CULTURAL AFFAIRS WEEK NO. 4: “ÉTUDES, BRUTE?”

Julius Caesar suspects Brutus of practicing compositions on the piano. “I heard music,” the strongman alleges. “Études, Brute?” If only our back-stabbiz had been musicians, instead. They’d of (sic) kept their steely, steely connives in their two-nix and we’d of (sic) slugged-down an Orange Julius Caesar Salad. In short, weed’a lived and it wouldn’a been uh backstabbiz atoll. Later, Caesar and Brutus haggle over which catalogue-retailer to patronize. “J. Crew, Brute?” says Caesar. They have some thought-balloons in this arena, some Ideas of Merch. To this point, the pooch hasn’t initiated a coup, a coo hasn’t emanated from the putsch. And as for empire, Romulus hasn’t reamed us out, Remus hasn’t loaded a CD-Romulus into the disc drive. Anything could happen, even détente, even breaking bread, peace-meal. It’s both terrifying and wonderful all at once, kind of like Brutus, bored out of his bust, making his late-night Bru-tay call to a gal, a Gaul pursued by the scent-o’tour, himself. Rife goes on. A gambling conference kindles-up at a hotel across the street, where someone delivers The Keno Address. When indentured servants reinsert their false teeth, they become dentured servants, no? Ever notice how antlers resemble driftwood? It’s like mature bucks are washing up on shore, waves and waves of sea-sawbucks, them and their weather-worn driftwood antlers, ten bucks a dozen in Ten-buck-two. If you have a job, or if you seek a job, then you’re under occupation. Behold the afternoon sun. It could be—a little bit—hotter before the instrument begins to fail, and it will begin to fail, the mechanism failing the person: this is our bleak future, dear citizen, all mechanisms will begin to fail. At the request of Brutus, Julius Caesar agrees to engage in the nautical guessing game, Battleship. As dick-tater, Caesar goes first, of course. “A-2, Brute?” he guesses. He guesses correctly, even though he doesn’t kitchen-sink no gravy bloat. The bodies of the other senators reflect on every bright surface, their motions unlike stabbing but in emphasis of their numbers, their jagged rationale. They attack Julius Caesar for being a crass-dressing tyranny even as they, themselves, will become tyranny, with or without the salad dressage, and they, themselves, will be slain by the residents of tyranny 2-B. Recital is a good deity, too shrewd for the mothball operas that resolve themselves (phone booth, no mouthpiece) in the public confessionals of prepaid gravity, amid the sunlit metals of confrontation.

Cultural Affairs Week 2017 Editorial Schedule

Aļona Ostapenko

List of Active Conspiracy Theories

Novelty Government U.S.A.

Études, Brute?

To Be Announced