Disquiet, Please!

by David Remnick

  Entire research departments have now embarked on the herculean task of identifying all extant fluid-nations, with particular emphasis, of course, on links to known Malignant fluid-nations. The innovative work of Ralph Frank, in which fifty individuals waiting for a bus in Portland, Oregon, were, briefly and with their full consent, taken into custody and administered the standard Fluid-Nation Identifier Questionnaire, indicated the worrisome ubiquity of these fluid-nations. At least ninety-seven separate fluid-nations were detected within this random gathering of Americans, including, but not limited to: Now Heavy Former Ballerinas; Gum-Chompers; People Who Daydream Obsessively of Rescuing Someone Famous; Children of Mothers Who Were Constantly Bursting into Tears; Men Who Can Name Entire Lineups of Ball Teams from Thirty Years Ago; Individuals in Doubt That Someone Will Ever Love Him/Her; and Individuals Who Once Worked, or Considered Working, as Clowns. A closer analysis of the fluid-nations identified indicated that nearly 50 percent of these had been, would soon be, or very possibly could eventually be linked to Individuals Reluctant to Kill for an Abstraction, or to another Malignant fluid-nation.

  It is thus no longer a question of whether a large number of Americans belong to fluid-nations; it is, rather, a question of how willing Americans are to freely confess these citizenships, and to then undergo the necessary mitigative measures so that the nation need have no doubt about their readiness to respond in an emergency.

  This is not, of course, just an American issue; leaders of other geo-nations have now begun to recognize the potential gravity of this threat. Throughout the world, at any given moment, the justifiable aims of legitimate geo-nations are being threatened by reckless individuals who insist upon indulging their private, inscrutable agendas. The prospect of a world plagued by these fluid-nations—a world in which one’s identification with one’s parent geo-nation is constantly being undermined—is sobering indeed. This state of affairs would not only allow for but require a constant, round-the-clock reassessment of one’s values and beliefs prior to action, a continual adjustment of one’s loyalties and priorities based on an evaluation and reevaluation of reality—a process that promises to be as inefficient as it is wearying.

  The above summary has, of necessity, been brief. It will be left to future scholars, working in a time of relative calm, once the present national crisis has receded, to tell the full story, in all the rich detail it deserves.

  2003

  JOHN KENNEY

  YOUR TABLE IS READY

  You do not seize control at Masa. You surrender it. You pay to be putty. And you pay dearly.… Lunch or dinner for two can easily exceed $1,000.

  —From the Times’s review of Masa, a sushi restaurant

  that was given four stars

  AM I very rich? Since you ask, I will tell you. Yes, I am. I happen to be one of the more successful freelance poets in New York. The point being, I eat where I like. And I like sushi. As does my wife, Babette.

  Unfortunately, we were running late. This worried me. I had been trying to get a reservation at Masa since 1987, seventeen years before it opened, as I knew that one of the prerequisites of dining there was a knowledge of the future. I also knew of the restaurant’s strict “on-time” policy. Babette and I arrived exactly one minute and twenty-four seconds late. We know this because of the Swiss Atomic clock that diners see upon arrival at Masa.

  The maître d’ did not look happy. And so we were asked, in Japanese, to remove our clothes, in separate dressing cabins, and don simple white robes with Japanese writing on the back that, we soon found out, translated as “We were late. We didn’t respect the time of others.” Babette’s feet were bound. I was forced to wear shoes that were two sizes too small. The point being, tardiness is not accepted at Masa. (Nor, frankly, should it be.)

  The headwaiter then greeted us by slapping me in the face and telling Babette that she looked heavy, also in Japanese. (No English is spoken in the restaurant. Translators are available for hire for three hundred and twenty-five dollars per hour. We opted for one.)

  And so it was that Babette, Aki, and I were led to our table, one of only seven in the restaurant, two of which are always reserved—one for former Canadian prime minister Pierre Trudeau, who died five years ago, and the other for the actress and singer Claudine Longet, who accidentally shot and killed her boyfriend, the skier Spider Sabich, in 1976.

