Having my way with Ulysses

The proportion increasing and the disparity diminishing.

Under the step, toward the right, I saw a small iridescent sphere of almost unbearable brightness. At first I thought it was spinning; then I realized that the movement was an illusion produced by the dizzying spectacles inside it. The Aleph was probably two or three centimeters in diameter, but universal space was contained inside it, with no diminution in size.Holy Mother Public Relations, Inc.

10th Heaven
Empyrean

Meeting Minutes

Date: November 18
Time: 2:11 am
Location: 10th Heaven conference room C, Empyrean building
Purpose: Commission of a sculpture of the Immaculate Conception

Attendees:

The Virgin Mary, Holy Virgin of Virgins, Mother Most Pure, Mother Most Chaste, Mother Inviolate, Mother Undefiled, Virgin Most Prudent, Virgin Most Venerable, Virgin Most Renowned, Virgin Most Powerful, Virgin Most Merciful, Virgin Most Faithful, Queen of Virgins, Queen Who has Never Known the Touch of Man. Never. Also, Martha, Jesus, and Gabriel.

Agenda:

1. Discuss the commission of a hyperrealistic sculpture of the Immaculate Conception to be created by Martha, a woman of no independent means, currently residing in the third floor copy room of the Empyrean building, Holy Mother Public Relations.

2. Get Martha off our hands. No offense Martha.

Discussion:

1. With this sculpture Mary wants to express in the most more-than-realistic way possible, the experience she felt deep within her body, a pounding fullness of infinite size deep within her most finite space burning hot and dripping wet. Mary very gratefully, with grateful appreciation, with sincere appreciative gratitude, in appreciatively grateful sincerity, expressed her gratitude to Gabriel for delivering God’s message with such gratifying skill and finesse. Gabriel expressed to Mary that the pleasure was all his and indeed, worth repeating. Martha suggested Mary and Gabriel get a room.

2. Jesus proposed adjourning the meeting. And also, if God is an intelligible sphere whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere, the moment Mom had knowledge of Dad might be expressed as an inscribed polygon within the sphere that grows more like a circle the more angles it has. Yet even though the multiplication of its angles be infinite, nothing will make the polygon equal the sphere unless the polygon is resolved into identity with the sphere. Martha asked so now she’s expected to enclose infinity within a finite space. It was really more of a statement than a question. Mary said yes, square the circle.

3. Jesus stated that the whole problem in planning an end of the world (particularly the end of history) sculpture, is that you have to speak of what lies beyond the end and also, at the same time, of the impossibility of ending.

Action Items:

1. Gabriel suggested he could provide Martha with an Immaculate Conception demonstration. Martha declined. Mary said Martha really should reconsider.

2. Mary stated the sculpture should be ready for the perceived if not actual cessation of the existence of temporality currently scheduled for this coming December 21st, though the date might be fudged a little.

3. Joseph will check Mary’s schedule and compile a list of possible alternate dates for the annihilation of the world and consequent extermination of the human species, inevitable but impredictable.

4. Joseph to check with Cassandra’s assistant: see when we can schedule a prediction on that.

4. Because Jesus is so damn linear, he will provide us with an end of the world, despite mathematical appearances that there will be no end because we are already in an excess of ends: the transfinite. And in an exceeding of finalities: transfinality.

5. Mary wants the sculpture to be both fascinating and spiritually enthralling, and as we have no vision of final conditions, it must portray an image of negative destiny in a kind of a retrospective arrangement. Also, Mary wishes to see herself as others see her.

6. Martha requires the following materials: two brushes (one green one maroon) and one thousand one hundred thirty two sheets of tissue paper.

Minutes typed by: Joseph
Approved by: Mary, Virgin and CEO

And a prettier, a daintier head of winsome curls was never seen on a whore’s shoulders.

My matchless lamb that may atone for all, said she, glorified my destiny, chose me for his equal, although unequal our coupling once seemed. When I went from your wet world he called me to his graciousness. Come hither to me, my lover sweet, for neither mote nor spot is in you. He gave me power and also beauty. In his blood he washed my pledge and place and crowned me clean in virginity and adorned me in flawless pearls.12:32 am

Scene: [Some time after midnight in the offices of Holy Mother Public Relations Martha and Mary are having a stitch and bitch.]

