A Human Yo-Yo Gets to an Apocheir

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Christmas Eve, 1955, Benny Profane, wearing black Levi’s, suede jacket, sneakers and big cowboy hat, happened to pass through Norfolk, Virginia. Given to sentimental impulses, he thought he’d look in on the Sailor’s Grave, his old tin can’s tavern on East Main Street. He got there by way of the Arcade, at the East Main end of which sat an old street singer with a guitar and an empty Sterno can for donations. Profane rounded the corner. With its usual lack of warning, East Main was on him.

Thomas Pynchon, V.

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Thought:

“To see a strange outlandish fowl,
A quaint baboon, an ape, an owl,
A dancing bear, a giant’s bone,
A foolish engine move alone,
A morris-dance, a puppet-play,
Mad Tom to sing a roundelay,
A woman dancing on a rope,
Bull-baiting also at the Hope,
A rhymer’s jest, a juggler’s cheats,
A tumbler showing cunning feats,
Or players acting on the stage—
There goes the bounty of our age:
But unto any pious notion,
There’s little coin and less devotion.”

Henry Farley | “The Voice of Ardent Zeal Speaks from the Lollard’s Tower of St. Paul’s”

Christian Molenaar