Hermeneutics

I tend to tease things apart. Force of habit. What makes something work. Words on a page, for instance. Tuesday morning is Farmer's Market, so I always get my coffee to go, sit on the back of Ronnie's truck and roll a smoke; he usually rolls one to, if he's not too busy. Late season, but he has lots of tomatoes, several kinds of potatoes, and squash. He gives me produce, or charges very little (his granddaughters charge me half-price; I have these deals all over town, where I don't pay full price: I'm a good listener and can sometimes be very funny) and we chat for ten minutes. Creek talk. Ridge talk. He'd heard about my bear. Woman at the next booth over, just a table, actually, loaded down with jars of honey. A beautiful young woman, six feet tall, tights and a tee-shirt. She follows me off a few steps, when I leave, really, she says, a bear? I give her the three minute bear lecture, ever the knee-jerk docent. A forty-two line page (the Gutenberg Bible), single spaced, is between 500 and 600 words and takes about three minutes to read. Reading fairly carefully. I can scan one of these pages in a minute or less, but reading every word, out loud, would require three minutes. What was I talking about, right, the three-minute bear lecture, SO, I can gauge these things quite closely. After three minutes, talking about a specific thing, most people get bored; my favorite of the Carter paintings I could talk about for thirty minutes or an hour, but there are only three or four people who would want to listen. I'm cool with that, I'd just as soon lecture to a blank wall, which suits me, oddly; lecturing to a blank wall is familiar terrain. Phone out again. I saw the tree that did it this time, had to stop and drag pieces off the road with a couple of good-old-boys coming in from the other direction. All trace of it gone this morning. Passed the phone guy, heading in to make the repair. A little chaotic at work, two new elevator guys, and I had to show them where everything was, then two construction guys who are going to help the elevator guys move heavy things, then the crane guy. This is getting exciting. The two elevator guys are pounding and drilling in the elevator shaft all day, fitting pieces with plenty of persuasion. Mid-afternoon, everyone was gone but me, I had to stay in my office for a couple of hours, holding down the fort. Read an essay on Schiele that got into the whole art and pornography issue. I come down pretty strongly for free expression: if I don't want to see something I just don't look at it. Young boys are always going to point and laugh. Young girls realize their power. Me and Elvis both liked bacon and peanut butter sandwiches. Doesn't mean anything. "Me and Elvis" is a contender for the title. After Jesus, Elvis is probably one of the top ten names. Just guessing here, I have nothing to base this on, and "Me and Elvis" sounded a whole lot better than "Me And Jesus". I can't believe I just said that. I should be flogged or stoned or something. Isn't there a Christen scale of things, of course there is, Dante, wait. I just found myself in a ring of hell.