed what they read—and therefore read in vain.
Speaking of vain, nothing so provoked it, that is poked it, like overnight weight gain.
Cain, speaking clear and plain, said: “Read speed and weight gain—the twain shall twinned remain.”
Said Eve: “Explain.”
“Well,” said Cain, growing in the main expansive and vain, now that he’d deplaned on this vein, “what I maintain is the faster one goes, the greater one grows. The mechanism’s not my domain; I’ll leave that to the supernal brain maintained by Todd who reigns. Maybe it pertains to daisy chains of cell membranes—He can better explain once He unravels the skein.”
“I said before, I’ll say again,” spake Adam, ‘neath his ‘caine. “It’s birdbrained.”
“Say what you will, you pill,” said Cain, who found no need to feign disregard for Adam’s disdain. “But reading requires heeding.”
Said Eve, who’d a migraine from when she drained the champagne: “What’s reading?” Said Adam, buried by cocaine: “What are daisy chains of cell membranes?”
In reply Cain, he laughed like the criminally insane.
I imagine it’s rather intoxicating, all those plaudits coming your way from our contemporaries, for whom reading at speed is not only a need: it’s a creed.
And so once again I find myself inhabiting a position in which I’m so often cast these days: reluctant Cassandra.
A voice crying out from the wilderness of the nosebleeds: “The umpire not only has no mask, chest protector, shin guards, steel-toed shoes, or jock strap with marsupialian pouch into which he inserts not his joey but, rather, the contoured cup built to his joey specs, that it might protect the strong-docked affair from the errant hard or the wily knuckle ball—not only does he lack all this, why, he’s further absent cap, cape, polo, slacks, socks!
(The crowd gasps as, courtesy my coaxing, they finally grok the umpire’s c*ck.)
I didn’t ask to be the lone voice of reason in a world gone to pieces. But my hand’s been forced.
To that end, I here invoke the adage “haste makes waist.”
You heard me: the more fast one goes, the more mass one grows.
The greater the churn, the less calories burned.
A hay second in one’s vision map, forever alchemized as dewlap.
This is no chicane: the more books one drains in a given time spain, the less one’s brain attains, and the more freight—that is, weight—one gains.
I can’t explain, for underemployment has slain the parts of my brain I relied on to, I’ll say again, explain. I know it pertains to daisy chains of cell membranes; I recall it being both inhumane and inane, not fit to entertain; you’d not sustain interest in the “why and wherefore” train; no, you’d complain, initiate against me a coup de main—punch me in the windowpane, grab and strain my jugular vein, exercise a suzarain, leave me with a vegetating brain.
I’ll say it plain: it bears the mark, that is the stain, of Cain, whose attempts to read were in vain, for he was preliterate and insane; and there were no books back thain, so even if he were sane, and his head contained a literate brain: from where would he attain a book on which to train? In the main his eyes and brain—and the former, what of their strain? For the Bible makes it not plain that, for that swain Cain, poor eyesight, not Abel, ‘twas his existence’s bane.
(Exegetes have ascertained it’s why Abel was slain: for that ur-Tory Cain took his brother for Sinn Fein, and did from his quiver drain the darts he’d obtained to dart the brain of he who Cain could not plain tell from Adam. Then again, they were consanguine, Adam and Abel; and he, Cain, wasn’t the first to jumble the twain. Though it’s here germane that Abel and Adam were, to Cain, brother and father—which makes it less sane that he should permute or commute the twain. This plus the fact that Cain, Eve, Adam, and Abel, were, back thain, the only four who persisted, that is to say existed, on Todd’s [that is, God who reigned, for, back thain, He was testing the inane “Call me Todd”; though, after centuries of smiting they who complained, He Himself came to disdain and therefore abstain from and thenceforth ordain all to: “REFRAIN! ALL YE STILL TODDING ME WHO REIGNS—I’M PLAIN ‘GOD’ AGAIN! I WON’T AGAIN EXPLAIN”] earthly plane.
For recall, Todd the God had, re: His domain, entrusted it not to Cain, but to Cain’s old main, Adam. But Eve, Cain’s old womain, she got peckish and couldn’t refrain, that is to say abstain, from noshing not on grain or on a fried plantain, no, on an apple, fair and plain! One that she’d obtained from the Tree of Brain, a mighty Edenic Plane, a species that, in the main, attained three hundred feet, root to shoot. Isn’t that insane?
He [the tree] considered himself urbane, though his chitchat was mundane, for he’d follow a thought train through every kind of terrain and back again. And his ego? Insane! For he [again, the tree] maintained that he'd along the way obtained, within his wood grained brain, from seedling to full plane, every fact to be attained. That is, he’d plumbed every vein of knowledge on our earthly plane.
