To Err Is Human-to Float, Divine
Gasping for air, my life passing before my eyes in a series of wistful
vignettes, I found myself suffocating some months ago under the tsunami of junk
mail that cascades through the slot in my door each morning after kippers. It
was only our Wagnerian cleaning woman, Grendel, hearing a muffled falsetto from
beneath myriad art-show invitations, charity squeezes, and pyrite contest
jackpots I’d hit that extricated me with the help of our Bugsucker. As I was
carefully filing the new postal arrivals alphabetically in the paper shredder, I
noticed, amongst the profusion of catalogues that hawked everything from bird
feeders to monthly deliveries of sundry drupe and hesperidium, there was an
unsolicited little journal, banner-lined Magical Blend. Clearly aimed at the New
Age market, its articles ranged in topic from crystal power to holistic healing
and psychic vibrations, with tips on achieving spiritual energy, love versus
stress, and exactly where to go and what forms to fill out to be reincarnated.
The ads, which seemed scrupulously articulated to insulate against the
unreasonableness of Bunco Squad malcontents, presented Therapeutic Ironisers,
Vortex Water Energizers, and a product called Herbal Grobust designed to
implement volumewise madam’s Cavaillons. There was no shortage of psychic advice
either, from sources such as the “spiritual intuitive” who double-checks her
insights with “a consortium of angels named Consortium Seven,” or a babe
ecdysiastically christened Saleena, who offers to “balance your energy, awaken
your DNA and attract abundance.” Naturally, at the end of all these field trips
to the center of the soul, a small emolument to cover stamps and any other
expenses the guru may have incurred in another life is in order. The most
startling persona of all, however, has to be the “founder and divine leader of
the Hathor Ascension Movement on Planet Earth.” Known to her followers as
Gabrielle Hathor, a self-proclaimed goddess who is, according to her copywriter,
“the fullness of source manifested in human form,” this West Coast icon tells
us, “There is a quickening of Karmic feedback…. Earth has entered a
spiritual winter which will last 426,000 Earth years.” Mindful of how rough a
long winter can be, Ms. Hathor has started a movement to teach beings to ascend
to “higher frequency dimensions,” presumably where they can get out more and
play a little golf.
“Levitation, instantaneous translocation, omniscience, ability to materialize
and dematerialize and so on become part of one’s normal abilities,” the
come-hither spiel lays on the unwary with a trowel, proclaiming that “from these
higher frequency dimensions, the ascended being can perceive the lower
frequencies while those on the lower frequencies cannot perceive the higher
dimensions.”
There is a fervid endorsement by someone named Pleiades MoonStar-a name that
would cause no end of consternation for me if I were told at the last minute it
belonged to my brain surgeon or pilot. Acolytes in Ms. Hathor’s movement must
submit to “a humiliating procedure” as part of a routine to dissolve their egos
and get their frequencies jacked up. Actual cash payments are frowned upon, but
for a little abject fealty and productive labor one can score a bed and a dish
of organic mung beans while either gaining or losing consciousness.
I bring all this up because coincidentally, later that same day I was emerging
from Hammacher Schlemmer, laid waste by obsessive indecision over whether to buy
a computerized duck press or the world’s finest portable guillotine, when I
bumped like the Titanic into an old iceberg I had known in college, Max
Endorphine. Plump in midlife, with the eyes of a cod and sporting a toupee
upholstered with sufficient pile to create a trompe l’oeil pompadour, he pumped
my hand and launched into tales of his recent good fortune.
“What can I tell you, boychick, I hit it big. Got in touch with my inner
spiritual self, and from there on it was Fat City.”
“Can you elaborate?” I queried, registering for the first time his natty bespoke
ensemble and advanced-tumor-sized pinkie ring.
“I guess I shouldn’t really be jawing with someone on a lower frequency, but
since we go way back-”
“Frequency?”
“I’m talking dimensions. Those of us in the upper octaves are taught not to
squander healthy ions on mortal troglodytes of which you qualify-no offense. Not
that we don’t study and appreciate the lower forms-thanks to Leeuwenhoek, if you
get my meaning.” Suddenly, with a falcon’s instinct for prey, Endorphine turned
his head toward a long-legged blonde in a micro-miniskirt straining to locate a
taxi.
“Clock the apparition with the state-of-the-art pout,” he said, his salivary
glands shifting into third.
“Must be a centerfold,” I piped, feeling the sudden onset of heatstroke,
“judging from her see-through blouse.”
