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But not before several undisputed stone-cold classics. This is why we keep writing about Cain: for all its self-indulgent flaws it just gets it so right sometimes. Every standard element is here: the gang is still drinking far too many cocktails in one sitting, Cain is a hypocrite, Adah exists only to be interpreted by the men, Father K is so borderline incoherent you almost wonder if he’s a malfunctioning robot. So what’s changed? I think it’s the widening of the lens, the micro to the macro. By this point they’ve all pretty much given up on their evening away from the overthrew and ing it in ruins puppet-board of means we can at what is hap- city, and it’s not demilitarized, to confirm the word as bond. grinding their with the recog- cial authorities is classes, walking university they took over, leav- with a useless directors. This look, once again, pening to their good. Officially this only stands emptiness of Everyone is teeth. Reasoning nized or unoffi- like attempting Cain, though broadsheet in dialogue, harbors tabloid thoughts. A doughnut of prurience. I had Adah misconstrued (5th/6th Manhattan). T/K: Her worth, her “no tent” theme. The red toothbrush threshing deconsecrated earth, boycotted labyrinths. Hot thin chef, overworked an- tihero of the bathysphere, I need you to be yourself today. Thoth went, font-born, on farmland. The mortar swiveled on the hill. Demilitarized, huh? Oh how vehe- ment, Heavenward. to plough a field with a toothbrush. The overworked chef had finally produced something delicious and, this week at least, it was a labyrinth we didn’t want to boycott. T/K is journalistic shorthand for “to come,” indicating a forthcoming addition to the text. (TK is a rare formation of letters and therefore would not be confused with continuous language as “to come” might). Thoth , one of the gods of the Egyptian pantheon, has either an ibis or a baboon head. Arbitrator of disputes between other gods and the system of writing.

Injured, sleep-deprived, sorely tested, Adah, Cain, and Father K are falsely imprisoned in a shallow cave with other unfortunates seeking refuge from their war-torn homeland. It is hard to blame the writers’ room if “Unlike All Other Empires” felt as cynical and world-weary as its protagonists. Cain, in need of medical attention he will never receive for his infected gunshot wound, entertains the children with parables of the less than K and Adah fragments of cheese and dried a side pocket rucksack in rendition of the five thousand. lost and the only view comes from talkative guard, sunstroke, who plight as the of humanity. human. Father portion out tiny dehydrated goat bread found in of K’s deflated some worn out feeding of the All hope seems external point of an unusually half mad with regards their normal situation And yet there Holed up in a bothy, Adah and Fr. K share dried curd and stone bread with the yet breathing. Hew, chew, survive. Cain: foulmouthed & hedgehoggy; not mint. The children have an illustrated book called Dehumainze! He reads to them. Afternoon: hot. Hot. Hot. Hot. Hot. Hot. Hot. Hot. Hot.Ohhh. Life hobbled, un- ornamented, unnoteworty runoff. As Westerners-by-birthright it's hard to ha- bituate to horror, huh? We try to leave some permanent scrathes in the dirt. is a will to live, an ember which has not quite been scotched. Those lines in the dust could be as nihilistic as any ephemeral gesture, or they could be the most hopeful, the most human impulse we possess. “Posterity is bullshit. This is where we always planned to end it,” says Halberg, well aware that there were still a full nine episodes to go in the projected 31-episode run, and that many shows could complete an entire plot cycle without much more screen time than that which he’d set aside for the denouement. “It was discussed at the outset, so don’t listen to Lin or James or any of the other whiners I should have let go at the halfway point.” A toast to the not rescued. The Edward Said quotation in full: “Every empire, however, tells itself and the world that it is unlike all other empires, that its mission is not to plunder and control but to educate and liberate.”

