heelbert

Here's an odd find.
This evening on my shelves, I came across a Dilbert book.
The Best Of Dilbert Volume 2, to be precise.
A nice softback pocket size volume.
I flicked through it.
And lo!
A treasure trove.
For interspersed with Scott Adams' moderately funny Dilbert cartoons, are a whole series of lost genius jottings by me.
Priceless indeed.
Now I remember.
I had brought the Dilbert book with me on holiday to Italy a few years ago, and had used it as a sort of diary whenever inspiration struck me.
So on the inside cover we find in blue biro:
"Friday 25 April 2003: I'm in the Caffe Greco in Rome. It's not much. Trading on rep. Good photo with Orson Welles and a bunch of unknown Italian poets in the corner. Taken on some lost night wandering around Europe before Welles was famous. The artist must squeeze to the front. No, no. A particular type of artist will squeeze to the front. Another option is to live for art."
On the Dilbert title page, I've scribbled:
"Lady Windermere slogans...
1. Oscar Wilde didn't write this crap.
2. The play that dare not speak its name.
3. Never has mindless vulgarity so illumined the human condition."

I think number 3 is a winner.
On Scott Adams dedicatory fly leaf he has inscribed the book to someone called Pam. I've written a phone number "(086) 1939481," and beside it the name "Elskie." Ah. I remember. It belongs to a Dublin actress called Elskie Reihill. She's been in some films and has what we lechers call a certain ethereal quality. Like a good looking Kiera Knightly. You get the picture. Elskie was an early try out for Lady Windermere. But she didn't like the cut of my jib. Crumbs though she was gorgeous. Beneath her name and phone number, oh yet more tender memories, I've jotted a plotline for a proposed episode of my old humour column at the Leinster Leader. To wit:
"Reading the mobile phone instruction booklet for international travellers. Make fun of the hidden charges etc etc. Also maybe an open letter to Vodaphone where I complain about the models in their brochure. Something along the lines of, not all mobile phone users are sex mad hyper gonadal teenagers you know, just some of us. Trying to make sense of the different tariffs and conditions. Apparently if I use the mobile phone after midnight in Rome it (or I?) will turn into a pumpkin. Obsess a bit about the happy gonadal teenagers who appear to be Vodaphone's ideal customer. Maybe us ugly blokes' money isn't good enough for them etc etc."

Beside the Dilbert introduction I've noted:
"The saddest thing on earth is to desire an image."
Well I got that right.
Turning the page we find another diary style entry:
"Spanish Steps, Saturday 26th April 2003: Tourist asking me to take her picture. Me taking it. Imagining a similar scene where Picasso before he's famous is asked to take such a picture. Oh heavy heavy irony. Tourist goes away without realising who I am."

On page 18, where Dogbert is telling Dilbert he wants to bask in his wisdom, I've written in the margin:
"The Pantheon. Someone just asked me to sign a roll book in homage to the sovereigns of Italy who are buried in this building. I was going to write, I pay homage to no man. Instead I just signed."

Page 24. I've noted:
"The Italians have been doing this for centuries. Build the most beautiful cities on earth and then charge people through the nose to see them."

Page 26.
"The Keats museum is not worth seeing. You have to climb a thousand steps before you discover there's an entry fee. Then you peer around the door and discover it's just a room with a few photos. But after climbing the stairs you are inclined to pay so as not to waste your exertions."

On page 30, with Dogbert musing that a million monkeys before a million typewriters would write Shakespeare's plays if given an infinite amount of time. Dilbert shows him a poem and asks what he thinks of it. Dogbert replies: "Three monkeys, ten minutes." This cartoon is entirely unrelated to the epiphany I've scribbled beneath it:
"Somehow the left wing is vital. And these are the people I have always opposed. Together we complete the conscience of mankind."
The mood alters on the facing page where I add:
"Eating Pringles at the Piazza Navona. Yobs nearby. I'm thinking defensive thoughts: They'll have to pluck the Pringles from my cold dead hand."
And a further mood altering random note on yet another topic:
"MTV Italy logo is a peace sign. They have guessed wrong as to the mood of this country. The Italians are ready to fight Islamic terror."

A few pages further on Dilbert receives a complaint that Dogbert has been attacking mailmen. Dogbert reveals that he only wants to study them and learn their migratory patterns. Beside this cartoon I've dashed down the name: "Teatro De Servi Roma (06) 6795130." I remember passing the theatre in the street, taking the number, and thinking in a rush of blood to the head, that I might ring em and join up. Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted I would ever come back.

Page 43. "Stillness is prayer."

Page 44. "Afternoon at the temple of Castor and Pollux. Ancient Roman insults had an Irish ring to them, ie You dirty Castorin Pollux."

Page93. "(086) 8734862... Whose number is this. They texted me in Rome. Check when I get back to Ireland."

Page 94. A woman Dilbert doesn't know rings him and says she will never go out with him. He muses: "Women have gained first strike capability." Dogbert advises: "Surrender." My own musings relate to more ethereal matters. I've jotted:
"All that arse about the artist always knowing his work must someday pass away. I lost a diary a few weeks ago and it was like the end of the world. It was like as if Chairman Mao had lost his one and only draft of The Little Red Book prior to publication. Except my stuff is better written than Chairman Mao's and less likely to lead to massive extirpations of human beings."

The final cartoon in the book has Dogbert telling Dilbert: "You shouldn't worry so much about what other people think of your work... I mean everybody scoffed at the Wright brothers. Galileo was jailed. Columbus was ridiculed. Of course none of those guys had a head shaped like a torpedo."
Above the cartoon I've noted rather poignantly: "Colli Albani tube stop. 4.30pm Friday. Followed the most stunning girl to the Psychology Building."
Below this note, another:
Jobs@xiwrite.com, translation company in Rome.
Must have been thinking again about moving there!
And below the translation company note:
"Theatre Metateatro (06) 58333253."
I wonder do any of these numbers still exist. The lifespan of your average theatre company in Rome like in the rest of the world is not long. The Elskie number would be worth a call though.

On the back flap of the cover is my final entry. It reads:
"There is one blessing in life greater than to live without fear, oppression, or pain, in the perpetual light of the Lord. That is to have lived with fear, oppression and pain, and to have found your way into the perpetual light of the Lord."