dream of a ridiculous man

on recommendation from my special lady Nancy, i purchased a tiny little novel at half price books called Einstein's Dreams, by Alan Lightman. the dude working the register was so excited about it, i got doubly enthused to read it. on my free half price books bookmark, he scrawled 'dream of a ridiculous man.' this only titillated me more to get my read on. as if i didn't already trust Nancy's judgment and her knowledge of my taste in literature.


i was, of course, immediately enthralled. this book is a concept in and of itself. it's creatively constructed as a series of dreams einstein dreams each night while his theory of time is evolving in his mindgrapes. yanno. space-time and all that jazz. clocks moving more slowly and light bending and the speed of light being different and gravity and other physics hullabaloo i don't understand. 

Since there exist in this four dimensional structure [space-time] no longer any sections which represent "now" objectively, the concepts of happening and becoming are indeed not completely suspended, but yet complicated. It appears therefore more natural to think of physical reality as a four dimensional existence, instead of, as hitherto, the evolution of a three dimensional existence.

thanks, Einstein, i didn't feel dumb enough yet today. time (or rather, the past/present/future distinction) is an illusion! anywho. on to the juice.

we already know how much i love nietzsche's concept of the eternal return; this is just one scenario entertained in these dreams. in fact, it is the first dream. there's a way to get cailin into a book (much like with the unbearable lightness of being, starting out with a SHABAM! cailin's favorite ideas IN YO FACE BOOYAH. and cailin goes *grin*). here's an excerpt (which actually comprises about half the 'chapter') from that dream:

Some few people in every town, in their dreams, are vaguely aware that all has occurred in the past. These are the people with unhappy lives, and they sense that their misjudgments and wrong deeds and bad luck have all taken place in the previous loop of time. In the dead of night these cursed citizens wrestle with their bedsheets, unable to rest, stricken with the knowledge that they cannot change a single action, a single gesture. Their mistakes will be repeated precisely in this life as in the life before. And it is these double unfortunates who give the only sign tat time is a circle. For in each town, late at night, the vacant streets and balconies fill up with their moans.

Sorry to bum you out. the reason i love this concept is that it's true even as it's irrelevant. we can't change anything we've done anyway. there are no checkpoints at which to respawn and learn from your mistakes and try that situation again. anywho. many of the theories of time illustrated in the few people and towns in these dreams are bummers. because time is a bummer. but it's poetic and makes you think.


the world where there is only the present, and it's the end of the world. people can't stop hugging because they'll never see each other again. a woman sits alone and weeps because she'll never see anyone again. no one will ever come back. a man notices it's raining and marvels that it's raining at the last moment of existence. then it gets sunny and he marvels that it's sunny at the last moment of existence.


the world where time moves more slowly the higher up you are. people build their houses on stilts in the mountains. height is status. whenever anyone must go down from their house, into town, or to travel, the rush as fast as possible, because time moves faster and they're aging. but over time, the consequences of the altitude and seclusion make the people die young anyway. they all forget why they went up to begin with. 


each dream, each world where time has a different characteristic, or rule, or attitude, is relatable, in a metaphysical way. as you read you go 'oh cool' and then 'oh sad' and then 'ooooh i've been there.' it at once makes you doubt everything, feel nostalgic, live in the moment, and want to value every choice and moment you have left in you. i think the guy at the bookstore was referring to einstein as the ridiculous man. but i think we're all pretty ridiculous, and time is ridiculous, and i wouldn't dream (har har) of ridiculing this novel. 

and again and again

COP OUT POST!!!!!!!!!1one
ok, i have been trying really hard not to say more things about this, the most awesome of books, until i actually finish it and can find something ultimately profound and funsauce to blabber about. HOWEVER. ive been superbly slow and hyper-underline-y and i'm almost done and i really really really just need to blurb this blurb cuz it would be too long to put in a post about OTHER stuff TOO so here goes.


 The Unbearable Lightness of Being is pretty much my soulmate. it explores Nietzsche's eternal return in familiar AND new/awesome ways. one of which i will gladly show you now. also, i must say, i love when the author inexplicably pops out of the text and goes 'ISNT THAT WEIRD!?' without explanation or context, just popping your bubble of suspended disbelief and making you want to go 'YAH TOTALLY LETS HUG ABOUT IT!' anyway, here you go:

Several days later, he was struck by another thought, which I record here as an addendum to the preceding chapter: Somewhere out in space there was a planet where all people would be born again. They would be fully aware of the life they had spent on earth and of all the experience they had amassed here.

