The Tao of Sparrow
(Page 3 of 4)
March / April 2006
By Chris Dodge
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Like its author, America: A Prophecy demonstrates encyclopedic breadth. The book draws from material first published in such tiny and esoteric publications as The Unbearables Assembling Magazine and LUNGFULL! and some larger ones like Whole Earth Review. (The online finding aid to his personal papers, held at New York University's Elmer Bobst Library, verifies a prolific literary output and shows that Sparrow has contributed both to Mahamatsya and to Mr. Puke Reviews, a feat that must be unique.)
Sections of America: A Prophecy are devoted to Iceland (where "the national bobcat, the White Penetrator, moves freely through city streets"); Poland ("Most of the world's straw originates in the Zcuk Valley"); imaginary autobiographical essays about sexual relations with a horse, an ant, and Cher; and imaginary interviews, as well as some apparently real ones (with Tiny Tim, for example). Sparrow also writes about the significance of names, gives a humorous account of his telephone solicitation work, relates (through journal entries) his encounters with cockroaches, enumerates buildings he's "had sex in" in Manhattan, elucidates his political philosophy via anecdotes about freeing flies and reusing old envelopes, and describes what it was like to meditate in various public places in New York City.
One essay focuses on the 14 cigarettes Sparrow has smoked over the past 34 years. "It has been 11 years since my last one," he writes. "Quietly, I prepare for my next cigarette. I refuse to stop smoking."
When one meets a kindred spirit, everything flows and all signs say go. At the same time, there may also be an odd sense of dancing on an airplane whose destination we don't know. Sparrow seems to embrace this paradox joyfully. Though his campaigns were not heavily publicized, Sparrow ran -- or slowly ambled -- for president in 1992, 1996, 2000, and again in 2004. "No one realizes that America's decline can be a boon," he writes. "A civilization's autumn can have the same virtues as retirement. It's time to relearn chess, to listen to Dixieland jazz. I'd be the perfect president of a declining America, as I've been in retirement since 1973, when I flunked out of Cornell. I fill each day with an array of personal whims. I stock the bird feeder, visit lobbies of famous hotels . . . call my friend Sheila. I spend three dollars a day, and my life is plentiful. I can teach this to America."