Black Humour Passage of the Day

B

Bleak&Icy

Grimscribe
Not just wicked, no, I never even managed to become anything: neither wicked nor good, neither a scoundrel nor an honest man, neither a hero nor an insect. And now I am living out my life in my corner, taunting myself with the spiteful and utterly futile consolation that it is even impossible for an intelligent man seriously to become anything, and only fools become something. Yes, sir, an intelligent man of the nineteenth century must be and is morally obliged to be primarily a characterless being; and a man of character, an action figure--primarily a limited being. This is my forty-year-old conviction. I am now forty years old, and, after all, forty years--is a whole lifetime; after all, it's the most extreme old age. To live beyond forty is indecent, banal, immoral! Who lives beyond forty--answer me sincerely, honestly? I'll tell you who does: fools and scoundrels do. I'll say it in the faces of all the elders, all these venerable elders, all these silver-haired and sweet-smelling elders! I'll say it in the whole world's face! I have the right to speak this way, because I myself will live to be sixty. I'll live to be seventy! I'll live to be eighty!... Wait, let me catch my breath...

-- Notes From Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky (trans. Pevear and Volokhonsky)
 
"I tell you, no one worships this city as I do. Especially its witticisms of proximity, one strange thing next to another, adding up to a greater strangeness. One of the more grotesque examples of this phenomenon occurs when you observe that a little shop whose display window features a fabulous array of prosthetic devices is right next-door to Marv's Second Hand City. Then there are those places - you've noticed them, I'm sure - that are freakishly suggestive in a variety of ways. One them is that pink and black checkerboard box on Bender Boulevard that calls itself Bill's Bender Lounge, where a garish marquee advertises Nightly Entertainment. And if you stare at that legend long enough, the word 'Nightly' will begin to connote more than the interval between dusk and dawn. Soon this simple word becomes truly evocative, as if it were code for the most exotic and unspeakable entertainments of the infinite night. And speaking of entertainment, I should cite that establishment whose owner, no doubt an epicure of musical comedy, gave it the title of Guys and Dolls, Inc. What a genius of vulgarity, considering that this business is devoted solely to the sale and repair of mannikins. Or is it really a front for a bordello of dummies? No offense intended, Rosalie."
Thomas Ligotti - "The Chymist"
​
 
When the rest of them turned away and began to head back to town, I stayed behind. Another town manager would arrive before long, and I did not wish to see what form the new administration would take. This was the way it had always been--one town manager succeeding another, each of them exhibiting signs of greater degeneracy, as if they were festering away into who knows what. And there was no telling where it would all end. How many others would come and go, taking with them more and more of the place where I had been born and was beginning to grow old? I thought about how different that place had been when I was a child. I thought about my youthful dream of having a home in The Hill district. I thought about my old delivery business.

Then I walked in the opposite direction from the town. I walked until I came to a road. And I walked down that road until I came to another town. I passed through many towns, as well as large cities, doing clean-up work and odd jobs to keep myself going. All of them were managed according to the same principles as my old home town, although I came upon none that had reached such an advanced stage of degeneracy. I had fled that place in hopes of finding another that had been founded upon different principles and operated under a different order. But there was no such place, or none that I could find. It seemed the only course of action left to me was to make an end of it.

Not long after realizing the aforementioned facts of my existence, I was sitting at the counter of a crummy little coffee shop. It was late at night, and I was eating soup. I was also thinking about how I might make an end of it. The coffee shop may have been in a small town or a large city. Now that I think of it, the place stood beneath a highway overpass, so it must have been the latter. The only other customer in the place was a well-dressed man sitting at the other end of the counter. He was drinking a cup of coffee and, I noted, directing a sidelong glance at me every so often. I turned my head toward him and gave him a protracted stare. He smiled and asked if he could join me at my end of the counter.

"You can do whatever you like. I'm leaving."

"Not just yet," he said as he sat down at the counter stool next to mine. "What business are you in?"

"None in particular. Why?"