  There are no windows in Masa. The light is soft, and, except for the tinkling of a miniature waterfall and the piped-in sound of an airplane losing altitude at a rapid rate, the place is silent. We sat on hemp pillows, as chairs cost extra and we were not offered any, owing to our tardiness.

  Thirty-five minutes later, we met our wait staff: nine people, including two Buddhist monks, whose job it is to supervise your meal, realign your chakras, and, if you wish, teach you to play the oboe. Introductions and small talk—as translated by Aki (which, we later learned, means “Autumn”)—lasted twenty minutes. I was then slapped again, though I’m not sure why.

  Before any food can be ordered at Masa, one is required to choose from an extensive water menu (there is no tap water at the restaurant). With Aki’s help, we selected an exceptional bottle of high-sodium Polish sparkling water known for its subtle magnesium aftertaste (a taste I admit to missing completely). Henna tattoos were then applied to the bases of our spines. Mine depicted a donkey, Babette’s a dwarf with unusually large genitals.

  Then it was time to order—or to be told what we were having, as there is no menu. Babette and I had been looking forward to trying an inside-out California roll and perhaps some yellowtail. Not so this night. I was brought the white-rice appetizer and Babette was brought nothing. Aki said this was not uncommon, and then told us a story about his brother, Akihiko (“Bright Boy”), who has, from the sound of it, a rather successful motor-home business outside Kyoto.

  I noticed another guest a few tables away being forced to do pushups while the wait staff critiqued his wife’s outfit. Aki saw me looking at them and translated the words on the back of their robes: “We were twenty minutes late. We are bad.”

  It was then that our entrées arrived and we realized why this restaurant is so special. Before us were bay scallops, yellow clams, red clams, and exotic needlefish, all lightly dusted with crushed purple shiso leaves. Unfortunately, none of these dishes was for us. They were for the wait staff, who enjoyed them with great gusto while standing beside our table. They nodded and smiled, telling us, through Aki, how good it all tasted. Aki told us that this was very common at fine Japanese restaurants and urged us to be on time in the future, even though he said we would never be allowed on the premises again. He then gave us a brochure for a motor home. Babette and I were strongly advised to order more water.

  For dessert, I ordered nothing, as I was offered nothing. Babette was given a whole fatty red tuna wrapped in seaweed, served atop a bowl of crushed ice and garnished with a sign reading, “Happy Anniversary, Barbara” (sic).

  Our bill came to eight hundred and thirty-nine dollars. Aki said we were lucky to get out for so little and then begged us to take him with us when we left. We caught a cab and got three seats at the bar at Union Square Café.

  2005

  FRANK GANNON

  PRE-APPROVED FOR PLATINUM

  DEAR Occupant:

  You’ve been pre-approved! What does that mean? Let us tell you.

  Just the other day, we were sitting around asking ourselves, “Where are we going to find exactly the kind of person we need?” This was a hard question, because our standards and specifications are stringent. We spent weeks asking ourselves this question. We got sick of looking at one another because we were meeting so often with the same people and asking the same question over and over. One of us started to ridicule another one of us for his slight Midwestern “twang.” Another one of us broke down sobbing. It was a trying period. There were some pretty heated confrontations in there, let me tell you! Some of us didn’t make it.

  But, finally, after co
untless cups of coffee and cigarettes and frantic phone calls and consultations and trips to the bathroom and looking things up in the dictionary and the thesaurus and just throwing our hands up in despair, we came up with somebody. And that somebody just happened to be someone you know—you!

  We know you. You are a person who appreciates life. You know how to savor the little things. You know how a good bowl of chicken soup is supposed to taste, and you’re not settling for crap. What is this? Take it away and bring me some real soup. I don’t drink dishwater. Now go! You’ve said that more than once.

  You appreciate the opposite sex. You like them as people, and you hate it when they are treated as one-dimensional objects. They’re not playthings. You hate the way they can bump into a “glass ceiling” sometimes. You hate unfairness. You’ve hated it since you were a child. Life is too short for a playing field that is not precisely level. It makes you upset if anyone even alludes to it. Because you know that a member of the opposite sex is a three-dimensional being whose features are composed in a pleasant way. A way that you find exciting. And you’re not ashamed of that.

