AN ADVERTISEMENT FOR A LOST CAUSE

            There are things that we all want to know but can’t possibly know and then there are things that no one wants to know but which are very much knowable. In fact, I much prefer the latter. I’ve made a career out of it. Even now, if you head over to wherever the @#$! West 4th meets West 4th, you’ll spot a little staircase leading down towards my shop of subterranean curiosities. Walk past the ghoulish looking customers, draped in black, who elongate their strides as they approach the gated door. Knock three times, bow low to my Egyptian gargoyles, do a little dance for the CCTV cameras, enter through the gate, walk past the garden with the upside-down plants (there was a time when I wanted to compile the history of our world, but a history arranged through the assumtpive lens of peace, and so I had no choice but to learn the handstand and reverse my view of the world). Finally, place your sneakers in the jeweled cubbies as my tiger greets you with its salmon eyes. Don’t be afraid. Pet her. Hear her purr (she’s ambidextrous). Then, part the bamboo curtains in front of you and there you are. Mircea’s Shop of Curiosities. Oh, poor Mircea, old Mircea. So here you are my dear reader. My last customer. You must have read the advertisement. Yes, the store isn’t what it used to be, you’re right. First it was the landlords who came and took away the steps from my staircase until there were only four left. Then it was the police who took advantage of my generosity. They plucked away my garden, plant after plant, lest I settled in bribes. And finally my loyal customers became old, withered, could no longer brave the stairs, and they, too, fell one by one. What use do the youth have for my antiques? These youths: who want simple answers to the big questions or want no answers at all, and never the useless answers to the useless questions, never the Chinese fan from the Fun dynasty that raises the temperature of the room (oh, you’re right, they’ll buy it, of course they’ll buy it, but will they want to know its story?) But you’ve come from so far, traveler, I mustn't bore you with old tales, let me get you a cup of tea. You’re in a rush, you say? I insist, stay a while longer; but yes, you must go, your parking ticket is running out, I understand, the prices these days; well, friend, there’s not much left to my store; in fact, all I have left for sale is an encylopedia of the most useless kind, an encyclopedia from another time and another city; now don’t get me wrong, the encylopedia is about the deejays of New York, but I’m not sure if it’s our New York or someone else’s New York, and yet, I wonder if our New York isn’t just an encylopedia entry gathering dust on someone else’s bookshelf, too boring to be flipped through. No, you’re right, these are irrational thoughts. But I warn you, traveler, before you buy the book: there seem to be many pages missing. Not only that, but you may find the narration not to your taste. Written by an unknown youth, journaled during (I presume) the subway rides home from underground techno parties, fueled by the ecstasy and magic mushrooms of that music, the words of the narrator seem foreign to us. And yet, don’t they, too, beg to be finished? You don’t believe me? Well, let me read you an excerpt.

THE BRIEF HISTORY OF THE DEEJAYS OF NEW YORK

VOL. 1

FIRST ENTRY: A PREFACE OF SORTS

I am just in the process — there — of removing the last frogs from my horrible room, frogs because of a spell cast by Bishop Evreux, the great deejay, all because I scratched his favorite record (something by John Dimas), and the Bishops are, like most deejays, slimy by nature, nocturnal witches with souls of green, vindictive beings, etc. (because I can go on and on), but why frogs? Last time it was a dragon and her cracked egg (it was the size of my face), and I managed to dispose of the egg just as a webbed hand thrust out, covered in dragon-yolk. And what did I do about the mama dragon? That’s a story for another day. Anyways, now that my table is clear and I have my Campus notebook out alongside my 0.7 mm gel pen, I can sip my whiskey in peace and write down a brief history of the deejays who are like the shadow of the nocturnal wing that stretches over my city.

SECOND ENTRY: BISHOP EVREUX

I was in Bordeaux with my friend, the Bishop, when I realized his strangeness could not be chalked up to French culture as I had once thought, because even the locals — winemakers, tram-drivers, movie-goers — gave him hateful looks as he passed them by. At first I thought the looks were directed towards me. I am a foreigner. I am Indian. My skin is black as coal and I have a condition that causes my eyes to bulge out so that even my subtle glances have the spirit of a stare and whenever I look at anyone they get the impression that I have been staring at them for a very long time. But no, on the second day, I could make out very clearly that the city of Bordeaux despised their Bishop. “Little girl,” I said one day, to a little girl playing hopscotch on the street, “Do you know that man?” I was pointing to the Bishop. “He is the future of music.” She had tears in her eyes and she ran to her mama, who comforted her with a big hug. That’s when the chalk in her hand fell to the ground and started down hill, first slowly, then reaching an absurd speed, and we watched as the chalk covered the distance of the entire city before ending in the Garonne.

