The Nothing King: Special Cases
The Nothing King by Elle van Lieshout & Erik van Os, illustrations by Paula Gerritsen (Rotterdam: Front Street & Lemniscaat, 2004)
Special Cases: Natural Anomalies and Historical Monsters by Rosamond Purcell (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1997)
The Ego and Its Own by Max Stirner (NY: Boni & Liveright, 1921)
The Encyclopedia of Magic & Witchcraft: An Illustrated Historical Reference to Spiritual Worlds by Susan Greenwood (London: Hermes House, 2004)
"I have a rabbit, a pansy, and a balcony in the sun. How can you call that nothing?"
"Ha ha, he calls himself a king! But he has absolutely nothing; no queen, no palace, no servants, not even a royal carriage. He is a nothing king." "A nothing king!" "A nothing king!" Their taunting echoed off the walls.
What is a gift book—but this? Implies a history, suggests a future.
At present, you have to wonder.
A gift bibliolage queries a history, doubts a future.
Moons the past, eclipses the yet-to-come.
I like the way the dated futurism redoes the ersatz Victorian.
And the way the pretty poesy predicates flash gordon.
A mere bagatelle.
This one I knew for sure because of that title, The Nothing King.
This could be an alternative title for Ruined Books—the collections of nothing King.
Possessed by monstrosity, bedeviled by lusciousness, off my big rocker candy-ass mountain's majesty.
I guess I'm a special case.
In the thralls of my mind, whatever "thralls" means, I wonder why I start a sentence like that.
Why, oh why?