Cosmo di Madison
performing in Steep 'n Brew on a guitar given him by
Pope John Paul
I. "I have been thinking, and
using my head, and practicing
a lot of very
intense theology all of my life.
It is this theology which the Pope
respected in me,
and it is because of this theology and my way of living
that he gave me
this guitar."
What happens to time in spiritual exegesis
may also be confusing to the modern reader who is accustomed to arranging his
world within a fairly rigorous and superficially rational coordinate system of
time and space. The medieval
attitude toward time was very different from ours. Specifically, an action carried out in the Old Testament may
be, spiritually understood, an action described in the New Testament, and the
same action, considered tropologically, becomes a potential action in the life
of any man. Thus allegory has the
effect of reducing the events of the Old Testament, the New Testament, and
one's own actions, together with those of contemporaries, to a kind of
continuous present. Boethius
explains in the Consolation that God sees what we regard as the past, the
present, and the future simultaneously, since there is no time in Heaven. There is a sense in which the spiritual
understanding of Christian allegory produces a similar effect, so that temporal
sequence acquires something of the nature of an illusion. Patterns set by the Bible constantly
repeat themselves, not in the cyclic form fashionable among modern historical
metaphysicians, but continuously.
Hence allegory in its general sense makes the scriptural narrative
constantly relevant and immediate.
--D.W. Robertson: A Preface to Chaucer: Studies in
Medieval Perspectives, p. 301.
At the outset you must be very careful
lest you take figurative expressions literally. What the Apostle says pertains to this problem: "For
the letter killeth, but the spirit quickeneth." That is, that which is said figuratively is taken as though
it were literal, it is understood carnally. Nor can anything more appropriately be called the death of
the soul than that condition in which the thing which distinguishes us from
beasts, which is the understanding, is subjected to the flesh in the pursuit of
the letter. He who follows the
letter takes figurative expressions as though they were literal and does not
refer the things signified to anything else.
--St. Augustine: On Christian Doctrine (3. 5. 9)
General Preface
Pleas from my adoring readers have
finally prevailed. I've decided to
make public the complete Gospels of Cosmo di Madison. Some would say this volume is too long
in coming. Cosmo himself, in fact,
is convinced that for some time now I've been selling a hardcover edition of
the Gospels in every major city in the U.S. besides Madison, and that I've
been raking in, behind his back, some $12-14 million a year on his story.
I ought to
acknowledge right off the bat that I've gotten a lot of flack over these
writings. The misinterpretations,
backstabbing and hang-up phone calls at all hours have been hard on me. There was even a drive-by shooting in
which a man who wore a green felt hat exactly like mine was shot. I felt guilty about that one. But the violence I can deal with. It is other things that get me down.
To be quite frank, it is more than
anything the persistent obtuseness of certain elements of the public that is
getting harder to take. I don't
mean to bash the public in general, just certain sectors. It's almost as if they refused to
acknowledge the magnitude of what Cosmo and I have accomplished here. The ingratitude takes many forms, and
I've struggled with the lot of them.
Aside from the religious people, of certain denominations, who wouldn't
recognize the truth if it leapt from the altar and bit them on the neck, I've
had to deal with the various critics and students of literature who persist in
seeing this book as a novel. Can
you believe it? And the Divine
Comedy--I suppose they'd say that was a coupon book.
I want to make something clear right here
in the Preface. I want you, the
reader, to get something straight once and for all: This narrative is not
fiction. There. Do you believe me? This narrative is entirely true, all of
it. It's a biography if anything,
or rather what they call hagiography.
I am not a novelist. I
think you'll see and be thoroughly convinced that I'm not exaggerating about
this either. So I hope we can get
this straight right from the start, for your sake and mine. This is not a novel.
Actually I've no interest in writing
fiction. The man I'm writing
about, Cosmo di Madison, is a real man who lives here in Madison,
Wisconsin. Gospels from the
Last Man is his story more than mine. There are witnesses who can prove this, and I am willing to
produce these people if need be.
More than anything, this book is the story of how I was slowly taken
under Cosmo's wing, and of how he revealed to me the truth. Yes, the truth. This is something else I'm entirely
serious about. I'm writing here
about the truth, scandalous as the idea may seem. For the truth is not exactly an acceptable theme here in the
late 20th century, is it? Even
mentioning truth comes off as heavy-handed in some quarters. So you'll have to get used to it. The truth.
I've attempted to write the truth in the
manner it was revealed to me. Thus
the text of these Gospels was written as a series of fragments rather
than as a smoothly articulated exposition. The fragmentary character of this writing is not, however,
to be understood as an obstacle to reading. In mentioning fragments, I'm not trying to excuse some
laziness on my part, or make some claim about the "postmodern
condition." Far from it. Rather it's the case that the fragment,
as one of many possible modes of writing, proved nearly inevitable when it came
to writing the deeds and teachings of Cosmo di Madison. This is because Cosmo is not a man to
enter into lengthy explanations or narratives. He's usually cryptic when it comes to speaking of anything
important, and he was often so with me.
Since he knew I was writing down as much as I could of what was said, he
was always careful to speak so that only those worthy of understanding could,
in the end, understand. I received
his Word in fragments, and here present it in fragments.