“Watch this,” Endorphine said, whereupon he took a deep breath and began rising
off the ground. To the amazement of both myself and Miss July, he was levitating
a foot above Fifty-seventh Street in front of Hammacher Schlemmer. Searching for
wires, the sweet young thing brought her show closer.
“Hey, how do you do that?” she purred.
“Here. Here’s my address,” Endorphine said. “I’ll be home tonight after eight.
Drop by. I’ll have you off your feet in no time.”
“I’ll bring the Petrus,” she cooed, stuffing the logistics of their rendezvous
into the abyss of her cleavage, and wiggled off as Endorphine slowly descended
to ground level.
“What gives?” I said. “Are you Houdini?”
“Oh, well,” he sighed benevolently, “since I’m deigning to converse with
practically a paramecium, I may as well give you the whole schmear. Let’s repair
to the Stage Deli and decimate some schnecken while I hold court.” With that
there was an audible pop and Endorphine vanished. I sucked in my breath and
clasped my hand to my open mouth like a startled Gish sister. Seconds later he
reappeared, contrite.
“Sorry. I forgot you bottom-feeders can’t dematerialize and translocate. My
error. Let’s just hoof it.” I was still pinching myself when Endorphine began
his tale.
“OK,” he said. “Flashback six months prior, when Mrs. Endorphine’s little boy
Max was at emotional ducks and drakes over a series of tribulations, which, if
you count my misplaced beret, topped Job’s. First, this fortune cookie from
Taiwan I was tutoring in anatomical hydraulics eighty-sixes me for an apprentice
pie maker, then I get sued to the tune of many dead presidents for backing my
Jaguar through a Christian Science Reading Room. Add to that my one son from a
previous connubial holocaust gives up his lucrative law practice to become a
ventriloquist. So here I am, blue and funky, scouring the town for a raison
d’être, a spiritual center as it were, when suddenly, out of the ether, I come
across this ad in the latest issue of Vibes Illustrated. A spa type of joint
that liposuctions off your bad karma, raising you to a higher frequency wherein
you can at last hold sway over nature à la Faust. As a rule I’m too savvy to
bite on a scam like that, but when I dig the CEO is an actual goddess in human
form, I figure what could be bad? And there’s no charge. They don’t take dough.
The system’s based on some variation of slavery, but in return you get these
crystals, which empower you, and all the Saint-John’s-wort you can scarf up. Oh,
I’m leaving out she humiliates you. But it’s part of the therapy. So her minions
frenched my bed and affixed an ass’s tail to the back of my trousers unbeknownst
to me. Sure I was a laughingstock for a while, but let me tell you, it dissolved
my ego. Suddenly I realized I had lived in previous lives-first as a simple
burgomaster and then as Lucas Cranach the Elder … or no, I forget, maybe it
was the kid. Anyhow, the next thing I know, I wake up on my crude pallet and my
frequency is in the stratosphere. I got like this nimbus around my occiput and
I’m omniscient. I mean right off I hit the double at Belmont and within a week I
draw crowds every time I show up at the Bellagio in Vegas. If I’m ever unsure
about a nag or whether to hit or stick at blackjack, there’s this consortium of
angels I tap into. I mean, just ’cause someone’s got wings and is made of
ectoplasm don’t mean they can’t handicap. Clock this wad.”
Endorphine extracted several bale-sized bundles of thousand-dollar bills from
each pocket.
“Oops, excuse me,” he said, fumbling to retrieve some rubies that had fallen out
of his jacket when he produced the cornucopia of greenbacks.
“And she doesn’t take any remuneration for this service?” I inquired, my heart
taking wing like a peregrine falcon.
“Well, you know, that’s how it is with avatars. They’re all big sports.”
That night, despite a welter of imprecations from the distaff side plus a quick
call by her to the firm of Shmeikel and Sons to check if our pre-nup covered the
sudden onset of dementia praecox, I found myself skying west to the Sublime
Ascension Center with its divinity in residence, a vision in Frederick’s of
Hollywood named Galaxie Sunstroke. Bidding me enter the shrine that dominated
her compound, an abandoned farm curiously resembling the Spahn ranch of Manson
lore, she put down her emery board and got comfortable on a divan.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from Mere Anarchy
by Woody Allen
Copyright © 2007 by Woody Allen .
Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Random House
Copyright © 2007
Woody Allen
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4000-6641-4
