False Spring (Late Mid-February)
The clouds have broken. Vernal freshness circulates among the market pavilions. “Are there still passions, murders, and acts of violence,” Jean Baudrillard asks, “in this strange, padded, wooded, pacified, convivial republic?” He takes off his glasses, inspects them for dirt, returns them to his face.
Vast cues have formed at the food stalls. A DJ plays family-friendly versions of street-rap classics. The volume is overwhelming. It pushes conversation toward the gestural. A crew of moppets, a dozen or so, clothed in bright spandex, eclectically gendered, begin dancing in unison. Noncommittal applause greets them at the interlude.
Jean Baudrillard trudges off, towards the waterfront municipal park. The sportive impulse prevails. Joggers and bicyclists weave in and out of his path. They call out their location—to his left, to his right—warn him of their proximity, bright voices coloring with irritation. This clear mild weather, this conviviality, is fortunately temporary. The rainy season will resume within the hour. Seasonal averages will be maintained. A cloudbank, renewed, nears the shore.
For narrative purposes, several objects have so far been occluded. Jean Baudrillard takes out his bow; he nocks a petrifying arrow. The word “theory” has been written across its shaft. The potential (rhetoric) has become actual (kinetic). The cloudbank nears the shore. Jean Baudrillard draws the bow. He squints at the target above. His eyeglasses are clean, free of dirt and grease. The arrow climbs the sky. He has answered his own question.
This entry in the Almanac borrows a scenario from “How to Destroy a City” by Julio Cortazar, included in the recent collection What the Mugwig has to Say, translated by Chris Clark and published by Sublunary Editions.
