No Variations (Argentinian Literature Series) by Darren Koolman Luis Chitarroni

from the alphabet, saying it was ‘rather an abbreviation, or way of short writing with us, than a letter,’ and Gertrude Stein spoke of its triviality, its function as a simple strikethrough, swift deletion, blind shorthand. Some countries and languages—like Welsh and Gaelic, for example—have never felt its influence. Yet, its wholly gratuitous or fatuous acoustical expression is married to its striking graphical representation like no other letter in the abecedarian chronicle.”
     
    For more on the casuistry, the soteriology, and even the proctology of the letter X, see Edgar Lee Meaulnes.
     
    NO
     
    Felipe Luini, Hunting Journal
    Ideas of Order , Wallace Stevens
    Table of Contents
     
    1. T HE S CENT OF T HUNBERGIAS
     
    I. Early
     
    II. The Imitation of an Ounce
     
    III. Returns
     
    IV. Occupation
     
    V. The House on Calle Piedras
     
    VI. The Cult of St. Mawr
     
    VII. America
     
    VIII. The Scent of Thunbergias
    2. T HE S EYCHELLES
     
    I. Laetitia Pilkington
     
    II. Hilarión Curtis
     
    III. Doris Dowling
     
    IV. Constantin Berev
     
    V. Lord Swindon
     
    VI. Irene Adler
     
    VII. Venus Rattlesnake
    3. S HERBET A RIA
     
    I. Stealth//Centipede
     
    II. Centaur
     
    III. Arena
     
    IV. Rhetoric
     
    V. Karmapolis
     
    VI. Ahnungslosigkeit
     
    VII. Sestina
     
    VIII. Pop Museum
     
    IX. Portrait of a Tin Soldier
     
    X. Chronoscopy
     
    XI. Sircular Cymmetry
     
    XII. Lycergical Glossary
     
    XIII. Away with Them [Dead Aunt’s Diary]
     
    XIV. Epilogolipomena
    4. P OPULAR M ECHANICS
     
    I. Every Nerve and Sinew
     
    II. Semblance
     
    III. Replicas
     
    IV. The Xochimilco Diary
    Appendices
     
    All About X
     
    Fame, Polyonymy, and Denial in Agraphia
     
    Photo Anthology
     
    The Biographies
     
    Epistolary
     
    The Dry Martinis
     
    Poem and Sestina
     
    NO
    Glenmorangie—Nicasio
     
    Better: Lagavulin
     
    Or bourbon—Wild Turkey—prefers Jim Beam to Jack Daniels. Four Roses. Canadian Club.
     
    Wyborowa. Stolichnaya.
     
    Angostura. Negroni
     
    dosage
     
    Fernet or Negroni, Eiralis.
     
    Red without question. And lots of it. Lalo.
     
    The Dry Martinis
     
    To sing sweetly then perish —“For Janis Joplin,” A. Pizarnik
     
    She seems quite despondent in that photo of her seated barelegged: an attitude of cloying introspection induced (more than likely) by the Southern Comfort
     
    NO
     
    Include “The Slow Ones”?
    Because we were late in arriving, because we were late in departing, because we didn’t care that we’d be late, and, above all, because those for whom we waited turned out to be ourselves, which is to say, the others, the ones we called “the slow ones.”
     
    There were whole days and nights during which we lost our way, during which we lost our purpose. We bummed around exchanging tales of days gone by, anecdotes, gossip.
     
    Because we’ll be late in arriving, because we are loath to depart, because we don’t care that we’ll be late. Above all, because those for whom we wait will turn out to be ourselves, which is to say, the others, the ones we call “the slow ones.”
     
    Neither drunkenly nor sleepily they’ll call us—no, are calling us—“the slow ones.”
     
    And when the prize finally arrives, when it ripens, there will be music that will saturate us, sweep us from here to there,
     
    reveal us to the women. When that very night suffocates us in its witching hour, the décolletées begin their long-awaited shift.
     
    The night has plucked itself a jasmine, a gardenia, and we have vowed beneath our breaths to say now what tomorrow will catch (how this promise will bloom) in our throats.
     
    It is now late (or expected) and obvious (or transparent)
     
    the context to be demolished is night. Night, yes, but so close to the moment when she’ll take her leave, as that old Egyptian relic begins nodding off, that it’s practically day in the desolate dark.
     
    They must conceal themselves. They are few, but they surround us. None can name them. They