addendum to the sferics

[Paul Murphy]

I almost forgot about the trenchant parody of the Tractatus in the chapter
right after "Mondaugen's Story", couched as a Cole-Porteresque love-song,
sung by Charisma and Mafia. Pages 288-89 (Harper Perennial edition):

It is something less than heaven
To be quoted Thesis 1.7
Every time I make an advance;
If the world is all that the case is
That's a pretty discouraging basis
On which to pursue
Any sort of romance.
I've got a proposition for you;
Logical, positive and brief.
And at least it could serve as a kind of comic relief:

[Refrain]

Let P equal me,
With my heart in command;
Let Q equal you
With _Tractatus_ in hand;
And R could stand for a lifetime of love,
Filled with music to fondle and purr to.
We'll define love as anything lovely you'd care to infer to.
On the right, put that bright,
Hypothetical case;
On the left, our uncleft,
Parenthetical chase.
And that horseshoe there in the middle
Could be lucky; we've nothing to lose,
If in these parentheses
We mind our little P's
And Q's.

If P [Mafia sang in reply] thinks of me
As a girl hard to make,
Then Q wishes you
Would go jump in the lake.
For R is a meaningless concept,
Having nothing to do with pleasure:
I prefer the hard and tangible things I can measure.
Man, you chase in the face
Of impossible odds;
I'm a lass in the class
Of unbossable broads.
If you'll promise no more sticky phrases,
Half a mo while I kick off my shoes.
There are birds, there are bees,
And to hell with all your P's
And Q's.

Note: love as meaningless, intangible, unquantifiable, to which the world
(that is everything that is the case) is hostile. Makes one think...
Cheers,
Paul