And perhaps there was still another planet, where we would all be born a third time with the experience of our first two lives.

And perhaps there were yet more and more planets, where mankind would be born one degree (of life) more mature.

That was Tomas's version of eternal return.

Of course we here on earth (planet number one, the planet of inexperience) can only fabricate vague fantasies of what till happen to man on those other planets. Will he be wiser? Is maturity within man's power? Can he attain it through repetition?

Only from the perspective of such a utopia is it possible to use the concepts of pessimism and optimism with full justification: an optimist is someone who thinks that on planet number five the history of mankind will be less bloody. A pessimist is one who thinks otherwise. 

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!

I was just going to giggle and ramble a bit about finding sense within nonsense (for isn't that what we all do with everything every day all the time? impose structure to find meaning? after all, disorder is just the order we weren't expecting.) using Carroll's Jabberwocky as the most appropriate and awesome example, but upon revisiting the Alice books, my mindgrapes have exploded into a veritable barrel of wine-worthy stompables. 


so i suppose the royal we shall begin by saying we shall attempt to avoid the roads most traveled in overall investigations into Alice's adventures, and focus instead on language, as, in case you haven't yet noticed, it is one of my most favoritest things. i must also point out that i am addressing the books Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll; not the Disney movie or the more recent Burton adaptation (or any of the countless mini-serieseses or tv shows or video games), though all are fantabulous and worthy of the attention of inquiring minds. 


and now for the branches: finding sense within nonsense, and subjectivity to language. these are branches like the trunks of two trees that grew up too close together, and now share a base. i'm going to try not to get super poststructuralist-y, but fair warning: i'm going to quote Foucault (who would not like to be called a poststructuralist, thank you). 


portmanteau: fantabulous
so much of these novels is encompassed by language and logic games that are silly and nonsensical. but it's not entirely nonsensical or it wouldn't make any sense, would it? and it does, doesn't it? (cue a 'that reminds me of' regarding Waiting for Godot.. i won't do that to you.)


i had to memorize Jabberwocky when i was in 6th grade. we were studying phonics, because apparently some 6th graders cant read..? i dunno, it made absolutely no sense (ha!), and was totally out of context, and we didn't even read these books in class. we didn't discuss the literary characteristics. yay public school! but anyway, what i find now is that it doesn't really matter, because it totally made sense anyway. if you're not familiar with the poem Alice find through the looking glass and Humpty Dumpty later explains, the full text can be found here. here's the beginning, for poops and guffaws:

Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:

All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabe. 

nonsense, no? we, as readers, can suspend disbelief enough to assume the author is telling us about some dreamt-up creatures, but what's with the dreamt-up adjectives and adverbs? as Humpty explains, this poem utilizes portmanteau. portmanteau is when you mash two words together to make a word that means both, like 'fantabulous' (fantastic and fabulous). in this excerpt, Humpty explains 'slithy' to be a combination of lithe and slimy, where 'mimsy' is flimsy and miserable. 


Alice, however, throws a little hissy fit over it, because she's been raised with a proper education and questions whether one can just make words, and make them mean things. 

'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master - that's all.'

this is just one of the plenty of word games Carroll uses to poke fun at our culture, morals, etiquette, use of language, and sense of logic (such as the bread-and-butter-fly who lives on weak tea with cream in it), but i don't want to go there. ps, remind you at all of Phantom Tollbooth yet?

'Many of the things I'm supposed to know seem so useless that I can't see the purpose in learning them at all.'

anywho, on to the mastery of language and it's mastery over us.


structure and subjectivity: you are language's tool
we apply logic and structure to everything in order to understand and categorize it. language is the most common tool at our disposal to do so. so what happens if you accidentally say 'gregarious' (sociable) when you mean 'egregious (very bad indeed)?' you've done gone changeded history, you have. one little word changed the meaning of the sentence, which changed the meaning of the story into which that sentence was written. and it's a story because we impose that beginning, middle, and end on everything because that's how we understand things because that's how we learn them and what a fun little circle that becomes, noooo?


Humpty Dumpty refuted Alice's critique of his making words mean whatever he wanted them to mean by questioning 'which is to be master.' he asserts that he is the master of the words:

'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said in a rather scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less.'

he's the master of words, which is all well and good, except no one else knows what the words mean to him until and unless he explains the meanings he has attributed to them. this is bordering on Sapir-Whorf again, sorry. but i suppose this does fall into the realm of linguistic relativity so ON WE TREAD!

the Caterpillar is a favorite character who gets only a couple pages and lines, and that's all he needs. when Alice encounters him he asks who she is, and she can't answer, because she's changed (sizes) too many times to be sure who she is. he demands she explain herself.

