The Catty-Corner Conversations is a launched attack against assumptions.
In these essays, the author engages in debates with his catty-corner neighbor, and, like most neighbors, the pair disagree about nearly everything while doing so vehemently. Covering a range of topics that spans existence to infinity, the pair use arguments, counterarguments, insults, and counter-insults to force their way into a deeper understanding of the issues at hand.
Mr. Cole has since passed away, but selections from the Conversations are made regularly available at a Substack maintained by his daughter. Additionally, Mr. Cole published two appendages to his book, an “Introduction to the Third Edition” in November 2020 and an “Afterword to the Final Edition” in November 2021. In the interest of allowing the man to speak for himself, each of these additional documents is reproduced below.
Introduction to the third edition
It is difficult to put into words just how unnecessary this introduction of mine should be, and though I am both aware and an acceptor of that maxim that to be heard is to be misheard, I never anticipated being party to the proof’s extreme being so proven in a matter so obvious.
It has now been roughly one year since I began sharing with the world my recordings of my conversations with my catty-corner neighbor. These recordings were initially made only for my own amusement, but as I began to make fun of my neighbor to friends, I found it necessary to start sharing his actual words since that seemed to be the only way to convince anyone that he actually existed. It is worth noting that, in these first rounds of sharing, there was not a single instance of confusion that I am able to recall, and every friend whom I shared the conversations with was able to immediately discern that the collection was a humorous thing and that my neighbor was meant to be laughed at.
However, as the interest in mocking my neighbor grew, I was obliged to begin typing up the choicest of our conversations, and this led to their first public posting of one year ago. It makes me sorry to be forced to admit that the waves of misunderstanding began crashing almost immediately, and the very day of their first posting was, in fact, the first day that saw me receive a message from a stranger inquiring further about my neighbor’s ideas. The misinterpretations then continued to mount in the days and weeks that followed, and if it were not for a happy few who have so clearly seen through my neighbor and notified me of such then I should think that every reader in the world had gone crazy.
In light of the above, it is my intention to here provide a few facts that should be sufficient to dam any continued confusion. These points, however, should not be regarded as a complete listing of all the ways in which a reader can know my neighbor as wrong. Instead, the following should be regarded as a simple listing of the more obvious of those reasons, and it is to be hoped that the placing of my neighbor in his proper light will be enough to ensure that no further readers are attracted to any of his empty beacons.
First, it must be noted that our conversations are titled by me, not my neighbor. There are many readers, it seems, who assume that the contents of our conversations will be as weighty as their titles indicate, and they thus begin reading under the false impression that weightiness is to be demonstrated. This misconception is the one that I feel most responsible for as it seems to have resulted from my naiveite, and I wish to here make it clear that my neighbor has no hand at all in the production of our conversations. In fact, unless he has heard of them from elsewhere, my neighbor is not aware of my recordings at all.
Secondly, the reader should note that our conversations all end the same way, and though there may be moments when my neighbor wins quippy battles, I clearly win every war. This besting of my neighbor can be most definitively seen within the conversations themselves, but it is also made obvious by the fact that I am the one who always gets the last word in. To some readers, this point may seem minor, but my neighbor is one of those who tries to dominate everything and is never willing to concede, so his being unable to control that which he desires to must be seen as a sure sign of his losing.
Thirdly, it cannot be overstated how much my neighbor is benefited by this particular medium. Any reader who was, for example, allowed to hear my neighbor speak would never be tempted by him, and this would be even more true of any reader able to actually watch him speak. Words on a page do, after all, tend to appear more official and legitimate than they would otherwise, and this does not even factor in my neighbor’s habit of both yelling and spitting while he yells as well as his frequent use of verbal abuse. The accoutrements of my neighbor’s character are thus largely obscured to the reader, and it is easy to read his words while missing those disqualifiers, which seems to be what has happened to many readers. It is, therefore, incumbent on the reader to keep in mind that a person actually voiced the ideas that will be read and that their words were spoken far more harshly and in a far more insulting manner than they appear.
