WEIRDLAND

This is not a poem of mine, it belongs to writer Fernando Sampietro and is inspired by Marilyn Monroe:

"To all the clochards of the world and also for those who believe they know more than I do. In the future there will be no more private property! I see Marilyn Monroe, she is on sale, she is on a poster, I buy it without thinking twice about it.

One night I dreamt that she and I were sitting on the sand on a calm beach by the calm sea, illuminated by artificial light, in a bright blue swimsuit she smiled.

When I awake Marilyn is no longer in the bed, nor in the house, I look through the window, Marilyn Monroe is outside, I run out to see her. How fun it is when we throw the bathing suits onto the ground and go in to swim naked! To embrace and kiss the naked Marilyn Monroe in the water is something unimaginable. While we dry ourselves in the sun lying on the sands I recite two poems to her: "Sensation" by Arthur Rimbaud and "Like a Rolling Stone" by Bob Dylan, she smiles again.

Our house is white, we built it some time ago, it's by the sea, our house is all alone out there in the middle, we also built a pier because we built a sailboat that is fast when it's windy. We are in the sailboat, the departure is slow until water starts to spray us, we compete with no one when it's windy, and when it's not we spend the time drinking champagne and also jumping into the water to swim, in the cold water now I swim underneath without touching her, when I come out she laughs, it also makes me laugh what I did without realizing, in the sailboat we sunbathe more intensely due to the reflection of the sun on the water, we become more natural, we cannot see the shore, a shark passes close by, we open the seventh bottle, we want to drink till we die, we want to drink till we die and we are already drunk, the return is rapid, the arrival slow, now we see the decoration of our white house that we've never decorated, we only have one painting, a painting by Picasso from the 'doves' series, this painting soothes us.

We met Pablo Picasso, "when painting one must get sparks out of ice" this was his painting, this is his painting, this will be his painting. We also met Duchamp, his name was Marcel, he was called Marcel Duchamp, he died on October the second nineteen sixty eight, he died in his sleep, he had worked that day. To understand all Marcel Duchamp's work one must have thought beforehand in the air.

Marilyn Monroe and I, she is a woman, I am a man, Marilyn Monroe and I. The air is pure when it is totally pure, we breathe pure air, sometimes we smoke a cigar. When we play pool we have more fun than when we don't play pool, that's why we play pool.

Surviving is what's important, surviving to be able to live in this chaotic world, we change our ideology, What does it matter if you're an anarchist? What does it matter if you're a communist? What does it matter if you're a fascist? What does it matter if you're a nihilist?, that's our ideology, to adapt to reality, to adapt to the surroundings as chameleons do.

To think in the air, to think in the air. What is the air? the air is strange. The desert is hot, the Rolling Stones are playing, we begin to suck ice, we cannot see them, we can only hear them, Marilyn Monroe climbs up naked onto my shoulders,
like that she can see them, she claps and quickly climbs down from my shoulder, when we kiss it's as if we were still sucking ice, in the desert in the daytime in the sun it was cooler.

To be a good anarchist is a great responsibility. One strange day we arrived, Marilyn Monroe and I, like the birds that fly south in winter to a meeting of anarchists. I didn't know that anarchists met on strange days.We talked about the mess the world is in, we left at dawn. The following year we didn't return, neither the year after, we never went back.

Tobacco kills us if we smoke more than we can take, we like tobacco. Mankind has created itself, we understand what we understand because we created it, what we don't understand we know that we won't understand and that future generations will understand it.

We don't know why we were in a magnificent international meeting of communists, we felt as if we were international anti-communists, we who at that time were international communists, that's what always happens to us when this happens to us.

We don't know why we were in a magnificent international meeting of fascists, we felt as if we were international anti-fascists, we who at that time were international fascists, that's what always happens to us when this happens to us.

One of the greatest pyramids in Chichen Itza and in the whole world is the observatory pyramid, going up the narrow staircase behind her, I couldn't resist the temptation of sliding my hand between her legs, she didn't stop, we reached the top as if we hadn't gone up, the landscape is dull, the sky covers everything, there are no stars to be seen, time went by without our realizing until the sky was covered with stars, the moon appeared and we returned quickly by motorcycle.

We don't really know how we got to a meeting, a meeting of nihilists, only the couple of us were there, and at that moment we realized we were nihilists.

We didn't go to Moscow, neither did we go to Peking, we will go when we win more money by gambling. Mankind has created itself, therefore we create ourselves, we've created our past and also our present, we will also create our future.