'I can't explain myself, I'm afraid, Sir,' said Alice, 'because I'm not myself, you see.'

shortly thereafter, as a test of her self-doubt, the Caterpillar asks she recite a particular poem, which she does, but not quite right. after her recitation:

'That is not said right,' said the Caterpillar.

'Not quite right, I'm afraid,' said Alice, timidly: 'some of the words have got altered.'

'It is wrong from beginning to end,' said the Caterpillar decidedly; and there was silence for some minutes.

what Alice saw as an alteration of a few words changed the entire poem 'from beginning to end' to the Caterpillar. it was therefore, not the same poem. the problem is that we are not the masters of language. we cannot assume what others will hear when we say what we think we mean, if we even know what we think we mean, or think we're saying it. one last quote, the prophesied Foucault, from his Discourse on Language (of course):

Inclination speaks out: 'I don't want to have to enter this risky world of discourse; I want nothing to do with it insofar as it is decisive and final; I would like to feel it all around me, calm and transparent, profound, infinitely open, with others responding to my expectations, and truth emerging, one by one. All I want is to allow myself to be borne along, within it, and by it, a happy wreck.' Institutions reply: 'But you have nothing to fear from launching out; we're here to show you discourse is within the established order of things, that we've waited a long time for its arrival, that a place has been set aside for it - a place that both honours and disarms it; and if it should have a certain power, then it is we, and we alone, who give it that power.'

the individual is raging against being misinterpreted, and wants to be and discuss and understand. but institutions (culture, academia, business, whatever realm or institution is affronting and depriving the individual of the purest form of discourse at any given moment) won't allow it. discussion, understanding, debate, all rely on others' interpretations of meaning, which are never quite right. therefore, we have institutions to define things for us, and put language and 'discourse' as a whole in its place. further, it is not the individual, but the institutions who give discourse power. hmmmmm....


back to Humpty Dumpty - are we the master of language?

it was the best of times, it was the worst of times

there's a line in a halou song that says something about being nostalgic while you're still living it. great lyrics. i've certainly had moments that are awesome and then suddenly upsetting because you realize it will soon be not-so-awesome. but aside from in-the-moment nostalgia...  nothing makes a person feel more old and tired than the sweet pain of regular-old nostalgia. even when you know 'it' wasn't all sunshine and rainbows, you still yearn to have that spot, that ambiance of your life, back. and then you feel like a dweeb, because seriously, who yearns. now i'm sure you're wondering what reminded me of whatever i'm missing? fooled you! i miss all kinds of things, but nothing in particular at this moment. what got me thinking on nostalgia itself was a perfect sentence in The Unbearable Lightness of Being, which is quickly becoming my soul mate. 


i regret that i haven't read it before, or perhaps i thought i had, but i most certainly have not, because among all the brilliance and YES moments i've had with this novel (i'm barely 50 pages in, for crying out loud), this line hit me like it was cut with cocaine:

In the sunset of dissolution, everything is illuminated by the aura of nostalgia, even the guillotine.

good thing i was in the tub, because i had to let that one sink in. and it of course got me thinking on the tiny amount of life i've experienced, and tiny bits of stuff i know, and the insignificant, perfect moments i've had. these things shouldn't make me sad. and then i remembered a great article i read a while back that made me smile at nostalgia. it's called Do Happy: Be Your Nostalgia, by Lori Deschene. i highly recommend it. she speaks about how it's easier to live in the past than the present. what was and what could be are easier because they aren't. it goes back to the idea that between where you are and where you want to be there is a sh*t ton of work. 


but she speaks about how we shouldn't dwell because there is so much out there to be experienced, why would we bother wasting the time we have on things we've already done and places we've already been? while this is uplifting and enlightened, i still teary (like crying, not ripping) thinking on my past. 


ginsberg saw the best minds of his generation destroyed by madness. i just want to see the best minds of my generation. and allen ginsberg's generation. oh man, that would be one crazy party.

all truth is crooked, even time is a circle.