“This I do not feign!” maintained the Tree of Brain. “Quiz me, if you fain or deign. And you’ll see, plain as rain, there’s not a branch or vein that I haven't—“
“HEY, WHAT THE F*CK’S HE SAIN?” thundered Todd the God who reigned. “EVE, IGNORE THE TREE OF BRAIN…FOR, MY ME, TALK ABOUT VAIN! ONE MUST TAKE WITH A SALT GRAIN EVERYTHING HE’S SAIN.”
Todd the God here again reminded Eve what He’d ordained: abstain from the fruit of the Tree of Brain—
“HEY!” Todd of God was sain. “F*CK’S THAT IN YOUR HAIND?!”
But it was plain for Todd the God to apprehained: ‘twas fruit from the Tree of Brain.
Todd the God moved to distrain, that is to say obtain, the apple from Eve’s haind; Eve, moving quickly, drained the juices that remained.
Todd the God profaned.
Upon Eve’s head He rained thunderbolts and rain; He even entertained persisting til she lay slain—but ultimately refrained.
Long story short, Cain, who from his quiver drained his darts into the brain of Abel [whose refrain of “Cain! Refrain! For that’s my brain!” were in vain], ascertained on approaching the slain that it was no Sinn Fein—it was Abel, his brother main!
“Twas my eye strain!” he to Adam and Eve maintained. ‘Twas an excuse they’d not sustain. “That’s what they’re all sain,” was Adam’s refrain.)
Cain should’ve been arraigned, but no courts existed thain.
So he again took up:
1) Cultivating grain (what Abel—who did always about his flock complain, maintaining shepherding was inhumane—referred to as “Cain’s gravy train”);
2) being insane;
3) putting his eyes under terrific strain;
and
4) daily absorbing his parents’ disdain.
And though Cain was, on this plane, now one of merely three extant brains, he did somehow obtain, by some feat of legerdemain, during a trip to Spain: a son.
“So Cain,” spake Eve, at the Party Where The Name Is Ordained, trying to feign excitement as she drained the last from her glass of champagne. “What name shall you ordain?”
“Yes, Cain,” spake Adam, attending his heap of cocaine, “hast thou begotten a junior Cain? Didst thou beget the beget train?”
Cain, keeping emotions contained, tried to feign mundane. “Enoch,” spake Cain.
“Insane,” spake Eve.
Adam, who snort-took his cocaine, spake, once he’d recovered, “birdbrained.”
“And please explain,” spake Eve, “where on earth did Penoch attain his red mane?”
“The mark of Cain,” said Adam, with disdain.
And here’s where Cain, he burst a vein: “It is I who shall ascertain the Cain of Cain,” he misspake, then said, “Sorry, I’m addle-brained. For I’m trying to sleep train wee Enoch, who—“
From further speech he here refrained, until the laughter waned.
“I shall ascertain,” continued Cain, “what marks the mark of Cain.”
“This I must attain,” spake Eve.
“Yes,” said Adam, from within his cocaine, “state it clear and plain.”
Cain, he racked his brain.
In all the sturm und drang, he’d not given his brain time to entertain, what, of all the marks one might obtain and ordain, might mark the mark of Cain.
A deadly cowbane?
A medley from Bahrain?
A doomed jet plane over the Atlantic?
A perfumed vet named Wayne not over Titanic?
The collapse in his lover's bed of a once-squeaky-clean politician?
The relapse of a recovered-dunce/pothead-turned-sheik’s-dean-of-munitions?
A dominant ankle repeatedly sprained?
A prominent, rankled, overheated Dane?
All these scenarios to entertain, when, for reasons Cain couldn’t explain—perhaps it was the eye strain, or the dearth of books on which to train, or maybe just his being insane, but he saw it clear and plain, as if through a Windexed pane: his mark would pertain to, that is to say would stain, all future lamebrains who wouldn’t deign to heed what they read—and therefore read in vain.
Speaking of vain, nothing so provoked it, that is poked it, like overnight weight gain.
Cain, speaking clear and plain, said: “Read speed and weight gain—the twain shall twinned remain.”
Said Eve: “Explain.”
“Well,” said Cain, growing in the main expansive and vain, now that he’d deplaned on this vein, “what I maintain is the faster one goes, the greater one grows. The mechanism’s not my domain; I’ll leave that to the supernal brain maintained by Todd who reigns. Maybe it pertains to daisy chains of cell membranes—He can better explain once He unravels the skein.”
“I said before, I’ll say again,” spake Adam, ‘neath his ‘caine. “It’s birdbrained.”
“Say what you will, you pill,” said Cain, who found no need to feign disregard for Adam’s disdain. “But reading requires heeding.”
Said Eve, who’d a migraine from when she drained the champagne: “What’s reading?”
Said Adam, buried by cocaine: “What are daisy chains of cell membranes?”
In reply Cain, he laughed like the criminally insane.
Which he was.
(Refrain.)
Which he was.