Lastly, it is worthwhile to note the result that my neighbor’s ideas have brought upon himself. Our conversations do, after all, end with our words, so it is understandable that the reader does not readily think beyond them, but this only means that the most gullible of readers will fall into my neighbor’s same pitfalls without so much as being aware of them. It is, therefore, in the reader’s interest to know that my neighbor has lost every friend whom he has ever had due to his behavior and the unacceptability of his views, and I am, in fact, the only person left in our entire neighborhood who is still willing to speak to him at all. This last point should in no way be taken as a threat against any reader who might find himself interested in the ideas of my neighbor but rather as a warning of where that curiosity will lead.
There are, of course, a near never-ending number of points that could be added to the above list, but their intention, as previously stated, is only to point out the most obvious of signposts, and it remains the reader’s job to go forth wary of further ones. With this purpose in mind, I wish to end this introduction with the general reminder that my neighbor is wrong in everything that he says, and there are, in fact, many instances when it is obvious that he is wrong on purpose. All any reader need to do, therefore, is honestly read the transcripts that I have provided, and it will become obvious to him that my neighbor is nothing more than a callous and deeply antisocial man who is angry at the world as well as bitter about the life that he has led in it.
As an additional measure to further help the reader, I have included in this edition some conversations that I had previously filed away as being either too heinous or senseless to share, and I pledge to do the same in the future.
Afterword to the final edition
Now that two years have passed since the initial posting of my recordings from my conversations with my catty-corner neighbor, I have decided to do so no more. A second year has only confirmed my concerns from the first, and this continuance has made clear the fact that there are those who will ever persist in their choices of wrongness, no matter the quality or quantity of the tools employed to turn them otherwise. This edition will, therefore, be the last addition that I make to the preservation of the stupidity of my time, and I have, I think, fulfilled both my original intention as well as my accepted burden such that no failures can be justly attributed to me.
As part of my determination to end, I have decided that it will be useful to supply a few answers to some of the many questions that I frequently receive, and in this way, I can hopefully put a stop to the practice. The below questions, however, should be not regarded as direct reprints of any that I have received, but, instead, I have composed a collage of the general nature of the inquiries, and they are not intended to answer all that I am asked but rather to preempt the need for the questions themselves. Before, therefore, any attempt to reach out to me, the reader should first consult with the below to find out whether the spirit of what he wants to know has already been detailed, and this will, I think, finally put an end to things.
Q: Who are you? A: My name is Mike Cole, but I will not say anything more. It is best to think of me as just another of the many who are victims of those like my neighbor, though it is a victimization that we do not accept and will not stand for.
Q: How long have you known your neighbor, or who is he? A: I will not allow myself to reveal any personal information about my neighbor. Were our roles reversed, I know that he would not hesitate to give out my very address, but I will not stoop to the levels that he inhabits.
Q: Why is your book not better written? A: Because I did not write it. I type up the recordings of my conversations with my neighbor, and that is all.
Q: Why do you not take the time to show your neighbor why he is wrong? A: I do. I will admit that my frustration with my neighbor often forces me to stop short of full explanations for him, but the above pages prove that I give him much of my time. The reader also does not see every single one of our conversations, so he who asks such a question is he who does not know what he is talking about.
Q: Why do you allow your neighbor to draw you deeper into his ideas when there are many times when you could have saved yourself from them? A: I ask myself this very question after nearly every conversation that I have with my neighbor, and I accuse myself with words very much like these.
Q: Why is there no conversation about the Conversations? A: Because my neighbor is not aware of them, and I have even been able to keep my recordings a secret from him. If I were to tell him about the Conversations then I know that he is one of those who would only care about the money that he could get from the book, so there is no point in my doing so.
Q: Are there further Conversations, and when will they be released? A: My arguments with my neighbor have occurred nearly daily for as long as I can remember, and there are thus many that I have recorded but never transcribed. These extra materials will soon be destroyed since they no longer have any potential value, but the reader can be assured that those not here were still each evaluated by me, and I chose to include the conversations that best fit the purpose of showing through my neighbor.
Q: Why are you quitting? A: I am not quitting. Instead, I am tired of having my time wasted by trying to correct those who are taken in by my neighbor. There has been no end to the thanklessness of this task, and questions like this have only made it worse. I know, however, that there are those out there who are able to see through my neighbor just as easily as I do, so I have the satisfaction of knowing that I leave all others in the hands of these.
