![[sic]: A Memoir](https://fs.collectorofbookboyfriends.com/474711/thumbs/152x264/sic-a-memoir.jpg)
itself moves irresistibly toward equilibrium, forever creating an Apollo for the Dionysus already at the bar, sipping his drink; a McCartney for a Lennon, a Pound for an Eliot; a Figaro for the Don; an Eliot for a Pound; a Rolling Stones (who merely pretended to be fucked up) for a Beatles (who were more fucked up than the world will ever, ever know): the slightly below-lit slightly exalted, the slightly above-lit gently redeemed.
But I know what you’re wondering. What about Carmilla ? How does someone not just slightly exalted, but for whom
a lit /b lit
dangerously, in natural light, veers toward the zero limit, fit into this equation? Explosively?
I haven’t described her yet, but you’ve probably already guessed. What happens when you’re dealing with somebody of such striking physical beauty that even the most intemperate climes—the Siberian fluorescence of a subway on Wednesday morning, 3 a.m. ; the unforgiving Laplandic glare of a twenty-four-hour deli’s illuminated Marlboro panel—are rendered perfectly helpless, breathless, catalepsic? For in Gladwellian terms, Carmilla would be an “outlier”—just like Bill Gates, the four Beatles (including Ringo and excluding George Martin, who spent less time in Hamburg), and 3,879,000,000 Asians. How will the attributes of the specimen in question—the alabaster complexion; the gentle slope of the cheeks, impossible to not caress; the, frankly, nearly charnel gaze, blissfully and indisputably countered at the last possible moment by the cyclamen lips; the shock of the crop of the inkspill of her hair (I could have just said she was a model, but this is a little bit how my mind works when I’ve done a little cocaine)—how do these qualities reply to the reactive agents of that low-voltage LED strip tucked coyly behind the soda guns, beer mats, stirrers and swizzle sticks, not unlike a Cupidon hiding his eyes behind his wing? Seeing her perched upon the burnished designer barstool like a longtailed goldencheeked warbler on a wire, one can’t help but wonder: will that slight draft of the recessed, beauty-infusing light simply tip her over the edge? Will it push Beauty into its close cousin, the Monstrous? Will the felicity of her Nabokovian exquisiteness finally flinch once and forever, like Eurydice slipping away—despite the lyre, the frantic fretwork, and the song—past Rushdiestan, sliding irretrievably into Lower Pynchonia?
Oddly, no. For reasons still obscure to scientists, Carmilla’s status as a beacon was only heightened; she positively gleamed. Researchers can’t explain it yet, but they have observed that she’s endowed with the capacity to absorb virtually any source of light, partially digest it, and then (metaphorically, of course) regurgitate it, transformed, for the benefit of those mortals surrounding her who are, of course, unable to directly assimilate the light themselves. This is, after all, the ultimate expression of an exotic bird’s love: softened, liquefied, partially dissolved, the light emanates through her as if it had, in fact, originated somewhere deep within her very being—like Lakshmi, the Hindu goddess of light, the embodiment of feminine beauty, and, when Rushdieless, the host of a reality show about food. This is one reason (three?) why when you’re with Carmilla in a restaurant, it’s not unusual for the waiters and kitchen staff and owners and clientele to form an informal circle around you and almost dance, almost like a Bollywood chorus actually dancing around Aishwarya Rai.
Carmilla and I kissed, and had a sip of our martinis, and then kissed, and then had a sip of our martinis, and kissed, and sipped our martinis. “So tell me what happened?” How low, her voice—never ceased to surprise me, a Lauren Bacall thing, Demi Moore doing—imagine!—Mamet instead of Ashton.
I told her how the six months of chemotherapy hadn’t worked, how it looked as if I were moving straight into a bone marrow
But I know what you’re wondering. What about Carmilla ? How does someone not just slightly exalted, but for whom
a lit /b lit
dangerously, in natural light, veers toward the zero limit, fit into this equation? Explosively?
I haven’t described her yet, but you’ve probably already guessed. What happens when you’re dealing with somebody of such striking physical beauty that even the most intemperate climes—the Siberian fluorescence of a subway on Wednesday morning, 3 a.m. ; the unforgiving Laplandic glare of a twenty-four-hour deli’s illuminated Marlboro panel—are rendered perfectly helpless, breathless, catalepsic? For in Gladwellian terms, Carmilla would be an “outlier”—just like Bill Gates, the four Beatles (including Ringo and excluding George Martin, who spent less time in Hamburg), and 3,879,000,000 Asians. How will the attributes of the specimen in question—the alabaster complexion; the gentle slope of the cheeks, impossible to not caress; the, frankly, nearly charnel gaze, blissfully and indisputably countered at the last possible moment by the cyclamen lips; the shock of the crop of the inkspill of her hair (I could have just said she was a model, but this is a little bit how my mind works when I’ve done a little cocaine)—how do these qualities reply to the reactive agents of that low-voltage LED strip tucked coyly behind the soda guns, beer mats, stirrers and swizzle sticks, not unlike a Cupidon hiding his eyes behind his wing? Seeing her perched upon the burnished designer barstool like a longtailed goldencheeked warbler on a wire, one can’t help but wonder: will that slight draft of the recessed, beauty-infusing light simply tip her over the edge? Will it push Beauty into its close cousin, the Monstrous? Will the felicity of her Nabokovian exquisiteness finally flinch once and forever, like Eurydice slipping away—despite the lyre, the frantic fretwork, and the song—past Rushdiestan, sliding irretrievably into Lower Pynchonia?
Oddly, no. For reasons still obscure to scientists, Carmilla’s status as a beacon was only heightened; she positively gleamed. Researchers can’t explain it yet, but they have observed that she’s endowed with the capacity to absorb virtually any source of light, partially digest it, and then (metaphorically, of course) regurgitate it, transformed, for the benefit of those mortals surrounding her who are, of course, unable to directly assimilate the light themselves. This is, after all, the ultimate expression of an exotic bird’s love: softened, liquefied, partially dissolved, the light emanates through her as if it had, in fact, originated somewhere deep within her very being—like Lakshmi, the Hindu goddess of light, the embodiment of feminine beauty, and, when Rushdieless, the host of a reality show about food. This is one reason (three?) why when you’re with Carmilla in a restaurant, it’s not unusual for the waiters and kitchen staff and owners and clientele to form an informal circle around you and almost dance, almost like a Bollywood chorus actually dancing around Aishwarya Rai.
Carmilla and I kissed, and had a sip of our martinis, and then kissed, and then had a sip of our martinis, and kissed, and sipped our martinis. “So tell me what happened?” How low, her voice—never ceased to surprise me, a Lauren Bacall thing, Demi Moore doing—imagine!—Mamet instead of Ashton.
I told her how the six months of chemotherapy hadn’t worked, how it looked as if I were moving straight into a bone marrow
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