Donald Barthelme: Other

“People who had, in the past, suffered from technophobia suffered even more. Others took other positions. Things were not so bad. Things could be worse. Worse things could be imagined. Worse things had been endured and triumphed over, in the past. This was not the worst. The worst was yet to come.”

Donald Barthelme

“A Nation of Wheels”, p. 131.
The Teachings of Don. B: Satires, Parodies, Fables, Illustrated Stories, and Plays of Donald Barthelme (1992)

People , Imagination , Suffering , Past

“Went for a walk, whistling. Saw a throne in a window. I said: What chair is this? Is it the one great Ferdinand sat in, when he sent the ships to find the Indies? The seat is frayed. Hardly a day passes without an announcement of some kind of marriage, a pregnancy, a cancer, a rebirth. Sometimes they drift in from the Yukon and other far places, come in and sit down at the kitchen table, want a glass of milk and a peanut-butter-and-jelly, I oblige, for old times’ sake. Sent me the schedule for the Little League soccer teams, they’re all named after cars, the Mustangs vs. the Mavericks, the Chargers vs. the Impalas. Something funny about that. My son. Slept with What’s-Her-Name, they said, while she was asleep, I don’t think that’s fair. Prone and helpless in the glare of the headlights. They went away, then they came back, at Christmas and Eastertide, had quite a full table, maybe a dozen in all including all the little…partners they’d picked up on their travels….”

Donald Barthelme book Sixty Stories

“Aria”.
Sixty Stories (1981)

Marriage , Cars , Travel , Thinking

“My deranged mother has written another book. This one is called The Bough and is even worse that the others. I refer not to its quality—it exhibits the usual “coruscating wit” and “penetrating social observation”—but to the extent to which it utilizes, as a kind of mulch pile, the lives of her children.”

Donald Barthelme

“The Author”, opening; p. 45.
The Teachings of Don. B: Satires, Parodies, Fables, Illustrated Stories, and Plays of Donald Barthelme (1992)

Children , Books

“I obey the Commandments, the sensible ones. Where they don’t know what they’re talking about I ignore them. I keep thinking about the story of the two old women in church listening to the priest discoursing on the dynamics of the married state. At the end of the sermon one turns to the other and says, “I wish I knew as little about it as he does.””

Donald Barthelme

“Basil From Her Garden”.
Flying to America: 45 More Stories (2007)

Women , Thinking

“LeDuff’s argument (in Shock Art #37) that an image, once floated on the international art-sea, is a fish that anyone may grab with impunity, and make it his own, would not persuade an oyster. Questions of primacy are not to be scumbled in this way, which, had he been writing from a European perspective, he would understand, and be ashamed. The brutality of the American rape of the world’s exhibition spaces and organs of art-information has distanciated his senses. The historical aspects have been adequately trodden by others, but there is one category yet to be entertained—that of the psychological. The fact that LeDuff is replicated in every museum, in every journal, that one cannot turn one’s gaze without bumping into this raw plethora, LeDuff, LeDuff, LeDuff (whereas poor Bruno, the true progenitor, is eating the tops of bunches of carrots)—what has this done to LeDuff himself? It has turned him into a dead artist, but the corpse yet bounces in its grave, calling attention toward itself in the most unseemly manner. But truth cannot be swallowed forever. When the real story of low optical stimulus is indited, Bruno will be rectified.”

Donald Barthelme

“Letters to the Editore”, Guilty Pleasures (1974).

Truth , World , Art , Way

“Where is my daddy? asked the emerald. My da?
Moll dropped a glass, which shattered.
Your father.
Yes, said the emerald, amn’t I supposed to have one?
He’s not here.
Noticed that, said the emerald.
I’m never sure what you know and what you don’t know.
I ask in true perplexity.
He was Deus Lunus. The moon god. Sometimes thought of as the man in the moon.
Bosh! said the emerald. I don’t believe it.
Do you believe I’m your mother?
I do.
Do you believe you’re an emerald?
I am an emerald.
Used to be, said Moll, women wouldn’t drink from a glass into which the moon had shone. For fear of getting knocked up.
Surely this is a superstition?
Hoo, hoo, said Moll. I like superstition.
I thought the moon was female.
Don’t be culture-bound. It’s been female in some cultures at some times, and in others, not.
What did it feel like? The experience.
Not a proper subject for discussion with a child.
The emerald sulking. Green looks here and there.
Well it wasn’t the worst. Wasn’t the worst. I had an orgasm that lasted three hours. I judge that not the worst.”