  We know what kinds of actions you like to take. We don’t have to spell things out for you. We don’t think that you are the sort of person who wants everything explained. Because you already know a whole lot. You couldn’t even get everything you know into a book. Forget about books—you couldn’t get everything you know into a room. Unless the room is really pretty big, like a garage.

  We’re not limiting you. Limits aren’t for you. Even the sky isn’t your limit. That’s why we know you’re going to take advantage of our onetime offer to consolidate all of your credit-card debt into one account with one easy-to-remember card. And your wallet is going to have that “sleek” look that the wallets owned by so many of the truly knowledgeable people have.

  That look isn’t for everyone. Most people have huge bulgy wallets with stuff sticking out. They can’t even take their wallets out of their pockets without a bunch of lint and gum wrappers coming out with them. They look like such idiots when they do that. They look, truth be told, like they have brain damage. Like they need someone to go with them and open the door for them and remind them to pay for things before they walk out with a bunch of stuff and get arrested. Frankly, that’s what they deserve. Some hard prison time. Maybe that will straighten them out. It can’t hurt.

  They just can’t own up to it, though. They say their mother never taught them the right way to act. Then they go and blame it on her. That is pathetic.

  You’re not like that, and I and the other people here would just like to say that we appreciate people like you. You’re a breed apart. You’re going to be enjoying zero-percent interest for the first six months. Then you will have a truly great variable rate of 9.4 percent. But those bulgy-wallet people won’t. May they rot in Hell. We hate to use language like that, but sometimes it just fits. This really couldn’t happen to a better person. God didn’t make many of you. We mean that.

  2005

  LARRY DOYLE

  MAY WE TELL YOU OUR SPECIALS THIS EVENING?

  WE have several.

  For an appetizer, the chef has prepared a slaughter of baby salmon on toast points of nine grains—blue corn, barley, rye, chaff, stover, found rice, horse-rolled oats, balsa, and fermented teff flown in daily from Ethiopia—and fancy assorted nuts, which may contain up to 10 percent peanuts. The salmon is very fresh; it was hatched just this morning.

  The chef is also offering a personal favorite, his hot spiced rocks. These are igneous and sedimentary varietals, half-washed and heated to nine hundred degrees Fahrenheit, then gleefully sprinkled with international peppers.

  For the more adventurous, we have a selection of freshly purchased water crackers spread with unmarked pastes, jellies, and unguents found in the kitchen.

  We are also featuring a tasting gavage, in which every appetizer on the menu is wheeled to your table and forced down the gullets of two to four people. The price is twenty-eight dollars per person, plus a nominal service charge. To accompany this course, the chef recommends a bottle of the Pete, which is quite sneaky tonight. It comes in cherry or mixed berry, and is served in brown paper.

  Our special soup tonight is Georgian alligator turtle, prepared and presented in its own shell. This soup is served cold and slimy, and, in the traditional manner, with the head and legs attached. We recommend that you not touch the head, as it can snap your finger clean off before you can say, “Hey, this turtle is still alive.”

  In addition to our usual salad, our chef offers a faux tuna niçoise, which he is recommending not be eaten by anyone trying to limit his mercury consumption.

  We also have an iceberg-lettuce leaf, wetted and centered on the plate.

  With your soup and salad, the chef suggests two or three cocktails, and not Cosmopolitans or candy-assed Martinis but real men’s drinks. He is recommending an interesting Thai vodka that he managed to get into this country; the “liquor” is chilled into an aspic, spooned into a shot glass, then served between the breasts of Alicia over there.

  Before I tell you the entrées, there is one change to the menu: We are out of the pan-fried squirrel brains tonight, as our supplier fell out of a tree this morning.

  Our fish tonight is a Blue Happy, which is a euphemism. It is mostly filleted and sunbaked, then disinfected and served with what may or may not be capers. Blowholes can be requested for an additional charge.

  The pasta is a single, comically long strand of spaghetti with a surprise at the end. The sauce is of no consequence.