But how is it that I, a mere cafˇ
employee, came to write these Gospels?
It is a story you will learn in the course of reading. Here I will give only a few hints. I met Cosmo di Madison after beginning
work at a cafˇ in downtown Madison.
He was then posing as a rather eccentric regular customer. I wrote the texts of these Gospels over a period of
four years following our meeting.
They are divided into three books, each chronologically succeeding the
previous. The first two books were
published in small editions, which I disseminated from the cafˇ itself to an
ever-increasing readership. The
enthusiasm with which these first two books were received, throwing half the
city into mania and discord (people giving up everything and taking to the
streets, study groups breaking forth in every other home, amateur archeological
ventures, the whole bit) testifies to the power of the doctrine they
contain. But the third book, here
published for the first time, is certainly the capstone of these writings,
definitively placing Cosmo di Madison in the lineage he himself so often
evokes, that of the Man-Babies.
I sometimes can't get over my good fortune
in having met Cosmo di Madison. I
feel that in meeting him I've found my true calling, the work I was born
for. It's as if his doctrine was
concocted for my pen, and my pen for his doctrine. Even my background seems to have been specially designed to
bring forth someone who could write the life and teachings of Cosmo di Madison. My father, a pious man of Hungarian
stock, was an art restorer by profession.
He worked in the Midwest, then up and down the West coast, and is best
known for leading the team that restored the mural of Washington Crossing
the Delaware after it was damaged in the prison riots at Alcatraz in '68. My mother, descended from Bavarian
Catholics on one side and a French doctor on the other, was a poet and
illustrator of children's books.
Whether you know it or not, you've probably read some of her work, as
she wrote for Hallmark through much of the '70s while I was growing up.
I ought to take this opportunity to warn
new readers of the Gospels, those who haven't already read Books I
and II. Do not proceed too
quickly, but do not lose heart either.
Do not laugh too loudly while you read, lest a demon fly into your open
mouth. I've seen what can happen,
and believe me, it's not pretty.
You are liable to feel in the beginning as if you were dangling
helplessly over a valley strewn with sucked cadavers. This is because the doctrine here presented holds together
in a very circuitous manner, like a giant web in fact, with the inevitable
result that one cannot begin to know the pattern of the whole until one has
gotten one's limbs tangled in many troublesome particulars. You yourself will get tangled up. You'll be stung by this spider
repeatedly. It doesn't sound
pleasant, I know. But trust me:
you're in good hands with me as your guide. I've been through this web myself, and know it like I know
my own mind. And I can assure you:
the beauty of the web, once glimpsed, will make any loss of blood along the way
seem insignificant.
Now, reader, proceed boldly to the
Biographical Introduction of the first book, and begin your reading. From here, you are on your own.
Eric Mader-Lin,
November 1995,
Madison
Biographical Introduction
[The following texts make up what
eventually became Book I of the general collection Gospels from the
Last Man. These initial
writings were put out in a small, bound edition back in 1992. I'd recently started work at the cafˇ
frequented by Cosmo di Madison, and began taking notes on my conversations with
him. The earliest texts are
actually entries from my journal, entries in which I hoped to capture some of
the spirit and ideas of the cafˇ's most interesting regular.
In 1991, at the the
time when Book I written, the cafˇ in question was thriving. Its tables were constantly occupied by
a steady flow of undergraduate PC hipsters, burned out grad students,
professors, street musicians, derelicts, activists, cops on the beat, even the
local business people. It is in
this mixed and caffeinated milieu that most of the following scenes took place.
The opening biographical introduction is
based on notes from an interview with Cosmo di Madison in which he was asked to
recount the significant events of his life.--1995]
II.1.1. Cosmo di Madison was born in Laos in 1957. His father was Heiten Gandhi and his
mother was Judy Garland. His mother
took her last name from his father: Garland sounds similar to Gandhi.
Cosmo soon left Laos, coming to the United
States with sixteen of his Venetian wives and their children. One of his Venetian wives, Sella, moved
to Tibet and resided there until 1981, running a spy ring for Cosmo.
During the 1970s Cosmo was the brains and
the brawn behind most of the espionage against the Soviets and Cubans. Most people don't know this. This difficult work did not prevent him
from receiving a PhD. in psychology.
He is in fact known for a number of important works in this field.
Cosmo is a practicing Catholic and holds
his own Mass in his apartment, where he has set up a sacred altar. He has attended secret Masses with the
Pope. His private collection of
sacred books is famous.
In the 1970s many of his executives,
clergy, brokers, advisors, investors and intelligence agents were slaughtered
by the Mob and the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). Cosmo di Madison had told them to
attack first or they'd be wiped out, but they didn't heed his warning. It is Cosmo di Madison's conviction
that everything was lost in the seventies because of the corruption of the
older generation. Cosmo di
Madison: "They had their red meat and alcohol, and that's all they cared
about. They sat back and let
everything go to hell rather than face the music."
From 1976-7, Cosmo di Madison's accounts
were illegally siphoned off by Saddam Hussein, who was working at the time as
an officer in the Madison Police Department. The losses sustained were too high to mention in this brief
introduction.
