A study of the operatic camera eye.
So Nevermind what they say in Heaven, after all. Detectives investigating the murder of a young Austrian boy found two very suspicious articles today in the boy’s footlocker at his grandmother’s house, both of which were immediately commandeered by the acting Lieutenant D. G. Leery O’Keefe as evidence should the murderer be found before dawn. The first object of Lieutenant O’Keefe’s prized new satchel of evidence is a penknife bearing dried streaks of the murdered boy’s blood, although acting scientist Reese Devlin of the Bentley Museum has admitted the blood to be a chemical compound that while certainly being of at least 90% blood in origin, is also inclusive of one part sugar and another part formaldehyde, which, needless to say, is making investigators fear the worst as for the boy’s missing organs. This, as it is hoped by the boy’s surviving relatives, should likely be the parading glory for the trial’s six-man defense team, composed mostly of experienced debate team associates (chums, really) from the dead lad’s school.
The second article in question, however, is much less oblique to the matter, but more just a sort of wistful souvenir Lieutenant O’Keefe has reportedly planned to swipe after this whole charade is over and done with and forgotten, which, he suspects, should be probably a year from now. This second piece of evidence is a snippet clipped from the morning paper in Munich, where the dead boy traveled for laser surgery after a failed attempt at reconstructing the inner housing of his torso.
“A caption is soon to follow,” says one suspect in the case, a failed engineer from Scandinavia, arrested for stabbing passengers on a train car in London last week and through connections to an unidentified incident involving dead sea creatures being smuggled across Canadian borders into the U.S. territory “Alaska,” subsequently charged with the murder of our dear boy. “I’ve no doubt in my mind that you will indefinitely get yours…” This, his final statement before refusing to cooperate with officials of the Swedish magistrate, is what leads into the news snippet from the Scandinavian engineer’s point of view.
“A CAPTION.” They say the stomach shrinks considerably over time if one neglects to adequately provide suitable sustenance for it. Here, young Joshua Faust (age 9), of Salzburg, Austria demonstrates a challenge to the aforementioned theorem of stomach condensation, proposed in 1912 by Werner Heisenberg, a celebrated Doctor of the Sciences in post-war Germany. By inserting food into the cups of his nasal passages, and likewise into the sober clefts of his young impressionable ears, Joshua Theobold Faust displays for our photographer his own subsequent theory, which threatens the counter of Science as we know it. The theory in question is one of a most clever devise, being that young Mr. Faust holds in case the assumption that merely being able to hear the wet greasy grizzle of hot fast food fries, and to smell the tantalizing odor of its demonically perfect edibility, that THIS itself will provide an accurate enough substitute for the actual, tangible and nutritional intake of food.
This extraordinary experiment has been taken under wing in the brilliant hopes that Joshua Faust will in a short time, by starving the physical attributes of his hunger, have successfully been able to shrink his stomach entirely; that under the scalpel of Austria’s finest and most revered surgeon, the aquatic Dr. Wainwright W. Terwilliger (age 46), originally from below countless murky fathoms in the depths of Milford Sound, New Zealand, the boy’s abdomen will be allowed to separate and within the hollow fissure where once a fat red stomach occupied the greater majority of available space, suitable room can then be made to install a wireless telephoning system. The antenna of this pre-proposed technologically macrobiotic communications apparatus will have a wire running from the medulla oblongata of Faust’s brain, and from there will coast (like a sailboat down the Mersey) into his temporal lobe, emitting a slight electric charge that will result in a swift, severe tingling of the boy’s nose, which will signal him at any time or place, no matter where in the world he may be, whether conscious or fast asleep, will SIGNAL him if he is to receive a call from Miss Jennifer Middleton (also age 9), whom Joshua Faust has had a crush on since the two met each other on a playground in Laax, Switzerland at the birthday party of their mutual friend Herbert Von Eschlenhopf (age 7 that day). Also contributing to the memorable occasion was the star-crossed fact that both Jennifer and Joshua simultaneously turned seven in that breezy Laax autumn of 1998, a moment of import Joshua scribbled with green crayon over the face of his desk at school.
