The Lizard Thing, part 5

the sforzando, when things suddenly get real unreal

This is UNCG’s Minerva, who was threatening enough to sports branding admins that they changed the mascot to “the Spartans,”

which reminded me of Joel McHale’s standup special, Live from Pyonyang, where he talked about changing the name of the San Francisco 49ers to the Homosexuals, because what else could inspire more civic pride in the city by the bay— and be more intimidating to the Texans?

I think of Joel McHale’s standup the same way I think of his performance as Starman.

Why does Starman have a utility belt? Like, what is in there, ninja stars? Something douche-y. A Bluetooth earpiece, maybe? No no no, he had been dead for about a decade — more like a Blackberry.

It’s better than I could do, definitely, but I’m afraid that is not much of a compliment.

The Lizard Thing, part 5

by Randall Hayes

As it turned out, I didn’t need to track down QAnon. Two days later they paraded through the streets on their way to Bughouse Square for a rally. During those two days, MAGA had mutated into MaGra, a many-breasted alabaster serpent goddess, like a pale gorgon / naga hybrid with six arms, each of them wielding a curved saber or scimitar. Someone had gone to minimal effort to sculpt the goddess in paper mache, which an honor guard of redcap goblins were carrying on a litter.

Everyone in the parade — human, goblin, other — was wearing a red cap of one shape or another, most with MaGra drawn on them in chalk, or painted in white. A few had made some token efforts to bloody their headgear, aside from the actual goblin redcaps, but not many. The whole production seemed rushed and thrown together.

They were enthusiastic, though, waving their hand-painted signs and shouting their slogans and arguing with the Whispers, who were pacing them, offering unhelpful suggestions and comments, some of them invisibly carrying visible counter-signs that said things like

‘MAGRA’ IS JUST ‘MARA’ WITH A ‘G’ IN IT

WE FIND CHIMERIA TO BE MOSTLY ADEQUATE IN ITS CURRENT FORM,

THANK YOU

LIZARDS MAKE LOVELY AND LOW-MAINTENANCE PETS

The northwest and southeast corners of Bughouse Square were the traditional spaces for the patrons of debate in Chimeria. The northwest corner was occupied by a modest statue of Pallas Athena, unpainted except for her gray eyes, with a gray orange-eyed owl on her left shoulder and her right hand wrapped around the haft of a spear. Her expression was neutral, the picture of listening. The bronze depiction of Medusa’s head on her shield, carved hanging from Athena’s hip, instead conveyed contempt at whatever confused logic was soiling her ears. Her head-snakes hung mostly limp in bored disgust.

The southeast corner was the domain of Mara, the black-haired, blue-skinned, red-lipped demon king of delusion. He had no statue, but was drawn, painted, and carved in his many aspects on every inch of available space. He peeped out from the eaves of roofs, from behind gutters and rain barrels, from between vines. His leering face was sculpted in chewing gum and stuck under benches. He sat on the edge of trash cans, encouraging people to believe that their individual actions made a difference.

In other places these would have been the two poles of a single axis through a dialectical ellipse — wisdom vs. delusion — but this was Chimeria, which twists and complicates things. Instead they occupied opposing corners, while the true master of Bughouse Square was in the third corner, the northeast, facing away from the square, head down, with his back feet up, rolling and manipulating his prize, a black ball of stone that dwarfed him and his fellow gods of debate. This was the Shit, and he was the Scarab, the holy dung beetle of the Egyptians and many other wise and ancient cultures throughout the infinite multiverse. His statue was cobbled together from pipes and plates of metal painted gold and silver, rebuilt every year during his own festival. His eyes were sparkly fake jewels, emerald one year, ruby the next. From the center of the Square, in the comfortable shadow thrown by the Shit, where the audience faced southwest towards the speaker of the day, the Scarab was unseen, behind the Shit, but everyone knew he was there. His was a comforting presence. He had no ideology. He was just trying to feed his grubs.

The top of that ball was the best seat in the Square, and that’s where Quetzal and I perched to watch the arrival of the parade. A breach of etiquette, for sure, which is why we were invisible.