BEGINNINGS, OR, A BEGINNING, OR, HOW THIS BOOK BEGINS

       “Twas bryllyg, and ye slythy toves

       Did gyre and gymble in ye wabe…

       but this time, ye slythy toves weren’t fuckin’ around.”

—from the trailer for Jabberwocky 3D, the Movie (2015)

How does one begin a book? A letter, a word, soon a sentence, then another, and suddenly, a paragraph is begotten—a two-sentence paragraph.

Dickens, Melville, Odenkirk, all have faced the same question, and only one has failed. Melville. “Call me Ishmael.” Talk about giving up.

I was born in Berwyn, Illinois. At the time, the doctors declared, with deadpan gravitas, “Boy, six pounds, eight ounces.” I was circumcised and remain so, unable or unwilling to grow a fresh foreskin in the years since. Unable, actually, as I have tried—I’ve used creams and pills and all manner of massage, but it’s no use. Fresh foreskin forsakes me, it foils me, it fails to flower on the face of my glans. And that’s the final bit of poetry in this book.* You’re welcome.

But enough about me. That’s the problem with biographies, auto- or otherwise. They’re all me, me, ME… How about other people? When I pick up a biography of President Harry S. (Sissilopolus*) Truman, I want to read about Winston Churchill! Immediately! All this “Truman did this, Truman did that”! Enough! I want variety! Give me choices, change the tune, throw some Harriet Tubman into my Trump: The Biography. It’s not my fault—I have ADD; I got it from a toilet seat, the best place to write or read a book, despite what the finishing-school scolds tell us.

Anyway, I have, somehow, begun, and escaped Melville’s curse…please read on.

* except for the poems

* I think.