79. As not Is
Jahr lectures “It is wrong to say Sanguine Lover is Sha-Rronne. The right grammar is Sanguine Lover as Sha-Rronne...and Sharon.”
I’d arrived at Jahr’s house by Led Zeppelin’s Stairway to Heaven. At a fork, I could have taken a wrong turn and head towards Highway to Hell, the ACDC hit. Travelling, in my imagination, is via songs. Hits, by international artistes, are the major routes, whilst their lesser known numbers lead to roads less travelled. The advent of the Internet had also brought forth a glut of wannabe bands and singers; their lack of popularity (sometimes talent) and infinitesimal sales volume makes them isolated and secluded locations off track. But some of the destinations this obscure music brings to are incredibly unique and it’d be a matter of time, through word of mouth, and ‘mouse,’ before they become tourist hotspots. So swing out your music pods: scroll, select and teleport.
What Jahr means when he says ‘Sanguine Lover as Sha-Rronne, or Sharon,’ is the same as saying ‘Angelina Jolie as Lara Croft.’ Well, you can say Angelina Jolie is Lara Croft, but technically, that’s not right, for surely, Angelina Jolie is not Lara Croft. Angelina Jolie is Angelina Jolie and Lara Croft is Lara Croft. Angelina Jolie is merely acting as Lara Croft.
The key thing to remember, according to the wisdom of Jahr, is the verb, ‘act.’
“The whole of existence is a play,” he explicates, “and we are all actors in the director’s grand set.”
“Who is the director?” I stuffed in.
Jahr did a waving motion, casting a spell to lock my infiltrating tongue.
“Doesn’t matter who directs,” he says, “or who produces, finances, whatever...”
Jahr seems annoyed. He’s tapping his cane on the floor in Morse code; multi-tasking; sending orders to his lawyers to conclude the Kreator-Nephlim negotiations.
“Yes...” he stares at me, reweaving his train of thought, “Yes, Sanguine Lover as Sha-Rronne, just as Angelina Jolie as Lara Croft. But the question you may now want to raise is, if Angelina Jolie is acting as Lara Croft, who then is Lara Croft? Lara is definitely not Angie, and I should know, I’ve met them both...” he wanders again. “Charming angels, the two of them...but different. Very different,” he repeats.
“Lara, the Tomb Raider, as I’m sure you are aware, was born in fiction. When Angelina played her, she became that character in the film universe. But Lara Croft already existed way before Angelina possessed her, or for that matter, before any buxom model pretended to be this daughter of an English nobleman for promotional gimmicks to wet male appetites in game conventions and exhibitions. Lara Croft lives in her own world, doing what she does best, in her many forms. She is independent, she is real. But Angelina Jolie as Lara Croft is fake! She is just playing her in that frame, in that frame of time. Beyond that, Angelina has zip to do with Lara. Do you understand?” Jahr stares at me with all three eyes. The third, his mind’s eye, protruded from the folds of his forehead, very similar to the glans emerging from the foreskin during an uncircumcised erection. That ‘thing’ having a pupil and iris, ogling, is freaking scary.
I kinda understand, I said, but it’d be clearer if he brings in Sha-Rronne, Sharon and my Sanguine Lover into this complicating relation. And stop gawping at me with his private part!
“Okay,” Jahr faux apologizes and keeps back his eye behind the zipper of his brain. “Sanguine Lover as Sha-Rronne and Sharon; just use the same fucking analogy!” he scolds; and suddenly I am outside his gates, stuck in the middle of a winter blizzard.