Or, rather, speaking of an enormous, mendacious, disembodied anus: The existential predicament shared by the "assholes" in the Conservative "movement," the assholes who'd attack a 12-year-old-boy [Down, Mark, dammit!] has been anticipated by--who else--William Burroughs. As always, the lunch is naked:

BENWAY: "Don't take it so hard, kid.... Jeder macht eine kleine Dummheit." (Everyone makes a little dumbness. )

SCHAFER: "I tell you I can't escape a feeling... well, of evil about this."

BENWAY: "Balderdash, my boy... We're scientists. ...Pure scientists. Disinterested research and damned be him who cries 'Hold,too much !' Such people are no better than party poops."

SCHAFER: "Yes, yes, of course... and yet... I can't get that stench out of my lungs...."

BENWAY (irritably): "None of us can.... Never smelled anything remotely like it.... [...]

Schafer is not listening. "You know," he says impulsively, "I think I'll go back to plain old- fashioned surgery. The human body is scandalously inefficient. Instead of a mouth and an anus to get out of order why not have one all-purpose hole to eat and eliminate? We could seal up nose and mouth, fill in the stomach, make an air hole direct into the lungs where it should have been in the first place...."

BENWAY: "Why not one all-purpose blob? Did I ever tell you about the man who taught his asshole to talk? His whole abdomen would move up and down you dig farting out the words. It was unlike anything I ever heard.

Burroughs was ahead of his time. We've heard that sound plenty. You know what it is. It's the sound of The Mighty Wurlitzer, isn't it? Read more…