The thugs murdered Cosmo's first wife
Karen Carpenter. The Mob and the
CFR and Hussein's people are all one group. Let it be known publicly that the following people presently
work or at one time did work for this group: Henry Kissinger, Teddy Kennedy,
Billy and Jimmy Carter, Tony Earl.
Madison Mayor Paul Soglin is in on it too.
Cosmo di Madison currently resides in
Madison.
[Whereas the above was written several
months into my acquaintace with Cosmo di Madison, the following few texts, much
rougher, are mainly direct transcriptions of notes taken during my very first
serious conversations with him at the cafˇ. At the time of writing these notes I little suspected I was
beginning work as his scribe. I
remember my attitude then was mainly one of fascination with the range of
historical reference in Cosmo di Madison's speech, particularly as regards
Martin Luther's pivotal role in world history. The bracketed "[C ]" will be explained below.]
II.1.2. [C ] is a
Roman Catholic, of course. [C ]'s delicate fingers are covered
with rings. He wears a leather
vest and has his hair cropped close.
He sits back pensively and flicks his ashes, adopting the air of a
detective about to relate to you the most complex and stunning of his cases.
The following notes are what I could get
from [C ] concerning the
history of Luther and the works of Lutheranism in the world. Our conversation took place during one
of my breaks from work at the cafˇ.
Much to my delight, he offered the topic of Lutheranism himself, as
being one of great importance to him.
In the 1580s, after being kicked out of
Germany, Luther escaped to Spain and started the Spanish Inquiry. It was Luther who organized it.
Luther was concerned mainly with talking
rhetoric, writing letters and newsletters.
He founded a small newspaper. He was brainwashing people.
Luther is the reason people defile the
flesh of mammals, the reason people feed on meat. Before Luther they never did that.
Fucking Lutheran bullshit. Fucking Lutheran evil shit!
Luther led the Spanish Armada against the
British, who were Roman Catholics.
The Roman Catholics sunk the Spanish Armada.
Luther escaped to play the role of
Zoro. He was Zoro. He was Napoleon too.
He escaped to France in the 1680s. In the north of France--a place called
Bethel. He wrote more letters and
started another paper.
He changed his name to Napoleon, who is
Zoro.
After this subquittant duration... After he was done with the French
Revolution and fucked all that shit up...
He escaped to an eastern bloc nation,
somewhere by Russia, and changed his name to Karl Marx.
I'm not sure which nation it was. There are a lot of fucked up history
books out there.
Luther escaped to New York City in
1952. He started a newspaper and a
massive printing business.
In 1972 he was executed by John Dean in a
movie called The French Connection.
I ask [C ] about the theological issues. What are the theological distinctions
between Lutherans and Roman Catholics?
Lutherans are followers of Satanic and
insane gothic principles.
They chastise all manner of flesh they can
for evil.
All the Bibles were changed by Luther
starting in the 1780s.
They took over a gigantic press in the
early 1930s, printing Bibles in English.
I have a Bible in Greek--not written by
some fucking German!
The Catholic Church is the foundation of
the Christian Church, which is not 2,000 years old but millions of eons.
The Catholic Church precludes
individualism.
People who don't commit cardinal sins are
saved. You gotta break four of the
Ten Commandments at once to be damned.
If you defy the Catholic Church, the
clergy will catch up with you eventually, and will destroy you.
[C ] asks if this is going to be published. I tell him that hopefully it will be.
My name is John Alexander Dean. They know me. Just write John Alexander Dean as the author.
Or you could just write my code
name-- 0X21-18853-A5DEL.
A few minutes later I ask him to repeat
his code name, and he repeats it in the same deadly serious manner.
[C ] di Madison knows more concerning history than most people
around here.
The few occasions on which we have spoken
have been very worthwhile, though in the past his theatrical manner irritated
me.
Wiser now, I know it is rather the
university historian, ever writing tensely in the corner, whose theatrical
manner poses the real potential threat.
[Fascinated by that first conversation
with Cosmo di Madison, I na•vely took the step of typing up my notes and making
copies to give to co-workers at the cafˇ.
When Cosmo di Madison found out, I was forced to recognize my
error. He made it clear that he
wasn't at all happy with the slapdash manner in which I'd published his
historical revelations concerning Luther.
His reaction convinced me that by including his full name in the text
I'd committed some sort of theological breach of security. I sadly thought he'd never speak with
me again. So I typed up the
following rejoinder in hopes of salvaging our rapport. Eventually he informed me offhandedly
that he'd had his boys run a rigorous security check on me, and, having passed,
I was back in his graces.]
II.1.3. [C ] di
Madison has seen my notes on the history he gave me on the night of September
14th, 1991, at the cafˇ. He wasn't
happy to discover I'd actually typed them up, or rather, he was upset to see
his real name, [C ], typed
thereon. "This document
should be destroyed."
"Who have you shown this to?" "Give my name as Steve McQueen, not John Alexander
Dean." "Just give my
code name." "Things are
too hot already." Etc. To protect him from any undue worry or
trouble, I have modified the text.
I've enclosed [C ]'s
name in brackets and removed several of the letters. So if the reader happens to have suspicions concerning the
true identity of [C ] di
Madison, do not reveal them to anyone.