Santa Claus doesn't exist, but to some children he brings toy guns with which they afterwards go Bang! Bang! Some boys and girls are told by their parents to not tell lies and are made to believe in Santa Claus. To some good girls, Santa Claus brings what they ask for, they generally ask for toys and sometimes dolls.

Without wanting to we arrived at a meeting of pacifists, first we told them that what was important was to take an almost non-existent decision: "Peace for all men, and also for all women." Then we didn't say anything and they didn't talk either, we arrived as we left, we left as we had arrived, thinking about peace, wishing only for peace, though this means war with ourselves.

We began to study mathematics, by not applying them we ended up writing poems on papers that we will make into airplanes and throw from the top of the house. Yesterday our psychoanalyst arrived, he asked us how little airplanes were made,
we told him we didn't know and he never came back.

Marilyn went to a meeting of feminist women, to tell them that meetings are useless to liberate women, that they should stop having meetings, because each woman is able to liberate herself without the help of others, and so liberated them from having meetings.

San Cristobal Las Casas, is another place in Mexico where they keep up native traditions while drinking Coca-Cola. We went up a hill near this folkloric town, only the wind in the trees could be heard, we got there because we must always be somewhere, we don't infringe on the landscape, one can be here, we forgot the others, we remembered the Martians that don't exist, without our realizing a couple of natives go by, he is carrying a machete, she doesn't see us, when we went down the hill we didn't remember that we had seen them from up close, we didn't remember until we remembered them.

The best thing about Montreal is walking without an umbrella in the pouring rain and eating Greek yogurt in a Greek restaurant. Up to now Russian Migs are still flying over Cuba, we also saw jets of commercial airlines. Fidel Castro is a Castrist. The Migs flew over the peaceful beach, to sunbathe without knowing the Migs are going to pass is . . . but it's more attractive to sunbathe knowing the Migs will pass.

To walk along the Havana sea wall is as interesting as walking along the one in Veracruz, it's said that danger is everywhere. The weather in Las Vegas is also hot, but inside the casinos it isn't hot, we win money no sweat. We travel by Concord from Mexico City to Paris from Paris to Mexico City merely to say we traveled by Concord.

On Wednesdays we study French, to learn French one must know how to learn, know how to learn French. We only have a motorcycle and it has no speed gauge, we know we are going fast when the noise is behind us or when we forget everything. All our friends take us up to reality, all the cops bring us down to reality.

We saw man land on the moon on the television, it wasn't a repetition, we saw the first step, then we saw him jump, it made us laugh a lot, it was a great achievement. We like marihuana, we don't know why it's illegal to smoke it, we would like to be accepted as the couple that laughs about nothing from time to time. We already know who painted the animals of the Altamira Caves, someone who had nothing better to do.

Andy Warhol came to our house one Sunday, he brought along his Polaroid camera, he took a few pictures of us, we served him a whisky without ice but cold, as he knows he likes, we drank purified water, we brought out the papers where we had written the poems, he kept one or we gave it to him, he wanted to make an airplane and we told him how, he is going to launch it from the top of the Empire State Building, he told us that he won't forget us, we had a lot of fun with his newly taken photos, he left without saying good-bye.

Mankind has created itself, and obviously also all that surrounds it, from all the visible to all the invisible. [...] Don Quixote was crazy at the beginning of the book, he ended up saner than the sane Sancho Panza at the end of the book, this book is good. At the end of the long inside staircase one level below the base of the pyramid of the Temple of Inscriptions, this is in Palenque, there is the most spectacular burial crypt in pre-Hispanic America in colors, outside the pyramid we ate some mushrooms, we felt like angels, we felt we were flying, a man was sweeping the steps of the pyramid when we were leaving and we had gone.

We went to the Aztec Stadium, there is nobody now, this is a Monday, it's in the morning, we don't feel alone, the people are outside, we forget the people, we each sit in a cold seat, I ask without wanting: "Do you like it?," she gives me a kiss.

It is not necessary to keep traditions because traditions keep themselves as happens with everything. Life is uncertain. You don't get any further because you run a lot.

We leave the house, walk in the woods, we wander along but in a straight line, we don't know if we are going to remember the way back home, we walk for kilometers and kilometers before reaching a group of apple trees, we quickly ate the closest apple there was, so I said up in the air: "What fun this is," before trying to kiss each other, afterwards we didn't try either, but did so as if we were floating our lips met momentarily, until she asked me: "How do you feel?" I didn't tell her: "I feel very happy," but said to her: "Like a rolling stone," I immediately asked: "How do you feel?" she didn't say: "I'm so glad," but said: "Like a rolling stone," we kissed again and we also embraced, I don't know what she thought but she clearly said: "Make love with me," I didn't know what to think, I saw she was more beautiful that usual, for an instant I thought she was a virgin and she believed I was a saint, this instead of separating us brought us closer together, I saw she was hallucinating, I was also hallucinating, while hallucinating one can think, drunk one can think too, we weren't drunk and we're not used to being drunk when we aren't drunk, if anything tipsy or better said as I already said floating, our senses raced, I hadn't noticed, we were naked again, a butterfly perched on my left shoulder, this makes us smile, the butterfly leaves, this also makes us smile, we are making love, it seems as if the world has stopped, we believe it stopped, that day we returned happy both of us on a night of full moon. C'est la vie.

