I dreamed (and you will not be interested to hear about it, but I am not recording it for you), last of all (but aren’t all the choicest dreams the last ones?), of a large pink cockatoo, flying above the cloud-darkened beach and the slates of the city, as the heavy-shouldered storm waded greyly in to shore.

Motive

Some men commit great deeds in an effort to get laid. Most manage only mediocre deeds, I am sure, but in the (precisely) idiotic manner of the cockerel or bowerbird say to themselves, “By god, at least I’m doing something.” Once a man has succeeded in getting himself laid with some regularity, he typically finds he is a family man, and goes on doing something on that account. This, as is well known, is what makes a little less than half the world go round; I don’t flatter myself I’m telling you anything that hasn’t occurred to you.

But it has not been so with me. Moreover, what phlegmatic fire I had is well banked, now, and wouldn’t cook a potato. Well, what then? There is also fanaticism: the churches and parties are full of padres and cadres doing something, and just occasionally something pretty spiffy. It’s a tough racket, though, believing in things, and probably not for me. Can you imagine? Maybe I’ll just twist in the wind till I’m sixty and then go all crypto-fascist late-life Catholic convert or something. No, I don’t think so, either.

Anyway, I’ve got high hopes for Fear Of Death. Seems like a fit, right?