Further, do not reveal to him that you suspect he is the historian in
question. I don't want to make
such a sensitive interpreter of our plight in post-Lutheran history any more
nervous concerning his place in it all than he already may be. But because of the importance of what
he has revealed so far, I will type up the notes I took from him during our
recent brief encounter au cafˇ:
Luther is Lucifer.
He's been wandering this planet since the
1300s.
He murdered Henry I. He poisoned him.
He's also Sigmund Freud.
[From this point on, Book I contains
mainly notes and narratives of my encounters with Cosmo di Madison at the cafˇ
and elsewhere. The entries proceed
in rough chronological order.]
II.1.4. Cosmo comes in wearing a red leather jacket and matching red
leather hat. The cafˇ's baker
Elizabeth is filling the front counter with goods. Cosmo looks at her and grins: "Hey, Momma, look at
baby! Have you seen
baaaaby?" He holds up a
plastic bag in which is an awkward object poking through the sides. "Heh heh heh heh," is how he
prepares the world for "baaaaaby."
Baby's tale peeks out of the bag, and it's
suddenly obvious that baby is a fake ivory tusk about two feet long, carved
into the shape of a Chinese dragon and mounted on a black wooden pedestal. Cosmo moves the dragon slowly out of
the bag, grinning cosmically.
"Cute baby, Cosmo. I can see the resemblance," I tell
him. "It's long and thin and
so are you."
"Heh heh heh heh. It has a long, pointy tale like
me. Heh heh heh. Ahhhahahhahhahh!"
"Oh, God," says Elizabeth,
covering her mouth. '
"And the teeth," continues
Cosmo. "Just like me! Ahhhah hahhah hhh ahh hahhhhh
hhh!"
Cosmo walks up the stairs with the poise
of a drunken Chinese Emperor, roaring transcendently at the frightened
customers.
"Grrrrrrrr! Heh heh ehh ehehehahhhh! Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!"
Born in Laos,
1957.
II.1.5. Cosmo di Madison sees clearly the signs of Phonecian
involvement in the founding of Madison.
"Hell. All over town they've disguised ancient Phonecian ruins as
modern houses. Right over there"--he
points to what looks like a 19th century home--"is a Phonecian ruin, but
nobody knows it because of the cover-ups."
The Phonecians came to Wisconsin 130,000
years ago, and were involved heavily in the politics of the region until quite
recently. Cosmo begins a run-down
of the Phonecian dynasties, their wars, the dragons that harassed their capital
city here on the isthmus, and how they beat the dragons.
Cosmo himself recently killed a dragon in
the basement of Amy's Cafˇ--"JUST AROUND THE CORNER."
He will tell you that he receives his
historical knowledge psychically, through his ultra-sensitive hearing.
"Cosmo," I say.
"Yes," says Cosmo.
"I have learned much from you
concerning the Phonecian dynasties that ruled south-central Wisconsin,
concerning their wars, and concerning the dragons they fought. But I am more curious about the daily
life of the Phonecian people here on the isthmus. And so I will pose you the following historical
question. THIRTY-THOUSAND YEARS
AGO, ON THE SAME DAY AS TODAY, IN THE SAME MONTH, TWO PHONECIAN WOMEN WERE
WALKING TOGETHER AROUND WHAT IS NOW THE FIVE-HUNDRED BLOCK OF STATE
STREET. WHAT WERE THEY TALKING
ABOUT?"
"Thirty-thousand years ago?"
"Yes."
"Madison was Phonecian
thirty-thousand years ago."
"I thought so."
Cosmo di Madison closes his eyes for a
moment and concentrates. A look of
gravity descends on him. Cosmo di
Madison opens his eyes.
"They're talking about the royal
family," he says.
"So they're talking about the royal
family. Two women walking together
on the isthmus thirty-thousand years ago are talking about the royal
family."
"Yes."
"But tell me, Cosmo--"
"Yes."
"What are they saying about the royal
family? Are they gossiping about
the royal family? Are they joking
about the royal family? Or are
they intriguing against the royal family?"
Cosmo di Madison does not close his
eyes. He does not deliberate. He says immediately and with the utmost
seriousness: "Every morning, you see, the King would jack-off. And when he came, birds would fly out
of his cock and fly up into the sky.
So there."
Needless to say, I am somewhat taken aback
by this abrupt revelation.
"But Cosmo," I point out after a
moment of reflection, "this does not explain what the two women are
talking about on the isthmus thirty-thousand years ago in the vicinity of what
is now the five-hundred block of State Street."
Cosmo di Madison looks at me as if I were
deaf. He puts his hands on his lap
in an unexplained configuration.
"Pumpkin," he calls me. "C'mon now, pumpkin. Are you listening or not?"
"What?"
"There were only two kinds of birds
this particular King put out. When
the King came, it was either eagles or wrens. The two women are trying to decide which kind it's going to
be that morning."
There is a long pause in our conversation
as I consider this.
"And the robins?" I ask
finally. "What of the
robins? And the red-wing
blackbirds? And the
chickadees? And the
cardinals? And the
hawks? And the crows? What of the hummingbirds?"
"Different kings," he replies.
