Borges In The USA

Borges In The USA

(my parody of Miley Cyrus, Party In The USA, conceived while working on a guest lecture on Jorge Luis Borges's US literary reception).

Stumble off the plane at Buffalo
Blind and in a suit-and-tie
Welcome to the land of chicken wings
Am I going to get by?

Got to my lecture,
Gnomic works the first time.
My amanuensis tells me of the Buffalo Bills sign,
Working on my English diction
The avatar of metafiction

Jet-lagged they think I have a llama
Where in the world is Maria Kodama?
That’s when I went to the seminar
And they were parsing a Kafka text
And they were parsing a Kafka text
And they were parsing a Kafka text

So I take questions
On paper slips
And the alienation kicks away
Sphinxlike gaze like yeah
Oracular tone like yeah
Inaudible enigma,
Flavor of the month
And my canonicity is yea.
SÍ, Sí, Sí, it's Borges in the USA.
SÍ, Sí, Sí, it's Borges in the USA.

Lionized, philosophized,
Hailed as the precursor of flarf,
Mooned over by Harold Bloom,
Paul de Man and John Barth.

Ronald Christ and Jaime Alazraki,
Norman Thomas Di Giovanni,
This is not a Calle Florida party
All I see are critics
Why'd I have to be this cryptic?

Jet-lagged and treated like the Dalai Lama.
Where in the world is Maria Kodama?
That's when I went to the seminar
On The Babel library
On The Babel library
On The Babel library

So I take questions
On paper slips
And the alienation kicks away
Sphinxlike gaze like yeah
Oracular tone like yeah
Inaudible enigma
Flavor of the month
And my canonicity is yea.
Sí, Sí, Sí, it’s Borges in the USA.
Sí, Sí, Sí, it's Borges in the USA.

Feel like escaping to Tlön
Or seeking out a compass death
But I am hailed as a postmodern riddler
And I draw one more metaphysical breath

So I take questions
On paper slips
And the alienation kicks away
Sphinxlike gaze like yeah
Oracular tone like yeah
Inaudible enigma,
Flavor of the month
And my canonicity is yea.
SÍ, Sí, Sí, it’s Borges in the USA.
SÍ, Sí, Sí, it's Borges in the USA.