Martha: So you weren’t always a virgin. What was your life like before?

Mary: Before? God. Things were different, I mean I started working at fourteen, you know? I started young. Here’s a picture. [A photograph of a teenaged Mary appears in Martha’s hand; she almost drops her wine.]

Martha: You were cute, look at your hair!

Mary: I had two right feet.

Martha: So tell me about the first one.

Mary: [laughing] Jesum chrysanthamums, that was so long ago! And I was so stupid; I mean I knew absolutely nothing about men. Nothing. My first one was a Libyan eunuch and I was such a neophyte, I had no idea!

Martha: [choking on her wine a little] Mary! Jeez

Mary: Oye! Careful!

Martha: Jeez and crackers would be great with this wine.

Mary: Nice save. And yeah, I could eat something. [Mary widens her eyes just perceptibly and a deliquescing bleu cheese appears with sesame crackers] You like bleu?

Martha: Sweet. Yes. Thank you. So didn’t you realize that he had nothing going on downstairs?

Mary: I’m fourteen. What do I know at fourteen? He looked like a Ken doll, nothing alarming there. But I’ll tell you who was alarming, this guy I knew, what was his name? Pen something, Pendenis. Panther! Holy mama.

Martha: Ha!

Mary: Lord I knew I was going to be in trouble, and he had it all out there too. I mean, he was packed into these tight pants on a stage just about dick level with the crowd. I got whacked in the head with that thing! It must have taken some serious divine intervention to get him into those pants. Anyway, he’s the one who burst my tympanum. Hey, where’s your sister?

Martha: Speaking of getting dickslapped. I don’t know. I don’t care. She’s probably off with J being a cocktease.

Mary: Seriously?

Martha: She won’t do him until he puts a ring on it, so they’ve been doing everything but. I tried to tell her

Mary: I thought they were married? Or at least engaged, didn’t they just have the wedding?

Martha: They called it off. It’s on, it’s off. He’s been cheating on her with a ton of potential Mrs. Je

Mary: Watch it!

Martha: eepers. Sorry.

Mary: You want him popping in here?  Jeezum Crow!  So she’s still technically a virgin?

Martha: Yeah, but come on.

Mary: I know, right.

Martha: So.

Mary: Yeah. The thing about virginity. Who cares? You know? I mean really, look at who cares, it’s never the virgin. And whatever she’s telling herself, I highly doubt she can get off on a technicality.

Martha: Or much else.

Sixtyseven is a bitch.

MORERIS: The camels looked familiar? CIRCE: I will tell you. Of the men who lay hidden under her, purity means little. But it was all to their liking to appreciate the polluted. Let those who are wise remember the childlike, the kind nasty, infected, and dirty men prefer to receive, or to offer. And now they are preferring as a camel to go drink the whole at once, enjoying, excepting when the water is troubled by the trampling of their own feet. 11:38 pm

Oooh. Come here little fascinatrix. What? Don’t murmur, speak up. You’re quivering. Here, borrow my bat shawl. There now, what’s wrong? Did your mother take a strap to you at your bed post? Sweet little hussy like you, I’ll bet you loved her for doing that to you. Come in. Careful! Don’t trip now, it’s bad luck. Impolite too. There now, let’s see the secrets of your bottom drawers. Oh a little blood there.  I’ll bet you show that to all the men, show them all your worldly goods. There now wise child, I can sell you for a virgin, fresh thing like you. Never touched. I’ll start with $50; maybe $45. Oh honey, don’t be a stick in the mud. We’re all undervalued. Mustn’t have cold feet about that, no no, not the least little bit. We’ll go for quantity. Maidenhead for sale, enough for all takers. Remember be a child with them. Invite the next one who wants to slap your haunch to play a little leap frog. Here have a mango. There you go. That’s better. Let’s get some clothes on you. Turkish costume? Yes, you’ll look a dream. Your stomach looks different; I notice some change. Try not to show. Be for them a light rising and try to smell like something clean, makes more of a contrast for them, yeah? The dirty married men like that in a virgin.

It floats, it flows about her starborn flesh.