Yes, the Bishop was born in Bordeaux, and yes, the Bishop’s name is synonymous with the deejay culture in New York. But how did the Bishop get to New York? And why does the French city hate its greatest export (greater than all its wine)? And finally, why is the Bishop named the Bishop?

I asked the Bishop all this at a pub overlooking the river Garonne. He stared at me with his fire-colored eyes. He downed his shot of vodka and then he looked into my eyes and said quite succinctly, “I was born without a name, to an alcoholic father and a Christian mother. My father inherited his in-law’s winery after they had passed away, but he spent most of his days picking bottles from the crates that lay around the house instead of doing business. My mother was in love with him. In her eyes, he could do no wrong, which made my life all the more terrible though she knew little of it. Mama was a devout Christian. She would spend every Sunday at Saint Andrew’s and she’d bring me along with her. I was the choir boy. I hated it, but I sang well. I had a lovely voice. I still do. Did you know that I did my own vocals for my techno hit, “Weekends with the Taliban?” Everyone thought the voice was a woman’s, but the truth is, I’m a soprano. Here, let me jog your memory.”

He then squaked a song about Jesus Christ playing the saxophone in which each key on His alto sax is the eye of a pagan, and all the while, I was made to drum on the oak-wood pub-top with my sinewy fingers. Then, the Bishop continued, succinctly as always, “One day at school, the footballers were making fun of me for being a choir boy. This was common in those days, but this time, I told them I was the greatest soprano in the South of France. The boys then made fun of me for being a soprano. They said I was a homosexual. I didn’t know what the word meant so I told them I was a homosexual and a proud one at that. They kept laughing, but I felt happy at having identified myself with such a long world. ‘I am a homosexual’ I would say, from then on out, whenever anyone would ask me if I was a nerd or a geek. But soon, I grew unhappy. Was I the only homosexual this side of the Garonne? Because I didn’t know any other homosexuals. One night, I crossed the river, because a little girl told me the homosexuals get together to bang on pots and pans just below the bridge, on the other side of the Garonne. When I reached the other side, I was met with the loudest drums I’d ever heard in my life. I thought I was entering the gates of hell. I had the shivers. I almost turned back. The hoots, the oohs and aahs, the ay’s and the oy veh’s, all of them combined with the drums — and I didn’t know this at the time but these were kick drums — to shroud the bridge in a multiplicity I wasn’t accustomed to. I must have fainted because when I woke up I was in the arms of a woman and I was wrapped in a kashmiri shawl. Well, really, I was in the arms of a man who was wearing a wig and bright red lip-stick, but at the time, I thought I was in the arms of a woman. I kissed the woman’s cheek and said, ‘Mama!’, still in delirium, and the women laughed. As my vision came to, I realized they were men. ‘Who might you be, little one?’ the man holding me asked. ‘I am a homosexual,’ I said proudly, and they all took turns kissing my cheeks.”

“So,” I said, at a point in time when the glass in front was empty and the next glass was on its way, coincidentally the exact time at which I ordered a glass of whiskey for myself, shot of Belvedere for the Bishop, “So,” I said, “these homosexuals slash cross-dressers were the deejays of Bordeaux?”

“Oui,” the Bishop nodded. “C’est vrais. This is when the scene was just about to blow. There were no pots and pans, only technics. Not the modern deejay controllers that do your job for you, but the old record players with the needles, and we scratched up so many records trying to perfect our ways. That’s when we became family, me and them, the musical homosexuals-slash-cross-dressers of Bordeaux. I was their choir boy. I read them sermons, because they weren’t allowed at Saint Andrew’s, and I taught them the Word of God as relayed to me by my mother. Speaking of mama, things were bad at home, with papa being allowed to drink his liver away. If my parents knew where I was, they would have had heart attacks. But I was careful to hide my identity. I’d tell them I was out, practicing for the choir group, when really I was under the bridge over by the Garonne, mixing records with the wonderful gays of Bordeaux. I got very good, very fast, and soon I was on the TGV north, moving past the bleak countryside with extreme pace and with the cross-dressing gays by my side. We moved to Paris and with the help of the gypsies, we threw some of the craziest parties the city had to offer. Then, I got into some trouble with the gangs in the banlieue. They would raid the parties we’d throw, even the secret ones protected by our incantations. It was awful. We were at war. We were a feisty bunch and there were nights when we held our ground on the bridges and in the basements and the Chinese kitchens, but eventually, the gypsies sided with the Africans and the Arabs, and we were left on our own. I’m not quite sure how the fights started. I think they had been going on for a very long time, even before my exodus to Paris. These are the types of battles you inherit. These are the types of battles you don’t question.”

