Volvo Stationwagon


Let me make it perfectly clear your spirituality means a great deal to me—
I mean it! Feel free to discuss it at any time. Actually, I bet it would reveal much about how its intersubjectivity affects your scholarly approach. It’s pivotal that such interpolations are given greater exposure within the larger meta-narrative expressed by the academy. You are welcome here to discuss anything, you know. . . .

Oh, it’s great. Well, mileage could be better. But to be in, it’s great. I mean—what? Oh, yes—your work.

There’s a tendency—I thought I was the only one to believe this but my cosmology obviously patterns itself after the French reactions to postmodernism, or maybe they pattern themselves after me?—for observers to contend that the inner psyche self-postulates first and then proceeds to interweave itself within socialized communication regarding mandatory communal activities. It then follows you can hypothesize, even correctly predict, how what you consider “cultures” (and I consider accidentalized groups who happen to interact but are ultimately defined by some form of liberal paradigmatic formulation) will evolve. Of course, I am better placed than you to iterate such conclusions. As— well, how I can I put this gently?—your thought process is in its infancy.

When I’m going fast it’s a dream. Off-roading at Muskoka, it takes turns like nothing I can describe! Of course, I’d only do that on pavement since its wheels aren’t big.

As Derrida found—or was it Foucault—certain typologies ascribe delineated versions of recurrent subtexts. Within those subtexts lie inverted and sometimes converted silhouettes of a subterfuge regularly mistaken for cultural identity. I’m afraid a few of the topics you argued as vital are not—to be frank—terribly pivotal. You must remember expressivism of those you have chosen to explain to me is seemingly sometimes interesting but often irrelevant. Keep in mind that it’s the internal standards of the system to which you’re placed which dictate normative values. They are extremely influential and ultimately superior as they better combine the best exactitudes of individual placement and socializing actions argued as necessary for complete success.

You know the best thing about it? It holds so much! All through university I drove sports cars and had to jam my stereo and televisions and computers and clothes into cars. And when I was traveling and I’d rent cars and I never felt secure about security as there were never any car alarms. And what with the sound system I’d need, that was an issue.

Oh yes. . . .There’s a fundamental flaw in your premise. While it might appear your view supplants current manifestations which undermine your “nation’s”— I put that in quotation marks because you really do not have enough evidence of nationhood—evolution, wouldn’t you say the tide of positivism overtakes your standpoint? After all, it’s not self-determination you really need. It’s a form of autonomy. I mean, in the end you’re not any more special than anyone else.

It’s not a coffin. It’s called a “thule.” It’s to put things in, like my skis. The net is for the dog so the car stays clean.

When you said “presence”, I thought that must have come out of our conversations. It could not have simply appeared on your intellectual horizon. Write all of it down—you’ll never remember on your own. And do you know what it means when you don’t look me in the eyes? That you don’t trust me.

Well it’s no BMW. That’s next—when the little, messy, screaming one is older. I wish I really that—why are you getting us off topic? This meeting is supposed to be about what you’re doing.

There’s a constant paradigmatic tension between the memory affiliation with historicism and the desire, no—the passion—to use post-modernistic tendencies for current recognition. Don’t you realize that’s why you’ve long hair? Anyway, concerning your methodology—when you talk to your peoples you must get their permission in the way we devised. For their own protection. You don’t know how their intellectualism might be misappropriated. Our standards are superior.

You look tense. Ever tried swimming?

When I’m in it, and the air conditioning’s on so it’s like I have the top down without the bugs—so it’s better than a convertible—it’s like I’m driving and I rule the world. And then—right then—I remember there’s some people you just need to say “Fuck you” to.

Don’t ever forget that.

Now where were we? You and your tribes keep getting me off topic. . . do you do that on purpose or something?



This poem “Volvo Stationwagon” originally appeared in Gendering the Archive. Spec. issue of Canadian Literature 217 (Summer 2013): 102-04.

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