Vintage Ondaatje by Michael Ondaatje

Author:Michael Ondaatje
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 9780307430038
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2007-12-17T16:00:00+00:00

ELIMINATION DANCE

(an intermission)

A crowded dance floor. The band halts in the middle of a number. The Master of Ceremonies steps to the microphone: “Any person who has had a tentative o fer from Reader’s Digest to have their novel condensed.” All dancers thus described retire. The music resumes, pauses again: “Women who have given up the accordian because of pinched breasts.” In this way the ranks of the eliminated swell.

“Elimination Dance” is based on those dances where a caller decides, seemingly randomly, who is forbidden to continue dancing. The last remaining couple wins a prize.

Those who are allergic to the sea

Those who have resisted depravity

Men who shave off beards in stages, pausing to take photographs

American rock stars who wear Toronto Maple Leaf hockey sweaters

Those who (while visiting a foreign country) have lost the end of a Q-Tip in their ear and have been unable to explain their problem

Gentlemen who have placed a microphone beside a naked woman’s stomach after lunch and later, after slowing down the sound considerably, have sold these noises on the open market as whale songs

All actors and poets who spit into the first row while they perform

Anyone who has mistaken a flasher’s penis for a loaf of bread while cycling through France

Men who fear to use an electric lawn-mower feeling they could drowse off and be dragged by it into a swimming pool

Any dinner guest who has consumed the host’s missing contact lens with the dessert

Any person who has the following dream. You are in a subway station of a major city. At the far end you see a coffee machine. You put in two coins. The Holy Grail drops down. Then blood pours into the chalice

Any person who has lost a urine sample in the mail

Those who have noticed and then become obsessed with the fly crawling over Joan Fontaine’s blouse during a key emotional scene in September A fair

Anyone who has had to step into an elevator with all of the Irish Rovers

Those who have filled in a bilingual and confidential pig survey from Statistics Canada. (Une enquête sur les porcs, strictement confidentielle)

Those who have written to the age old brotherhood of Rosicrucians for a free copy of their book The Mastery of Life in order to release the inner consciousness and to experience (in the privacy of the home) momentary flights of the soul

Those who have accidently stapled themselves

Anyone who has been penetrated by a mountie

Those currently working on a semaphore edition of War and Peace

Any university professor who has danced with a life-sized cardboard cut-out of Jean Genet

Those who have unintentionally locked themselves within a sleeping bag at a camping goods store

Those who, after a swim, find the sensation of water dribbling out of their ears erotic

Men who have never touched a whippet

Women who gave up the accordion because of pinched breasts

Those who have pissed out of the back of moving trucks

Those who have woken to find the wet footprints of a peacock across their kitchen floor

Anyone whose knees have been ruined

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