"I don't know. You just seem like someone who knows his way around. You've been some places, am I right?"

"I suppose so," I said.

"I thought as much. Look, I'm not just interested in chit-chat here. I work on commission finding people like you. And I think you've got what it takes."

"For what?" I asked.

"Town management," he replied.

I finished off the last few spoonfuls of my soup. I wiped my mouth with a paper napkin. "Tell me more," I said.

It was either that or make an end of it.

-- "The Town Manager" by Thomas Ligotti
 
From one moment to the next I hated my piano, my own, couldn't bear to hear myself play again; I no longer wanted to paw my instrument. So one day I visited the teacher to announce my gift to him, my Steinway, I'd heard his daughter was musically gifted, I said to him and announced the delivery of my Steinway to his house. I'd convinced myself just in time that personally I wasn't suited for a virtuoso career, I said to the teacher, since I always wanted only the highest in everything I had to separate myself from my instrument, for with it I would surely not reach the highest, as I had suddenly realized, and therefore it was only logical that I should put my piano at the disposal of his gifted daughter, I wouldn't open the cover of my piano even once, I said to the astonished teacher, a rather primitive man who was married to an even more primitive woman, also from Neukirchen near Altmunster. Naturally I'll take care of the delivery costs! I said to the teacher, whom I've known well since I was a child, just as I've known his simplicity, not to say stupidity. The teacher accepted my gift immediately, I thought as I entered the inn. I hadn't believed in his daughter's talent for a minute; the children of country schoolteachers are always touted as having talent, above all musical talent, but in truth they're not talented in anything, all these children are always completely without talent and even if one of them can blow into a flute or pluck a zither or bang on a piano, that's no proof of talent. I knew I was giving up my expensive instrument to an absolutely worthless individual and precisely for that reason I had it delivered to the teacher. The teacher's daughter took my instrument, one of the very best, one of the rarest and therefore also most expensive pianos in the world, and in the shortest period imaginable destroyed it, rendered it worthless. But of course it was precisely this destruction process of my beloved Steinway that I had wanted. Wertheimer went into the human sciences, as he always used to say, I entered my deterioration process, and in bringing my instrument to the teacher's house I had initiated this deterioration process in the best possible manner.

-- Thomas Bernhard, The Loser (trans. Jack Dawson)
 
Oh, if I were doing nothing only out of laziness. Lord, how I'd respect myself then. Respect myself precisely because I'd at least be capable of having laziness in me; there would be in me at least one, as it were, positive quality, which I myself could be sure of. Question: who is he? Answer: a lazybones. Now, it would be agreeable to hear that about myself. It means I'm positively defined; it means there's something to say about me. "Lazybones!" --now, that is a title and a mission, it's a career, sirs. No joking, it really is. By rights I'm then a member of the foremost club, and my sole occupation is ceaselessly respecting myself.

-- Notes From Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky (trans. Pevear and Volokhonsky)
 
For gveranon, our resident Bernhardian:

My parents made me, and when they saw what they had made they had a shock and would have preferred to unmake me. And as they could not put me in their safe they thrust me into that black hole of childhood, from which I could not emerge while they were alive. Parents invariably produce their children in an irresponsible manner, and when they see what they have produced they have a shock, that is why, whenever children are born, we see only shocked parents. To produce a child and, as the hypocritical phrase goes, bring it into the world is nothing other than bringing grave unhappiness into the world and it is this grave unhappiness that always shocks them anew. Nature has ever made fools of parents, he said, and out of those fools it produces unhappy children in dark holes of childhood. Without any embarrassment people say they have had a happy childhood, whereas in fact they had an unhappy one, from which they only escaped by a supreme effort, and for this reason they say they had a happy childhood, because they escaped from the hell of childhood. To have escaped from one's childhood is nothing other than to have escaped from hell, and then people say they had a happy childhood in order to spare their progenitors, their parents, who should not be spared. To say that one has had a happy childhood in order to spare one's parents is nothing but a piece of sociopolitical villainy, he said. We spare our parents instead of charging them, lifelong, with the crime of procreation of humans, he said yesterday.

