The Televisionary Oracle Read Online Free Page A

She falls for it. She agrees to let him interview her and follow her around and plagiarize her life. To his own amazement, the rockstar gradually realizes she is the most fascinating and powerful woman—no, the most fascinating and powerful
person—
that he’s ever met. He becomes so infatuated with the epic sweep of her fate that he sets to work composing a great song cycle about her after all.”
    “Doesn’t exactly fit into the World Entertainment War esthetic though, does it?” Rapunzel replies in a compassionately skeptical tone. “I love what you and your band do, but you’re not especially renowned for your poignant storytelling, are you? I admit that you’ve got the formula down for funky rock anthems and comic shticks. You do the pagan chant thingee pretty well, and the anarchist politics. I truly enjoy your whatchamacallit, your bombastic ritual therapy. But I’ve got to say that all that hypermasculine flash leaves me a little hungry in the emotion department. Aside from the shock and laughter and rebellious dissidence, you don’t seem to know squat about how to arouse the whole rest of the spectrum. You know what I mean? I’m talking about
creature
states. Sadness, restlessness, astonishment, the longing to belong, gratitude, mourning—you know,
real life
. You’re always so goddamned mental. So relentlessly masculine.”
    “I can explain—”
    “Now on the other hand, I
have
seen signs of a budding tenderness in those stories you write for the local paper. Most of the time they’ve been as relentlessly arch and clever as your rockstar shtick. But lately there’s been just a hint of a softening. It’s like you’re tiptoeing up to getting ready to invoke your readers’ soft deep achy feelings. Now and then you condescend to telling an intimate tale about the way the love and pain get all mixed together out here among us common folk.
    “You keep going in that direction, and
then
I might let you write a song cycle about me. But not now. Not yet.”
    I feel deflated. Her critique is truly insightful—a pithy articulation of thoughts that have only recently appeared on the frontiers of my self-awareness. But I can’t believe she’s suddenly abandoned the bubbly spirit of our theatrical improvisation and regressed into serious conversation. She’s broken the rules of our fun game.
    Before I can summon a rejoinder, she slips into one of the stalls and closes the door. She starts singing one of my songs, “Apathy and Ignorance.”
    In the land where nothing’s sacred
    Where the doctors make people sick
    If you stand on your head
    you might see things more clearly
    But then again you might become
    addicted to conflict
    I … I have a problem
    I know that lawyers cause all the crime
    And the banks make the drugs flow
    The priests make the porno
    And you might be responsible
    for poisoning the sunshine
    What is the difference between apathy and ignorance
    I don’t know and I don’t care
    What is the difference between apathy and ignorance
    I don’t know and I don’t care
    As she croons, she’s rustling around inside the stall. I see she’s taken off her windbreaker and draped it over the top of the stall. Finally she finishes the song and yells out, “Take off your shirt and throw it over to me.”
    I obey. A moment later a shirt flies out. I guess she was wearing it under the windbreaker. “Let’s trade,” she says.
    I don my new costume, a short-sleeved baseball jersey. It’s dark plum with black pinstripes. The number thirteen is on the back. A big, buttoned pocket graces each side. On the front of the right pocket are the words “Menstrual Temple of the Funky Grail,” along with a picture of a rather queenly gold and red vulture, who has a woman’s face and crown on a body which is thoroughly buzzardly except for two exuberant breasts. This is a more majestic version of the creature in Rapunzel’s comic strip.
    I soak in the new scent that now clings to me.
Silken