Luke Kennard

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Oh, that Thou teach even me. I who abhor truth, the stubborn bloodhound. Worth three hairbrushes, if that. No: hydrogenated fats. No: enhanced form- aldehyde. What shorthand thunderbolt could halt my hibernation & dog thirsts? The unabridged refrigerator, the unnoted cheese board. Heh. Shortlist me with the redundant heathen, half my covenant with toothache. Foot the noun. Whatever it takes. Lord, have mercy. Gospodi po- miliu. Kyrie eleison.

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...

And the Lord said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother's keeper? And He said, What hast thou done? The voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto Me from the ground. And now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy hand. When thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength; a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth.



Genesis 4:9-12
...

It is generally believed that the writers had to make the most of a low budget and that this led to the grim determination of writing through restriction, bottle episodes, and constraints. In reality the show was generously bankrolled by Thud, but several costly set pieces had been planned which depleted the kitty. Nevertheless, episode 4, comprising solely an intimate kitchen dialogue between Fr. K and Adah, remains a fan favorite. "It was one of the last things we shot," recalls Halberg. "Kitty [Beaulieu, who plays Adah], had really got into the role by then which was important as we wanted to imply years of previous talk between

them. They
mics and I got every line so most completely
gives the scene personal
you're overhear- neighbors
wall." Adah
find that in the she has been
no longer has and privileges
a cleric. To be
be excessively alcohol which points out,
for Father K's within their probes further. to fob her offboth had contact them to whisper that it was al- inaudible. It
that indecently atmosphere, as if ing your own through the
is dismayed to three months away, Father K the obligations to function as bibulous is to fond of drinking is, as Adah hardly unusual line of work culture. She Father K tries
by talking about
— Tell me again how you were defrocked.
— Overnight.
— That's half.
— Bibulously.
— That's hardly uncharacteristic.
— Alright. There are things we don't fathom: the "noumenon."
— That's better. Humor me.
— March 5th, The Hour of Botheration: the invertebrates trashed the transept, uprooted the boutonniere ... This vermivorous, backhanded ordination...
— Wood!
— Bonded, drowned hobo.
— Oh, Eden! Oh, heeded ode!
— And faith?
—N- No, th- th... H- h- h- h- h- h- h-
—You're crying. Why?
— It's all that's left.

Kantian philosophy (the noumenon is a posited thing, object, or event which is known, if it is known at all, without the use of the senses), but it soon emerges that a violent overthrow of the church has taken place, the transept vandalized, Father K (and, we suppose, his ilk) booted out and replaced by patsies during The Hour of Botheration. Its having been titled shows that the recent event has already passed into myth — a further indication that there is no planned resistance. This augurs very ill, and the look on Adah's face as Father K sobs in her lap really says it all. She realizes that she will have to act as leader, as cheerleader, as mother, as father to the household.
...

But not before several undisputed stone-cold classics. This is why we keep writing about Cain: for all its self-indulgent flaws it just gets it so right sometimes. Every standard element is here: the gang is still drinking far too many cocktails in one sitting, Cain is a hypocrite, Adah exists only to be interpreted by the men, Father K is so borderline incoherent you almost wonder if he's a malfunctioning robot. So what's changed? I think it's the widening of the lens, the micro to the macro. By this point they've all pretty much given up

on their evening away from the overthrew and ing it in ruins puppet-board of means we can
at what is hap- city, and it's not demilitarized,
to confirm the word as bond. grinding their with the recog- cial authorities isclasses, walking university they took over, leav- with a useless directors. This look, once again, pening to their good. Officially this only stands emptiness of Everyone is teeth. Reasoning nized or unoffi- like attempting
Cain, though broadsheet in dialogue, harbors tabloid thoughts. A doughnut of prurience. I had Adah misconstrued (5th/6th Manhattan). T/K: Her worth, her "no tent" theme. The red toothbrush threshing deconsecrated earth, boycotted labyrinths. Hot thin chef, overworked an- tihero of the bathysphere, I need you to be yourself today. Thoth went, font-born, on farmland. The mortar swiveled on the hill. Demilitarized, huh? Oh how vehe- ment, Heavenward.

to plough a field with a toothbrush. The overworked chef had finally produced something delicious and, this week at least, it was a labyrinth we didn't want to boycott. T/K is journalistic shorthand for "to come," indicating a forthcoming addition to the text. (TK is a rare formation of letters and therefore would not be confused with continuous language as "to come" might). Thoth, one of the gods of the Egyptian pantheon, has either an ibis or a baboon head. Arbitrator of disputes between other gods and the system of writing.
...