-- Old Masters by Thomas Bernhard (trans. Ewald Osers)
 
"Schopenhauer's Reprieve", a poem by Will Stone (from Glaciation, his debut collection):
They had assured him of silence,
but he was disturbed.
Roaring, he burst through like a train
and following a tussle
threw the still chattering woman
headfirst down the stairs.
At first I judged such a harsh penalty
grossly disproportionate to the offence.
But having read with much enthusiasm
'The Will to Live' and 'On the Vanity of Existence'
I think his action perfectly legitimate.​
 
... Is it idle talk, or is Ombindi really trying to hustle Enzian here? Enzian's got to be sure before he moves. If he comes out sez, "This is a hustle, right?" and turns out it isn't, well -- But the alternative is so strange, that Enzian is, in some way, being
SOLD ON SUICIDE
​
Well, I don't care-for, th' things I eat,
Can't stand that old boogie-woogie beat --
But I'm sold, on, suicide!

 You can keep Der Bingle too, a-
And that darn "bu-bu-bu-boo,"
Cause I'm sold on suicide!

Oh! I'm not too keen on ration stamps,
Or Mothers who used to be baby vamps,
But I'm sold, on, suicide!

Don't like either, the Cards or Browns,
Piss on the country and piss on the town,
But I'm S.O.S yes well actually this goes on, verse after verse, for quite some time. In its complete version, it represents a pretty fair renunciation of the things of the world. The trouble with it is that by Godel's Theorem there is bound to be some item around that one has omitted from the list, and such an item is not easy to think of off the top of one's head, so that what one does most likely is go back over the whole thing, meantime correcting mistakes and inevitable repetitions, and putting in new items that will surely have occurred to one, and -- well, it's easy to see that the "suicide" of the title might have to be postponed indefinitely!

-- Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow
 
"Please contact the Administrator if your date of birth has changed."

-- Dr. Bantham (presumably) in the Edit Your Details section of the User Control Panel
 
The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new. Murphy sat out of it, as though he were free, in a mew in West Brompton. Here for what might have been six months he had eaten, drunk, slept, and put his clothes on and off, in a medium-sized cage of north-western aspect commanding an unbroken view of medium-sized cages of south-eastern aspect. Soon he would have to make other arrangements, for the mew had been condemned. Soon he would have to buckle to and start eating, drinking, sleeping, and putting his clothes on and off in quite alien surroundings.

-- Samuel Beckett, Murphy
 
A is for Amy who fell down the stairs
B is for Basil assaulted by bears
C is for Clara who wasted away
D is for Desmond thrown out of a sleigh
E is for Ernest who choked on a peach
F is for Fanny sucked dry by a leech
G is for George smothered under a rug
H is for Hector done in by a thug
I is for Ida who drowned in a lake
J is for James who took lye by mistake
K is for Kate who was struck with a axe
L is for Leo who swallowed some tacks
M is for Maud who was swept out to sea
N is for Neville who died of ennui
O is for Olive run through with an awl
P is for Prue trampled flat in a brawl
Q is for Quentin who sank in a mire
R is for Rhoda consumed by a fire
S is for Susan who perished of fits
T is for Titus who flew into bits
U is for Una who slipped down a drain
V is for Victor squashed under a train
W is for Winnie embedded in ice
X is for Xerxes devoured by mice
Y is for Yorick whose head was knocked in
Z is for Zillah who drank too much gin

-- from The Gashlycrumb Tinies by Edward Gorey (without the wonderful drawings that accompany the text, of course)
 
