THE REMIX:
PIERROT, UNDER THE BIG TOP
The lashing of Pierrot’s whip. The animals that thrilled everybody. The station wagon with one hundred Pierrots. Long red shoes and polka dots. Pink tongues and lace collars. White face paint dripping from chins and lips, beaded on noses. Fingers deformed into brown bears. Pierrot locked inside invisible boxes. Pierrot suspended from invisible trees by invisible ropes. Pierrot climbing up and down stairs. How Pierrot juggled bowling pins and cue balls. The company of animals, brown bears and basset hounds, caged and shackled, leashed and sedated. The warmth of animals trained with whips. Tigers and lions. The trembling parade of elephants. Parades down the Main Street. Small towns crowded with families. Boys on fathers’ shoulders. Mothers with flowered hats. Ticker tape. Confetti. One Pierrot in the station wagon. One Pierrot on foot. A city of bricks and dust and glass. Windows punched out and fire escapes rusted. How Pierrot made shadow puppets against the water stained wallpaper. A city of smeared graffiti. Speakers humming white static. The empty avenues. His boots worn through and his belly caved in for hunger. How Pierrot staggered along until the roads and sweltered. The bootlaces swallowed. The finest spaghetti. How Pierrot dug in the fields for bones. Sparrow bones, gopher bones, skulls or femurs. How Pierrot threw the half skulls of finches through hoops. How Pierrot whipped and punished a rotten branch he insisted was a rib. How Pierrot hurried on tip toes. How the brown bears stood on their hind legs. On the threshold of the forest. How the brown bears clubbed Pierrot with their paws. The noises Pierrot made. This room of respirators blipping and hissing. A portrait of a woman on his bedside table, pink and brown. Her hair, petals. His yellow beard. How they found Pierrot covered in sticks and leaves, the dried blood and the flies. Were there lions and bears? Were there showers of confetti? A brass band? Troops of twirling batons? Were there tigers jumping through blazing hoops? Pierrot making a lashing gesture with his hand. Honking noses into handkerchiefs. Wiping away the painted-on tears. Was it beautiful?
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Remixer’s process: It was an interesting process — trying to stay true, in some way/s to the source material, but making it something else that is identifiably mine. I stumbled on, after marking up the hard copy of the story. I had noted a bunch of [Kloss’] phrasings and the remix evolved out of that, along with some re-ordering.
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Michael Kimball is the author of three novels, including DEAR EVERYBODY, which is now out in paperback in the US, UK, and Canada. The Believer calls it “a curatorial masterpiece.” Time Out New York calls the writing “stunning.” And the Los Angeles Times says the book is “funny and warm and sad and heartbreaking.” All three of his novels have been translated (or are being translated) into many languages and Tyrant Books will release HOW MUCH OF US THERE WAS in early 2011. His work has been featured on NPR’s All Things Considered and in Vice, as well as The Guardian, Prairie Schooner, Post Road, Open City, Unsaid, and New York Tyrant. He is also responsible for Michael Kimball Writes Your Life Story (on a postcard)—and two documentary films, I WILL SMASH YOU (2009) and 60 WRITERS/60 PLACES (2010).