thinking about Quentin Crisp

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Squire and I are being more than a little in love with the Englishman in New York these days. For lots of reasons: Squire
mostly admires his unapologetic style; I'm mostly intrigued by his
clarity about adherence to manners being separate from adherence to
convention, because I find that an interesting place to put my brain.

"The essence of happiness is
its absoluteness. It is automatically the state of being of those who
live in the continuous present all over their bodies. No effort is
required to define or even attain happiness, but enormous concentration
is needed to abandon everything else."

I don't know if happiness is the most important goal; I used to think it was because I believed it was impossible to be perfectly happy when another person suffered. I now think it is possible for many people to be happy while smack in the face of extraordinary
suffering and I've since modified my "most important goal" to "being
good" which is simultaneously very sticky and difficult to grasp, but
it keeps me busy doing and thinking and we like that much better than
brooding, not that I manage to entirely avoid that. In any case, I think Crisp was interested in being good more than in being happy, because I find
it too hard to believe that a self-aware human who wants to be happy
voluntarily picks up the phone whenever it rings. I think a person who
is AWESOME might do that, but I'm at babysteps right now: I'm working on not wanting to punch people. Abandoning the fear that people will be stupid or mean or whatever, and the resultant anger from that, is more concentration than I have; wanting to talk to them will clearly take a little more time.

handling fire and thinking it will not hurt

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It reminds me of the story about the man who falls into a hole and his friend jumps in after him and the fallen man berates the jumper and the jumper says no it's okay I've been here I know the way out. It reminds me also of an awkward conversation I had more than once in which somebody tried to spare me and I put my hands in the fire anyway, thinking the only way to overcome pain was to feel it.

The conflict creates a war in my head where both sides suffer including the victors; ABBA does a bouncy dance soundtrack for Napoleon but nobody sings about Rouen which anyway the lack of an adequate soundtrack is the least of my worries.

I know what has to happen and so we march off, my troops of moderately convinced selves and the fanatical devotion that comes with not knowing the whole story. We are determined and proud and along the way we compliment ourselves on our armor and we say my don't we look strong and determined. That shaved head is as free of nonsense as they come and we shush the voice at the back that mutters that people who need to look free of nonsense are full of it. We are warriors. We lay out the story with facts and supporting players and nothing to lose, then later we have insights and the fact that we won some battles before and aren't we ever victorious modestly advancing only where wanted to win and conceding the battles we couldn't win see how we are practical we say.

And so we won the hardest battles and emerged victorious with not so much lost really except a review of the troops has some of them longing for the home they never had and there were some hot tears in among the celebratory libations but I'm sure that's from the fire, from the smoke of what had to be burned. There were bridges. And a week after the campaign the allies say that in fact you did what you promised, the vision that only you saw, what your voices promised you, that in fact you have given back what was stolen, the missing piece restored where nobody saw what was missing but you, the righteous king returned to his throne.

The counterattact surprisingly comes not in the heat of battle but later. The current challengers, who are not what we are not ready to call the enemy though we admit a certain fathoming in that depth, would like to mention that defeat makes you stronger that iron is tempered with fire that after all you were not so happy at twelve, were you. I don't mean midnight or noon. Yes that's all very interesting but I am right and you must concede that it is the king alone for whom I have battled and battle still. I am not fighting to control this territory I am in fact no conqueror. Truly I am fighting for another's righteous place I swear it.

Then why are you telling the story again, clapping your hands for another retelling. Why do you point to the voices when you are unsure, and then point at yourself when it's time to be blamed. Not every story has to have you at the center. Let's tell it again from the dauphin's point of view. Or shall we stick with you as if we were in battle still, when you know perfectly well that when you say you are willing to die for a cause that is exactly what you will have to do. Well which story do you want to tell now.

There’s a city in my mind

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In this metaphor we walk into a Denny's. It's the only town where we
can stop to get food; it's not even a town, just a gas station and a
Denny's. And it hasn't even always been a Denny's. There was a Burger
King and a McDonald's before this, the two in one building, and a long
time before that a kind of mom and pop diner. But it's a Denny's now,
and it's time to eat, and we can talk about what used to be here or
what we wish were here, but… for now, we're in a Denny's.

The Denny's menu, oh my. What's the Onion joke about a bucket of
eggs and pancakes and bacon and a funny name? Yeah, lots of that.
Breakfast served all day. The crazy amounts of coffee I drank at
Denny's in college because of the free refills, the bottomless cup of
toxic sludge. Now I just pray for one or two vegetarian options and
some tea.

Hey, and they have those vegetarian burgers! And they have side
salads without bacon bits! I'm pretty excited. But you're all sour. You
want sushi, you want Indian food, you want something really healthy
instead of something pretending to be healthy. And listen, I don't
disagree. I'd love that stuff; I'd love a menu where it takes me three
hours to choose because it all sounds so good. But this is Denny's. It
was made not to be the best possible food for everybody, but the food
most likely to appeal to the widest margin of people at the truck stop.

