By now most of you will have seen or heard or read about this zinger from President Trump:
“So, I’m going to ask Bill a question that probably some of you are thinking of if you’re totally into that world, which I find to be very interesting. So, supposing when we hit the body with a tremendous, whether it’s ultraviolet or just very powerful light, and I think you said that hasn’t been checked, but you’re going to test it. And then I said supposing you brought the light inside the body, which you can do either through the skin or in some other way. And I think you said you’re going to test that too. Sounds interesting. And then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in a minute, one minute. And is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside or almost a cleaning? Because you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs, so it’d be interesting to check that, so that you’re going to have to use medical doctors with, but it sounds interesting to me. So, we’ll see, but the whole concept of the light, the way it kills it in one minute. That’s pretty powerful.”
Now, as an exercise, I want you to forget about the corona virus. Pretend it doesn’t exist. And most especially, forget about President Trump. Pretend he never happened; pretend this statement was from… anyone. Now reread the quote.
It’s very nearly an artful work of genius. Very nearly only. I still prefer the word salads of William S. Burroughs. Not to mention that Burroughs was never President of the United States, merely another privileged scion of wealth. On the other hand, Mr. Trump has yet to shoot anyone on the streets of New York while Mr. Burroughs shot his wife in Mexico. Yes, he got away with it.
It’s funny how surreal life can be. It reminds me of another example from politics, this from the 1990s:
It may be that the surreal is as common as irony in life, and irony is the dandelion of life.
Yip Abides 