So apparently the Chinese, they are actually, Egyptians.

Who knew?

China's founding dynasty, it is generally considered to be the Xia, who swaggered around between 2070 and 1600 BCE.

Now, Sun Weidong, a Science Man, he says these Xia people (and he says there is support for this, in ancient Chinese texts, and in radiometry), they migrated up to China, out of Egypt; that the Xia were in Egypt the Hykosis people, who ruled around the northern Egyptlands, off and on, from the 17th century BCE onwards; until, eventually, they got kicked off and out of Egypt; and then, as Van Morrison do say, "they sailed and they sailed"; until they reached what is now known as China, and decided, there, to invent the Middle Kingdom, and become, the Chinese.

Some Chinese, to the Sun news, they are reacting, with frenzy:

How can the children of the Yellow Emperor have run over to Egypt? This topic is really too pathetic. The important thing is to live in the moment!

Fer sure. Right on. Party! Vote. For The Hairball.

Other Chinese, they See.

The world is such a big place, that one finds many strange things in it.

Absolutely. Goddam. Right.

After rolling around some in my brainpan the amusing and illuminating news that the Chinese are actually Egyptians, I decided to swim some, in Chinese waters.

I began, of course, with the Franz Kafka story, "The Great Wall Of China."

Only to, very soon, once back into it, be reminded that, much of the story, it is not concerned, with the Great Wall. Or even with China. And, certainly, the best bits, they aren't so concerned. At all.

For instance, this bit:

There is a parable that describes this situation very well: The Emperor, so it runs, has sent a message to you, the humble subject, the insignificant shadow cowering in the remotest distance before the imperial sun; the Emperor from his death-bed has sent a message to you alone. He has commanded the messenger to kneel down by the bed, and has whispered the message to him; so much store did he lay on it that he ordered the messenger to whisper it back into his ear again. Then by a nod of the head he has confirmed that it is right. Yes, before the assembled spectators of his death—all the obstructing walls have been broken down, and on the spacious and loftily-mounting open staircases stand in a ring the great princes of the Empire—before all these he has delivered his message. The messenger immediately sets out on his journey; a powerful, an indefatigable man; now pushing with his right arm, now with his left, he cleaves a way for himself through the throng; if he encounters resistance he points to his breast, where the symbol of the sun glitters; the way, too, is made easier for him than it would be for any other man. But the multitudes are so vast; their numbers have no end. If he could reach the open fields how fast he would fly, and soon doubtless you would hear the welcome hammering of his fists on your door. But instead how vainly does he wear out his strength; still he is only making his way through the chambers of the innermost palace; never will he get to the end of them; and if he succeeded in that nothing would be gained; he must fight his way next down the stair; and if he succeeded in that nothing would be gained; the courts would still have to be crossed; and after the courts the second outer palace; and once more stairs and courts; and once more another palace; and so on for thousands of years; and if at last he should burst through the outermost gate—but never, never can that happen—the imperial capital would lie before him, the center of the world, crammed to bursting with its own refuse. Nobody could fight his way through here even with a message from a dead man. But you sit at your window when evening falls and dream it to yourself.

There are numberless reasons why Kafka did not publish much of his work in his lifetime. Probably the most nearly exact is, because, he could rarely get finished.

Like everyone else who gets truly serious, Kafka, he came to understand, that, it all, rolls into one.

And, so, that happened, too, in his writing.

That bit above, for instance, it had already been inscribed, by Kafka, before it came to be in "The Great Wall Of China," in "A Message From The Emperor."

And the last line, of the "Great Wall" bit above, it was echoed, in jottings Kafka would from time to time inscribe, on separate scraps of paper, and which, after his death, Max Brod, he compiled among Kafka's "aphorisms":

You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait. Do not even wait, be quite still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.

Words in the Kafka brain, and on paper, they were always migrating—kinda like those Egyptians into China—from this short story, to that novel, to that "aphorism," to that parable, back to that short story, round and round, up and down, trying to find the place, where they could be the most perfect, the most profound.

He was a grinder, Kafka. Also, batshit insane.

The very best. Combo.

Kafka also wrote this, in the "Great Wall" piece:

If from such appearances anyone should draw the conclusion that in reality we have no Emperor, he would not be far from the truth.

And that's, really, the way of it. There is no Emperor—no "president." Except so much, and so long, as the humans, they allow such, to be Real, in their minds. In group agreement.