At the time of this photograph, Joshua Faust was well into his third week of complete fasting, and much to the chagrin of the Scientific Department of Food Resources and Drastic Measures, at the University of Oldham Rise in Portland, Oregon, Mr. Faust has managed every minute of these past three weeks without so much as a single grumble from his stomach. Which, it has been documented quite exhaustively in the Boston Medical Journal, proves the young grade-schooler’s theory that food need not be ingested through the mouth for nutrition and stability to be derived. “Food,” Joshua was quoted as saying in the December issue of the Austrian Medical Revue, “is but a concept. It has been manifested and harvested throughout the dawnings of time, under the strict and unfailing supervision of our ‘pleasant’ world’s leading careless manipulators of illogical thought processes, by wont of sheer tradition. No less than that. For instance, let us consider the commonly misconceptualized needlessness of the saluting of any given National Flag. It is all but poppycock, and subject to one’s own personal will, taking in its wake nothing of spirit or body if not exercised in the slightest. Just as we can look up to the flagpoles of our universities and see the Flag of our nation flapping in the breeze like so much expendable kite-stuff, only just to assure ourselves that we are still, in fact, rested upon the proud soil of our Austrian forefathers, we can just as well inhale the aromatic components of fibers, proteins and grains (themselves being mere expendabilities in the face of personal will) to let us know that we can have strength to hop, skip, play leap-frog, mature without stunted physical growth, or even to think rationally. Now, if you’ll please step from out of my path, I have no further comments at this time.”
At the current pressing of this report, Joshua Faust is being held under strict study at the distinguished Haversham Clinic, located in Matterhorn, Switzerland (just miles upland of Laax; the fond memory of which keeps Faust in full spirit in rare times when his patience and poise is threatened by the spite of Mother Nature). At the Haversham Clinic, with the trials of stomach relinquishment since proved to be a dashing success (Dr. W.W. Terwilliger refuses to comment on the hushed procedures of this operation until which time it is complete, retreating from the eager microphones and cameras of impudent press-hounds by hiding under the gently lapping waves of the Limmat River at night), Faust is presently undergoing the delicate installation of a sub-organic telephone into the wet folds and by-ways of his inner person.
Last night young Mr. Faust posted a decidedly telling love note to his object of scientific affection, the lovely Miss Jennifer Middleton, which, if his mathematics are correct, should arrive cleverly tucked into her math book at school the very afternoon Faust is to arrive back in Austria after the surgery is complete. The note, quite remarkably, includes what will be Faust’s new organic telephone number . . . “IF,” that is, the operation proves successful. Says Faust of his mystifying poise in the face of Nature, Science and Supposition: “I’m willing to bet you a hundred dollars I’m right about things.”
When asked if he could put such steadfast faith into Middleton’s own as-yet-specified devotion, being that childhood crushes are as sure as the flipping of coins to see who gets the front seat on the ride home, Joshua stares blankly, as if unamused, and retorts: “Please. As though I should trample with some sort of impish delight through the dark forests of your dull, unswerving interests, which, if I might add on or off the record-at this point in time I really do not care-seem to amount to little more than the petrified waste of bats, hidden away in some cave where never a human foot shall set so long as humanity still breathes. And THIS, though slightly off the subject, is something true to my worry in that as soon as I am off this planet I should roll over in my grave to know that persons cut from the same mind and fabric as the likes you will continue in breath. Oh great BOTHER! Haven’t you something better to do than obsess over the various loves of a young boy?”
All of Austria, not mention the entire scientific community from across the world and back for that matter, sit fitfully in our high-backed chairs, listening to the stale static whine of our radio sets, in appropriately attentive wait for the posted results of this extraordinary venture. We have our fingers crossed, for this is truly a day to be recorded in the annals of medical history. The confidence and strident gall of this freckle-faced, fry-in-the-ear young boy!
SIDE-NOTE: Joshua Faust has recently been discovered to be a very, very belated descendant of the infamous perpetual pianist Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791), also of Salzburg, Austria. This baffling historical find has been determined only after extensive analysis and many, many tests. And almost by complete accident, as it were. All of this was done on location in Switzerland by DNA specialist Malcolm O’Tarry (age 31), of the Shetland Islands in Scotland, during a recent run of blood transfusions Joshua has undergone to accommodate the specially formulated battery acid that he will have to inject into his side 12 times per year (the second Monday of each month) to assume the upkeep of this one-of-a-kind telephonic system’s performance.