[...] What are our lives like? We go down the stairs downwards and go up the stairs upwards. To wonder what would happen if some day we were Marilyn Monroe and I alone in the world, is the same as wondering what would happen if one day we were Marilyn Monroe and I alone in the world.

When our life-force is finished we must improvise something, we decide to play with pea-shooters with straws and candies. What a fright when she hit me in the eye! My anger was not small neither was it large, on the contrary, my joy wasn't small, neither was it big, in very few words I was almost one-eyed, she tries to caress me, but I tell her not to, it's still nighttime when we realize that it's daytime, she puts on the record of "Carmina Burana" by Karl Orff to forget the incident, this music distracts us, suddenly we don't remember what we must forget, we remember again, just before the music finishes we forget the incident forever.

We have few good records and we don't have any bad ones, we don't have bad records and we have a few good ones. We were lent a small airplane, we couldn't think of anything better than flying under the Monument to the Revolution.

We are still that type of people that when we hear the sound of an airplane we look up to see it.The film Marilyn likes the most is undoubtedly "The Misfits", she told me.

"Last Tango in Paris," Marilyn also saw, I also saw it, it's an exceptional film.

If we look at each other naked, naked before a mirror the two of us together, we can't laugh. We are used to reading newspapers, the red criminal section of yellow tabloids makes us black with anger.

Christopher Columbus discovered America, Hernan Cortes conquered Mexico, Hidalgo made Mexico independent, I was born in Mexico. Mexico is in America, America is on Earth and Earth is in the Solar System and in the Universe, and the Universe is unknown; if it has a limit, we don't know where it is. There are dictators who haven't killed anyone in all their live but in whose name many people have died.

Salvador Dali doesn't want to be in this book, but we want him to be here. We are still that type of people who when we hear the sound of an airplane, we look up to see it. We don't have pets, we have a little elephant as free as ourselves, we bought it a she-elephant. Water is H2O, when we look at the sea we don't think about that. Fire has light, I don't know why.

Karl Marx was a Marxist, Lenin studied Marx, Mao was a Chinese, Che Guevara lived. It's strange that Marilyn was also a little girl, it's strange that I was also a little boy. Jesus Christ became famous. Miracles don't exist, that's why they surprise us and some people believe in what doesn't exist.

Atom bombs exist, we would also like to die from an atom bomb raid, atom bombs exist.

An idea moves us: we don't know what we're looking for. We want to go to Mars, the Soviet Union and the United States send us to Venus, this planet is all right but it is very hot, enthused we break contact with Earth and go to Mars, we arrived during the day, in Martian daytime, we are the first to step on Mars, the only thing we knew how to do was to make love in another gravity and jump like crazy and see new landscapes, we didn't bring anything back, we didn't leave anything on that uninhabitable planet for he or she who wishes to experience strong emotions, we return to Earth, we fall into the cold snow of the North Pole, we knew we were expected. We confirm what we knew: Martians don't exist.

This had to end like this, it's a good ending, this doesn't end like this, but it doesn't matter.

We don't know if we went or we dreamt it, we reached a planet in another galaxy, inhabited by alien beings, alien beings similar to those on Earth, they have created themselves like mankind has, because they are mankind, we are their past, they don't know our planet, they are our future, on this planet there is no private property neither are there flies, they died of natural death, here cars fly and there are bicycles, there is no pollution, it seems they only know how to make it disappear, or better said not appear, animals are free, all the inhabitants of this planet are free, there is free love, there are no politicians, there is ideology, there are no governments, there is peace, there are no sicknesses, there is death, there are no religions, neither is there the word of God, God doesn't exist here either, in fact there is almost everything that exists on our planet, in fact there isn't all the garbage that exists on our planet, it's all a question of imagining the future of mankind.