“And then, New York?”

“Yes. I wasn’t making money in Paris anymore so my friend Marianne filled out my college application. I had done so many favors for her in the past, involving frogs of the most venomous variety, and other bewitcheries I can’t really talk about. Anyways, Marianne was a great painter. She painted portraits of all my friends. She even made the short film, “Journey through a Mobius strip,” where the deejays of Paris journey through a Mobius strip, which they later realize is just the Parisian banlieue. Marianne applied on my behalf to a few universities in the United States. I got accepted with a scholarship to N.Y.U and I couldn’t believe it, mostly because I had no idea Marianne had applied on my behalf. I kissed her goodbye and a day later I was walking the streets of that rotting city.”

“The city really is rotting,” I said. “The subways ...” (gesture).

“Yes, the subways ...” (gesture).

“Bishop Evreux, when you started your story, you told me you were born without a name. Can you clarify what you meant so that I can be clear in the brief history I am jotting down?” But instead, the Bishop looked at me as if I were crazy, his eyes alit like two fireflies, and he whispered, “I never said that.”

THIRD ENTRY: PAOLO GRILLI CICIOLINI

“Paolo Grilli Cicilioni,” I say to Paolo Grilli Cicilioni, “you are a great deejay, you have a name worthy of literature, but your poor friend who sits in front of you, who speaks to you now like so, is just so unworthy of literature.” But Paolo isn’t concerned with what concerns his poor friend, and neither is he concerned with the joint he is rolling, mixed with tobacco, although it would be fair to say that while the joint isn’t the object of his concern (because Paolo is rarely ever concerned where concern is concerned), the joint is the object of his interest, evident by the way his eyes admire the balance of the paper between his index finger and thumb, and by the way he moves his golden locks away from his eyes in order to lick the paper so.

“Paolo,” I say (gesture).

“What?” he asks (gesture).

“I’m having trouble with my brief history of the deejays of New York. The trouble’s in the fact that it’s all too brief!”

“Bischero, did you try changing the title?”

“Of my book?”

“Yes.”

“Hmm.”

A LESS THAN BRIEF HISTORY OF THE DEEJAYS OF NEW YORK

VOL. 2

FOURTH ENTRY: JOSE FERNANDO NUNEZ

Fernando sits on the J train that lurches forward on a bridge, so slowly, Manhattan-wards, heaving sighs of a thing from another time, a thing that could never un-thing itself, that could never leave in our nesty memories a single nostalgic thought (such as “vow, I really miss this,” or “remember ven that …”), because instead the thing aged without ever being allowed its teary eulogies and its bouquet of roses, and now it’s just a thing, still a thing, but such a bad thing, really, such a bad, bad thing, and as I sit across Fernando on the J train, on this yellow seat, writing the words of my less-than-brief history, I wonder if I am writing about the train or if I am writing about Fernando.

“Fernando,” I say. He doesn’t reply. “Fernando?” I ask. He doesn’t reply. “Fernando!” I yell. He doesn’t reply. “Fernando …” I ponder. He looks up from his phone and removes an earbud. “Lemmelisten,” I say, and I scootch into the seat next to his.

He is listening to my favorite track.

Outside, pedestrians on the bridge, on this happy blue day, tremble such spinal shivers that they are able to see the vapor in the breaths in front of them. They are wearing swim-suits, the poor things. They weren’t ready.

“This track,” I say to Fernando.

“Si,” replies he.

“Who by?”

“Bishop ——”

“No

   donsayname

               or else

thespell.”