---end caption---
EXILE: “…based largely on figurative DNA composites for 1787-88-era Mozart, provided by Dr. W.W. Terwilliger, in his soundless, floating sleep…”
The second article in question, however, is much less oblique to the matter, but more just a sort of wistful souvenir Lieutenant O’Keefe has reportedly planned to swipe after this whole charade is over and done with and forgotten, which, he suspects, should be probably a year from now. This second piece of evidence is a snippet clipped from the morning paper in Munich, where the dead boy traveled for laser surgery after a failed attempt at reconstructing the inner housing of his torso.
“A caption is soon to follow,” says one suspect in the case, a failed engineer from Scandinavia, arrested for stabbing passengers on a train car in London last week and through connections to an unidentified incident involving dead sea creatures being smuggled across Canadian borders into the U.S. territory “Alaska,” subsequently charged with the murder of our dear boy. “I’ve no doubt in my mind that you will indefinitely get yours…” This, his final statement before refusing to cooperate with officials of the Swedish magistrate, is what leads into the news snippet from the Scandinavian engineer’s point of view.
“A CAPTION.” They say the stomach shrinks considerably over time if one neglects to adequately provide suitable sustenance for it. Here, young Joshua Faust (age 9), of Salzburg, Austria demonstrates a challenge to the aforementioned theorem of stomach condensation, proposed in 1912 by Werner Heisenberg, a celebrated Doctor of the Sciences in post-war Germany. By inserting food into the cups of his nasal passages, and likewise into the sober clefts of his young impressionable ears, Joshua Theobold Faust displays for our photographer his own subsequent theory, which threatens the counter of Science as we know it. The theory in question is one of a most clever devise, being that young Mr. Faust holds in case the assumption that merely being able to hear the wet greasy grizzle of hot fast food fries, and to smell the tantalizing odor of its demonically perfect edibility, that THIS itself will provide an accurate enough substitute for the actual, tangible and nutritional intake of food.
This extraordinary experiment has been taken under wing in the brilliant hopes that Joshua Faust will in a short time, by starving the physical attributes of his hunger, have successfully been able to shrink his stomach entirely; that under the scalpel of Austria’s finest and most revered surgeon, the aquatic Dr. Wainwright W. Terwilliger (age 46), originally from below countless murky fathoms in the depths of Milford Sound, New Zealand, the boy’s abdomen will be allowed to separate and within the hollow fissure where once a fat red stomach occupied the greater majority of available space, suitable room can then be made to install a wireless telephoning system. The antenna of this pre-proposed technologically macrobiotic communications apparatus will have a wire running from the medulla oblongata of Faust’s brain, and from there will coast (like a sailboat down the Mersey) into his temporal lobe, emitting a slight electric charge that will result in a swift, severe tingling of the boy’s nose, which will signal him at any time or place, no matter where in the world he may be, whether conscious or fast asleep, will SIGNAL him if he is to receive a call from Miss Jennifer Middleton (also age 9), whom Joshua Faust has had a crush on since the two met each other on a playground in Laax, Switzerland at the birthday party of their mutual friend Herbert Von Eschlenhopf (age 7 that day). Also contributing to the memorable occasion was the star-crossed fact that both Jennifer and Joshua simultaneously turned seven in that breezy Laax autumn of 1998, a moment of import Joshua scribbled with green crayon over the face of his desk at school.
