Joshua Cohen - Witz

Though the new isn’t even the half of it, as the relic market soars, through the roof — a chimney’s black puff: locks of hair said to be His go for a mint, wrapped for the shipping in mismatched to no matter white tubesocks, retrieved from the laundry, dirtied fetching more than clean, veils and vials of sacral saliva and if impotent seminal fluid are prized if always faked and known to be, too, forged receipts, counterfeit clippings of nail from finger and toe, bogus foreskins and eyelashes as questionable, and as unquestioned, as the proliferating public and publicized records of miscellaneous deeds done, of good works goodly worked upon billboards and within the webs of neon campaigns — Bens private and public assimilated into a bland middle, made pareve, approachable, relatable’s the term through the given mundane (gnawed nighttable pencils and pens, knives and forks stolen from roomservice carts and their dishes that chafe, yarmulkes blown from His head and from there — directly into the hands of the deserving, a blessing fallen from the steal of the wind), these artifacts of His lapsed divinity, these failures made object of abject, His. Witness the fervor for such relics culled and cleaned from the fleshified strata of this monumentally walkingtalking dig, this instantaneous forefather Ur; an involuntary authority just one appeal short of repealing Himself, it’s been said — meaning God…what tsuris, what terror!

And how He’s imperishable like divinity, too, managing to recover from any scandal, emerging ever stronger, with an authority that can’t even admit No Comment, that can’t even be questioned without asking back: the latest DNA tests performed manage to identify the Jnome, or its lack (though only the results are reported, the exact science hushed up), setting the issue of a son right once and for all. With the depths of scandal being translated to the heights of authority, an inviolable mandate atop its heightening mountain with the desert impending — He’s near teflon omni, a bulletproof golden cow without tarnish; a bush behind which hides the ram that is His fear, never to be burnt for a lark. A Moses’ Moses, which is as a lay God or lap dog, a stoolpigeon trained to fetch the new tablets: debut legislation, fall season’s ad copy, the invite list’s advance benevolence. At pattering parties, Ben going from being token to a coin, as currency musthave, to be booked long on advance notice only: as a straightmensch, or color commentary, as a guest host or rabbi-to-the-stars, engaging in scripted debates with Doctor Abuya and others for gabs fested on rushhour FM and late night teevee nationwide — though there’s only one network revived. He makes for pleasant filler; not too difficult, always engaging, toeing the Garden’s line in slippers orthopedic: a product of Benwear©, His own label of big & tall clothing. Ben weeknights hocking whatever product He’s been informed of His support of (Cistern Bottled Water®), personal predilection for (He-brew™, now available in eighteenpacks), scissoring ribbons at kosher food outlets all over the nation, opening libraries at minimum security prisons out of state, inaugurating kennels, speechifying at rallies and public gatherings for worthwhile cause (Late Onset Tay Sachs research) or catastrophe (COP, COnvert the Poor); opening matzahball and gefiltefish canneries, delivering keynote addresses at sales seminars for women’s undergarments, motivational speaking for headache survivors, and Friends of the Uncircumcised. The Orphan Bride Fund. CPA’s for Charity. Ben all day all around your dial, turn as you, the introspectively disaffected, might (though afraid as any are nowadays of being denounced), hocking insoles, insteps, solutions, too, and solvents, it’s amazing, Ben, it really works, and just wait, He says, till you take a sit down in one of these recliners, phenomenal, tell me about those hypoallergenic pillows, will you, hymn, Ben, they’re specially designed to service your cervical curve, wow, I can’t believe it, can you: grillers and smokers and knives, life’s never been so easy, the wife’s never had it this good; Ben embracing the neologic of the infomerical, smiling from behind every pulpit, smarming from atop any platform — name the price, He’s your mensch. Marketing loves it, they’ll die for His grins — or so the Garden assures its investors with data to prove, the Kings Ben plugs for, endorses on behalf of from late at night monologues through the walkover, hosted into morningshowed tomorrows that guest the same as todays, the total program. How’s life? Holiday plans? Primetime beckoning, a call in the wilderness of poolside, the lure of the highestpaying slots, their jangling ring: Ben’s mouth behind the tamtam diet, the herringflavored proteinsupplement, touting its kashrut, the benefits to your health; then, only a spot later He’s on again giving weepy testimonial for Praying Off The Pounds©, I’ve never been more excited, He says, than about this simpering-ly a-may-zing evangelical weightloss movement in a spate of commercials for which He’s backed by a vintaged folksinger who with guitar in hand jingles himself out the nose. Though to be fair to His handlers, and to keep up His image, that selflessness shtick, Ben’s out there publicservicing, too, paid per the platitude to engage with the kinder, announce: Stay in drugs, Don’t do School. Take two. Yeshiva, voiceover. Ben, nothing much matters, that He botches most of this if not all: in His overdubs, occasionally awkward, a stutter; comfortless and clumsy in photographs; in printspots in both how He’s imaged and quoted, nearly repellent in intentschmearing spreads: a pitchmensch grabbingly girthed, overflowing His waistline, foldout…Ben’s pants pinched in two, while pitching a tent in His fly (styling credits: WHose by Israelien , $59.99/1080 IS): an encampment pilgrimaged by everyone who’s, producers and their advancemenschs, their behindmenschs, faddists and setters and models and magnates, crossover heiresses and crosseyed tycoons; their congregation itself beset with the heated pants and ferocious howlings of autograph hounds, salivating and fearsomely scratching at an elusive itch perked by the ears or the tail — they need His signature, it’s His name or death: just kick it into the sand, will you, at the edge of our purpose, of Ben’s or of Judah’s or…legible only to the gaze of the sun, let the wind efface it on the morrow: it’ll be gone, but may that gust carry your fame far and wide. He has to memorize how to sign His name in the holy tongue, entailing Nachmachen instruction under Abuya supervision — it’s a popular request. He grips the pen fullfist, as if the tongue of His tongue concentratedly nibbed. Then, to make His mark upon their clammy, heaving flanks: a singular initial fanged across the ribs, with a hesitant flourish. He shakes hands if hands hounds have, and then’s gone, leaving behind Him a disappointed pack of fierce fandom, cursiveshaped jackals howling at the moon.

