Pass me your notebook!, cries W. He's sure something important must be written there. He's sure that's where he'll find the key, the mystery of mysteries.
… And now it comes, the point of all points, which the Lord has truly revealed to me in my sleep: the point of all points for which there …
Those were Rosenzweig's last words, says W. That's what he indicated on his letter board despite his paralysis. He didn't finish, says W. He wasn't able to. What would he have said?
Kafka's last words were a different thing entirely, W. says. He wrote conversation slips, because he couldn't speak. A bird was in the room, he wrote that. Lemonade. Everything was so infinite. He wrote that, too. Whatever did he mean?
Brod saved Kafka's conversation slips, W. says, as perhaps he should save my notebook. 'Give me your notebook!', cries W. 'Give it to posterity'.
Beard of fat, W. reads from its pages. There's an illustration, too. - 'Did you draw this?' A picture of a belly, or a stomach and of some grey stuff hanging off the belly. Of course it was W. who told me about the beard of fat. Fat does not accumulate in the stomach so much as hang off the stomach like a beard, he told me. – 'That's what makes your belly round', he said.
In hell, there are no friends – W. recognises this quote. It's from Daniel Johnston, isn't it? I'd sent W. a Daniel Johnston print with the same title.
Bickering, W. reads out. – 'What's the significance of bickering for you?' He remembers how Sal and I bickered in America, and how it confused our hosts. It's the only way they can show affection, W. told them.
Stretches of water, W. reads. There's a crude picture of a boat on the waves. – 'You must have been very bored', W. says. He knows I dream of stretches of water when I'm bored. Hadn't I demanded to be taken to the Mersey when we were in Liverpool? And to the lake at Titisee when we were in Freiburg?
W.'s found some of my poems, he says. I like to read them to him when I'm drunk.
The wrong venue/ the wrong city/ the wrong time/ the wrong conference/ We are the wrong people. We are wrong.
It has a marvellous simplicity, he says. And it's so true. Here's another:
Why do we fail at the level of the banal/ It's not about thought, or whether we can think/ but about not being able to have a shit/ or being locked out of our bedrooms.
That's more like an aphorism than a poem, W. says.
And then,
General incompetence is what will defeat capitalism/ that's why our general incompetence should make us laugh/ even though it makes us cry.
Very deep, W. says. There are several drawings too. – 'That was from your David Shrigley phase, wasn't it?'
And here's something W. himself wrote: YOUR SIN IS THE PUNISHMENT OF MY LIFE. When did he write that?, W. wonders. Sounds about right, though.
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