At the time of this photograph, Joshua Faust was well into his third week of complete fasting, and much to the chagrin of the Scientific Department of Food Resources and Drastic Measures, at the University of Oldham Rise in Portland, Oregon, Mr. Faust has managed every minute of these past three weeks without so much as a single grumble from his stomach. Which, it has been documented quite exhaustively in the Boston Medical Journal, proves the young grade-schooler’s theory that food need not be ingested through the mouth for nutrition and stability to be derived. “Food,” Joshua was quoted as saying in the December issue of the Austrian Medical Revue, “is but a concept. It has been manifested and harvested throughout the dawnings of time, under the strict and unfailing supervision of our ‘pleasant’ world’s leading careless manipulators of illogical thought processes, by wont of sheer tradition. No less than that. For instance, let us consider the commonly misconceptualized needlessness of the saluting of any given National Flag. It is all but poppycock, and subject to one’s own personal will, taking in its wake nothing of spirit or body if not exercised in the slightest. Just as we can look up to the flagpoles of our universities and see the Flag of our nation flapping in the breeze like so much expendable kite-stuff, only just to assure ourselves that we are still, in fact, rested upon the proud soil of our Austrian forefathers, we can just as well inhale the aromatic components of fibers, proteins and grains (themselves being mere expendabilities in the face of personal will) to let us know that we can have strength to hop, skip, play leap-frog, mature without stunted physical growth, or even to think rationally. Now, if you’ll please step from out of my path, I have no further comments at this time.”
At the current pressing of this report, Joshua Faust is being held under strict study at the distinguished Haversham Clinic, located in Matterhorn, Switzerland (just miles upland of Laax; the fond memory of which keeps Faust in full spirit in rare times when his patience and poise is threatened by the spite of Mother Nature). At the Haversham Clinic, with the trials of stomach relinquishment since proved to be a dashing success (Dr. W.W. Terwilliger refuses to comment on the hushed procedures of this operation until which time it is complete, retreating from the eager microphones and cameras of impudent press-hounds by hiding under the gently lapping waves of the Limmat River at night), Faust is presently undergoing the delicate installation of a sub-organic telephone into the wet folds and by-ways of his inner person.
Last night young Mr. Faust posted a decidedly telling love note to his object of scientific affection, the lovely Miss Jennifer Middleton, which, if his mathematics are correct, should arrive cleverly tucked into her math book at school the very afternoon Faust is to arrive back in Austria after the surgery is complete. The note, quite remarkably, includes what will be Faust’s new organic telephone number . . . “IF,” that is, the operation proves successful. Says Faust of his mystifying poise in the face of Nature, Science and Supposition: “I’m willing to bet you a hundred dollars I’m right about things.”
When asked if he could put such steadfast faith into Middleton’s own as-yet-specified devotion, being that childhood crushes are as sure as the flipping of coins to see who gets the front seat on the ride home, Joshua stares blankly, as if unamused, and retorts: “Please. As though I should trample with some sort of impish delight through the dark forests of your dull, unswerving interests, which, if I might add on or off the record-at this point in time I really do not care-seem to amount to little more than the petrified waste of bats, hidden away in some cave where never a human foot shall set so long as humanity still breathes. And THIS, though slightly off the subject, is something true to my worry in that as soon as I am off this planet I should roll over in my grave to know that persons cut from the same mind and fabric as the likes you will continue in breath. Oh great BOTHER! Haven’t you something better to do than obsess over the various loves of a young boy?”
All of Austria, not mention the entire scientific community from across the world and back for that matter, sit fitfully in our high-backed chairs, listening to the stale static whine of our radio sets, in appropriately attentive wait for the posted results of this extraordinary venture. We have our fingers crossed, for this is truly a day to be recorded in the annals of medical history. The confidence and strident gall of this freckle-faced, fry-in-the-ear young boy!
SIDE-NOTE: Joshua Faust has recently been discovered to be a very, very belated descendant of the infamous perpetual pianist Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791), also of Salzburg, Austria. This baffling historical find has been determined only after extensive analysis and many, many tests. And almost by complete accident, as it were. All of this was done on location in Switzerland by DNA specialist Malcolm O’Tarry (age 31), of the Shetland Islands in Scotland, during a recent run of blood transfusions Joshua has undergone to accommodate the specially formulated battery acid that he will have to inject into his side 12 times per year (the second Monday of each month) to assume the upkeep of this one-of-a-kind telephonic system’s performance.
---end caption---
EXILE: “…based largely on figurative DNA composites for 1787-88-era Mozart, provided by Dr. W.W. Terwilliger, in his soundless, floating sleep…”