Witz полностью

Another fanfare, this of trombones and unison tubas laying down chords under the cantorial wash, an invocation to tears: the Nachmachen’s introduction, open to both misinterpretation and appropriate sponsorship…a prayer for winter, to begin with: Blessed art Thou, Lord our God, King of the Universe, Who Commands us to Wear Layers; a prayer for the lights: Blessed Art Thy Filaments and Thy Circuitry; then a prayer for the camera: May Thou Bless and Keep the Power On, the Reels Rolling, and then can I get a final Amen for that of the action, applause: Blessed art Thou, Lord our God, King of the Universe, Who hath Given us Hands and, too, the Bad Taste to Clap Them Together…Der ladders slowly up to the podium, summated upon an ambo just below the rung stars; its platform teetering precariously atop that seconding mountain, Lawleeward above the square, its triangulating grid — this gutterhuddled hosting of trash spirituality, junk religion, bum cosmology, and the markets that minister them all; he squints down over this mass, this web of streets ensnared by and ensnaring, a swarming of inscrutable flies, gnats, fleas, lice, jumbles of hairy limbs in a fractious grab and grub shot through with sudden beards, the juts of chins, the opened mouths of the trampled faithful; eruptions of shoulder and elbow and knee, begging only the breath of a glimpse. Upon that skyscraping summit, Der’s flanked by the presences of President Shade, Mayor Meir Meyer, along with his local machine, notables of the state and national electorate, pluralistic ethnic dignitaries, indiscriminate influentials, luminaries and eminences (camera depending), seated aside all five borough presidents with the Joysey governor kept standing, Attorneys and Soygens General, the City’s Comptroller, Parks Commissioner, and the Chief O’Police, starry generals, recently kashered senators, feinschmecking as fat as pockets moneystuffed, huskily cigarboned, no longer under investigation they’re holding hands (their greasy fingers, pinkies inclusive, festooned with jeweled rings) with their own personal heroes of the week, whether righteous police, fire, or emergency medical, sponsored and subsequently publicized different from last: who tried to save which Affiliated, which synagogue or school from looting, or destruction; madeup and fabulously manicured widows to the left, to the right, and on their laps, too, those who’d once upon a time intermarried the famous Affiliated, you might remember, only to survive them for fortune and infamous scandal (actresses, singers, and a memoirist of singular importance), gathered here to present Ben on this the second, firstfruited day of Shavuot, with the key to the city, which as this city lacks gates and even doors repressed within what walls surrounding and tunneldark hearts must unlock nothing much, and so its keychain, too, a plastic hunk of kitsch logomached with I Heart New York, of all things. Awaiting Ben’s keynote address: a speech vetted by both the Nachmachen and Doctor Abuya to be full of sundry thanks, appreciation and honors, distinct pleasures, acknowledgements less salutary than the undecided Shalom of a rhetoric as empty, still, as the desert — spiritual, real — is wasting: gavaged Gospel prepared especially for Him by a team of overworked speechwriters, wordwranglers, hands hired away from patronage of diversivolent political prominence, priced from the favors of Middle Eastern dictators and kings whose highflown had always been spoken plain, scripted low, then toned in a grave delivery derived from an Apocalypse whose threat these inky ghosts have spent their lives perfecting for profit, and so mocking, why not, while they’re at it; a message without a message, a platform with no leg to stand on, death by impalement upon the dull of a talkingpoint, say.

Ben shuffles endearingly slowly, kloymershtily klutzy manner up to the microphone of the podium atop the dais and shadowing there as if the one hand left of a clock, unbound, shading the face entire of this Timeless Square, this mess of Mitteltown recently redeemed from business, freed from the oppressive glare and din of commerce, lately rededicated to the holy — to the faith of these newest menschs and their womenfolk and kinder of thousands, these million they seem welling tears to flood the avenues east and west then ten street blocks north and further to spill out like blood spurted from the vein of the lane to stain the ice of the Park, to taint the pure and coldly bright earth surrounding the Temple, its reflection of the sanctuary’s dome, skymutual. With His veil lifted, Ben about to lift His voice — an echo comes from the crowd, a yelp that pierces air, its spittle a bullet, stray of flesh, He falls…a frenzied screech, its tongue the clapper of an urgent bell — then Tongues, speaking in or of them…