I just got the new issue of Abraham Lincoln from K. Silem Mohammad (thanks, Kasey!). Only weird thing was, the envelope had been opened. And stapled back together - through the pages of the magazine. On the outside of the envelope was the stamp "RECEIVED/2600//MAR 10 2008// INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE/KANSAS CITY, MO." So my mail was opened and delayed. I opened it, and there was another staple just through the mag. Oh (I thought) maybe there's a nice little note inside, like when they search your luggage. No note. The return address, on an address label with the Southern Oregon University logo, reads: "Mohammad/Lang. Lit. & Phil."
Now, I know I have a reputation for being paranoid about American paranoia, and I know I say things like No one ever went broke overestimating the racism and xenophobia of the American peckerwoods, and I recognize the threat posed to the fatherland by the individuals known as "Lang," "Lit," and "Phil." So I promise I'm not going to read too much into this. I promise. I really do. Honest. No, for real.
But it did inspire me to pen the following petrarchan sonnet (ahem):
They’re not watching me
They’re not watching me
They’re not watching me
They’re not watching me
They’re not watching me
They’re not watching me
They’re not watching me
They’re not watching me
Nothing in that file
Nothing in that file
Nothing in that file
Nothing in that file
Nothing in that file
Nothing in that file
Revised mortician vignette
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"Where's your aria this morning?" I asked the singing mortician as he
leaned out of his red car in his dull scrubs to put on his new and very
white tenni...
5 days ago
8 comments:
Jesus! I sent a package to Anne a couple weeks ago and that was opened too!
This is incredibly disturbing.
No such interference here in Chicago. But our p.o. is famously dysfunctional, to the point, apparently, that they appear incapable of contributing to our rightly earned paranoia. Had they peeked inside, though, I wonder if it'd ever have reached me. This is the land of Lincoln after all.
Fortunately, my package arrived absolutely unsullied and virginal. Thank you, Kasey!
Jesus, this is unbelievable.
Oh, wait a minute. It isn't unbelievable at all.
Damn.
Mine came just fine, but here in Portland, we are maybe more relaxed about such things.
Is this worth pitching to a reporter as a story? Is there an alt weekly that would be interested about this?
(Wow, the verification code is knjsxxxy, which doesn't quite describe how I feel today.)
We live in a country where the name "Mohammad" is now synonymous with "terror." The dots all get connected in oblique way and we all become suspect. It's a sad reality. How much do you like they pay the people that open the envelopes? Probably more than my starting salary as a university professor. geesh.
Dennis
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