A much-needed swan song from Cain, blasting Father K’s bien-pensant ideology and everyone else in his path. A neoliberal trying to ingratiate himself with the construction worker and trustafarian alike, his argu- ments lighter performed as a he’s right, you Ingram. “You them, but it’s particularly good they? There’s take the side well-presented Otto Thud (who Dr. in spite of nomenology) is unsought cameo fornicator (a on an anecdote I one to tell me). than air and spectacle. “And know?” says feel sorry for not like they’re or anything, are a tendency to of the most suffering.” Poor never went by his PhD in phe- given another as the moonlight monicker based cannot get any- Furthermore, B– “Fr. K, you hater! The standard liberal monotony: thinking all that is persecuted must be the truth. Hah! But no. Some things are only persecuted. Oh Fido, thitherward, round the houses — hold the hard hat, hold the standby ban- danna — you launch the featherweight countercharge, the mere badminton, the waterfront hotbed. Neon Ivy Federation! The moonlight fornicator: he had more worth. (Hi, Dr. Otto, where’s the hooch?) This is how behavior devolved. “neon ivy federation” was generally taken to be a sideswipe at his beloved alma mater, [redacted], which Halberg considered one of the lesser liberal arts schools in the Ivy League. The last straw, by all accounts.

An extremely hubristic, unflattering, and accurate self-portrait, this episode saw Halberg in direct conversa- tion with Cain, questioning his own methods. The passing allusion to Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin appears to reference Chapter 4, stanza XXXV: “But I myself read my bedizened /fancies, my rhythmic search for truth, /to nobody except a wizened /nanny, companion of my youth; /or, after some dull dinner’s labour, / I buttonhole a wandering neighbour /and in a corner make him choke /on tragedy; but it’s no joke, /when, utterly worn out hausted and I take /a beside my get up; with ing/alarmed by lay,/they leave fly away.” There able system of the show, which not discuss, appears to be the is a geometric to Euclidean by rhyming,/ex- done up, rambling walk lake,/and duck instant tim- my melodious their shores and is an unfathom- numbers within Halberg will but episode 25 key. An orthant term referring n-dimensional I could close the deal with my brattish coauthor, harry reputation’s toreador, or detonate the whole trenchant, un- fathomable bandwidth. Thumb-horned orthant. (The bits where Pushkin’s like:UGHHHH! RHYMES! and goes for a beer.) Can’t unread the footnote: Is this worthwhile? Am I? Oh shanghaied heart- throb, thirteenth dandy havoc-hound. Gentrify the favela runt or defend the loon; sod the chrome T-totum. Ever the bodybuilder, even in ghosthood. space, the analogue of a quadrant (2D) or an octant (3D). Thumb-horned has the feel of an order of mockery /cuckoldry but may also be a reference to Cain’s mark, according to some scholars, being the gradual protrusion of horns. A T-totum (or teetotum) is a little metal Roman spinning top used for gambling. William Ernest Henley’s “The Double Ballade on the Nothingness of Things” opens with the lines: “The big teetotum twirls, /And epochs wax and wane /As chance subsides or swirls ... ” Triskaidekaphobia can be traced back to the Zoroastrianism of ancient Persia where the 13th day of each new year is considered evil, or a day when the power of evil is particularly intense and can cause trouble, thus to this day people leave cities and camp overnight in the countryside. God has thirteen attributes of mercy according to rabbinic commentary on the Torah, and thirteen is also the number of nodes which make up Metatron’s Cube in Kabbalistic account. Metatron is an extraordinarily important angel in the apocryphal Book of the Palaces; it is suggested that Metatron is the only reason the human race was given knowledge of God and the cube forms a kind of “map of creation.” This appears to relate back to the “rhombohedral monolith” of the early episodes, the college’s strange obelisks. It is worth mentioning that Euclidean spaces generalize to higher dimensions. I feel really weird.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++ +++++++++++++ +++++++++++++ +++++++++++++ +++++++++++++ +++++++++++++ +++++++++++++ +++++++++++++ +++++++++++++ +++++++++++++ +++++++++++++ +++++++++++++ +++++++++++++ +++++++++++++ +++++++++++++ +++++++++++++ +++++++++++++ +++++++++++++ +++++++++++++ +++++++++++++ +++++++++++++ +++++++++++++ +++++++++++++ +++++++++++++ +++++++++++++ +++++++++++++ +++++++++++++ +++++++++++++ Oh, that Thou teach even me. I who abhor truth, the stubborn bloodhound. Worth three hairbrushes, if that. No: hydrogenated fats. No: enhanced form- aldehyde. What shorthand thunderbolt could halt my hibernation & dog thirsts? The unabridged refrigerator, the unnoted cheese board. Heh. Shortlist me with the redundant heathen, half my covenant with toothache. Foot the noun. Whatever it takes. Lord, have mercy. Gospodi po- miliu. Kyrie eleison. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