AN ACCOUNT OF THE MISSING PAGES

So, traveler, I have read you the four introductory entries to The Brief History of the Deejays of New York, now retitled A Less Than Brief History of the Deejays of New York, and don’t think I haven’t been observing your grimaces, your snickers, perhaps at the language, perhaps at the narrator’s tendency to transmorgify reality, certainly you haven’t enjoyed the prose or the content or perhaps it’s my voice which may now be lulling you to sleep, and certainly I didn’t miss the fact that you almost fell off your chair when the narrator renamed the title of his work. Let us take a break here; here, where the pages are missing, is the point at which I’ll give you a bit of context to these pages. Of course, I was only a child when the deejays shook open the manhole separating the underbelly of our city from whatever lies above ground. I was only a child when the city went from classifying its deejays as second class citizens by exiling them to the gutters to that moment in the epoch when having a great deejay at your party was all the craze. I believe this encyclopedia is an amalgamation of conflicting histories. Once the deejay culture in our city became mainstream, it very quickly became a passing fad, it could only ever have existed in the dungeons of our city, in its arteries and its ventricules, in the exiled basements to which it belonged. Who was the first deejay of New York? That is the question the narrator circles towards, sort of in a spiral fashion, retracing his steps, and these deejays, some of whom are bishops, most of whom have become old, washed up spirits, grumpy witches and wizards tending towards alcoholism, forever nostalgic for the golden age of their art when the secret of their art kept the fire alive; yes, these deejays can only ever approach that initial Vedic mysticism if they turn that lost magic into history; who were the first gods, they ask, and who the %#$@ were the first deejays?; and yet, as the narrator soon becomes aware, when you trace a spiral backwards you approach a center you often never reach. That is why I say this is a useless encylopedia written by a useless narrator who wastes his time interviewing useless people. But this is also why I have refused to sell this treasure lest I find a customer worthy enough to take it from me. Mircea is getting old, my young traveler, and from the privileged perspective of my advanced years I’ll let you in on a secret. This is why I spent the last of my money on the advertisement. This is why you are here. We have killed the gods, yes, but we haven’t yet killed the deejays. You don’t understand? I’m not sure I do, either. Let me read you a final entry, an entry that precedes the climactic bar fight between Bishop Cazeneuve and Bishop Evreux, and if you still don’t see the value in the meritless, then let the encyclopedia die here with me, it’s no matter, I am perfectly happy being buried alive with this book against my chest when the roof of this old shop inevitably collapses over me, yes, I am more than happy dying right here where I stand, but hush now, traveler, and listen.

FIFTH ENTRY: BISHOP CAZENEUVE

How many Bishops are there? As many creepies as there are, for each Bishop has their preferred vermin, whether eight-legs or two with ten-eyes with two-wings or no-eyes with none, donmatter, as long as xenophobia persists in the You-Esssay without consideration for the baguette-eating Europeans (specially the homosexuals of Bordeaux) then New York will be perpetually overrun by Bishops of name Evreux or name Cazeneuve or name X, and that many spells, too.

Yes, yes, but was I saying something?

I was telling Bishop Evreux, in the pub overlooking the Garonne, that I haven’t seen the other Bishops lately, neither in our three days stay in Bordeaux, nor back home in New York. For Bishop Evreux isn’t the only Bishop, although he is my favorite, and the one who taught them all, supposedly, under that bridge over there by the Garonne, and though he was so young then, he taught them the Word of God as relayed to him by his mother, and so they all became Bishops in their own right, capiche?

“Whyjya change ye accent?” asks Bishop Evreux (slurp), and there goes his vodka.

“I didn’t!” I protest. “Oh no. Must be the spell of —”

“Bishop Cazeneuve!” we both say together, as if in soap opera.

Sure enough, the other Bishop materializes in our peripheries by way of a slight adjustment of our pupils in the left-wards direction. He is carrying in his hand a chameleon, a poisonous one, with ancient scales and a reaching neck and a reach-ed tongue. Yes, the tongue had reached my left hand, which is my preferred hand for gripping beer. I mean to say: the tongue grips m’ left hand grips m’ beer. I also mean to say that now (and who knew!) I am in direct contact with the intermediary between Cazeneuve’s spell and myself, which is the chameleon, specially the one on the back of his palm, a palm placed so delicately on the table’s edge. And if I am in contact with the intermediary between Cazeneueve’s spell and myself, which I am, because so I have said and because such is the chameleon, then so is my beer in contact with Cazeneuve’s spell, though a bit indirectly so, as such is the linkage. And so, because the spell involves a metamorphosis towards the surrounding mise-en-scene (thus, the chameleon), so my whiskey, too, is transformed to beer.

“No wonder my whiskey fizzy,” I say.

“Cazeneuve,” says Bishop Evreux, “Too long, too long.”

“Mhm.”