ooh literary theory, i will make you accessible if it's the last thing i do. how much does perspective have to do with truth? think on't a minute. let that percolate.... ok, here we go. instead of getting lost in the story, some stories require that you lose yourself. if a story depends on its reader's interpretation and effort to make sense (or meaning), it is not complete until the reader reads it and constructs his or her own meaning from it. 

the concepts of where a work of literature sits in history, the author's intentions, and what the reader brings to the text are not new. they are, however, SO MUCH FUN. especially since every stinkin single person is so flingin'-flangin' different. this brings into question all kinds of super-stimulating ideas about accuracy of history depending on author (the victor writes the history books, etc.), and the applicability of the message (to place oneself in a character's shoes, the character must wear the same size). i have no intention of addressing all this today, but i wanted to start here so that i can drill down and show you what happens when you play with 'what really happened' in a story if the author gives you multiple perspectives.

Julio Cortazar's 62: A Model Kit employs an open stylistic form that demands that the reader actively participate to construct meaning. even more unique, this postmodern strategy is taken one step further by the inclusion of an elusive type of "other," called in the novel the paredros. it has no direct translation - it's an egyptian term meaning something like 'one who sits beside,' but consider the paredros to be the 'other,' 'attendant,' 'alternate,' etc. somewhat companion, somewhat voyeur. ooooooo blowin' your mind!


to give you just a tiny bit of an idea of what the book is "about"... it's to do with a group of friends. and they hang out. and talk about stuff. and theeyyy like each other and have little trysts. they have silly conversations and deep conversations. there are arguments. one character is named Feuille Morte (french: dead leaf) and never speaks. you will recognize things. they have mutual ground.. called the City. not necessarily A city, but perhaps where ever they are all together or sharing something... is home. ok, i realize it's still super vague. here's some of the copy on the back flap:

First published in English in 1972 and long out of print, 62: A Model Kit is Julio Cortazar's brilliant, intricate blueprint for life in the so-called "City." As one of the main characters, the intellectual Juan, puts it: to one person the City might appear as Paris, to another it might be where one goes upon getting out of bed in Barcelona; to another it might appear as a beer hall in Oslo. This cityscape, as Carlos Fuentes describes it, 'seems drawn up by the Marx Brothers with an assist from Bela Lugosi!' It is the setting where the usual restraints of traditional novelistic order are discarded and the reader is taken on a daring and exiting new experience of life itself.  

the OTHER!
characters within the novel speak to and about their paredros, yet the reader is left to assemble an idea of what or who this is. Likewise, the reader is left to assemble a great amount of "plot" throughout the novel, as the surrealistic prose not only moves back and forth through time, but also merges physical cities into one pseudo-metaphysical City. the narcissitic "i" suggests that so much is required of the reader in this novel that the reader becomes the paredros of the text, the ultimate Other, mediating the text itself. the one who defines what the book is and isn't.


as the title implies, 62: A Model Kit requires some assembly. Cortazar makes a number of postmodern literary moves throughout the text, beginning with the first sentence:

Not a few readers will notice the various transgressions of literary convention here.

how kind of him to forewarn the reader that the novel will follow no realistic concept of time or meaning, and that whatever tale the reader ends up constructing out of it will be 

the book he has chosen to read.

while the reader must finish the novel by creating coherence and making connections between characters and events, she or he also essentially becomes a part of the novel, acting as 'the other.' the one outside the situations, apart from the characters, is the only one who can see all and find a way to create meaning from an otherwise disoriented set of individual events and thoughts. does this give you any new perspective on history? nonfiction? anything anyone ever tells you, ever? ok, ok, ok.


so you have something to make you read the awesomeness of this book... the narrative beings with by easing the reader into this sense of interconnected/connectedness (not quite as confusing as it sounds). our (first) narrator overhears a remark in a diner just as he's glancing inside a book he bought, and for some pages the reader is lead through a labyrinth of jumbled memories and connections. one critic explained it eloquently as

the unpacking of the resonances and associations embedded in that simple moment of eavesdropping.

this narrator thinks on the causal relationship between past events, friends, and even the book he chose to buy 'with the tacit certainty that [it] would be lost forever in the bookcase.' already a vague relational metaphor is made. while he reflects on the relationship between his opening a book he never intended to read to a specific page while overhearing the 'fat diner,' the reader of 62: A Model Kit is still pondering Cortazar's point of the previous page regarding this book being 'the book has chosen to read.'


back to how we each bring something unique to a text... Cortazar plays with this all over this fantastic novel, allowing his characters to be as jumbled and unique as his readers. there are so many things in this novel that can be connected (or not) and it takes the reader to tie them together. that's a lot of work. but so much fun. 


