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Show 'Lorraine Nelson. A Biography. " 113 In the first book of the Faerie Queene, St. George travels to the cave of the monster, Error. After becoming lost in the woods George finally reaches the cave, engages the monster in battle, and defeats her. "Error" arrives in the language via the Latin errare, meaning "to err" but also "to wander"- a fact Spenser was no doubt playing on in the parable of the monster and George, the "knight errant." But what do we make of the constellation of the knight who rights error, and the author who writes Error? Error, by the way, is a chimera, half-dragon, half-woman (the Faerie Queered!) who, like all women in Spenser's epic, eventually submits to the knight's resolute sword-but not before she vomits on him, her emetic stinking of {well, what else?) old papers and pamphlets Do you want the "respect" of your friends? Do you crave "real" success? "Real" money? A "real"future? The quotation mark is to direct mail what ambiguity is to politicians, what equivocation is to unfaithful lovers. Hanging in the air above a word, the quotation mark renders its subject meaningless-and because of this, it conveys a special freedom. Just as important for direct mail is the word, real. Research tells us that the word conveys security and certainty to most consumers. Etymology tells us the word arrives from the Latin, regal-em, meaning both royalty and royalties. Lucre. Pelf. In Europe, citizens used real of eight-and into the nineteenth century, Mexico continued to use the real deplatta, worth one-eighth of a dollar. After 1850 though, the currency was phased out by the federal treasury; more expensive to mint than the tender was worth. Of course, "real" is itself a kind of currency, one that we all continue to trade on. Secretly, we all aspire to a real career, or real income, or a real home or life. But like the object of some yearning-over the hill or asleep in someone else's bed, a target we can't see-the real is always elsewhere. No one ever says, / want a real spiritual crisis. Real marital regrets. Really joyless |