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Show Anting Alone Page 260 There once was a dogmatic schism in the Church on the Doctrine of Jism: Could Christ get erections before Resurrection? If so, then where'd Judas kiss Him? (In Gethsemane, of course.) These literary works of Sam's were regularly covered up with pieces of paper, mimeographed departmental announcements, party "invites," etc, especially the ones about Jesus. There were a lot of Born-Ag'ins and Midwestern Protestants squelching around here in the Kanoradoan university. The English department was too impoverished to replace the defiled cork, so papers would appear over Sam's handiwork. These were Sam's "are-jays." The boards were sometimes covered with magazine articles describing the personal perversions of various famous dead writers, and retelling instances of anthropoid behavior on their part. These were the sorts of articles that future English lit Ph.D.'s thrive on: they consider writers to be like lab- or zoo-animals, and literature to be these animals' trim turds, and themselves to be Zookeepers of Immortality - and they love anecdotes that show what piggies writers can be, because they know they themselves are parasites-upon-pigs, and it pleases them to know that there are other people almost as low as they are. Also, Sam's artwork on the bulletin boards would be covered up with clippings from the National Lampoon's famous "Slush Pile" column, featuring egregious phrases culled from unsolicited novel manuscripts in "major" publishing houses. For some inverted reason, these columns thrilled the failed writers, or would-be failed writers, in the MFA program. Sam could only guess that a constant reminder of the hideous things that can be done |