The sense of space, and in the end the sense of time, were both powerfully affected. Buildings, landscapes, &c., were exhibited in proportions so vast as the bodily eye is not fitted to receive. Space swelled, and was amplified to an extent of unutterable infinity. This, however, did not disturb me so much as the vast expansion of time; I sometimes seemed to have lived for 70 or 100 years in one night—nay, sometimes had feelings representative of a millennium passed in that time, or, however, of a duration far beyond the limits of any human experience.10:41 pm

Scene: [In the house of Mary and Martha, Mary prepares for her wedding while Martha, ever the bridesmaid, ruminates under yards and yards of what do you call it gossamer veils bunched into the ideal form of a bridesmaid dress. O Martha, thou lost one, you’ll totally be able to wear it again (if you like looking like a fat red triangle!)]

Mary: I’m so so happy! I feel my soul soaring, wafting over regions of cycles of generations that have lived! Have you seen Lilith? She didn’t show up for her fitting.

Martha: [Muttering with the thunder of rebellion] That screech owl? She’s probably fucking Azazel in the bathroom. Wish I was with them.

Mary: O Martha! Martha Martha Martha! The wonder of it! The love I have for Jesus grows to heaven’s own what do you call it magnitude! I feel like I’m floating, flowing, simply swirling! Hey, do you think he’ll like these gold sandals with my dress?

Martha: Yeah. If he likes you to look like Hermes.

Mary: Oh Martha, everything will be so beautiful.  All the stars are aligned perfectly for us too!  He’s a Capricorn and I’m a Virgin.

Martha: [Moaning] Yeah right.

Mary: And I’m a Virgin, young dear and radiant, so we make such astrological sense together. We will have parallax minds and hearts!  Do you have to drink so much?  Such horrible gulpings, you’ll be drunk before the ceremony.  And I want everything to be perfect.  Together we will spin out our love into the infinite of space and of time! And just think Martha, our wedding will be the alpha and nothing, absolutely nothing will go wrong!

Martha: [Ominous, revengeful]  Nothing will go wrong. That’s a good idea, Mary.  For once you’re thinking with that horse’s head you’ve got wafting above all that simply swirling.  Nothing.  Nothing is everything, if done properly. Have you seen my phone?

Beneath a reign of uncouth stars.

For one of those gnostics, the visible universe was an illusion or (more precisely) a sophism. Mirrors and fatherhood are abominable because they multiply and disseminate that universe. 11:46 am

[A slight whispering wind blows through the theatre and we hear the sound of an incoming tide.  The veil of the temple rises revealing a circle of people lying on their backs staring up at the sky.]

Cassiopeia: [gazing at herself in a hand mirror] The stars are beautiful at this time of day, don’t you agree?  Though not as beautiful as me of course.

Pan:  Of course, baby.  Now come over here and sit on my lap.  My energies are rising.

Cassiopeia:  None so beautiful as me.

Shadow: [rolling over, bending himself toward the rocks, turning his back to the sun] Darkly they are there behind this light.  Darkness shining in the brightness.

Proteus:  [in the shape of a long stick, curved at the end, no knots]  We are here to look at birds people, not stars.  Now pay attention before I change my mind, I’m getting tired.  Did you hear that rook?  That means it will soon rain.

Pan:  This is Seattle, everything means it will soon rain.  Look, a dog!  It will soon rain. Look, a wave!  It will soon rain.  Please.  So, Virgin, your hand is so gentle.  Love the longlashed eyes, baby, want to trust me a little?

Cassiopeia:  She, she, she.  What is she to compare to me?

That Virgin:  [pointing] That cloud looks like a book.  See it up there?  Oooh, now it looks like letters.  U. P.

Pan:  [visibly aroused]  A lady of letters!  I am lonely here, touch me.

Proteus:  [in the form of our souls]  Goodness!  Look at that manshape ineluctable! I’ll sit on your lap. Cling to you a little, a woman to her lover.

Pan: [in his flutiest voice] The more the more!

Shadow:  [flatly] Come back to us Proteus, I see shadows of birds on a white field.

Pan: [Flutier] Don’t listen Proteus, come, cling, then come.  Now where the blue hell are you?