II.1.6. The Library of Cosmo di Madison. Having finally attained the privilege
of calling on Cosmo di Madison at his downtown apartment, I discovered his
address and went there as soon as I could. My concerns in visiting Cosmo were various. First, I wanted to see who the man was
when he was at home. But secondly,
and perhaps more importantly, I intended to investigate certain claims concerning
his library. Cosmo had shown some
old books to a previous visitor of my acquaintance, and had told him that they
were the Dead Sea Scrolls. But my
acquaintance had not had time enough to examine the ancient volumes to
determine even what language or languages they were written in. I felt this sort of work was certainly
in my range, being that my extensive literary studies and travels have left me
fluent in somewhere between 160 and 172 languages, many of them ancient or at
least incomprehensible in this ruined and belated age. I wondered, however, whether Cosmo
would allow me to investigate these precious books, or whether indeed he would
even allow me to see them. I was
thus overjoyed at his eventual trust in me, and at his openness concerning the
contents of his library.
I will say nothing of Cosmo's apartment at
this point, but will only indicate that it is decorated and even comfortable in
a somewhat nineteenth-century, Baudelairean manner. The man leans more towards
antique furniture, and has hung his walls with oil paintings in the darker
hues. The incoming light is dim
and there are many plants cluttered near the one window, fighting for its
light. Religious statuary of
various kinds can be glimpsed here and there.
After being there some time, I came to the
question of the Scrolls, and whether or not he indeed had them. Cosmo pointed to around a dozen volumes
of old hardbound books stacked in a small pile on the marble stand near his
couch. The ancient books were kept
there in reach of the couch on which Cosmo awoke every morning with his strong
tea and cigarettes. He was in fact
drinking this strong tea and smoking at the moment I visited, playing a used
record he bought for a dollar, a slightly scratched record of Sixties music, on
his $40,000 stereo. Cosmo had
actually been given a blacklisted social security card by the United States
government for having too much gold and silver, and too much money in stereo
equipment there in his apartment.
Even his brother who is a big wheel in the CIA cannot protect him from
this government harassment, so rich and wild is Cosmo di Madison.
I asked if I could look at the titles of
the volumes.
"Certainly," he said
gravely. "They're all
ancient. They're the Dead Sea Scrolls--in
their original format ."
As I knelt near the marble table, I
wondered to myself what the myriad myopic scholars of the Academy would say if
they knew that the Scrolls were there in Cosmo di Madison's apartment, and in
original format! I handled the
Scrolls with the utmost care while my host continued smoking.
"I've got them arranged as an altar,
as you can see," he pointed out.
On the marble table in front of the Dead
Sea Scrolls were two white candles in brass candlesticks. Behind the Dead Sea Scrolls, and almost
framing them, was a large and antique brass plate etched in what appeared to be
Middle Eastern designs. Portions
of the plate had partially oxidized.
After looking through the volumes carefully,
I assured Cosmo that the books were of high spiritual value and were indeed
very old. I suggested that he
allow me to make a catalogue of them, which he did willingly, pointing out that
they were all Catholic books and that the one on the bottom was obviously
around 4,000 years old.
After some hesitation, I have decided to
print the catalogue as I copied it, moving from the top of the stack down to
the most ancient of the Dead Sea Scrolls:
--Kristelig Kalendar: Bibelsprog og
Talmevers til hver Dag
i Yaret. Den norste Synodes Forlag. Decorah, Iova,
1891.
--Der Heidelberger Katechismus.
--De Imitatione Sacri Cordis Jesu. Libri Quatuor.
--R.C. Jebb: Greek Literature.
--Wunder[ ]ame Gotteswege aus der
Gegenwart.
Erzahlungen von Harry Margot.
--Vita et Doctrina Jesu Christi. Bruxellis apud H.
Goemaere, 1867.
--In Latinum (Caesar). For Academies and High Schools.
J.D.S. Riggs, PhD.
--Cursus Philosophicus. In Usum Scholarum. Auctoribus
Pluribus Philosophiae Professoribus in
Collegiis
Valkenbergensi et Stonyhurstensi S.J. Pars III.
Philosophia Naturalis. H. Haan S.J.
--Die Heilige Schrift.
That some of Dead Sea Scrolls were
published in the 19th century by American Lutheran presses (one of them in
Decorah, Iova) not only poses a conundrum of some magnitude for Biblical
scholars, but also suggests what may turn out to be rather difficult questions
for Cosmo di Madison. Given his
respect for the Scrolls as sacred texts and given his heroic opposition to
Luther and his followers, it would seem that there is a rather serious
contradiction here. But perhaps
the problem lies in my own transcription of the Scrolls' title pages. It is not impossible that I have
misread as German gothic letters what are really Aramaic letters, in which case
my catalogue is worthless. In any
event, I will certainly ask Cosmo di Madison himself about these things once I
feel the time is right. For I am
not among those who believe the real contents of the Dead Sea Scrolls are best
kept under lock and key.
II.1.7. I show Cosmo di Madison a scholarly work on page 13 of which
is pictured a Fara cuneiform tablet (Mesopotamia, c. 2600 B.C.). The clay inscription is still just a
muddle to me, put down by a scribe who was further distant in years from Our
Lord than Our Lord is from us.