After eight years of greasy pork sandwiches served in a dirty ashtray,
the fact that BOCA burgers are owned by big tobacco becomes much less
of an issue for me. I'm not saying I wouldn't prefer a
morally-uncorrupted vegetarian meal loaded with flavor and vitamins and
no GM foods. I'm not saying I wouldn't be happier if there were an
independently-owned restaurant here instead of a Denny's. I'm just
saying: here we are, it's time to eat, this is a Denny's and this is
what's on the menu. You can refuse to order anything; you can get a cup of coffee and eat the
saltines and refuse to spend money on less than what you want. That's
the beauty of truck stops. Personally, I'm going to get the soy burger and
the salad and I'm going to be incredibly happy to have that option and
I'm going to celebrate that option in the hopes that maybe someday
Denny's will come around to an even better selection for me, or maybe there will even be a whole better restaurant. But in the
meantime, I'm eating the best thing on the menu, and I'm saying it's
the best thing on the menu; not because it's the actual best thing for
me, but because I'm hungry and the idea of eating something that isn't
going to make me puke is pretty exciting at this point.

blind men and the elephants in the room

tuckova3 Comments

It breathes on you softly
whiskered like a boy you kissed in college
who smelled like lavender whiskey
This breath tickles
looking for hidden treats in your fists
and pockets
close your eyes

It feels tough
like you'd like to be and aren't
your grandfather had a coat like this
smell of pipe tobacco and wheat
This skin is rough and tender both
under your hands
close your eyes

Smooth and hard
and cool like money
It reminds you of things you wanted to possess
leather and ivory
It smells of loss and tastes like bitten nails
don't talk about it
close your eyes

Sits on your car because he thought it was a circus prop
Steps on your foot when startled
Terrifying vindictive rage
I'm sure it needn't mean anything; mustn't;
close your eyes.

R.I.P., D.F.W..

tuckova1 Comment

That a young and gifted person should be in too much pain to be asked to stay alive in the world and give it more in no way diminishes the gifts already given, what they meant, what I learned. I know that. But I still spent most of last night and this godawfully early morning picking at a wound that isn't mine in the first place, reading bits over and over, laughing again at an insight and weeping over flashes of merriment that are forever gone.

I should have rented movies this morning and permitted myself a day of escapism. Instead I thought I would work past it, as the salt of sweat is the best salt for such wounds, and wound up punching aimlessly at work that while meaningful will never mean that much, failing and flailing and finding myself at 3 p.m. eating grilled cheese with the salt of tears and a side of punch-my-face for letting the day go the way it did, wasted because I did neither what my head intended nor what my heart wanted.

I am sorry for his family; sorry for us: for the words that won't be said, for the places we might never go because he can't take us.

dammit.

Vse Je Jednim

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What it's like is that sometimes I don't think I can say anything
directly, that I feel like all conversations have to make a stop at
metaphor and line before we can get to where we're going. We get in the car with a dream I had. You start
the trip when you say it's your fault, and it's not, but when I say
it's not you start crying and you say "I wish you never brought it up"
which I never meant to make you cry but if I could take one thing from
you this burden would be first: I have to bring it up so I can lift it
away from you.

I am not accustomed to handing other people
tissues. What I mainly do is take charge and fix stuff and later on I
cry alone. I mean that's why I have tissues in the first place: for me.
I am not supposed to hand them to you and definitely I did not mean to
make you cry and anyway why are you crying when I tell you it's not
your fault, because this is not a sad thing but a statement of fact
like how the beer garden is going to close soon is a fact. I
mean it's just a thing.

It is hard to have nothing to
invoke. For the love of poetry, I try. Oh, for Prufrock. Please don't
cry. Please let me take this sadness from you and please for both of us
let's throw it away far, down the field, far out. Let's throw it past
the boy counting dandelions in the outfield, past anybody in the
stands; let's make it something that nobody finds because nobody wants
it. Let's steal home. It's not your fault. It's full of damage but we
can't trace fault lines. Instead let's look towards construction that
can weather the whether. Let's get past sports and geology and blame.
Let's stop crying. We're running out of tissue.

the night became a brand-new day

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Oh, I want to do a whole thing about how the cottage was totally
neglected for 8 years, and so if anybody had thought we were going to
make it better instantly then that person was crazy, but I'll tell you
that even though the neighbors are surely frustrated that we haven't
gotten ourselves all up to snuff yet, we've focused on domestic issues
and the improvement to the land itself is dramatic, albeit subtle. It
was A METAPHOR, because everything is a metaphor. I might write it
someday before November, but not today.

