December 2008 Archives
I couldn't help noticing, now that the world economy is crashing down around us, that certain companies I have regular dealings with seem to have been around for a while and have weathered hard times before. For instance, I was looking at a bottle of Jim Beam rye whiskey, and they've been around, it seems, since 1795. Then I looked at a bottle of Sandeman tawny port, and they've been around since 1790. Then there's Affligem abbey ale, which has been in business since 1074. That's 1074 as in one-zero-seven-four, and you know there have to have been hard times in Belgium in that length of time. Delicious drinks, all of them, and they blunt the claws of concern, so I'd imagine they have no problem at all when the rest of us are having hard times. Affligem could be considered a luxury item—it costs about two and a half times what Coors Light does—but it's about eleventy-five times as good, so it's worth it.
I am sitting on an armchair in my living room, which is a bigger deal than you might think. I've had an itching desire to sit on this chair for many months, but that would have meant clearing away all the reading matter that had come to rest there. A similar deep layer of magazines, newspapers, junk mail, flyers and novels I'd gotten bored with had formed in a thick drift over two-thirds of the love seat. When the cat got bored with sitting on the piano and wanted to come down and hang out next to me, he had to step hesitantly onto a shifting pile of printed verbiage and come toward me carefully, like a person negotiating a steep slope covered with loose rocks.
The love seat and chair had simply been taken over, the way Mayan temples such as Tikal, abandoned for centuries, were lost to the encroaching jungle. Like the temples, the local villagers—by which I mean me—had preserved the memory of these sites. Parts of them could even be seen, emerging whitely from the top of the encumbering foliage, by explorers brave enough to venture into the dense jungle. But today, thanks to the tireless efforts of people who told me I ought to clean up my damn living room already, these examples of the material culture of an advanced civilzation can be readily seen. And sat on!
To the extent that preadolescent boys think about funerals much, they tend to like the supposed Viking funeral—having your body laid in a longboat, and then having the boat set out on the falling tide and set on fire. This doesn't seem to correspond to historical accounts, but I'm getting used to that. The important thing is to be 14 and think this was once an option and feel comforted by how cool people used to be 1500 years ago.
That said, I was thinking about how it's the day after Christmas and in a short time the trees—still decorated as sumptuously as money and imagination can contrive—will be taken down, stripped of their ornaments, and dragged out to the curb, where they will lie ignominiously, a few leftover strands of tinsel shimmering in the cold, hard breeze. That seems like a shame, to me. Will I be drummed out of the Sierra Club if I suggest that it would be fun to collect them in a huge communal pyre and torch them? We could beat drums and drink and chant as the flames rose into the night sky, a fierce challenge to the darkness of the night. I think it's good to be in touch with your inner pagan—and if not at the solstice, well, just exactly when, I'd like to know?
That said, I was thinking about how it's the day after Christmas and in a short time the trees—still decorated as sumptuously as money and imagination can contrive—will be taken down, stripped of their ornaments, and dragged out to the curb, where they will lie ignominiously, a few leftover strands of tinsel shimmering in the cold, hard breeze. That seems like a shame, to me. Will I be drummed out of the Sierra Club if I suggest that it would be fun to collect them in a huge communal pyre and torch them? We could beat drums and drink and chant as the flames rose into the night sky, a fierce challenge to the darkness of the night. I think it's good to be in touch with your inner pagan—and if not at the solstice, well, just exactly when, I'd like to know?
I'm a little bleary this morning—I was making rather merry yesterday—but it's Christmas, and even for arid agnostics there's something to the holiday worth stopping and noting. The street is unusually empty of traffic; it's a Sabbath hush that we don't usually get around here, even on the Sabbath. No idea where people are—church, maybe, or opening presents, or sleeping late.