Tablets like these are usually temple or palace accounts, reading
something like the following Sumerian Fara tablet also presented in the same
work:
1 barley-fed ox;
6 grass-fed oxen; the god Shuruppuk--3 barley fed-oxen; 6 grass-fed oxen; the
god Gibil--3 from the god Enlil; 2 oxen; 6 grass-fed oxen; Mr. Kinnir--7 oxen;
from the god Suen.
The scribes recorded which god got what,
and who offered it for sacrifice, being at this time spare on commentary. Thus perhaps we are to understand from
the above translation that a Mr. Kinnir, 3,000 BC., put up seven oxen, of
indeterminate or at least unrecorded feed, for who knows which god. Gibil?
So I show Cosmo di Madison a close-up photograph
of a different Fara tablet. He
looks at it briefly.
"Yeah, sure," he says, "I
know this stuff. I can read
it. But they have it upside down."
He turns my library book over and begins
to translate. According to Cosmo di
Madison, the gist of this record is as follows:
A Sumerian man
marries two women, two children by first, one by second. Foreign soldiers come, murder first
wife and children, murder pet lamb of child of second wife. Sadness. Man moves elsewhere.
I am much impressed by this reading. Cosmo di Madison points to the first
pictograph inscribed in the seventh line down of the third column.
"See," he says, "there's
the lamb."
And, of course, it seems indeed to be a
lamb. Or perhaps a beef. Or perhaps it is just the god Shuruppuk
out on a spree.
As I had no knowledge of Cosmo di
Madison's ever having studied the cultures of ancient Mesopotamia, I was rather
perplexed by the fluent ease with which he translated this text for me. I was certain that even the major
scholars would have had to take some time piecing together what were after all
the marks of a long-dead language.
Oddest of all, however, was that Cosmo immediately insisted the tablet
was mounted upside down, and had to turn the book over to translate it for
me. How was I to understand this
strange reaction of his? Why would
the scholar whose work I was reading picture a tablet upside-down? Was it perhaps a publisher's error?
Several pages later in the same book, I
learn from the author, and for the first time, that modern scholarly practice
places tablets either on their side or upside down both in museum displays and
in transcriptions . This practice
is simply a result of the manner in which modern European scholars studying
cuneiform records originally set the tablets while trying to interpret
them. As we have since learned,
this direction of mounting does not reflect the direction in which the Sumerian
scribes held the tablets when reading or writing them, but in fact contradicts
it. Thus if an ancient Sumerian
scribe were shown a modern scholarly work picturing the tablets he inscribed,
he would notice before anything that for some odd reason (modern scholarly tradition)
the tablets were shown upside down.
It's as if in the distant future an American public library were
uncovered, and the future scholars working on the texts therein started to
study them by holding them upside down, reading from the bottom of the page up. After the mistake was discovered, it
was generally judged easier to continue publishing the texts thusly even so, as
scholarly books were already doing this, and because the only people reading
the texts were scholars in any case.
I was dumbfounded. Cosmo di Madison had seen it immediately. Why? How explain it?
For to my knowledge, Cosmo di Madison had never had any academic
training in this area. He'd never
mentioned a thing about his work in Sumerian. And if he had done academic work in Sumerian, he'd have been
comfortable reading the text in the position it was mounted in the book. He was not. Struggling against the logic established by the English text
covering most of page 13, he looked briefly at the 4,600-year-old clay tablet
and said: "Yeah, I can read this stuff. But they have it upside down."
II.1.8. Economic wisdom of Cosmo di Madison. Two quotes.
--If America doesn't get its act together
and start beating the Japanese, Germans, and Koreans, it's gonna be a day late
in a week story.
--People don't appreciate anything around
here except counterfeit money. And
it's running out.
II.1.9. Busy with important police work crucial for the safety of
the cowering citizenry of our city, Cosmo di Madison had not been stopping in
at the cafˇ as frequently as usual.
I needed to discuss with him matters of religious importance, and so I
asked him if he would give me his phone number, as I could not set up an
appointment on the spot. He
nonchalantly tore a piece of paper off the cafˇ pad and wrote the number down,
then handed it to me. The paper
read:
666
I was shocked. Looking up from the paper to the Most Catholic Cosmo di
Madison, I encountered a face twisted in fury, a phantasmagoric imitation of
evil. He grit his teeth and
thundered out demonically:
Call me any
time! Baaaaah aaah haaaahhhh!
The whole lower section of the cafˇ shook
with terror. A West Side woman at
one of the window tables dropped her shopping bag, spilling onto the floor
almost a dozen fat little dolls dressed in psychedelic calico. I reeled back and put my hand on the
counter, a feeling of sickness wrenching up from within me. I noticed suddenly that the decaf pot
was boiling wildly, a greenish exhalation pouring from under its white
lid. A haziness covered my vision,
and I heard distant voices whispering to me in Slavic vowels.
Cosmo di Madison grinned at us all in
contempt, then stepped swiftly out the front door of the cafˇ with stiff
dignity, wisping his long black cape.
Certainly any of my readers who have spent
time in the presence of the Cosmo di Madison will be aware that this story is
absolutely veritable: they will not doubt for an instant that everything
happened exactly as I have retold it.
