Strangely Colored Creatures

Have strangely colored creatures been inspecting you today?

We ask because we’ve seen some looking us up, down, around

and from the back with such impertinence we thought to contact

some authority whose expertise was pertinent to knowing what

the habits and the dangers of a strangely colored creature were –

presumably then offering a context for inquiring about their

motives to determine if they meant us harm – or if behind

their patent charm (they seemed so smarmily flirtatious as they

all but leered at us) there might be reason for alarm. Who knows,

for instance, what such colored creatures eat? Perhaps they were

inspecting us because we looked a treat! One, in fact, was gazing

rather longingly at our semi- bare and sandaled feet. We only

wondered if you saw them too. In our opinion they appeared

too new to trust. We know that Self requires the Existence

of the Other as an entity, a counterpart to framing the identity

of Self: Hegel said it must. (We used to labor over Hegel over

coffee and a bagel.) But this Defining Other was a Something Else.

We didn’t like not knowing what it was. We suppose that Other is

as Other does. Whatever Other does or is. All of which is turning

our capacity for critical acuity to fizz. And you – you haven’t

said a word. Why have you turned away? What have you heard?

.