Proteus:  [In the form of a mirror] That’s better.  Feel a bit shamewounded.  Now where were we.  Oh yes.  Those birds, Shadow, are magpies and there are one, two, seven of them.  A secret.  And my stars, look, an owl!  And it is nearly noon, no wonder I am so tired.  Let’s see, owl, a revelation at night.  Also a bitter mystery.  A mysterious secret will be revealed at night.  Also, it will soon rain.

Cassiopeia:  [rubbing lotions into her skin]  Proteus, you’ve never looked so flat, yet in you I see distance.  Near, far, east, me.  Oh there I am.  Me.  Oh Proteus, you are so beautiful.  Oh, I feel something!  What is that word known to all men?

That Virgin:  What is that word?  I want to feel it too.  Point over here Proteus, show me what Cassiopeia sees.

Proteus: [In the form of Berkeley]  You see nothing.  You think you see.  Everything is flat, and you only think you see distances.  Those stars unbeheld behind this light?  Their distance is only an element of your idea of them.

Pan: [masturbating gently]  I am lonely here. O, touch me soon, now.  I am quiet here alone.  Sad too.  Touch, touch me.

Shadow: [in the form of my form]  Not for all the word.

We have committed many errors

To course across more kindly waters now my talent's little vessel lifts her sails, leaving behind itself a sea so cruel; and what I sing will be that second kingdom, in which the human soul is cleansed of sin, becoming worthy of ascent to Heaven.

Holy Mother Public Relations, Inc.
10th Heaven
Empyrean

Meeting Minutes

Date:  February 6
Time:  10:53 am
Location:  10th Heaven conference room C, Empyrean building
Purpose:   Initial branding meeting with Eve, Helen of Troy, and continuation of Mary Magdalene campaign.

 

Attendees:

The Virgin Mary, Meeting Host 
Eve, New client
Helen of Troy, New client
Mary Magdalene, Client

 

Agenda:

1.  Brainstorm joint PR campaign for Eve and Helen
2.  Develop action plans for Eve and Helen of Troy
3.  Mary Magdalene continuation of action plan
4.  Develop possibilities for negative PR, maybe something new this time.

 

Discussion:

1.  Mary discussed success re: her own case.  Talking points were her unexplained pregnancy and potential social disaster.  PR push.  Damage control.  Result: everybody thinks she’s a virgin and the daughter of her own son.  She is now widely esteemed with stellar poll numbers particularly in Latin America and parts of Europe.

2.  Discussed efficacy of article placement in cross-platform media outlets except billboards; speaking engagements (appearances in dreams, visions, usual platforms), charity functions, direct marketing, and crisis management.  Possible planting of artifacts in archeological sites.  Problem, Eden: fictional.

3.  Eve.  Primary problem — blamed for fall of humanity.  Expulsion from garden.  Also, labor pains.  Discussed fault of serpent and Adam complicity.

4.  Helen of Troy.  Blamed for Trojan war / fall of Troy, labeled a runaway wife but was kidnapped.  Fault: Aphrodite.  Also, Menelaus not most ideal husband.  And Helen from Sparta not Troy.

5.  Mary Magdalene.  Reputation as notorious prostitute.  Victim of slander, possibly at the hands of Martha (sister).  In later stages of PR campaign.  Discussed her campaign as example for new clients Eve and Helen.  Success of Da Vinci Code campaign.

Action Items:

1.  Contact apple growers associations in top ten apple producing countries for possible promotional opportunities, or photo ops with focus on developing a more positive association between the apple and Eve (tree of knowledge) & Helen (apple of discord.)

2.   Brainstorm negative PR campaigns for Adam, Serpent, Menelaus, Aphrodite, and Martha (litigious).  Send intern to look through garbage of each.  Have paparazzi follow.

3.  Possible ad campaign promoting benefits of epidural anesthesia.  (Eve)

4.  Helen, face of international shipping?  Research availability of 1000 ships for possible televison commercial, print media, and viral you tube video.

5.  Mary Magdalene, The Da Vinci Code part 2?  Check availability of Dan Brown, Tom Hanks.

6.  Develop app for Da Vinci Code part 1.

 
Minutes typed by: Joseph
Approved by:  Mary, Virgin and CEO