malaise*lithium

You are about to begin reading the latest installment of Daniel Eckhart’s blog, Malaise in the time of Cholera. Relax. Concentrate. Dispel every other thought. Let the world around you fade. Best to close the door; there are always a couple dozen wild boars in the next room. Tell them right away, “No, I don’t want to overturn the dining table and urinate on the floor!” Raise your voice–they won’t hear you otherwise–”I’m reading! I don’t want to be disturbed!” Maybe they haven’t heard you, with all that racket; speak louder, yell “I’m beginning to read Daniel Eckhart’s new blog entry!” Or if you prefer, don’t say anything; just hope they’ll leave you alone.

Find a comfortable position: seated, stretched out, curled up or lying flat. In an easy chair, in the bucket of a steamshovel. You can even stand on your hands, head down, in a yoga position. With the computer upside down, naturally. Or you can stretch the cords into the bathroom to read while you do your business, or while you bathe, or while you clip your nails.

Of course, the ideal position for reading is something you can never find. In that way it’s like a method for changing lead into gold, or weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, or tapes of the much-rumored Jim Nabors-Fidel Castro telephone conversations. In the old days people used to read words that were printed out on paper in something called a “book.” They read these aloud standing at a lectern before roomfulls of stuffy men in powdered wigs who repressed their sexuality and needlessly eschewed the microprocessor.

Well, what are you waiting for? Stretch your legs if you need. Put your feet on a cushion. Adjust the lights. Try to foresee everything that might interrupt your reading. Do you need something to drink? Are your cigarettes within reach if you smoke tobacco; your pipe if you smoke crack? Do you have to pee? All right, you know best…

It’s not that you expect anything from this particular blog. You’re the sort of person who no longer expects anything of anything. There are plenty, younger than you or less young, you live in the expectation of extraordinary experiences: from blogs, from people, from journeys, from events, from what tomorrow has in store. But not you. You know that the best you can expect is to avoid the worst. And there is little to be excited about. This Daniel Eckhart mostly just rips off other much better authors such as, say, Calvino; passes their work off as his own. Perhaps you shuold not bother after all. Isn’t there something better you could be doing with your time?