One of Halberg's more whimsical decisions: just when the action is coming to a head, attempt to pull off
something formally innovative. "Underwritten? Lithe!" could have been a note to his detractors in this
metaphorical on-screen corrections list. Each one of its 23 scenes was followed by a "what really happened"
reveal, until the audience ran out even of false hope. "It was a bold decision, and by bold I mean stupid,"
says Ingram. "I tried to reason with him: if you go to pull the rug out from under somebody's feet 23 times

they're just go- and step off the he had that kind trick in mind
the table cloth cutlery, crockery, undisturbed. over and over until the very smashes
hell." The whole an unrealized them share a captors and
K, and Cain are together as theing to get bored rug. But I think of conjuring where you pull out and leave the and glassware Only you do it again 22 times last tablecloth everything to episode was sneeze. We see joke with their Adah, Father allowed to stay sun rises. But
Erratum:

For blubber, read brother. Compassion; shoeshine. Authoritative; whiten. Hard; daft. Veldt; thought. Inertia; in- herit. Mothered; afterthought. Work; ho ho ho. Schoolteacher; orthodontist. Enlightened; muddy. Horny; hyphen- ated. Underwritten; lithe. Theft; fuddle. Honorable; anaesthetist. Handbag; ow. Thud; ahhhhh. Huh?; entertainment. Sainthood; elf. Revolution; neology. Dad; backbencher. Bosom; overstay. Watchmen; wretches. Hydrate; shoot.

no, we jump-cut to their separation and Father K weeps hoarsely as their hands are tied behind their backs. After an inappropriate remark about Adah, Cain kicks an AK-47 from the weaker-looking patrolman's skinny arms and scatters the rest in a hail of bullets. But no, we jump-cut to Cain being repeatedly pistol- whipped by the same patrolman. It seems unnecessary to list the others. This is now a world where honor is an anaesthetic and the saint is as fictional as the elf. They beg for water. Cain takes a bullet to the
...

Injured, sleep-deprived, sorely tested, Adah, Cain, and Father K are falsely imprisoned in a shallow cave
with other unfortunates seeking refuge from their war-torn homeland. It is hard to blame the writers' room
if "Unlike All Other Empires" felt as cynical and world-weary as its protagonists. Cain, in need of medical attention he will never receive for his infected gunshot wound, entertains the children with parables of

the less than
K and Adah fragments of cheese and dried a side pocket rucksack in rendition of the five thousand. lost and the only view comes from talkative guard, sunstroke, who plight as the
of humanity.human. Father portion out tiny dehydrated goat bread found in of K's deflated some worn out feeding of the
All hope seems external point of an unusually half mad with regards their normal situation And yet there
Holed up in a bothy, Adah and Fr. K share dried curd and stone bread with the yet breathing. Hew, chew, survive. Cain: foulmouthed & hedgehoggy; not mint. The children have an illustrated book called Dehumainze! He reads to them. Afternoon: hot. Hot. Hot. Hot. Hot. Hot. Hot. Hot. Hot. Ohhh. Life hobbled, un- ornamented, unnoteworty runoff. As Westerners-by-birthright it's hard to ha- bituate to horror, huh? We try to leave some permanent scrathes in the dirt.

is a will to live, an ember which has not quite been scotched. Those lines in the dust could be as nihilistic as any ephemeral gesture, or they could be the most hopeful, the most human impulse we possess. "Posterity is bullshit. This is where we always planned to end it," says Halberg, well aware that there were still a full nine episodes to go in the projected 31-episode run, and that many shows could complete an entire plot cycle without much more screen time than that which he'd set aside for the denouement. "It was discussed at the outset, so don't listen to Lin or James or any of the other whiners I should have let go at the halfway point." A toast to the not rescued. The Edward Said quotation in full: "Every empire, however, tells itself and the world that it is unlike all other empires, that its mission is not to plunder and control but to educate and liberate."
...

A much-needed swan song from Cain, blasting Father K's bien-pensant ideology and everyone else in his path. A neoliberal trying to ingratiate himself with the construction worker and trustafarian alike, his argu-

ments lighter performed as a he's right, you Ingram. "You them, but it's particularly good they? There's take the side well-presented Otto Thud (who Dr. in spite of nomenology) is unsought cameo fornicator (a
on an anecdote I one to tell me).than air and spectacle. "And know?" says
feel sorry for
not like they're or anything, are a tendency to
of the most suffering." Poor never went by
his PhD in phe- given another
as the moonlight monicker based cannot get any- Furthermore,
B-

"Fr. K, you hater! The standard liberal monotony: thinking all that is persecuted must be the truth. Hah! But no. Some things are only persecuted. Oh Fido, thitherward, round the houses — hold the hard hat, hold the standby ban- danna — you launch the featherweight countercharge, the mere badminton, the waterfront hotbed. Neon Ivy Federation! The moonlight fornicator: he had more worth. (Hi, Dr. Otto, where's the hooch?) This is how behavior devolved.

"neon ivy federation" was generally taken to be a sideswipe at his beloved alma mater, [redacted], which Halberg considered one of the lesser liberal arts schools in the Ivy League. The last straw, by all accounts.
...

