tall tales
if there's one thing you learn from Borges, it's that the boundaries of fiction are amorphous. two weeks ago I met a rather bright 40 year old man who told wonderful stories, who eventually became so enamoured of my stories that he decided to declare his affection for me by asking if he could hold my hand/if i would like to be his "special friend". this whole mortifying escapade, from which I extricated myself post haste, inevitably became anecdotal. its narration, by the way, generally involves a great deal of incredulity, aghastness and creeped-out-ness (viz., "He's how old??" or "He asked if he could what??").
two weeks later I'm telling this to a bunch of friends in a taxi, and the taxi driver, so engrossed in the telling of this tale, fails to watch where he's driving, and causes a five car pile-up. this story, too, becomes anecdotal. but in the process, the stories within the stories pile up like russian egg boxes. now one story requisitions another, yet necessarily remaining discrete.
this is an art. iago knew it; borges knew it; tim burton and john august know it.
and people and our lives are constructed of such stories, from tales of the daily to the shaping of history. as how shakespeare narrates the diabolical iago, who in turn is the true narrator of othello's downfall; as how borges evaporates from his own stories, and promptly reappears, recast as fiction; how big fish is a story of the stories of a man who tells stories. as how, for example, this entry you've just read is the story of how i have three enormous bruises on my left upper arm and a serious case of neck whiplash. five car pile-ups are no fun. never tell interesting stories in a cab.