I noticed this weather has been making me a little crankier than usual. I always get a few emails chastising me for raging out, but, people, that’s what I’m here for. I’ve said it before. It’s like complaining that all the dishes at the Chinese Buffet have MSG in them. It’s just the nature of the beast. Don’t want the MSG? Don’t go the Chinese Buffet. Simple as that.

Yesterday I was useless. I went in to “work” in the morning, just to get out of the heat, but left around noon. I dropped in to the gym, which is in Chinatown, a couple blocks from Brattle Books–so a lot of times, if the weather’s good, I amble on down to the bookstore there, and browse the one-dollar section outside. I always leave with something.

The thing I like about used bookstores is that you go there with an open mind, and you leave with something you didn’t expect to find. I mean, I never go there looking for anything in particular. But sometimes what you find feels fateful. Maybe you’re thinking about something, trying to work something out in your head, And suddenly you open up a book, and there it is, right there in front of you.

Yesterday, on the one-dollar cart, I stumbled upon a book called Secrets of the Kabbalah, and thought: now, this will bring me closer to Madonna! It was full of beauty tips, particularly about grooming your beard. There was some fellow called Microprosopus, who has a most impressive beard. “That is the beard of adornment, true and perfect, from the which flow down thirteen fountains, scattering the most precious balm of splendour.”

I didn’t end up buying the book, but my interest in this Microprosopus character was definitely piqued. So when I got home I googled him. He was not on wikipedia. But there was an extensive entry on him in the Wisdom Archive at the Global Oneness Commitment at experiencefestival.com, that was enlightening to say the least:

Microprosopus (Latin) [from Greek mikros small + prosopon face]: Qabbalistic rendition of the Chaldean phrase Ze`eyr ‘Anpin (Short Face), which designates the nine smaller Sephiroth, in contradistinction from the Macroprosopus (Long Face). Microprosopus or the nine Sephiroth are the manifested universe or Third Logos unfolded in manifestation; whereas Macroprosopus (the Crown or Kether), the first and highest of the Sephiroth, is the First and Second Logoi considered as a unit, the purely spiritual universe and its roots. Hence the Microprosopus is the Logos manifested, and of such logoi there are many in boundless space. Naturally each such universe has its own Macroprosopus, Crown, or Kether, all these universes being united by their divine-spiritual roots in the Boundless.

Something clicked, you know?

I went back and listened to that song “Isaac,” on Confessions on the Dance Floor, right? About Isaac Mizrahi, right? And at the end, there’s this quote from Yitzhak Sinwani, this UberKabbalista of Madge’s acquaintance, where he’s like, “…the gates of heaven are always open, and he’s discovering the sky and the angels, how they sit, you know, in front of the light. That’s what it’s all about.” Yes, that’s what it’s all about. How could I have missed it? How the angels sit in front of the light, times thirty-seven, minus eleven, divided by the square root of one-hundred and three, carry the nine, and whoop! There it is!

Next I stumbled upon Nietzsche. I opened up his anthology right to his essay “Why I am so Clever” from Ecce Homo. So, why is Nietzche so clever? “I have never pondered over questions that are not really questions.” Whoop, there it is, AGAIN! In your FACE, Mizrahi!

But I did not leave with Nietzsche, either (He is a good drinking partner, but leave him at the bar). No, I left yesterday with Aphra Behn, the seventeenth century political satirist praised by none other than Virginia Woolf in A Room of One’s Own.

There was a little blurb on the back cover that read in part: “Famous for her frank eroticism—“ I’m there!—“…she was the ‘sole Empress of the Land of Wit’—yet two centuries of female modesty were to pass before she could again come into her own.” I found that interesting. Not least because it goes to show that the more you delve into the past, the more you see that many of our assumptions in the present are based on bunk. Time and history are just not linear. Which doesn’t mean they’re necessarily circular, either. I think string theory’s the answer.

Anyway, I go in to Brattle Books to make my purchase, right? I didn’t have any cash on me, so I paid with my debit card. I bought a couple other books, too, but the whole sale came to under ten bucks. The clerk asks me for a picture I.D.

Where do they get bookstore clerks? What’s wrong with them? This was an instance of “because I can.” It’s hot. I’m irritable. Do I look like someone who’s going around stealing people’s identities to buy moldy dollar paperbacks from Brattle Books? Because that’s what you’re saying. In the guise of protecting me. It’s the very definition of “retail passive-aggressive.” Seriously.

I said, no, I don’t have a picture I.D. I don’t have a driver’s license, and I’m not going to carry around my passport for a five dollar purchase here and an eight dollar purchase there. Just ring me up. Well, did I have something with my name on it, at least? I took out another card with my name on it, but if I had stolen the debit card, I could have stolen other cards, too, right? So, what’s your point?

Don’t get me wrong. There are definitely situations in which it makes sense to ask for I.D., and situations in which it’s just the clerk—or the waiter or waitress—throwing their meager weight around. Like, I was at this restaurant in Cambridge having dinner, ordered a beer, and the waitress demanded I.D. I didn’t have a picture I.D. I’m like, look, I could not be mistaken for under twenty-one by anyone. She’s like, sorry, no picky, no dwinky.

When the clerk at the bookstore had finished with me, he actually apologized to the guy in line after me, for me. I mean, he was like, sorry that guy was in front of you and you had to wait. And it’s not like it took any time at all to ring me up. Seriously, I think it’s some kind of syndrome amongst bookstore clerks.

I wonder if the Kabbalah can shed any light on that?