PANDORA

(a female torso in segments made of LALIQUE that can contract telescopically and may be used as a dresser, a dummy, or an anima) and around him the mannequins stand like coral branches from whose twigs chains hang like spider webs in which the gold beetles of the jewels are caught; dreamy, the tenches of the most delicate lingerie swim back and forth among them; like frost, like mold, elegant furs are draped over them; in the breathing of beauty sleep, their shampooed hair floods in slow-motion rhythm . . .

and BALLYHOO hurls the sign that says:

QUO VADIS WESTERN WORLD?

far behind himself into the ecstatically yelling mob (whoever catches it can soon wed the giant SUCCESS) and stretches his trunk out into a greeting, blessing, trailblazing erection

and lifts it steep and shoots out from the gigantic exhaust pipe, high into the sky (where even the lightning rod of the Empire State Building no longer scrapes them), the stream of

PAPER

with which ten thousand breathlessly chaff-chopping rotary presses incessantly feed him:

shoots their roaring torrent all the way up to the cirrus cloudlets sailing in the icy wind of the stratosphere, so as to fan out featherily with them over the continents

and descend like manna over Manhattan

and Adelaide, Athara, and Agrigento

and Bissau, Berne, and Basra

and Chuch’i, Charleroi, and Coventry

and Delhi, Diredawa, and Dar es Salaam

and Elk Point, Etumba, and Elberfeld

and Florence, Fukushima, and Fort Knox

and Gombe, Galveston, and Georgetown

and Hebron, Hoboken, and Hyderabad

and Inverness, Isalmi, and Izmir

and Jawhar, Jiggalong, and Jurf ed Deraswish

and Korsör, Kimberley, and Keflavik

and London, Linz, and Little Rock

and Madras, Montevideo, and Mandalay

and Natal, Nashville, and New Orleans

and Oklahoma, Olasvik, and Oallam

and Penang, Pittsburgh, and Pucallpa

and Quebec and there aren’t many more Q’s

and Reggane, and Rome, and Riobamba

and Surabaya, Salem, Sfax, St. Pölten, and St. Louis,

Tampico, Tocca, and Tamalameque

Ulm, Udine, and Ullapool,

Vancouver, Västmanland, and Viroflay,

Waipio, Westchester, and Winnipeg,

Xanthi, Xique-Xique, Xaparais

Ypern, which just about does it,

and Zofingen, Zenit, and Zaragoza—

—read it today in the Times Literary Supplement, the sensational computer prediction of the unique success of the book!!!!

The machine, data-fed by a committee of market researchers under the supervision of Mary McCarthy, draws the ascending curve of the dizzying edition-record-breaker

seventy-seven times at the top of the Book-of-the-Month Club;

the stage version running on Broadway for two years; eleven months at London’s Aldwych Theatre; seventeen full weeks at the Comédie Française; Felsenstein is planning a production in East Berlin;

the TV version beamed by satellite Xenia 29 from all stations in the Western hemisphere; presumably crowned by a

MAMMOTH MOVIE

A Wohlfahrt Production

of

INTERCOSMIC ART FILMS

absolutely superstar cast:

Marlene Dietrich at the soda fountain;

Frank Sinatra as caddie;

Richard Burton and Liz Taylor as Philemon and Baucis;

in all other parts:

Peter Sellers

The net receipts of the world premiere, with the presence of Princess Margaret, Lord Snowdon, Igor Stravinsky, and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, will go to charity (despite the thirty-six-million-dollar budget of the film);