The Invisible Library

Political Fever Dream

“Mother of twelve bastards, imagine it, the president and the poet laureate all in one man. Washington wouldn’t know whether to shit or go blind. This is a country incapable of acknowledging a leader with the ability to blow up the world and beautifully describe it. We demand specialization and strong drink.”

~An impressive simulation of Hunter S. Thompson, as done by an anonymous e-mailer known only as “Steve,” posted on Neil Gaiman’s Blog, commenting on the ontological scuffle over who really wrote some bit of doggerel attributed to President G.W. Bush.

But seriously. It raises an apocalyptic point: Were G. W. to be the much touted Poet Dictator of Plato’s feverish Republic, we really would be in it then. When he had liberated the city of Fiume from Yugoslavia, Gabriele D’Annunzio, The Anarchist poet turned necromancer and fascist would rise every morning, after celebrating the sun�s setting the night before with debauchery and fireworks, to recite verse from his balcony. Given what we know of G.W.s proclivities, all you�d need to do in order to dress the image appropriately is scatter the flaming carcasses of napalmed Mohammedans about the Rose Garden, dangle the heads of Democrats from barbed poles greased with the entrails of liberals, add in the occasional random flyover of Stealth bombers dropping hand grenades disguised as Bibles into the arms of children, while G.W. looks on the whole scene with glasy eyes and that infinite smirk Then the earth would shake and the sky would belch brimstone as the great and terrible He read from his book of favorite poems (bound in the skin of the last baby snow owl):

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all convictions, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

~W.B. Yeats, the Second Coming

Surely it would be The End.

“Le Roi est Mort”

On this day in 1880, Norton I, Emperor of the United States died.

Born in London, England on February 14, 1819 to John and Sarah Norton, Joshua Norton was a failed businessman living in San Francisco when, on September 17, 1859, he proclaimed himself Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico.

During his reign, Emperor Norton broke the Federal monopoly on currency by printing and distributing his own money, usually in 50cent denominations. These were accepted all over San Francisco by bar keeps and tavern owners. His various proclamations were published in the San Francisco Herald, though it is now suspected that some of the proclamations were written by the newspaper’s editors for satirical purposes. One proclamation, though, is known to be authentic:

PROCLAMATION.

Norton I., Die Gratia, Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico, being desirous of allaying the dissensions of party strife now existing within our realm, do hereby dissolve and abolish the Democratic and Republican parties, and also do hereby decree disfranchisement and imprisonment, for not more than ten nor less than five years, to all persons leading to any violation of this imperial decree.

Norton I.

Given at San Francisco Cal., this 12th day of August, A.D. 1869

Known for his progressive attitude towards the city’s large Chinese population, The Emperor once halted and dispersed a lynch mob by standing in the street, head bowed and praying.

His majesty was also a forward thinking civil planner, suggesting on September 21, 1872 that a survey be made to determine if a bridge or tunnel would be the best possible means to connect Oakland and San Francisco. This led to the construction of the Golden Gate Bridge.

On January 8, 1880, Norton I fell dead on the corner of California St. and Grant Ave. He was on his way to a lecture at the Academy of Natural Sciences. Emperor Norton I was buried at Masonic Cemetery. The procession was two miles long and more than 10,000 people turned out for the funeral.

�Everybody understands Mickey Mouse. Few understand Hermann Hesse. Hardly anybody understands Einstein. And nobody understands Emperor Norton.”

~Malaclypse the Younger, K.S.C.