mmdcccxxxviii

“Is her name really Meerkat?”

Says the man during a conversation
on one of my favorite film directors.
Back to form? he says and I wonder. 

When did she ever lose her so-called

form in the first place?  This is petty
of me, I think, given that it is
at least a back-handed compliment.
There is a ritual that for decades now
has given me unfathomable amounts
of joy: watching film trailers. For hours
sometimes. Only these days it’s only
the trailers (just like it’s only me).
I’ve been at the cinema twice in
the past three years (not bothering
to mention the zillions of times the
previous three). So I can speak to
this, no? Occasionally, I’ve taken
Netflix up on a free month or two,
but even then I cannot watch a
thing in there. It’s not the screen
being so small. It is my inability to
dismiss the surroundings of my present
predicament; the questions that demand
decisive answers; my retrieval into the
celebrity of the small screen has been
meandering but thorough. Only now,
since I just tore my back, I’ll be going
on an indefinite leave. “It’s all connected.
We can get to the bottom of it.”

My weapon of
choice (martial arts-wise) is the
killer umbrella. A killer umbrella?
Or, until now at least, it was my
go-to. Probably more than any
other reason because it’s so…
unlikely? In that historical
Hong Kong martial arts flick
cinematic genre’s original way.
It is outlandishly imaginative
and just plain beyond my
version of reality. There is
no right word, much as I am
positive there is one, for
this phenomenon, this notion
of umbrella as magical realist
weapon. As I attempt to stare
at a future self everything begins
to make sense in this killer umbrellas
sense. What a lost form. Torn
abdomens. Families of meerkats
with no names, only so someone
who concocts names can give birth
to something, some anomaly.
And what results is a person
named Meerkat. And this is
for life (will it have the pizazz
of a Cher or a Madonna, say?
Likely not!) And, so, I wonder,
why this pyrotechnical eureka,
this everything making sense
all of a sudden (like that
moment during the first sem-
ester of my sophomore year of
undergrad, nearly two-thirds of
the way through the term, during
which my courses were Physics III,
Organic Chemistry II and a class
that gave dramatic/cinematic
closure—with the scary pro-
bability of a sequel—to all
of the mathematics/algebra/
calculus courses I had thus far
endured)? Everything makes
sense sometimes, right? Or
is it just me? Do we not each
have such moments? I wouldn’t
know, of course. But did you
know (as I now do and am
compelled to share) that
meerkats are “social, desert-

dwelling mongooses known for 

their cooperative society, with 

members taking on roles like 

sentries and babysitters to 

protect the group.”  And that 

in large groups they’re called 

mobs or clans?