Just like, with all the other, anathemas: to wit: for instance: money, cities, jobs.

Just as soon as the humans, they withdraw from these, these anathemas, their group agreement, that such things are Real; they, no longer, will be. They will crumble. Into dust.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0Utkr8LSdc]

Yesterday afternoon, I had this dream.

I was in this great old cavernous, but snug, multi-storied house, the way it should be, with all this great old hand-carved furniture, the way it should be, by this great old cheery yawning fireplace, the way it should be, and the light, in the night, it was all from the fire, and from oil lamps, the way it should be.

And I seemed to have become a part of a family. They were not of my blood, but now, somehow, we were one.

There were two children, a girl and a boy.

And this marvelous woman, in white crinoline—because earlier, when awake, I had been researching the history of underpants, confirming that they came into general use only after this terrible fire in a French garment district, when young women, fleeing the flames, went out onto the balconies of the second and third and fourth and fifth floors, of the burning building, waiting for rescue, and all the church ladies, men and women, gathered out there on the street, Watching, they were mortified, that they could see up these women's dresses, right into their naked pubic regions; and so, after, even more than ensuring that such places would not again go a-fire, it was ensured that young worker ladies, they would wear underpants, so that, in future, all the church ladies, men and women, they would not have to see raw naked pubic regions, while such women were burning; but, before I got to that info, the search tube, for some reason, it sent me to crinolines, so I imprinted on that; and so, a white one, crinoline, showed up, on this dream women, later; and, you know, it was pretty sexy, which I'd never thought, felt, about crinolines, before. So. You learn something new. And, even, especially, in dreams. And. Every. Day.

And, also, in the dream-family, was this man, who in the dream was known as The Grandfather, and who was kind of like Atticus Finch in To Kill A Mockingbird, except older, and definitely in a universe where there was never any Go Set A Watchman, because, in truth, there has never been, anywhere, any Go Set A Watchman, which is just really bad shit, made up.

And the crinoline woman, and The Grandfather, at the terminus of the dream, they had just come up from the basement, where they had been developing and printing photographs, from times back when, of the old house, and environs, which were going to be framed and mounted and hung elsewhere in the house. And before The Grandfather could start gumming out his story of the photos, the crinoline woman, she pointed at two small contact sheets, and said, to me, but loud enough so that the children could hear, "and these were two I wanted to print, but I was vetoed." By The Grandfather. They looked to me like marvelous photos, really having the magic feel of the place. Why did not The Grandfather, want them printed? Because he was too Old, I decided. And, also, In The Way.

And so, as The Grandfather, he started in on the gumming, I was really heartened, when the crinoline woman, she leaned in to me and whispered, "as soon as he's asleep, we'll go ahead and print these." And then she said to me, "as long as we don't get right up in his face, and publicly scorn him, we have the complete run of this place." And, I knew, this to be true. And it felt, so warm, and so fine. Paradise. Really.

And then I had to go and wake up. And was immediately compulsed. To go about publicly scorning. The Grandfather. The Emperor. The people who want to be the president. Any random dingleberry. Them. Me. You.

And: so: is that wretched American presidential campaign still grinding, groaning, endlessly, on? Why? Isn't it December yet? Why not? For jeebus fucking sake!

How long, oh lord, shall you subject the people, to such torment? Are you—Big Meanie—yet again, without any mercy, at all? How grave, must you consider their sins, to merit, such unholy, and prolonged, Punishment.

Okay. Dutifully.

Dreamless.

A little news. Mostly in moving pictures. About. The presidenting.

The Hairball, he caught some flak, there a while back, for his first television ad. Because it was so openly, nakedly, fascist.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAFRItqqJdw]

First, the scarifying images of the brown people, in all their unhuman hordes: Syrians, Mexicans, who-knows-what, all unacceptable dusky Others, pouring in waves, across all the borders—look! they're even stealing the trains! like in The Wild Bunch!—coming like ants, like scorpions, like locusts, like all such vermin, filthy and foul, all slavering to savagely murder, and wantonly rapine, the herrenvolk, and cruelly take, all their monies.

Then—oh blessed Hairball!—come soothing images, of the Deliverers: heavily armed agents, of the State. Cops, border paterollers, camoed serial killers. With their desert-ratmobiles, to chase the brown people, from off all the white lands. With their helicopters, to blast the brown people to little bits, from out of the air. With their destroyers, to smite the brown people into nothingness, from off of the sea. So that all the herrenvolk. They may all be Safe. And Free. Again.

