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PENNY POST

11 19 02

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sunday

By Andrei Codrescu

so we go out to the cafe on a windy, steamy day that's more like pensacola beach than new orleans, and there is anne, reading a book called "the mind of god," and robin, who recognizes somebody passing on the street just from her back, and i say, "what's new?" and anne says "there is a nine-year-old girl who just raised money to buy bullet-proof vests for K-9 police dogs," and Laura says that she actually saw the news where some crazy felon ran from the police and hid under a house and shot a police dog, which was terrible and that's probably what the nine-year-old girl thought, and I just had my eighth cup of coffee and i have no idea what my column this week is going to be all about, so i say, "i'm going to raise money to buy protective gear for cockroaches," (a.n., which in louisiana are big and sentient like little crunchy dogs), and anne says, "little boxes," and I say, "yeah, little boxes where only their heads and legs stick out and there is a little warning light and a taped voice that says just as you're about to step on them: 'agrrhr rrr kstn,'" and laura points out that the calliope on the river is playing "that's amore," and we discuss post-modern literature for some reason, with robin pointing out that "the mind of god," presently lying next to my coffee cup, has an introduction to an introduction, and i describe (a.n. in a few dozen words) nabokov's "pale fire," which as everyone knows is a crime novel disguised as an academic gloss on a long and bad poem, and anne says, "don't forget compassion," apropos of the kind child who cares about K-9 safety, and I say, "no, of course not," because if column-writing is about anything it's about high moral standards and lessons about life, even the life of cockroaches (a.n. i am a jain) and then we discuss the art show by sex workers which has just opened in new orleans, and I think that it's the same show i saw in portland last year, which showed the work of about three hundred sex workers, i think it's the same show, and then we say goodbye for now to anne and robin, and oh, i forgot, there was a real-estate convention in town and five realtors told me that i was great, and last week there were dentists all over and everybody was smiling, now that's the human world, happily we don't need bullet-proof vests here (a.n. not like last week in d.c.), and i feel compassion, yes i do, and I forgot about this poem laura and i made up walking down the street yesterday that goes partly, "too young to shave/in a world of clueless tourists," which i write down with some more lines in anne's notebook for her to make a little book out of, and i'm sure there are a lot of other things i forgot or that i can't tell.