An extremely hubristic, unflattering, and accurate self-portrait, this episode saw Halberg in direct conversa-
tion with Cain, questioning his own methods. The passing allusion to Pushkin's Eugene Onegin appears
to reference Chapter 4, stanza XXXV: "But I myself read my bedizened /fancies, my rhythmic search for truth, /to nobody except a wizened /nanny, companion of my youth; /or, after some dull dinner's labour, /
I buttonhole a wandering neighbour /and in a corner make him choke /on tragedy; but it's no joke, /when,

utterly worn out hausted and
I take /a
beside my
get up; with
ing/alarmed by lay,/they leave fly away." There able system of the show, which not discuss, appears to be the is a geometric
to Euclideanby rhyming,/ex- done up, rambling walk lake,/and duck instant tim-
my melodious their shores and is an unfathom- numbers within Halberg will
but episode 25 key. An orthant term referring
n-dimensional
I could close the deal with my brattish coauthor, harry reputation's toreador, or detonate the whole trenchant, un- fathomable bandwidth. Thumb-horned orthant. (The bits where Pushkin's like: UGHHHH! RHYMES! and goes for a beer.) Can't unread the footnote: Is this worthwhile? Am I? Oh shanghaied heart- throb, thirteenth dandy havoc-hound. Gentrify the favela runt or defend the loon; sod the chrome T-totum. Ever the bodybuilder, even in ghosthood.

space, the analogue of a quadrant (2D) or an octant (3D). Thumb-horned has the feel of an order of mockery /cuckoldry but may also be a reference to Cain's mark, according to some scholars, being the gradual protrusion of horns. A T-totum (or teetotum) is a little metal Roman spinning top used for gambling. William Ernest Henley's "The Double Ballade on the Nothingness of Things" opens with the lines: "The big teetotum twirls, /And epochs wax and wane /As chance subsides or swirls ... " Triskaidekaphobia can be traced back to the Zoroastrianism of ancient Persia where the 13th day of each new year is considered evil, or a day when the power of evil is particularly intense and can cause trouble, thus to this day people leave cities and camp overnight in the countryside. God has thirteen attributes of mercy according to rabbinic commentary on the Torah, and thirteen is also the number of nodes which make up Metatron's Cube in Kabbalistic account. Metatron is an extraordinarily important angel in the apocryphal Book of the Palaces; it is suggested that Metatron is the only reason the human race was given knowledge of God and the cube forms a kind of "map of creation." This appears to relate back to the "rhombohedral monolith" of the early episodes, the college's strange obelisks. It is worth mentioning that Euclidean spaces generalize to higher dimensions. I feel really weird.
...

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The show remains, unshot. Adah rants. Cain bares his teeth. Starvation: a state without border. World without means. Haha. Who'd have thought. Total inter- regnum. Theogony. Thrombotic idea. (Debt flogs verb.) A retro daydream: I hid under the hollyhock. The prohibition-era nut cuffed me. Shoddy fate, old horse. To genuflect? Ohhhhhhhhh no ... Vulture count: Then. Then. Then. Then.

Noon throbbed resplendently.

Baby ... I ... tried ... to ... make ... the ... word ...

I reached for her.

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...

We returned from the war happier, arms around our shadows—
Who claimed to be older than us. They told great jokes

Lay around barefoot, hair precisely
Unkempt, cigarettes hissing and glowing like christmas lights.

Only our fiancées were tired and bothersome,
Having forgotten how to love, or vice versa.

Some had moved to factories in other cities,
Others, when pressed said, ‘No-one's forcing you to put up with me.'

We went skating with our shadows,
Huddled under the fir trees drinking sausage tea.

Inquisitive sheep collected around our camp;
It was good to be among the ice storm and the believers.

We described the funny pages to Simon—who had lost both his eyes
But the jokes didn't work so well in description.
...

My friend, your irresponsibility and your unhappiness delight me. Your financial problems and your expanding waist-line are a constant source of relief. I am so happy you drink more than I do and that you don't seem to enjoy it as much. When I hear you being arrogant and argumentative, my heart leaps. Your nihilism is fast becoming the richest source of meaning in my life and it is my pleasure to watch you speaking harshly to others. When you gossip about our mutual acquaintances I sigh with satisfaction. Your childish impatience delights me. The day you threw a tantrum in the middle of the supermarket was the happiest day of my life. Sometimes you say something which reveals you to be rather stupid - and I love you then, but not as much as I love you when you are callously manipulative. Your promiscuity is like a faithful dog at my side. When you talk about your petty affairs, you try to make them sound grand and important - I cherish your gaucheness and your flippancy. At times it seems you are actually without a sense of humour: I bless the day I met you. You bully people younger and weaker than you - and when others tell me about this, I am pleased. Sometimes I think you are incapable of love - and I am filled with the contentment of waking on a Saturday morning to realise I don't have to go to work. I often suspect that you do not even like me and my laughter overflows like water from a blocked cistern.
...

