Chapter 1, in which our hero is introduced. (Pronounced multi- per-spect-ai\u2019-vuhl (with the accent on the ai syllable):<\/p>\n
This postmodernist, sort-of hero\u2019s main superpower is that of bending reality to his will\u2014at least in his own imagination. In ordinary life, he remains disguised as mediocre-man, an unassuming drone in the great hive of humanity. But, when faced with the affronts of lower consciousness, slips into a phone booth\u2014no, wait, we can\u2019t use that device\u2014it\u2019s too old-fashioned, too mid-20th century. They don\u2019t have phone booths anymore; so, okay, where can a guy change into his costume nowadays? Aha, try the public library restrooms, disabled toilet\u2014there\u2019s often enough room in one of those to change clothes. The ordinary toilet stall nowadays is too cramped! (Have you noticed how they\u2019re a lot narrower than they used to be in some places?\u2014and as for the johns on airplanes? Forget it!) (Sorry, I got distracted. This is remarkably easy, nowadays.) <\/p>\n
Back-Story: The Emergence of Multi-Perspectival Man <\/strong><\/p>\n This will seem autobiographical, because it\u2019s about me. What they say about autobiographical writings is that it\u2019s fiction done by a not-too-good writer. Anyway, way back in the olden days, I was born into a normal middle-class family in Los Angeles, a town with hardly any history. A culture that was mid-20th century and proud of it, a time when Americans were right and they were victorious! Oh, we let our allies have some of the limelight, but then a couple of our allies became our enemies, so that was a little confusing. And then it turned out they\u2019d always been bad guys, which I hadn\u2019t learned about till later. All this was perceived and internalized by the mind of a child, so I\u2019m just reconstructing it as best I can, knowing that it\u2019s not very accurate. Anyway, it was great at that time in history thinking that we were morally superior, feeling that we were in the right and being part of a world where science was making progress and there were no unintended consequences. <\/p>\n But then things started getting complicated. I realize know that things have always been complicated but it seemed back then from an immature mind that things were fairly simple: Men were men, women were women, we knew right from wrong, good guys were heroic, villains were un-redeemably bad, and life was understandable. <\/p>\n There were mysteries of two sorts. Earthly mysteries were associated with science. There were some religious mysteries that really were mysterious: Something about wine being actually blood if the magic words were said, and though it was really bad to drink blood\u2014vampires were all bad guys back then\u2014it was good if the right magic words were said, and anyway we shouldn\u2019t think about it. Just take it on faith that it was okay then. Ditto for eating bodies\u2014but really really bad if the right words weren\u2019t said. And there were some science mysteries but it was just a matter of time, like a big ol\u2019 detective mystery. No question but that smart guys would figure it all out. Ah, those were the days. More later. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Chapter 1, in which our hero is introduced. (Pronounced multi- per-spect-ai\u2019-vuhl (with the accent on the ai syllable): This postmodernist, sort-of hero\u2019s main superpower is that of bending reality to his will\u2014at least in his own imagination. In ordinary life, he remains disguised as mediocre-man, an unassuming drone in the great hive of humanity. But, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,14,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-autobiographical","category-foolin","category-spirituality-and-philosophy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=308"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}