Stung by criticism that all this ad needed, to be truly 1930s complete, was maybe some shots of some grim Germanoid goosesteppers, or perhaps an Italian Il Duce narration, the Hairball brain-damage trust, it has now decided to "go softer." With the ad embedded below. Which will begin airing on Monday. And which features Lolita Hairball, The Hairball's daughter, and lover, tenderly performing a song she has written, for The Hairball, and titled, "For Daddy."

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xBAp42mEyA]

Meanwhile, The Mad Bomber, she shall counter, commencing Monday, with the ad below. Designed to appeal to three constituencies, in which—because, like pizza left out in the rain, no one really wants her—she is lagging: young people, people of color, dog-people. In desperate panic, that she shall need every one of these votes, to counter The Hairball's 59-point advantage among high-schooled white males: those sulky, belligerant, butt-hurt, perfectly useless human appendixes, old-roaders who still will not "get out of the new road/if you can't lend a hand."

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIXr9YHipYI]

This ad is going out over the violent objections of the Bomber herself. Who has something very different in mind. It seems that the Bomber's people, they have had to massively cut back on The Mad Bomber's opiates. In an attempt to wean her from the galloping delusion that if she just goes Maria von Trapp, she'll sing, and twirl, the election, right into the bag.

"She just can't smoke the O any more," a Hillbilly told me yesterday. "We're trying to get her back down to just the Vicodin. Look at what she wants to put out as an ad, with her aping Julie's every word, every move."

And then, the Hillbilly, s/he emailed me this:

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AePRD1Ud3Lw]

The horror. The horror.

Finally, early Friday morning, The Hairball, emboldened by snuffling up a mammoth mound of very strong Panzer powder, he bulled through a protective cordon formed by Bannon, Conway, Bossie, Lolita Hairball and Mr. Lolita Hairball, and his Abbott and Costello neocon generals Flynn and Borkin, and wrestled back control of his twit machine. With which, beginning at 3:00 a.m., he proceeded to bestain all the nation, with mad bursts of nonsense and lies, about his once and future victim Alicia Machado—one of the numberless humans he has felt compelled, and entitled, as he's stampeded through life, to use as a trampoline.

Powered by his unlimited supply of Panzer powder, he kept it up all day, did The Hairball, and into the night. Culminating in a prolonged spray of dysentery upon the New York Times, where he upchucked, among other nutternesses, and of The Mad Bomber, that "she's nasty, but I can be nastier than she ever can be." As if nastiness, somehow, had been proclaimed, the new gold standard, for how the Americans, they shall pick, their president.

Deeply concerned, some of the extraterrestrials who keep an eye on this place, they wormholed a couple Enterprises into this time, and dispatched both Mr. Spock and Deanna Troi, to lay hands on The Hairball, in the hope they could get some sort of read, on just what the fuck, is this person's, major malfunction. The report that Spock and Troi submitted, it is embedded below.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtRLB-gecwA]

I think, I have, in this space, probably, already Spocked and Troied, the major malfunction, of The Hairball, The Mad Bomber, of all the people, who feel the very sad and weirdsmobile need to Rule, over other people.

But, so what. It all, as we know, always, rolls into one. And, is, always. Trying. To find. The place, most perfect, most profound.

And so. Again.

don't bring me bad news
no bad news
i don't need none of your bad news today
you're a sad little boy
anyone can see
just a sad little boy
that's why you're carrying on that way

why don't you burn it all down
burn your own house down
burn your own house down
try to kill your own disease

and leave the rest of us
there's a lot of us
leave the rest of us
who wanna live in peace
to live in peace

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jac5tXhMUrE]

I think that, in that dream, yesterday afternoon, there weren't any presidents.

I think that the house, it was like, the Kenneth Patchen house.

Don't you understand? I have arisen not from the dead but from the living. I am not a voice crying in the wilderness. There is no winter here. No dark. No despair. The lights are going on in my house. I shall not allow the President of the United States to enter here. There is no darkness anywhere. There are only sick little men who have turned away from the light. I have all my lights on. And it is my own face I see in the blazing windows of all the houses on earth.

I am going, now, back, into that dream.

Come, if you will, if you would, with me.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmxqP0rwzm4]