It is then I think, we are all here, in this open-air restaurant in this world in another galaxy, eating and drinking to preserve our precious existence, and there is nothing, no reason to exist, I felt like screaming: "Let it start raining," and it began to rain, the rain wets us, they had never been wet by rain, a long moment of joy, a couple approaches, he says simply: "This planet is sad because there are no crazy men," and she says: "Neither are there crazy women," I answer calmly: "On our planet there are crazy men and women, and they are locked up though they don't do any harm," then Marilyn says: "And it's also sad," she looks at us surprised, he remains staring a moment with his eyebrows raised, then we tell him in chorus before leaving: "that's why we're here," the rain has stopped, the future is uncertain visiting other worlds in other galaxies.

She bursts out laughing. That laugh sounds strange in the dark room. We remain silent for a moment. Night has fallen, I barely make out the pale mark of her face. Her black dress blends in with the shadow which invades the room. I take the cup where there is still a little tea and bring it to my lips. The tea is cold.

I feel like smoking, but daren't. I have the painful impression that we don't have anything to say to each other. Still the day before yesterday I could think of so many questions: where she had been, what she had done, whom she had met.

It interested me only to the extent in which Marilyn had given herself with all her soul. I was no longer curious: all the countries and all the cities where she had been and all the men who have courted her and whom maybe she has loved, don't matter, deep down all that is indifferent to her: sparkles of sun on the surface of a dark and cold sea. She is before me, I can't recall when we last met and now we don't have anything to say to each other. For the first time I feel lonely and Marilyn is lonely like me and there is no solution because there is no problem."

Translated by Jesse Lerner & Isabelle Marmasse
© Cabinet Magazine, 2002
_________________

"There seems to me no question that the Batman film "The Dark Knight," currently breaking every box office record in history, is at some level a paean of praise to the fortitude and moral courage that has been shown by George W. Bush in this time of terror and war. Like W, Batman is vilified and despised for confronting terrorists in the only terms they understand. Like W, Batman sometimes has to push the boundaries of civil rights to deal with an emergency, certain that he will re-establish those boundaries when the emergency is past.

And like W, Batman understands that there is no moral equivalence between a free society -- in which people sometimes make the wrong choices -- and a criminal sect bent on destruction. The former must be cherished even in its moments of folly; the latter must be hounded to the gates of Hell.

"The Dark Knight", then, is a conservative movie about the war on terror. And like another such film, last year's "300", "The Dark Knight" is making a fortune depicting the values and necessities that the Bush administration cannot seem to articulate for beans.

Conversely, time after time, left-wing films about the war on terror -- films like "In The Valley of Elah", "Rendition" and "Redacted" -- which preach moral equivalence and advocate surrender, that disrespect the military and their mission, that seem unable to distinguish the difference between America and Islamo-fascism, have bombed more spectacularly than Operation Shock and Awe.

Why is it then that left-wingers feel free to make their films direct and realistic, whereas Hollywood conservatives have to put on a mask in order to speak what they know to be the truth? Why is it, indeed, that the conservative values that power our defense -- values like morality, faith, self-sacrifice and the nobility of fighting for the right -- only appear in fantasy or comic-inspired films like "300," "Lord of the Rings," "Narnia," "Spiderman 3" and now "The Dark Knight"?The answers to these questions seem to me to be embedded in the story of "The Dark Knight" itself: Doing what's right is hard, and speaking the truth is dangerous. Many have been abhorred for it, some killed, one crucified.

Leftists frequently complain that right-wing morality is simplistic. Morality is relative, they say; nuanced, complex. They're wrong, of course, even on their own terms.

Left and right, all Americans know that freedom is better than slavery, that love is better than hate, kindness better than cruelty, tolerance better than bigotry. We don't always know how we know these things, and yet mysteriously we know them nonetheless.

The true complexity arises when we must defend these values in a world that does not universally embrace them -- when we reach the place where we must be intolerant in order to defend tolerance, or unkind in order to defend kindness, or hateful in order to defend what we love.We prosecute and execrate the violent soldier or the cruel interrogator in order to parade ourselves as paragons of the peaceful values they preserve. As Gary Oldman's Commissioner Gordon says of the hated and hunted Batman, "He has to run away -- because we have to chase him."

That's real moral complexity. And when our artistic community is ready to show that sometimes men must kill in order to preserve life; that sometimes they must violate their values in order to maintain those values; and that while movie stars may strut in the bright light of our adulation for pretending to be heroes, true heroes often must slink in the shadows, slump-shouldered and despised -- then and only then will we be able to pay President Bush his due and make good and true films about the war on terror.

Perhaps that's when Hollywood conservatives will be able to take off their masks and speak plainly in the light of day".

Mr. Klavan has won two Edgar Awards from the Mystery Writers of America. His new novel, "Empire of Lies" (An Otto Penzler Book, Harcourt), is about an ordinary man confronting the war on terror.
Source: online.wsj.com