“Hey! No vermin of class reptilia,” says the bartender, pointing to a sign.

“Smart sign,” I say.

“Smart sign,” says Evreux.

“Smart sign,” concedes Cazeneuve, and he vanishes the chameleon from his delicate palm.

“Cazeneuve,” I say, “whazzup.”

And with the chameleon gone, my fizzy whiskeys.

And Cazeneuve replies in brief, “I arrive here because Paolo Grilli Cicilioni, the Italian, the Italian from Milan, the Italian from Milan with the golden locks that so irresistibly move in the wind or by the simple flick of his hand (gesture) while he rolls his joints half-full of tobacco, this Paolo Grilli Cicilioni tells me that you’re writing a brief history of the deejays of New York, and that you have run a slight problem (truly slight) because your history is all too brief. I can fix this problem for you. Add my name as an entry in your less-than-brief history, because I was one of the founders of this scene, though you’ve forgotten, and though so has this man sitting to your right, to our right, this imposter, this no-good Bishop, or, dare I say, Mr. Excommunicated Man Who Sits Right-Wards And Sits Disgraced. I am speaking of course of Bishop Evreux. He might have told you his own history, a history you believe, full of all that crap about scholarships, about Marienne, about building a music scene from the ground-up, but do you really think the city of New York was built by a lone Bishop and especially by a Bishop of the amphibious variety?”

Silence. Until ... “Actually, Bishop Cazeneuve,” I say (awkward), “the Bishop to our right never said such a thing. We were justabouta get to that part about New York when we were zo rudely interrupted by a chameleon and by such fizzy whiskey.”

“Fine, fine,” says Cazeneuve (gesture), “then let the Bishop continue his story, and only then will I tell mine, after the Bishop has spoken his untruths.”

Very well, I gesture, inducing Bishop Evereux towards speech.

“Very well,” agrees Evereux, thusly speaking, “Where was I? Let’s see. We were in those dreary streets of New York, specifically, Brooklyn, specifically, Bushwick, just off the J train station with the Polish name, and down the stairs I went, found myself surrounded by taquerias and Halaal trucks, and I plucked a taco for cheap by way of expenditure of currency and I ate the taco by way of salivation and the undulation of me jaws. Delicious. Never had I had Mexican food before. Absolutely delicious. ‘Senor, please, another taco …’ I gasped out, and after repeating the process of taco-procurement, I repeated the process of taco-consumption. Belly-full, I then lugged my strolly toward a friend of Marienne’s who goes by name of Paolo — yes, your Paolo Grilli Ciciolini — and when I got to 636 Greene Avenue I punched the doorbell, sweaty from the humid night, and heard the voice of Paolo, who forthwith buzzed the main door open. His accent reminded me of the Sicilians back in Paris, who, by the way, remained as neutral in the race slash gender wars of Paris as the Swiss in the first and second. ‘So, neutral ground,’ I thought to myself, but I soon realized that none of the generational beefs of Paris had made their way to New York. Paolo welcomed me with open arms and introduced me to his flatmates, filmmakers by the names of Selvaggia and Layla, and then to our final flatmate, the esteemed number theoretician Jose Fernando Nunez, who resided in a closet and whose short curly hairs unfurled at the sight of the records I had begun unpacking. ‘What this?’ he asked, pointing. ‘Records,’ I said, and I connected my technics to the apartment’s speakers and played a beautiful, subdued minimal-techno track of around 129 BPM (because I was tired from the flight) and we all danced as the moonlight tiptoed into our Bushwick home from the open window, all while eating gnocchi, and in absolute peace with ourselves and with each other in that unlit living room, only intermittently interrupted by the recurring passing of the J train which ricketed and rumbled on the tracks on the overpass outside, the train’s passing shadow like that of a speedy bird against our window and its cuckow like an embellishment of the record on the technic which refused to spin itself towards silence (unlike how most records do). That’s a thing about this type of music. These songs incorporate all. The moon, the choo-choo train, the strangers who are now family, the gnocchi sizzling in the pot, the stray cats star-gazing by the windowsill. All of it forms an etching on that swirly record, another line added concentrically onto the record’s spine, and I keep this record with me, to this day, not only on a shelf but also in my heart (forgive the dairy) and this record is no longer music at its basest — a collection of notes and rhythms perhaps accidental or perhaps ordained by residing deejay — but instead, music at its finest, a world inside the record, spinning like the earth, beating, pumppump pumpump, alive, yes, alive, little breathing discs like Upanisadic chakras dressed up on dusty bookshelves, and whenever we place them on the turntable technics, we let the world continue a-spinning, because we let the world come alive. That’s what I showed Paolo, Fernando, Selvaggia and Layla that first night in Bushwick. No. Rather, that’s what they understood on their own, not intellectually but instinctively, and as we snorted that last line of ketamine which may or may not have had an influence on the perceived animism of the rotating vinyl-disc, we held hands and migrated towards the roof and watched the Manhattan skyline lose its shine as daylight progressed and the birds cuckawed and only then did the record downstairs finally spin itself towards silence.”