But how interpret this astonishing
event? How can this most Christian
man so offhandedly associate himself with the Fallen Angel?
The answer is obvious to those who ponder
Cosmo di Madison's position in the cosmic order. Cosmo di Madison satirizes evil, so as to put low the Evil
One. Who does not know this is so?
And the decaf? How explain the suddenly boiling decaf? The noxious and green fumes, my sudden
illness? Here again the answer is
obvious. It is most obvious to
those who know the manner in which I prepare decaf when working the front
counter at our most celebrated cafˇ.
II.1.10. Many refuse to accept as the whole truth Cosmo di Madison's
haggard complaints concerning the harrowing conspiracies in which he now finds
himself enmeshed. They suspect he
is at times bending the truth, that, for example--"No, his mother is not
really Judy Garland"; or: "No, he does not have seventeen Venetian
wives"; or: "No, he is most certainly not Laotian--it is obvious--and
neither does he control espionage cells in Czechoslovakia or anywhere
else." These Nay-sayers,
however, are precisely the people who do not take the time to listen carefully
to Cosmo di Madison--those, in short, who insist they have better things to do
than trouble themselves over the fact that their city is being overrun by Chicago
criminals and drug dealers, their university is a hub of international
espionage, their neighborhoods are dotted with an ever-increasing number of
crack houses, and that porn video dealers, yes, filthy vile movies degrading
their children and upsetting their families--that "porn video dealers ARE
SETTING UP SHOP IN THE FRUIT AND PRODUCE SECTIONS OF WHAT WERE PREVIOUSLY
FAMILY GROCERY STORES!" These
are the same people who would probably watch civilization come to a disastrous
end without raising a finger to stop it.
And so: you who refuse to believe that Cosmo di Madison is up to his
gold earring in veritable evil conspiracies of most atrocious and international
proportions have not even begun to ponder the political realities of the
so-called "world" you wander in with such pathetic disregard!
Thus: when Cosmo di Madison steps into the
cafˇ with darkness and discontent in his eye, you can be sure the reasons
behind this mood are worth inquiring into, even if you do not find yourself
understanding the boggling complexity of even the simpler of Cosmo's battles.
He came in the other day with a grim look
and ordered a double cappuccino.
He began to confide in me immediately as he usually does, for he doubtless
recognizes in me a kindred soul in the rough struggle against evil, one who has
eyes to hear and ears to see.
"Those fucking bastards! Those evil fucking bastards screwed me
over again!"
"What's wrong, Cosmo?"
"I'll tell you what's wrong: some
fucking mental health officials around here are going to wake up one morning
with their fucking heads cut off and laying next to them in bed--that's what's
wrong."
"What did they do this time? Mendota people?"
"My fucking psychologist charged me
fifty-two fucking thousand dollars.
How do you like that?"
"Fifty-two thousand?"
"Yeah, they know I'm filthy rich so
they try and suck it out of me.
But ever since they blacklisted my Social Security number I can't even cash
a check for twenty bucks."
"But how
could they charge that much? Was
it for a whole year of meetings, or what?"
"No, it wasn't even for one meeting,
the fucking bastards."
"Who's your psychologist? Maybe I can do something about
it."
"He's not even really a
psychologist--he's a kind of psychoanalyst."
Cosmo di Madison uttered the last word
with particular scorn.
"A psychoanalyst?"
"Yeah, one of those milky-handed
baby-groping kind."
"What's his name, though? Maybe I can do something."
"No, you can't help me, I'm in too
deep--the bastards."
"Just tell me who it is. I could call him."
"Try to call him if you want. The fucker's never there. It's Henry Kissinger."
"Your psychoanalyst is Henry
Kissinger?"
"Yeah."
"That's amazing! So does he fly here for appointments,
or do you fly to D.C.?"
"Huh! That bastard--I didn't even have a real appointment."
"But how could he charge you $52,000 if
you didn't even have a real appointment?"
Cosmo sneered through a face riddled with
scorn and exhaustion.
"The State assigned him to me. Don't you get it? I don't have a choice. He's charging me $52,000 for an
eleven-minute phone session! The
bastard."
II.1.11. A cold November morning. The sun has just risen in the ivory sky. Cosmo di Madison and I are standing on
the top of Bascom Hill, at the very center of the campus. Behind us is the green and rotting
statue of Abraham Lincoln. Below
and before us is the Holy City, just beginning to wake.
Cosmo di Madison removes his massive and
stained cowboy hat, adjusting the band on the inside. He places it back on his head and gazes upon the city with
an air of utmost gravity. I watch
his breath condensing in the cold air.
Then he says to me, with grave restraint:
"This town is being overrun by crooks, ya hear me? Someday this town will all be
mine."
There is a moment of silence, and then,
thundering out over the sea of flakes and liberals:
BAAAAAHAHHAAHHHAAAAAAAHH-
HAHAAAAAAHHHHAAAAAA!
II.1.12. More economic wisdom from Cosmo di Madison: "If they
would have listened to me and faced the music in the seventies, none of this
would have happened."
II.1.13. Various Sayings of Cosmo di Madison.
i.
"Life goes on, hey?