oh, and so it makes possibly a tiny bit more sense, the title of this post is from Nietzsche's Thus Spake Zarathustra.

some people are better off dead.

i recently came to the realization that i probably have some sort of attention disorder or overactive brain or something. i listen to music while i do just about everything, and it was pointed out to me that listening to music while reading is just CRAZY. that had never really occurred to me. i also watch tv while i troll the intarwebz, and read or watch old episodes of friends while sweating all over my exercise bike. and i'm currently screening some new artists i think i like while i write this. YOU'RE weird. but seriously, pairing appropriate music with what i'm reading is neat. it enhances the experience. like fun drugs or something probably. and while this is not the main point of my post, it's a sub..point... i guess. 


i actually made, not a mix, but a mp3 cd of a number of albums (in their proper track-ic..-al.. order) to listen to whilst reading the book about which i shall soon tell you. the albums on the cd are:

• kate bush - the dreaming
• halou - wholeness & separation
• thom yorke - the eraser

now, based on that information, assuming you're familiar with any/all of them, do you have any idea what kind of novel i'm going to talk about? well. i'll help! it's noir fiction. 'member the talented mr ripley? patricia highsmith wrote the book offa which that was based (and a whole slew of others about matt damon or whatever; i havent read 'em). she also wrote Strangers on a Train (her debut novel, also made into a movie by alfred hitchcock, and though i love him, that movie makes no sense: read the book.), which i will sneakily force upon you now.


to enhance your experience, listen to the following song while you read the rest of my blathers. i give you Strangers on a Train by Lovage. oh yeah, that's good stuff. 

on to the story. highsmith's thing is proving that anyone is capable of despicable acts, that the very quotidianness of any old life can hide within it a plethora of situations in which we might make one little choice, followed by another, leading to a transformation of character just great enough that we might do something HORRENDOUS. read: awesome. 


you know when you get really mad and want to punch something? what about when you're not that kind of mad, but you're steeped in that sort of simmering-distaste where your brain tells you revenge stories and you smile? well, everyone has those moments. and sometimes, people go so far as to act on them. but not normal people right? not you or i. certainly not. never ever ever. ever.


this haunting novel's main character, Guy (i know, right? just some guy named Guy. might as well be Dude, or Hey.), is an ordinary fellow. he meets another ordinary fellow on a train (Bruno) and they have a chat. Guy is in the middle of an icky divorce - his wife is a real bummer; plus she gets in the way of (aka: makes him feel guilty about) his mistress. Bruno pretty much hates his dad. lets bond over anger! that's a good way to start a lasting and fruitful friendship! their bond begins with Bruno's personal questions, which Guy answers, and is a little surprised that he answers. 

they come from a string of short, to-the-point get-to-know-you questions. note the short questions and short answers. feeling each other out... and note Guy's reactions to Bruno and to his own reactions to Bruno's questioning. also also also check out how much information Bruno is getting out of Guy. enough to make anyone guarded and a liar, i tell ya. cheggidout:

'You married?'

'No. Well, I am, yes. Separated.'

'Oh. Why?'

'Incompatible,' Guy replied.

'How long you been separated?'

'Three years.'

'You don't want a divorce?'

Guy hesitated, frowning.

'Is she in Texas, too?'

'Yes.'

'Going to see her?'

'I'll see her. We're going to arrange the divorce now.' His teeth set. Why had he said it?

Bruno sneered. 'What kind of girls you find to marry down there?'

'Very pretty,' Guy replied. 'Some of them.'

'Mostly dumb though, huh?'

'They can be.' He smiled to himself. Miriam was the kind of Southern girl Bruno probably meant.

'What kind of girl's your wife?'

'Rather pretty,' Guy said cautiously. 'Red hair. A little plump.'

'What's her name?'

'Miriam. Miriam Joyce.'

'Hm-m. Smart or dumb?'

'She's not an intellectual. I didn't want to marry an intellectual.'

'And you loved her like hell, huh?'

Why? Did he show it? Bruno's eyes were fixed on him, missing nothing, unblinking, as if their exhaustion had passed the point where sleep is imperative. Guy had a feeling those gray eyes had been searching him for hours and hours. 'Why do you say that?'

'You're a nice guy. You take everything serious. You take women the hard way, too, don't you?'