Donald Barthelme book Sixty Stories

“The Emerald”.
Sixty Stories (1981)

Women , God , Fear , Feeling

“We had a conversation the other day with Ming the Merciless, one of the preeminent villains of modern times, whose half-century-long struggle with his opposite number, Flash Gordon, has helped generations of Americans conceptualize the fearsome enchantments of space. We caught up with the veteran malefactor at the Volney, where he greeted us in a turquise-and-gold dressing gown, a black skullcap setting off his striking yellowish pallor. We immediately put our foot in it by addressing him as ”Mr. Ming”
“I don’t want to be stuffy,” he said pleasantly, “but that’s Emperor Ming, if you don’t mind. …””

Donald Barthelme

“Ming”, p. 93, opening
The Teachings of Don. B: Satires, Parodies, Fables, Illustrated Stories, and Plays of Donald Barthelme (1992)

Time , Help

“My wife wants a dog. She already has a baby. The baby’s almost two. My wife says that the baby wants the dog.
My wife has been wanting a dog for a long time. I have had to be the one to tell her that she couldn’t have one. But now the baby wants a dog, my wife says. This may be true. The baby is very close to my wife. They go around together all the time, clutching each other tightly. I ask the baby, who is a girl, “Whose girl are you? Are you Daddy’s girl?” The baby says, “Momma,” and she doesn’t just say it once, she says it repeatedly, “Momma momma momma.””

Donald Barthelme

I don’t see why I should buy a hundred-dollar dog for that damn baby.
“Chablis”, opening
Forty Stories (1987)

Dogs , Girl , Time , Baby

““Try to be a man about whom nothing is known,” our father said, when we were young. Our father said several other interesting things, but we have forgotten what they were. “Keep quiet,” he said. That we remember. He wished more quiet. One tends to want that, in a National Park. Our father was a man about whom nothing was known. Nothing is known about him still. He gave us the recipes. He was not very interesting. A tree is more interesting. A suitcase is more interesting. A canned good is more interesting. When we sing the father hymn, we notice that he was not very interesting. The words of the hymn notice it. It is explictly commented upon, in the text.”

Donald Barthelme book Snow White

Source: Snow White (1967), pp.18–19.

Tree , Singing

“Being merciless, while not exactly easy, is finally a job like any other. It’s theater. It’s got nothing to do with my private life. Still, sometimes when I used to yell at my kids, I wondered if I was maybe…putting a little too much into it. They’re grown now, so the question is moot. They seem OK. Roderick is at Harvard and Betsy is married and has a couple of kids of her own.”

Donald Barthelme

“Ming”, p. 94.
The Teachings of Don. B: Satires, Parodies, Fables, Illustrated Stories, and Plays of Donald Barthelme (1992)

Life , Question

“I keep wondering if, say, there is intelligent life on other planets, the scientists argue that something like two percent of the other planets have the conditions, the physical conditions, to support life in the way it happened here, did Christ visit each and every planet, go through the same routine, the Agony in the Garden, the Crucifixion, and so on…”

Donald Barthelme

“Basil From Her Garden”.
Flying to America: 45 More Stories (2007)

Life , Way , Intelligence , Support

“As a magician works with the unique compressibility of doves, finding some, losing others in the same silk foulard, so the rebels fold scratchy, relaxed meanings into their smallest actions.”

Donald Barthelme

“The Crisis”.
Great Days (1979)

“The new thing, a great banality in white, off-white and poor-white, leaned up against the wall. “Interesting,” we said. “It’s poor,” Snow White said. “Poor, poor.” “Yes,” Paul said,” one of my poorer things I think.” “Not so poor of course as yesterday’s, poorer on the other hand than some,” she said. “Yes,” Paul said, “it has some of the qualities of poorness.” “Especially poor in the lower left-hand corner,” she said. “Yes,” Paul said, “I would go so far as to hurl it into the marketplace.” “They’re getting poorer,” she said. “Poorer and poorer,” Paul said with satisfaction, “descending to unexplored depths of poorness where no human intelligence has ever been.””

Donald Barthelme book Snow White

… “Sublimely poor,” she murmured. “Wallpaper,” he said.
Source: Snow White (1967), p. 48.

Intelligence , Thinking