The bartender sniffles and pours Evreux a drink he never asked. “Never a story like that has been told in my bar, and I’ve been running bar for sixteen years.”

“Same,” I say, although I am lying because I hadn’t been running bar.

Bishop Cazeneuve, to my left, is mum.

“Well,” I say, choking back tears, “well, well, prithee go on, Bishop Evreux, good friend, homie.”

“And the next day I awoke on the roof, drool-cheeked and alone, a bit sunburnt by face but covered by blanket elsewhere, and I went down the stairs with blanket in hand, all the way to the second floor, which is where I remembered my new apartment being, and I found Selvaggia cooking pasta as if the night had never happened, because last thing I remembered was Selvaggia cooking gnocchi, and thus, the perceived wormhole in time (but not space-time). ‘You slept too well,’ said Selvaggia, her pigtails protruding at the sight of my drool-cheek. ‘We couldn’t have had the hearts to wake you up. The way you were sleeping, just like a little teddy bear.’ And then she brought her hand in front of her and cradled the air. ‘Little teddy,’ she said. And then Layla came out of the East Room (perhaps this is where I should mention that the four rooms were pointed in the four cardinal directions, except for Jose Fernando Nunez’ closet, which existed on an uncharted plane), and Layla was nude when she rose from the East, fully nude except for her towel-turban (because such was Layla’s personality, and though it’s not necessary that a specific body-type mirrors the personality of being comfortable with one’s nubility, I would wager to say that her flamboyant personality was derived from her self-awareness of her body’s accordance with the current standards of what is libido-inducing and what is libido-endangering, and thus Fiery Layla, and also Layla The Ghost Of The Red Flamenco Bailaora, and other names, too, ...) and she kissed me on the cheek before dipping her finger in the pasta, licking it clean off her hand. Then she said, ‘Bishop Evreux, but it would mean nothing, wouldn’t it, if you were to just —’ and she brought her finger to my lips with the implication that I lick the sauce leftover. I completed the implied task. ‘Mmm,’ I said, because the sauce was perfect, ‘Selvaggia, you have really outdone yourself this time, at least relative to yesterday!’ And I was not lying. Then Paolo opened his door, closely followed by a waft of smoke as if caught mid-circus. ‘Bishop, I haven’t slept!’ he cried. ‘I took the drum machine from your strolly. Hooked it up to my computer. Wires, so many of them. Downloaded required software. Now I have been jamming, jamming, jamming. I have constructed obscure melodies. I have increased tempo. I have pushed the line that delineates noise and music. I have shifted it further away from music. I am avant-garde!’ And at that moment Jose Fernando Nunez transfigurated from his theoretical dimension of mathematical possibility to join our round of applause. You see, the spell had already been cast but I was no longer the musician. A simple record was all it took. And now Paolo Grilli Ciciolini was on the side of magic. ‘Paolo,’ I said, ‘My brother. There are spots even on the sun. There are none on your soul. You are incorruptible. You are infallible. Even when you fall on a patch of grass in a nameless park, you create a mound for an army of ants to call home. Don’t let the impurities of the world corrupt you. While this music — the history of which I will explain to you shortly — has its charms, its moments of bliss, and its illusions of transcendence (such as when you are on your last line of ecstasy, and the sun rises above Bucharest, and the waves …), there are many deejays who abuse the transformative properties of house, techno, and minimal. They are not to be trusted. They exist. You will find them scurrying about like rats in these cities: Paris, Vienna, Budapest, Barcelona, London, and Sao Paulo. You will find them in the underbellies of the underground. Headless snakes, running amok. Snakeless heads, devouring all. They are not to be trusted. They are spots even on the sun. There are none on your soul. I will teach you the Word.’ This is what I had said to Paolo, that day. Thus concludes the retelling of my history.”