Eugene Ostashevsky

 
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Remember the Cogito

 

 

 

Now the Lord said to DJ Spinoza:

Baruch, are you there?

 

And DJ Spinoza said to the Lord:

Here I am!

 

And the Lord said to DJ Spinoza:

Baruch, how about you be my mirror?

 

And DJ Spinoza said to the Lord:

Mirror? But God spelled backwards reads dog!

 

God:

Don’t be so literal.

Tell me something nice

about myself, tell me I exist.

 

DJ Spinoza:

You exist.

 

God:

No, say it like you mean it.

 

DJ Spinoza:

You’re being needy today. Is everything alright?

 

God:

I was just thinking: If I really am Absolutely Transcendent, then I don’t exist at all, do I?

 

DJ Spinoza:

But, Lord, remember the cogito: If you think you don’t exist, you exist!

 

God:

Yeah, I guess so.

 

(Silence.)

 

Now the Lord said to DJ Spinoza:

Baruch!

And DJ Spinoza said to the Lord:

Here I am!

 

God:

Are you sure? I mean, your argument, it’s not just verbal, is it? Does it really apply?

 

DJ Spinoza:

Inasmuch as anything applies.

 

God:

But nothing really applies. Does the word dog apply to dogs? Ask yourself that.

 

DJ Spinoza (pensively):

Does the word dog apply to dogs?

 

God:

Nu?

 

DJ Spinoza:

I can’t tell. Shall we test it?

 

(He walks over to Yasha.)

 

Yasha! Yasha!

 

(Yasha wakes up.)

 

Yasha, dog! Dog, Yasha! Dog, Yasha, dog!

 

(Yasha stares incomprehendingly.)

 

God:

You see?

 

 

 

The Lens: A Moral Fable

for Brandon Downing

 

 

 

 

Waalking through the forest one day MC Squared met the philosopher Kierkegaard.

 

Kierkegaard:   If P, you will regret it.

                               If ~P, you will also regret it.

                               P or ~P, you will regret either.

                               P and ~P can’t be, and so you will regret it all the more!

 

MC2: Why so sore, N.?

 

Kierkegaard: I need to beat somebody up. En garde!

 

MC2: You’ll regret it.

 

Kierkegaard: Ach, what won’t I regret.

 

They fight. Kierkegaard is wounded. MC2 readies a coup de grâce.

 

God:     Stop! Stop! (Sings.)

               It is wrong

                                               to commit

                                                                               violence!

 

MC2:     But I’m strong!

              

Kierkegaard:                   But I submit!

 

God:                                                                     Get your eye a lens!

 

MC2 and Kierkegaard: Huh?

              

God (aside): It is rhyme

                                               that hath made me

                                                                               obscure:

               Human language

                                               is sick

                                                                               beyond cure! (To them.)

Get a lens

                                               if your eye

                                                                               cannot see!

 

MC2 and Kierkegaard (putting in lenses):

              

Now I see

                                               I’m like you,

                                                                               you’re like me!

 

The End