I name the show Postmodern Seinfeld. I pitch the executives at NBC, and they love it. Naturally. They say, This is the best idea since original Seinfeld but better because now we know the kind of money we can make. Imagine the possibilities, I say. And we do. All of us.

I myself imagine a boat so big it's not even a boat anymore it's an island.

What was your inspiration? they ask. I tell them, Borges, naturally.

The library? they ask. No, I say. But it could have been, so sure.

We knew it! they say.

Production begins immediately.


The budget for Postmodern Seinfeld is a fraction of the budget of regular Seinfeld because the genius is that it's the same show same script same episodes same actors nothing is different but when you watch it, you know it's new, it has that inexplicable freshness.

The executives visit the set on the third week of filming, and they say, What is this inexplicable freshness? Is it a filter, one asks, like on Instagram? And no, I say. It's not that. But what a great idea! I write it down for later.

I write down every idea, especially the great ones and then later I read them aloud to my wife in the bed we share that's so big our bodies needn't touch.

My wife is now my ex-wife. Sometimes, I forget this fact.


On our first date my future-wife said to me, What's inside of you? You're all pop rocks, aren't you? All fizzle, no substance.

She put her hand on my breast. We both have breasts but they're not the same breasts obviously even though we wear the same size bra. She put her hand against my bare skin, we were alone. This was after dinner. After the movie (the live action Lion King, naturally). I tried not to fizzle beneath her touch.

I didn't fizzle. I was whole.

Oh, she said. Surprised.

I'm a real person, I said to her.

Okay, she said. I'll believe you.

Only.

Later, she didn't. An idea isn't a new idea if it's an old idea. She said this to me the night she asked for a divorce. We were about to film season four episode three "The Pitch."

It's you, but it's not you anymore, she said to me. As if that made any sense.

Leaving me is unoriginal! I shouted.

But she left anyhow.


The ratings for Postmodern Seinfeld are even higher than the original Seinfeld because we have a readymade audience unlike before when we needed to teach people that this is what television could be. I follow the Nielsen ratings. I follow the ratings on IMDB. On Rotten Tomatoes.

Fans are electrified. Critics are electrified. How is it funnier? they say, but it is funnier.

The executives call me. You've unlocked the secret to the universe, they tell me. I shrug.

I would like to have done this, but I am not sure.


My apartment is empty. My bed a frozen plain in the Midwest winter: long, bleak, and dangerous. I read my new ideas out loud. "Postmodern Friends." "Posthuman I Robot." They land like melted snowballs. They don't land.

I try to think of something new.

I listen to voicemails my ex-wife left me when she was my wife. I'm worried, she says in one. Every day is a repeat of the day before, she says in another. I hit replay anyhow. The repetition soothes.


Late at night, midway through the fifth season of Postmodern Seinfeld, one of the executives calls me, drunk.

I thought the casual sexism, the homophobia, the mid 90s racism, I thought these might be problems, but instead they make us feel better for where we are now. Now we know what we're seeing! Her speech is slurred. I wonder what she's wearing.

Is that so? I ask. What other answer, she says. You're a genius, she says. On the other line I hear what sounds like professional wrestling.

You remind me of someone, I say. Do you want to come over? Or I could come over there?

I don't think that's a good idea, she says. We know how this goes, she says.

How does it go? I ask.

She hangs up the phone.

I wait for a dial tone, but there isn't one because it's not a phone but also it is.

I dial my ex-wife, but she doesn't pick up. I drink a Diet Coke, wondering if I were to die, would it make her love me.

I write down "Postmodern My Girl."


On the day we film the final episode of season seven, every last envelope licked and Susan about to peter out, I tell the crew, the executives, Jason and Jerry and Julia and Michael that I can't make the wrap party, that something else has come up. They understand, of course.

We'll miss you, they say to me. Whether or not they mean it.


I leave the set on foot. Leave the façade of New York of Monks coffee shop of the Midwest I must past through to exit the studio. I walk down streets with palm trees. I get tired and thirsty. My stomach bubbles. I am in my body and how rarely do I feel it. Am I made to.

I walk in the direction of the shipyard and when I can walk no further, I take a car. The boat I am having built is so large that it can cross two bodies of water at once.

That doesn't make sense but what does these days?

It's a windy day on the docks. I walk the long pier and the wind and hot air dry my eyes. I look like I'm crying, but I'm not.

Everything, I have everything.

I look like I'm crying but I'm not.

.