'What's the hard way?' he retorted. But he felt a rush of affection for Bruno because Bruno had said what he thought about him. Most people, Guy knew, didn't say what they thought about him. 

too much more to get the point where 'hard way' is explained as pretty much 'high hopes and let downs.' but ok, enough teasing. and that's in the first chapter. intrigued? Guy's just an average Joe, yes? Bruno's pretty average, unless you look really deep into that conversation and then, yanno, keep reading.... well let me intrigue just a tad further. you ever befriend someone who gets a little too attached a little too fast? like.. you get along and everything, but like in that one episode of Seinfeld with the pool guy, this person just keeps calling and showing up and wanting to hang out... now imagine that person is a very bored, very smart, psychopath. who knows an awful lot about you. 

keeping in mind that highsmith likes proving that absolutely anyone is capable of murder, i'll let you make your own assumptions and preconceptions about this novel, but please don't think you have any idea how it "ends." i am not in the habit of reading this type of novel. the psychological thriller type. but man, i dug this one because i got to me. it's familiar, and because of that it just gets more and more eerie and disturbing. kind of like requiem for a dream or basketball diaries, but with no drugs - just manipulation and circumstance. it makes you sit and stare and look like this for a while. and then you stop answering personal questions. 

itchiest love story ever

this is a cop out post because i don't have the energy for the post that's percolating in my mind grapes. 


the following is an excerpt from The Enchantress of Florence, which yes, I'm still reading. i'm telling you about it because it's the perfect love story/metaphor, and it made me giggle. wanna hear it? here it goes:

That night the emperor dreamed of love. In his dream he was once again the caliph of Baghdad, Harun al-Rashid, wandering incognito, this time, through the streets of the city of Isbanir. All of a sudden he, the caliph, developed an itch that no man could cure. He returned swiftly to his palace in Baghdad, scratching himself all over throughout the twenty-mile journey, and when he got home he bathed in asses' milk and asked his favorite concubines to massage his whole body with honey. Still the itch drove him mad an no doctor could find the cure, though they cupped him and leeched him until he was at the very gates of death. He dismissed those quacks and when he regained his strength decided that if the itch was incurable the only thing to do was to distract himself so thoroughly that he stopped noticing it.

He summoned the most famous comedians n his realm to make him laugh, and the most knowledgeable philosophers to stretch his brain to the limit. Erotic dancers aroused his desires and the most skillful courtesans satisfied them. He built palaces and roads and schools and race tracks and all of these things served well enough but the itching continued without the slightest sign of improvement. He has the whole city of Isbanir placed in quarantine and fumigated its gutters to try to attack the itching plague at its source but the truth was that very few people seemed to be itching as badly as he was. Then on another night when he went cloaked and secret through the streets of Baghdad he saw a lamp at a high window and when he looked up he glimpsed a woman's face illuminated by the candle so that she seemed to be made of gold. For that single instant the itching stopped completely but the moment she closed her shutters and blew out th candle it returned with redoubled force. It was then that the caliph understood the nature of his itch. In Isbanir he had seen that same face for a similar instant looking down from another window and the itching had begun after that. 'Find her,' he told the vizier, 'for that is the witch who has hexed me.'

Easier said than done. The caliph's men brought seven women a day before him on each of the next seven days, but when he obliged them to bare their faces he saw at once that none of them was the one he sought. On the eighth day, however, a veiled woman came to the court unbidden and asked for an audience, saying she was the one who could ease the caliph's pain. Harun al-Rashid had her admitted right away. 'So you are the sorceress,' he cried. 'I am nothing of the sort,' she answered him. 'But ever since I caught a glimpse of a man's hooded face in the streets of Isbanir I have been itching uncontrollably. I even left my hometown and moved here to Baghdad hoping the move would ease my affliction, but it was no use. I have tried to occupy myself, to distract myself, and have woven great tapestries and written volumes of poetry, all to no avail. Then I heard that the caliph of Baghdad was looking for a woman who made him itch and I knew the answer to the riddle.'

With that she boldly cast off her veiling garment and at once the caliph's itches disappeared completely and were replaced by an entirely different sentiment. 'You too?' he asked her and she nodded. 'No more itching. Something else instead.' 'And that, too, is an affliction no man can heal,' said Harun al-Rashid. 'Or, in my case, no woman,' the lady replied. The caliph clapped his hands and announced his forthcoming marriage; and he and his Begum lived happily ever after, until the coming of Death, the Destroyer of Days.

Such was the emperor's dream.