The coastline edges to the edge of our chart. We move on a central, generous blue. Wind high, ocean plain smack tonnage our bow plows through, the boiling salt excitement of our wake, gone in minutes, then birds on our bobbing crates a thousand miles from land. To pass the time I try to teach our bosun mate "Sailing to Byzantium." Good-natured, he laughs and laughs. It is by no   means enough that an officer    o f   the Navy should be a capable mariner.   H e   must  be that,  of  course, but  also  a  grea t deal more.  He  should   be  the  soul  of  tac t,   patience,   justice,   firmness  and   charity .  No  meritorious  act  of  a  subordinate  sho uld  escape  without  its  reward,  even  if  the reward  is  only  a  word  of  approval. Conver sely, he  should  not  be  blind   to  a  single  f ault in  any  subordinate  though,  at  the sam e time,  he  should  be  quick  and unfailing  t o  distinguish  error   from  malice, thoughtle ssness from  incompetency, and well meant s hortcoming from heedless  or stupid blunder.

I stare down into waterburn. This urge to enter what we see. Unrefracted tropical sun with its whole arm works deeply the ocean interior. Water and light in union make a third thing—color as fluid deepened endlessly. Into the quarry of aquamarine, high-walled with light, the mind high dives. My fingers cleave watersilk. I breathe heavy light. The big cavitation of the props gone by, my struggling stops, my slowed descent, in diminishing light, gains the country where the shark is eagle, fish the fishermen, and men no more than stones along the road.

For Don (1958–2011) My skiff is made of spicewood       my oars are Cassia bract Music flows      from bow to starboard Early Mozart     cool side of  Coltrane   and miles and miles     of   Miles Cheap Californian Merlot       and my young boyfriend • If   I could master      the nine doors of my body And close my heart       to the cries of   suffering Perhaps     I could love you like no other Float my mind      toward the other side of   hate • The shanty towns of   Tijuana       sing for you The slums of   Little Sudan       hold evening prayer One dead brown boy is a tragedy Ten thousand is a statistic So let’s fuck    my love       until the dogs pass • All beautiful boyfriends are transitory They have no souls     they’re shiny brown flesh Tomorrow they’ll turn into      purple festering corpses Fissured     gored    by a myriad flies • Down the Irrawaddy River       you lay yourself   to sleep No sun no moon          no coming no going No causality   no personality No hunger     no thirst • Malarial deltas      typhoidal cays Tsunamis don’t judge     Calamity grieves no one The poor will be submerged     the rich won’t be saved Purge the innocent     sink the depraved • What do I smell        but the perfume of   transience Crushed calyxes         rotting phloems Let’s write     pretty poems        pretty poems      pretty poems Masque stale pogroms    with a sweet whiff of oblivion

From behind, standing, from a distance, in passing, the taxi meter running, I'd watch her, I'd watch her hair, and what would I see? My stubborn theatre, curtain won't fall, my always-open theatre . . . Best to leave as soon as the show begins.

My mother sends me a black-and-white photograph of   her and my father, circa 1968, posing with two Indian men. “Who are those Indian guys?” I ask her on the phone. “I don’t know,” she says. The next obvious question: “Then why did you send me this photo?” But I don’t ask it. One of those strange Indian men is pointing up toward the sky. Above them, a bird shaped like a question mark.