From “Haïta the Shepherd” (1891), by Ambrose Bierce
“My son,” said the hermit from his couch of straw, freshly gathered that morning by Haïta's hands, . . .“tell me what sorrow hath befallen thee, that age may minister to the hurts of youth with such balms as it hath of its wisdom.”
Haïta told him all: how thrice he had met the radiant maid, and thrice she had left him forlorn. He related minutely all that had passed between them, omitting no word of what had been said.
When he had ended, the holy hermit was a moment silent, then said: “My son, I have attended to thy story, and I know the maiden. I have myself seen her, as have many. Know, then, that her name, which she would not even permit thee to inquire, is Happiness. Thou saidst the truth to her, that she is capricious for she imposeth conditions that man can not fulfill, and delinquency is punished by desertion. She cometh only when unsought, and will not be questioned. One manifestation of curiosity, one sign of doubt, one expression of misgiving, and she is away! How long didst thou have her at any time before she fled?”
“Only a single instant,” answered Haïta, blushing with shame at the confession. “Each time I drove her away in one moment.”
“Unfortunate youth!” said the holy hermit, “but for thine indiscretion thou mightst have had her for two.”
 
“And so was his grandfather” [Asta su Abuelo], Plate 39 of Los Caprichos (1799), by Francisco Goya

s48.jpg
​

This poor animal has been driven mad by Genealogists and Heralds. He’s not the only one. [A este pobre animal le han vuelto loco los Genialogistas y reyes de Armas. No es el solo.]
 
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The Dinner Man himself often teased Beatie with his ventriloquist skills (which bordered on mind-throwing ones), to such a degree that she had fallen in love with a wicker chair. This, Beatie was told, had been handicrafted by a member of the commune who had been blind, deaf, dumb and amputated; he had died only last spring, just after completing it, the night they all had thought a police raid was afoot.

"Why do we call you Dinner Man, Dinner Man?" Beatie asked, almost with the breath rather than the voice—or, perhaps, with an inconsistent consistency of saliva she incubated within the throat walls.

She had never thought to pose the question before, but this evening she had a devil inside. It seemed, in fact, that significant stirrings in the flatland of fate were impending. The Dinner Man put his arm round Beatie's shoulders and, ensuring that he avoided disturbing the pins in her hair, took a peck at her petal-soft cheek. He decided that silence was the only possible reply to her question. The whole matter was far too complicated for mere words to suffice. But another commune member who had come to sit nearby mimicked a reply, much to the Dinner Man's irritation:

"My face resembles what once was slopped on school canteen plates."
D. F. Lewis - Miscreant in Moonlight
​
 
From "A Galaxy Called Rome," by Barry N. Malzberg

As interesting as the material was, I quailed even at this series of notes, let alone a polished, completed work. My personal life is my black hole, I felt like pointing out (who would listen?); my daughters provide more correct and sticky implosion than any neutron star, and the sound of the pulsars is as nothing to the music of the paddock area at Aqueduct racetrack in Ozone Park, Queens, on a clear summer Tuesday. "Enough of these breathtaking concepts, infinite distances, quasar leaps, binding messages amidst the arms of the spiral nebula," I could have pointed out. "I know that there are those who find an ultimate truth there, but I am not one of them. I would rather dedicate the years of life remaining (my melodramatic streak) to an understanding of the agonies of this middle-class town in northern New Jersey; until I can deal with these, how can I comprehend Ridgefield Park, to say nothing of the extension of fission to include progressively heavier gases?" Indeed, I almost abided to this until it occurred to me that Ridgefield Park would forever be as mysterious as the stars and that one could not deny infinity merely to pursue a particular that would be impenetrable until the day of one's death.

So I decided to try the novelette, at least as this series of notes, although with some trepidation, but trepidation did not unsettle me, nor did I grieve, for my life is merely a set of notes for a life, and Ridgefield Park merely a rough working model of Trenton, in which, nevertheless, several thousand people live who cannot discern their right hands from their left, and also much cattle.
 
