Some days I have the wrong invisible hat on; takes half the day or more to feel its presence; then to know I’m under the darkling influence or giddy spree of wrong hat–like a man under a spell, the wrong hat. Corporation tee shirt; politico fabric softener; fulsome and hopeless William Tell idealist hat with feather; stupid Sherlock Holmes. So many wrong hats. Today’s was too hopeful. Some kind of Dickensian hat. Thought maybe the world was perfectible with the right stories. Wrong hat. Need something more Toistoi-ish–revenant, tight, obscuring far vision, Russian pessimism in its sweat band, the hat of all 7 brothers; that’s probably the correct hat on a day of dumb meetings where zilch gets accomplished and you feel the resources of inner life dripping away like–well never mind. Enough to say I’d started the day with a big fat goofy hat stitched from William Blake and Louis Armstrong and mid-day the hat was garish as the hind quarters of a baboon. That’s the way it is, Mr. Cronkite. I wonder if Walter Cronkite ever felt the wrong hat blues, mid day, rushing in or out of CBS? All those years ago when news was still news…Nowadays all the tv people have the wrong hats and they don’t give a rat’s ass. They’d wear a toilet seat if it got them in front of the camera. Suspect that’s a film test over at Fox…This world of ours, its fleeting sorrows, its hats, the shores of the heart and soul; please try on a hat; try on a new hat…Hat for moonrise; for the coming day…tomorrow’s electricity, hat like a wave in sleep; hat of the sustained mind…
S.K.
Planet of the Blind 