  And, finally, tonight we are offering a very special entrée that has been the subject of much debate in the kitchen. It is roast loin of Oliver, a pig that our chef has raised since infancy. Oliver was the runt in a litter of nine, and was, as you can see in this picture, bottle-fed by the chef as a young boy. Oliver grew strong and proud and was soon beating his siblings in their rutting games. Extremely smart, Oliver has thrice saved our chef from fires caused by careless smoking. However, in his latter years Oliver has grown bitter and incontinent, and just yesterday he ate the chef’s brand-new cell phone.

  Once we receive our first order this evening, Oliver will be smothered by a pillow filled with virgin goose down. This may take the chef some time. Oliver will then be hacked to pieces and charbroiled on a specially blessed grill. His loin will be laid to rest on a bed of tears, with asparagus and a confit of something. The chef would like to serve Oliver to you personally, and give a short eulogy. He will remain table-side, drinking steadily as you eat in silence. Because of the singular nature of this dish and its extreme emotional cost, it is priced at eighteen thousand dollars.

  Would you like to order now, or do you need a few moments?

  2005

  BRUCE MCCALL

  GETTING STARTED

  CONGRATULATIONS on choosing your new Type A-30/Type A-31/Type Q-2/Type Q-3/Type AQ-1/Type AQ-2/Type AQ-2.5/Type AQ-2000 (Type AQ-2000 is discontinued) hand-held portable unit.

  To operate in Cell Phone mode, see pp. 10–14. An unfamiliar voice will answer when you place your first call. A nonrefundable fifty-dollar surcharge will appear on your monthly bill if you press END before hearing the complete message.

  To operate in Camera mode, see pp. 15–19 or press any green key.

  To operate in 3-D Cam, Spy-Cam, or Sky-Cam mode, turn the Microsoft Snoop-Cam function (on thumbwheel below viewfinder) to ON/OFF. If your unit is not a Type AQ-1, you will need a fifty-foot Kord-Pak (see Accessories, pp. 520–608) to prevent reverse power surgeback.

  Never leave your unit in a freezer, convection oven, or cyclotron unless the Cell Phone function is set to END CHARGING (U symbol; Ü symbol on German-language units).

  The default setting for the Entertainment function is Adults Only. To switch to Mature, XXX, or Taboo, gently slap unit until the function you have chosen appears. Your credit card is not required at this time.

  To operate in Cheese Grater mode, see pp. 20–26.

&n
bsp; Important: If your unit has three red keys on the back (see diagram, p. 7), carefully lay it down and evacuate the premises.

  To operate in Magic Fingers mode, see pp. 27–36. (If you are not a licensed masseur/masseuse, see pp. 37.)

  Always grip unit lightly while cradling it in the palm of your hand, with the logo facing up. The unit’s “creeping” tendency is normal. If unit becomes hot to the touch, use the Cell Phone function to call your local firehouse or volunteer fire department.

  Do not attempt to manually fold the attached satellite dish.

  To operate in Spot Welding mode, see pp. 38–42. Welding mask included with Type AQ-2.5 units only.

  To operate in Pants Pressing mode, see pp. 43–47.

  Note: Your unit is equipped to predict the winner of the next Irish parliamentary election (Leprechaun key), but you must enter candidate names on the Gaming keypad at least twenty-four hours before voting begins.

  To operate in Radio Habana Shortwave mode, see pp. 48–52.

  To operate in Men’s Beard Shave mode, see pp. 53–55.

  To operate in Ladies’ Leg Shave mode, see pp. 56–57.

  Microphone-feedback-adjustment dial on Type AQ-3 units is found on the faceplate (see Unit Overview, pp. 2). In Types A-1 through A-18, the microphone-feedback-adjustment dial is the # key. Press until you hear a squealing noise.

  To operate in Pencil Sharpener mode, see pp. 58–62.

  To operate in Two Carolinas Redneck Culture Museum Audio Tour mode, press TOK2ME button on the thumbwheel after seeing pp. 63–64.

  This unit has been approved by the Association of American Underwriters as resistant to vibration from Antarctic drilling.

  To operate in Marine Haircut mode, see pp. 65–95.