gveranon said:
From "A Galaxy Called Rome," by Barry N. Malzberg

As interesting as the material was, I quailed even at this series of notes, let alone a polished, completed work. My personal life is my black hole, I felt like pointing out (who would listen?); my daughters provide more correct and sticky implosion than any neutron star, and the sound of the pulsars is as nothing to the music of the paddock area at Aqueduct racetrack in Ozone Park, Queens, on a clear summer Tuesday. "Enough of these breathtaking concepts, infinite distances, quasar leaps, binding messages amidst the arms of the spiral nebula," I could have pointed out. "I know that there are those who find an ultimate truth there, but I am not one of them. I would rather dedicate the years of life remaining (my melodramatic streak) to an understanding of the agonies of this middle-class town in northern New Jersey; until I can deal with these, how can I comprehend Ridgefield Park, to say nothing of the extension of fission to include progressively heavier gases?" Indeed, I almost abided to this until it occurred to me that Ridgefield Park would forever be as mysterious as the stars and that one could not deny infinity merely to pursue a particular that would be impenetrable until the day of one's death.

So I decided to try the novelette, at least as this series of notes, although with some trepidation, but trepidation did not unsettle me, nor did I grieve, for my life is merely a set of notes for a life, and Ridgefield Park merely a rough working model of Trenton, in which, nevertheless, several thousand people live who cannot discern their right hands from their left, and also much cattle.
Click to expand...

I’ve been following the recent conversation on the board about Barry Malzberg with great interest. This blinding passage makes me want to read him sooner rather than later. A darkly disposed haunter of Aqueduct and north Jersey? Mon semblable, mon frère . . .

Thanks, gveranon!
 
Daisy, In the great torrent of Malzberg's early '70s writings there are at least a couple of novels that feature Aqueduct racetrack. One is an sf novel called Overlay and the other is a non-sf novel called Underlay. I haven't read either of them, so I went to this website about Malzberg for information. In the photo on the site, Malzberg bears a striking resemblance to Groucho Marx!

According to the website's information about Overlay, "The novel is about the interplay between an alien (who is the narrator) and a number of down and out racetrack goers." Overlay is related to Underlay, which is not science fiction, and which Malzberg says is "the best novel I ever wrote or was capable of writing." An excerpt from Underlay is available online.
 
gveranon said:
Daisy, In the great torrent of Malzberg's early '70s writings there are at least a couple of novels that feature Aqueduct racetrack.
Click to expand...

Dear gveranon,

I’ve just revisited this thread for the first time in two weeks, to discover your helpful post! Thank you so much for directing me to Malzberg’s Aqueduct-centered fiction. As young bachelors in the 1970s, my father and his brother loved playing the horses, and spent a great deal of time at Aqueduct and other New York City-area tracks (the Meadowlands, Yonkers, and Belmont). I can’t wait to read Overlay, to see if Malzberg has the same feel for that world as my father and uncle did. With regard to the “‘down and out racetrack goers,’” my Dad always used to say, with wistfulness and admiration: “Horseplayers are great people.”

Thanks again and again,

Nicole
 
“Channel Firing” (1914), by Thomas Hardy

That night your great guns, unawares,
Shook all our coffins as we lay,
And broke the chancel window-squares,
We thought it was the Judgment-day

And sat upright. While drearisome
Arose the howl of wakened hounds:
The mouse let fall the altar-crumb,
The worms drew back into the mounds,

The glebe cow drooled. Till God called, “No;
It’s gunnery practice out at sea
Just as before you went below;
The world is as it used to be:

“All nations striving strong to make
Red war yet redder. Mad as hatters
They do no more for Christés sake
Than you who are helpless in such matters.

“That this is not the judgment-hour
For some of them’s a blessed thing,
For if it were they’d have to scour
Hell’s floor for so much threatening. . . .

“Ha, ha. It will be warmer when
I blow the trumpet (if indeed
I ever do; for you are men,
And rest eternal sorely need).”

So down we lay again. “I wonder,
Will the world ever saner be,”
Said one, “than when He sent us under
In our indifferent century!”

And many a skeleton shook his head.
“Instead of preaching forty year,”
My neighbour Parson Thirdly said,
“I wish I had stuck to pipes and beer.”

Again the guns disturbed the hour,
Roaring their readiness to avenge,
As far inland as Stourton Tower,
And Camelot, and starlit Stonehenge.
 
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