Sartre Kiteboards

With all due credit to the original author of "Sartre Cooks," Marty Smith, I present you, Gentle Readers, with my version, "Sartre Kiteboards."

Jan 15

Malraux suggested rather than pester him with my political ideals of revolution, I write an essay on kiteboarding. At first, I scoffed at such a notion. Now, I am intrigued by the possibilities of floating off into the void on such a contraption.

March 1

After much effort in vain to secure such a piece of equipment in early 20th century Paris, I have fashioned my own kiteboard, consisting of an old crucifix and six pounds of plaster. After allowing my masterpiece to weather for a few months in the bitter spring rains, I showed it to Gide, who pointed out the thing will not float. I am well pleased.

March 5

Feeling alienated by my futile attempts to gain knowledge of a subject that does not yet exist, I took a hammer to the whole project. When Gide returned, he pronounced it "an acceptable rendering of bourgeois derealization." Feeling mocked, I ushered Gide out the door, having first filled his pockets with crushed plaster, then sat in the dark and wept profusely.


April 1

Have been ruminating on Gide's statement for almost a month. Consumed an entire carton of cigarettes without lighting them and dashed off telegram, ranting "you can always make something out of what you've been made into." Have heard no reply thus-far. Am bereft, but resolve to do better next time.

May 15

Further attempts at realization of the physical form of a kiteboard have not gone at all well. I have decided to abandon my project and instead ponder the phenomological ontology of something which has not yet been called into being. de Beauvoir has stopped by to say that, while she is pleased I am working so feverishly, the last time I showed up at one of our Socialisme et Liberte meetings, I appeared to have had my entire left sleeve gnawed off by a resident rat. Furthermore, she relays that Merleau-Ponty claims I am unwittingly referring to myself as "Dude." Flustered, I claimed this was a nom de plume of mine, and hurried her out the door with protestations that my cat needed to be fed. Before I could dispose of her, Beauvoir pointed out that if I had a cat, I would not have a vermin problem. I had no answer to that.

June 3

I grow weary of this endeavor. I suspect Malraux only suggested this project to staunch the flow of my rabid political desires. Nonetheless, I have written a six word treatiste called " "Le Board de Kite" and submitted it to the French press. I have heard nothing back about its publication. I refuse to clean up the residual plaster in my flat, much to the distaste of several of my mistresses, who felt slighted when I railed at them for being overly-bourgeois. The decay and ruin of my life's work haunts me.

July 25

Still nothing from the French press. My attempts to relay my masterpiece were met with dismay and looks of shock from my colleagues. After much gastric distress and consumption of ersatz war coffee, I have therefore decided, instead of 'kiteboard' to use "paper-knife" as my metaphor for essence-before-existence. I have self-loathing and resist this inauthentic expression of selfhood, but alas, I bow down to the concept of "Other as Kiteboard." It has defeated me at last. I suffer as I inhale the last of the plaster dust and float off on the seas of eidetic reduction. I am, at least, finally free of this kiteboarding nonsense.