Life goes on."
ii.
"Ya hear me, don't ya?"
iii.
"Come to Daddy. Bahhhahhahhhhhaaaahhahhaa!
"
iv.
Walking down the stairs, with sing-song jingle:
EVERYTHING'S BETTER
WITH BLUE BONNET ON
IT!
---Baaaaahahhhahhhhhaaaaahhahhah!
[Doubtless, reader, you have already noticed in
these texts the frequent notations indicating Cosmo di Madison's expansive
laughter. There should be no
surprise in this. For among the
various marks of nobility evident to those lucky enough to spend some time in
the presence of Cosmo di Madison, his laughter is surely the one most likely to
remain in the memory. And while
there--in the memory, that is--this laughter is apt to jostle whatever else
happens to be there with it. It is
an unsettling, if not frightening laughter. Many of you--those who frequent the cafˇ preferred by Cosmo
di Madison--know exactly what I am getting at. For who among us has not at least a dozen times cringed in
terror before the sublimity of this Laugh? Objects rattle on tables, champagne glasses crack and
tumble, plants either wither or demonstrate a brief and sudden florescence when
Cosmo di Madison's laughter bursts forth.
The list could go on. I
have seen birds drop from the sky, stone dead. I have seen dogs whimper and hide under parked cars. I have seen fraternity boys sobbing
uncontrollably, the one trying to hide behind the other. It is needless to add that there is no
way of reproducing in merely phonetic writing the singular character of this
Laugh. The reader will frequently
encounter my best notation of it, as in the texts above, but I am afraid the
refrain-like return of these notations will only appear unwieldy to those
who've never heard Cosmo di Madison himself. Those who have heard him, however, know the necessity of
Cosmo's laughter, and thus recognize the necessity of my indicating it to the
best of my ability here.]
II.1.14. Cosmo di Madison is at the front counter of the cafˇ
speaking about how well he treats his wives. His words on this subject could provide the learned basis of
a treatise on matrimonial life that would surely stand in relation to our age
as Andrˇ Tiraqueau's treatise stood in relation to his. Jody the cafˇ supervisor--doubtlessly
feeling the sting of jealously in relation to Cosmo's wives, and having
painfully to face up to the rough and down-home manners of her own man
Jed--Jody asks Cosmo di Madison: "Cosmo, will you marry me?"
Cosmo di Madison looks contemplatively at
his rings for a moment, then he meets her gaze. He says: "How much money do you have?"
II.1.15. "Babies are scary, hey? But nothing's more scary that a room full of teddy
bears. Eccccch! Creepy, hey? Grrrrrrrrrrrrr!
Baaaahahah-haaaaaahhaahhaaahhh!"
And then, the first time I visit Cosmo di
Madison at his apartment, I notice that therein, sitting upon all the chairs
and glaring at us with their little glass eyes, are at least fifty teddy bears
of all shapes, colors, and sizes.
I was actually a bit scared.
"Yeah, I collect them. Pretty scary, huh?"
II.1.16. An elderly woman who had led a dissolute life was speaking
with me concerning Cosmo di Madison.
She was of the opinion that Cosmo was a troublemaker and possibly
dangerous to the people around him.
Of course she had only seen him a few times.
"Yes," she said, "but the
second time I ever did see him, he crumpled up a cigarette box and threw it at
my head, then walked away."
"Perhaps Cosmo was trying to tell you
something. Perhaps he had some
insight."
"Nonsense," replied the
woman. "He is simply way over
the edge."
I ran into the woman almost a year later,
for she had not frequented the same places as myself for some time. The woman had quit smoking, but it was
already too late. She had
developed a lung disease.
II.1.17. Cosmo is looking at the headline
announcing that the Milwaukee mass murderer and would be Zombifier Jeffrey
Dahmer has been declared sane. I
wonder what his opinion is concerning this.
"They're all the same, these
graverobbers. Dahmer, Han
Christian Heg--they're perverted, twisted, evil, Devil-worshipping maniacs. They're fucking crazy! You know what? There's a guy who works at the Capitol
in some bureaucratic liberal PAC--I swear to God he's Dahmer's twin
brother. They're identical. The same business too. [Cosmo mimes the action of
cutting with a scalpel.] How do you like that, huh? BAAAAAAAHHHHAHHHAAAAAA-AAAHHHHH!
II.1.18. Mark Duerr, the photographer who shot the celebrated photograph of Cosmo di Madison reproduced on the cover of this volume, beckons me to the stairs by the espresso machine. He narrates to me the following tale, fraught with gothic overtones: "I'm walking down State Street at 3 A.M. this morning, and there's not another person in sight. Suddenly I begin to hear this eerie guitar playing, but I can't see where it's coming from. It seems like it's right next to me or behind me, but there is no guitarist. So I keep walking and looking around. And I walk and walk, and the music goes on right next to me. Finally after almost two blocks of walking I go by the front window of Oriental Specialties, and there sitting in the vestibule on the sidewalk is Cosmo, playing his guitar. 'What the hell, Cosmo?' I say. 'It's three in the morning.' His guitar case is open on the ground, and in the center of it, gleaming in the light, I notice there is just one single dime. Cosmo looks up at me knowingly and roars--