The Epigraphic Arts, or A Life in Epigraphs

by Andrew Farkas
July 1, 2008

"There's someone in my head, but it's not me."
- Pink Floyd

Cleveland radio is littered with classic rock stations. It is therefore unnecessary to buy the albums of Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, The Doors, The Rolling Stones, The Eagles, Lynyrd Skynyrd, George Thoroughgood, ZZ Top, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Foghat, Bob Seger, Pink Floyd, and many others. Instead, one need merely flip on the receiver in Northeast Ohio and, in a short time, any song from the aforementioned bands will be played. The "receiver" is a synonym for the brain which will endlessly repeat "Brain Damage" no matter how many times one calls the station begging for something else to be aired. The DJ will not listen. You will not get to hear anything by, say, Primus or Clutch. You will get "Brain Damage" and you will like it.

"A job not worth doing is not worth doing right."
- Dave Barry

Newspaper editors are obsessed with filling space. Newspaper Editor Hell: A vast, blank, white piece of paper, pristine, nothing there, zilch, zero, nada, and here's the deadline and what will people do when the paper is delivered and that's all it is: paper! Perhaps they will burn the paper and then we will burn with it. So they feel they must fill space. It does not really matter what happens to occupy the blank area, as long as something does. And as long as that something fits nicely. Randomly begin cutting from the bottom if said something is too long. If it's too short, more advertising. That is, unless the editors have a specific printing philosophy. With a philosophy all space-fillers who fit into said philosophy, regardless of anything, will be given inches and inches, whereas those who go against the philosophy, or have their own philosophy will be sacrificed. Space-filler sacrifices take place in secret in rooms without windows. The sacrificed often does not know he/she has been offered to the gods of journalism. Smoke rising in the air could mean a pyre or a missed deadline, a descent into the underworld. No one acknowledges those who have been sent to the underworld save the Resurrectionists, who will pat said sacrifice on the head and prophesize better days.

"[The Prefect] had a fashion of calling everything 'odd' that was beyond his comprehension, and thus lived amid an absolute legion of 'oddities.'"
- Edgar Allan Poe

"Hey!" angrily.

"Um, yeah?"

"Are you?!"

Pause. "Uh, well, yeah."

"Good!"

"Huh?"

"Your shit! It's good! Shit! Your shit's good!"

"Wha?"

"Some people, their shit's no good! I mean, it sucks! Really!"

"Oh."

"But you...fuckin' good shit man!" furiously.

"I...uh..."

"So there!"

"Thanks?"

"Block is merely cunning. He has acquired a lot of experience and knows how to keep on postponing the issue. But his ignorance is even greater than his cunning. What do you think he would say if he discovered that his case had actually not begun yet, if he were to be told that the bell marking the start of the proceedings hadn't even been rung?"
- Franz Kafka

Only speak to the higher-ups, the superiors, the officed gentry. The inferiors will claim meetings, vacations, appointments not made, other work; they will blame the weather. Be persistent. One can wait for an eternity. Look, why here's a book. Here's some last minute paperwork. It can be completed anywhere. Simply anywhere. While waiting. For the boss. No amount of time is too much. When told that the person in the office, the one you so dearly wish to speak with, will give the same answer: laugh. For the answer that the inferiors will give is: No, Not Enough, Never Filed, Not Transferred, Improperly Filled-out, Insufficient, Everyone Must Follow These Rules. Do not panic. It is all a ruse. A ruse for the weak. For those who have not heard of, or who believe the higher-ups are unattainable. Once summoned into the realm of the officed gentry, one will see, it was worth the wait. For their answers are: Yes, Good Enough, Here's the File, Just Transferred, Merely a Typo, Sufficient (an Example of Supererogation!), Rules Schmules. And then, emerge proudly, after shaking the boss's hand, and smile at the underlings while making an exit. It is not good to draw their scorn. They will be there next time.

"'Where's my good old gang done gone?'
I heard a sad man say.
I whispered in that sad man's ear,
'Your gang's done gone away.'"
- Kurt Vonnegut

Walking through campuses at night requires a certain skill. It is best to walk quickly, briskly, although with a particular, yet labyrinthine plan in mind. This will ward off unnecessary emotional outbreaks, while at the same time allowing a healthy amount of nostalgia. Avoid contact with others for they will distract, confuse, and in the end, destroy the experience. Speak with others while crossing campus during the daytime. Be sure to explore those areas that are well known, well lit, those areas that hosted intense memories-for-the-ages, and the places that are unknown, how did I miss out on...?, what exactly was I doing?, when did they put this here? Continue rapidly through both. The images gathered on these celeritous plutonian excursions will form a film. Purchase and install a projector light into your head. Show the movies for free at the local rundown theater. Learn that it takes manymany frames to make a longer film and return to campus at night. The pattern should be so anfractuous by now as to appear random. But it is not random. The frames follow the only order such images can follow. Console those who leave crying. Laugh with those who are baffled. Nod to those who understand. Nod to those who understand.

"We told him kindly that the expense didn't matter, that we were after all his dear friends and if a group of his dear friends couldn't get together and do the thing with a little bit of eclat, why, what was the world coming to?"
- Donald Barthelme

When moving to a new town, do not fear the advance of the natives. Of course they don't trust you. You're new. And things that are new come in many wrappers, yours just so happens to be brown paper. The natives don't care for brown paper. They like crinkly gold and silver paper because it is shiny. Because neat things will be inside gold and silver paper. Brown, though, is dull. Do whatever you can to tear off the paper as soon as possible. Address the natives as if you have always known them. Do not worry if there are one or two mock executions. It is just a phase. It will pass.

"The film has broken, or a projector bulb has burnt out. It was difficult even for us, old fans who've always been at the movies (haven't we?) to tell which before the darkness swept in."
- Thomas Pynchon

"Night owls" are called such because...they are owls that fly around at night. These are different from "day owls" for obvious reasons. The night owls hunt more vigorously in their "haunts," extending from their nests to other, sometimes unknown areas far beyond. Part of the hunt is the notion that something is hidden in the night that the day owls just don't understand. So when a night owl searches for food, water, nice trees to land on, it is also searching for whatever the night might yield. And even if the night has never yielded anything, the night owl, who has run into manymany trees because of the darkness, will continue to pursue relentlessly the secrets, that clandestine something that will...It is a type of brain damage almost. Some particularly cognizant night owls, when they are young, hope to never get the brain damage as bad as their elders. But their elders all say the same thing: you'll get brain damage and you'll like it.