Flat-faced clown of the gazebo,
Lever that punctures the world,
A see-saw we cleave to and see our fate
Rising on the other side.
Piano of the shed's orchestra,
A stick fastened to an evil
cast-iron cartoon seagull.
The opposite of a knife:
You cannot be used accidentally.
The force and stance required
Renders us one animal.
When the earth is gravelly
We sound like a distant car starting.
When muddy, satisfying as a new word
Used surreptitiously in the right context.
Once the hole is dug the only thing
I cannot bury in it is you;
Tamping down the sewn earth
Like gunpowder in a canon.
Puppet on a blue-screen,
Dancing like a smug wand,
Suddenly disembodied,
From me, your erstwhile fossor,
Your mortal, flubby ballast,
Your spluttering engine.
...

HALÁTNOST [Russian] noun. - literally, ‘dressing-gownness' (HALÁT meaning dressing-gown), a state of detachment, inertia, procrastination, day-dreaming…
He sleeps! He sleeps! A whisper passes round;
His orchestra is tiptoeing away
From the four-poster bed in which he lies
When someone knocks a cello through a bank
Of clarinets; wearily the players
Return to their sheet-music; this will be
Another long night in his company.
It could be dawn before they stumble through
The wild gardens of this ancient house
Where he, behind a leafy window sets
Upon his education - like a cat
Preserved in amber in an attitude
Of fury. To be seen to learn's enough,
He told his henchman in a rare display
Of trust (betrayed - the henchman told the cook).
Tomorrow he will reference his paper
On characters crushed by falling pianos
In tragedy or comedy - but now
He cannot sleep; he is sick with worry:
For what if he is evil, after all?
What if this insubstantial kindness is
Another weapon? His brow creases up.
A piano hitched to the ceiling creaks;
The strands of twine will snap in perfect fifths
Before it falls - Oh, let it fall on me.

A dead aunt from a war-torn city sends
Three children - who arrive next morning, with a note
Of introduction; two boys and a girl.
Something in their expressions is askew -
Like people in Nineteenth Century scenes
Who did not imagine their faces would
Affect the outcome of the photograph:
We have different eyes now, eyes casting round
For the nearest reflective surface.
There are horrible opinions everywhere:
Like oil slicks. They must be kept indoors,
These children - he prepares for each of them
A pair of slippers and a dressing gown.
...

a rondeau

Men made of words live in migraine hotels
And talk not of music, but speaker cables;
Stay up to drink whisky with red lemonade,
Point out the mistakes one other has made -
Of pronunciation, directions and sales.

Some compare charts before prints of Kandinsky;
Some pick on the barmaid - Nebraskan and pretty -
Their guiding philosophy never needs telling;
The Fauvists, so colourful: what is it they're selling?
Art never hurts for the men made of words.

So if you, like I, often let down your guard
When you're drunk in the hush of a theatre courtyard;
Or, forced to find work beneath travestied arches,
You find yourself under the weight of their glances,
Make your excuse while the handshakes are hard
And run for your life from the men made of words.
...

I take the murderer for coffee.
‘Make sure you don't murder your coffee!'
I joke. He likes my jokes.

Later I swing a plank into his face:
This is to stop him enjoying himself -
Which is integral to the rehabilitation process.

His mouth trickles blood like a tap quarter-turned.
He likes my analogies. ‘Hey, Murderer!'
I yell, ‘Murdered anyone recently?'

The murderer likes to play badminton.
When he loses, I say, ‘That's what you get for being a murderer.'
When he wins, I say,

‘I guess you got yourself in pretty good shape
Murdering all those people.'
I'm not about to let the murderer forget he's a murderer.

When I dance with the murderer I let him lead
Because he is the more proficient dancer -
‘Just be careful not to murder me!' I tease.

The prison sits on the horizon like a great ash-tray -
When we travel I give him the window seat.
‘Hey, murderer, would you like a sandwich?' I say,

‘Or would you rather murder someone?'
The murderer eats his cheese and ham sandwich.
‘The forecast is for snow,' I tell him.
...

The unshelled peanuts pour down the flue
Like a throng of ecstatic bald men, dancing.

I put my hands into the flue and raise them.
I let the peanuts fall over my head.

I place a nut between my teeth.
It tastes of pencil lead.

I place the bad nut in an iron trough.
When the trough is full it is taken to the furnace.

The good nuts are portioned, weighed
And sealed into foil bags - but I am not involved in this.

We can eat as many nuts as we like.
We are all so sick of nuts we cry sometimes.

Friday mornings we leave the factory, dancing,
Like unshelled peanuts pouring down a flue.
...