A word on Clinomania's explosive burst of wet postings, and our by contrast dry and brany occasional squeeze-out. Of late we find we simply can't keep pace with Jack's verbal output. There is much for criticism here - Jack returning again and again to spar with his old ringmate, Hollywood; Jack's musings on the state of his own life, physical and otherwise; Jack's presentation of a somewhat dark view of human experience. And in time, all these areas will be explored. We apologize to our scores of readers who look to us to frame their reading experience of Clinomania.
But our relative dearth of late provides an opportunity for you, the reader, to engage Jack's text free of textual analysis and critical proposal and dissection.
Suggested questions to guide the for-now unaccompanied reader:
-How does Jack's physical condition (his hangovers, his odd hairs, his tummy-state) shape his view of his external surroundings? Does Jack offer up his own form as a kind of barometer? A buoy, the bounces of which on the briny toss reflect the volubility of the seas?
-What of Boat? Is the name a metaphor? Representing "boat"?
-Is Jack's alcoholism fuel for the fire or grist for the mill?
-Jack dances around the fact that he travels in the world of "design." And yet his life, his thoughts, his adventures, seem so undesigned, so spontaneous. Is this most arch of paradoxes purposeful? Are we to see Jack as a divine jokester, a heyoka figure making sport of the world, or are we to see his misadventures rather as the pitable misfortunes of a pilgrim walking the earth?