O pity this Kitschenmensch fallen, semioticized Semitically exotic, hermeneutered to death! It might be better, the Garden thinks, if all had their own individual Bens, then, a personal savior to call each their own, or Ishmael — that would make more sense than such overscheduling, these lookalikes who themselves have to be minded night and day to keep sober and kind. A figure, a figurine, poseable, plastic without soul. An animal stuffed with dream, stitched up with silvery linings. Scarred. Expressionless. Name it again what it is, not an idol but an idol’s idol, a God’s imaged god shelved Aisle Ten, opposite the mirrorlike void. Too bad you can’t massproduce stars. Stay with us, it’s part of and parceled with research, that’s it, at least that’s how R & D’d try to sell it to Him: trying to find out if Ben, both the concept and human, the menschboy, the boychick, would be more viable as what, a woman — with a pair of those, Doctor Tweiss snickers, the other Tweiss sniggers, and a you know, giggle, snort, tsk, tsk, down there, with baby chromozoans helixed just right, nice and neat to further the line. Twistingly turned. Have Him mate with Himself. Cloning, no buts. Stroke a schlong. I need more. Lightning and thunder. Frank & Stein, a firm whose services He’d be smart to retain. Idea is, nu, how Der and his inner tisch they don’t say what it is as much as it’s implicit in whatever they the doctors are allowed to be told: to make Him as versatile as possible, opened up to the widest possible appeal; though only after identification of the maximum number of permutations to be had from among xdemographed incarnations and yadda y furthered through z. Basically, as it’s lately explained, once the value proposition’s been defined in committee, to go right ahead and, synergistically proactivate the deepest spiritual desires of, fill in the blank — what was the budget of Babel, how high overhead? Forecasts, predictions, a waste of time, resources, money money money say the angels up in Accounting; it’s that we have to tap into dreams, sample only the tenth or so of the stuff that’s represented as prophecy, according to our Sages, their entitled fraction, the terumah…let them make their beds to lie in them, we’ll be the richer for it; let them grope for amelioration all they want upon waking, it’s not going to change anything soon. It’s too late to toss, turn, rollover, around; it’s going to be that they can’t tell when one dream ends and another begins, and what’s best is that they’re not going to care — as long as we’re always a delusion ahead.