Cat Pierro

Introduction to Stupidity (By the Stupid, For the Stupid)

Inside Out

plot the lips’ journey - for a boy to critique a girl - against self-involvement - not able to be sick - open the dictionaries and the maps - typically the size of a pebble - fluid near the disturbance - 10 meters in diameter - stony, iron, and stony-iron - gaps in the bands of color - devoid of reader subjectivity

The Elder’s Touch: A Scene From The Brothers Karamazov

monastery to monastery - he sees his mother’s tears, and he rejoices - the loss of a son and the lack of a son - the gradual realignment of attachments - could the elder help the mother with words? - a frantic soul - there is nothing to cry about, our little boy is in heaven - « I’d hide in a corner » - you are not required to be selfish - an old joke about a lodger - « you have all already returned your debts » - people do not just go away

Divertissement

Boredom is caused by - proof of his actual nothingness - « a dreadful desert island » - a victim of custom - « infinitely removed from the edge » - a final consistent base to build a tower that reaches to infinity - like a vacuum

In the Event of the Unexpected Onset of Retrograde Amnesia

a sense of my values - ever more secrets in all the wrong places - help getting home/warm/fed - don’t blame it on your amnesia - just with his emphases - his interest in this project of telling you things - soak each other up - a skeletal narrative of your past

Changes

the morphing process - the two-hour time limit - you wanted to stay human - a tiger mind engrossed in tiger thoughts - easy to dismiss the Animorphs - out of touch with their own species - subjected to your past

The Only Good Elephant

« I have always been a liar » - the stink of falsity - the elephant, blinking and sweating - let’s make him wince a little - « But fellows, it’s true! » - the air clears

Something Is Sought

what sort of novel is like life? - « the form of fiction most in vogue » - the narrator as a low-flying bird - charismatic distance - the way of true friends - a thing that burrows into the heart

The Infamy of Agrippina

some offenses are worse than capital - damnatio memoriae - « Let him kill me—provided he becomes emperor! » - a fascinating piece of gossip - a sex life subordinated to a political life - only a fear of posterity could have kept her vice in check - a poorly enacted shipwreck - « Strike here! »

Capture Yourself Alive

unreduced—an eyesore - full of details, often trapping details - beauty as consolation prize - an ordinary word like « talking » and invest it with a meaning that makes it hard - a desert - an erection - rumination vs. reflection - capture for the sake of capture

Afterthought on “...or be eaten”

eat the person

a lover's lie - what we really want is - our enormous, vague sentiment - a comfortable distance - your friends would freak out - desperate, impossible experiments