Last weekend we went to the cottage (!I know!) and Squire was being
impossible, totally disinclined to work. At all. You'd open your mouth
to some sentence about the chainsaw and he was too absorbed in
re-reading a book to even notice you were talking. It was irritating.
Then I realized it could be fun. I dubbed it "Proust Weekend" and I
think everybody deserves one once in a while. We propped him up with
pillows and sleeping bags that I declared were furs, and we fed him tea
and gave him snacks and inquired after his general health and his
digestive system every couple hours. Friar said we should get a
four-part novel out of it, and perhaps someday we will, but the point
was: you make it a game, and then it is one. Proust weekend is not
remotely irritating; it is fun and it is funny!

Squire started school again Monday, so I think a Proust Weekend was a
well-deserved sort of mental bachelor party. School persists in being
stupid. They've changed their idea over the summer that he should take
Some Other Language and decided that he should take English classes. So
yeah, the native-English-speaking kid will be learning "eeeeet eeees
ayyy dog!" yay. I went and met with the English teacher, and suggested
that she let him read (English) books during classtime or that perhaps
she use him to help the strugglers or something. She mainly seemed
interested in if she could give him the same tests she gives the other
students. I have lost the battle over how this is stupid, and am now
girding up for the battle over whether "How come" is correct English
(or whether "Do you have" is the same as "Have you got" or whatever
idiomatic and correct English he'll be using and be corrected for
using). Le sigh.

I could make a list for you over battles lost and battles won and you
would be horrified. Not least because I tend to change allegiance: take
the swimming battle for example. Sometimes it's hard to care enough to
fight from where the sun now stands.

Also on Monday, for SPICY, my computer died. I don't even want to hear
about it. My grandmother had serious trouble keeping pictures in frames
and my parents have a recurring problem with the front door of their
home and I cannot, CANNOT, manage to keep a system that backs up what I
said. I have lost journals to rainstorms and apparently I can knock out
a computer by sneezing.

And that's us: an unexplored metaphor, a proust weekend, school is
stupid, my computer died. It's September, and I wish you the best,
because we all deserve it.

The Mysterious Edge of (children’s) historical fiction (and more)

tuckova4 Comments

Dear E.L. Konigsburg,

With all due respect to you for bringing Claudia Kincaid into the
world, you need to either get a better editor or stop writing.

"The
View from Saturday" had a few sloppy mistakes in it. I was mainly angry
at the Newbery people for choosing the book, because it meant it would
be read more than it deserves to be read. The Magical
Indian thing was ridiculous; the "she knew that she knew but she didn't
know how she knew but he knew that she knew before she knew that she
knew" stuff was just… you know, if you can't figure out what a
character's motivation is, that doesn't mean you should coat it in
twinkling magic in order to get the reader to swallow it. I thought it
was sloppy plotting, and I thought it was beneath you. And then on top
of that, sloppy writing: "[she] was not sure how much the correct
amount [of French cuff to show from beneath jacket sleeves] was, but
she knew that if she put a spirit-level to his, they would be exactly
right." A…spirit level (hint: not hyphenated)? To measure length?
Ch-wha? And then, as a nit-picking pointy brain, it really irritated me
that a piece of the story hinges on a student standing up to the adults
for what he knows to be right, and the book implies that he is right,
only… he's not. This sort of took the wind out of the book's sails
for me.

But I had no idea what it was to fall out of love with a beloved
author from my childhood until I read "The Mysterious Edge of the
Heroic World" because… wow. And not a good "wow". First, the
characters have no clear voices (one of the redeeming features of "The
View from Saturday"). They have no clear voices because they have no
clear characters, and I don't mean they're complicated, but that
they're self-contradictory. Second, we've got the sleeping fact-checker
again at the helm for the Degenerate Art facts. The book implies that
the degenerate art that is in the exhibition is also the art that was
in the exhibition in 1937, but Renoir was not in the Degenerate Art
exhibition; neither was Braque, Picasso, or van Gogh. And… All the
Impressionists had a disease of the visual cortex? Ch-wha-? See, and
these are just things I KNOW are wrong. But worse, worse, is this Noble
Goal to call attention to the homosexuals killed during the Holocaust.
It's not a bad story, but it's better if it's told right: there is no
way that Pieter came home wearing a pink triangle. Things like this are
almost worse than not telling the story at all. If you want to slip a
little fact into your fiction to spice it up, it is possible to find
actual facts that will do that without leading people to misunderstand
history any more than they are already inclined to do. As it is, you're
doing the writerly equivalent of chewing scenery on your way to another
children's book award show, and I loved you, I did, but you have to
stop this. Sloppy writing makes the world an uglier place than it needs
to be.

Please get a better editor. No, really. You owe it to the children. You owe it to yourself.

****
In other books, David Sedaris sure loves himself some David Sedaris; Polish surrealism is troubling and excellent the second time around; and Alain de Botton writes well but keeping up with the Joneses is the least of my interests and I think he's lost me here. Squire and I are plugging along through Huck Finn and loving it a lot, though it makes us talk funny.

sleeping alone

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When you are not here
I slip my leg over to your side
just to remind you
that it was my bed
in the first place

and wake at night
telling you a dream
but even if you were here
you would have slept
slept through the story.