Like people who do holiday newsletters often say, it's been a busy year, lots of changes and tumult. I lost a good friend. Two others got very sick, but recovered. The sorrow for the one, as hard as it is, makes me all the more grateful for the others. No special wisdom there, just life, I suppose. Professionally I feel nervously optimistic—I remember the Obama higher-up who was asked how he felt on the eve of the election and replied, "Cautiously nauseous." That's about it, I think. But I've finally decided to see what might happen if I actually try to succeed on as a writer on my own terms. I don't mean making the world reward me for anything I feel like doing—you have to offer some sort of value. But I do mean trying to do things that only I could do, rather than trying to be the ultimate professional chameleon who specializes in being a generalist. I've said before that I heard Scott Turow on the radio once talking about the lawyers who figured they'd write books like him and get rich too. They'd ask him the classic wannabe question, "What's the first thing I should do, write the book, or get an agent and then write the book? The first thing you should do, he told them, is take twenty years and learn how to write.
That's about how long I've been at this myself. I've been experimenting with fiction for a few of the recent years. Trying to make money with fiction is a grisly business, but they say Michelangelo stole bodies to learn anatomy from, and look how he turned out. There's a Ray Bradbuy story in which a group of boys all want to be spacemen, but only one is chosen to go to the space academy. They all loved rockets, the story said, but the one just loved rockets more. I used to think rockets were pretty cool myself, but at a young age I started loving literature more. Not literature in the abstract, but certain books, and certain passages in those books, parts of them that seemed realer, almost, than anything I had actually experienced myself. You read Huck Finn's description of dawn on the river, and you look up from the book, the scene glowing in your mind, and you say to yourself, "Yes—that's just how it would be."
I wanted to be a musician once, a long time ago. But after a few years of working in Top 40 bands, I saw that I would never be good enough to succeed on my own terms. But today, thirty years later, I've gotten a little better. I'll sit down at a piano and play a tune, and people ask me to play something else. Writing comes more easily to me than music—in large part, I think, because with writing you can get up when you're stuck and pace around and think the problem out. That doesn't work well in piano playing. And also, I think, I'm one of the people who just love writing more. A modest man, I assure you, with much to be modest about. I'll never be Mark Twain. But this coming year is the one in which I'm going to find out if I can at least, at long last, be me. If I work hard and give my very best, can I make a living? I guess I'm about to find out!
I'd like to thank the people who stop by occasionally and read these jottings, especially the ones I've never met. I wonder what you're like, and hope things are good for you. I don't know if you celebrate Christmas where you are. I don't myself, technically, but I like the idea—hope, benevolence, charity, all that fun stuff. Good luck, and be happy. Happy holidays and season' greetings, for those who like to keep it ecumenical. And a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, OK? Peace out, man!
Like people who do holiday newsletters often say, it's been a busy year, lots of changes and tumult. I lost a good friend. Two others got very sick, but recovered. The sorrow for the one, as hard as it is, makes me all the more grateful for the others. No special wisdom there, just life, I suppose. Professionally I feel nervously optimistic—I remember the Obama higher-up who was asked how he felt on the eve of the election and replied, "Cautiously nauseous." That's about it, I think. But I've finally decided to see what might happen if I actually try to succeed on as a writer on my own terms. I don't mean making the world reward me for anything I feel like doing—you have to offer some sort of value. But I do mean trying to do things that only I could do, rather than trying to be the ultimate professional chameleon who specializes in being a generalist. I've said before that I heard Scott Turow on the radio once talking about the lawyers who figured they'd write books like him and get rich too. They'd ask him the classic wannabe question, "What's the first thing I should do, write the book, or get an agent and then write the book? The first thing you should do, he told them, is take twenty years and learn how to write.
That's about how long I've been at this myself. I've been experimenting with fiction for a few of the recent years. Trying to make money with fiction is a grisly business, but they say Michelangelo stole bodies to learn anatomy from, and look how he turned out. There's a Ray Bradbuy story in which a group of boys all want to be spacemen, but only one is chosen to go to the space academy. They all loved rockets, the story said, but the one just loved rockets more. I used to think rockets were pretty cool myself, but at a young age I started loving literature more. Not literature in the abstract, but certain books, and certain passages in those books, parts of them that seemed realer, almost, than anything I had actually experienced myself. You read Huck Finn's description of dawn on the river, and you look up from the book, the scene glowing in your mind, and you say to yourself, "Yes—that's just how it would be."
I wanted to be a musician once, a long time ago. But after a few years of working in Top 40 bands, I saw that I would never be good enough to succeed on my own terms. But today, thirty years later, I've gotten a little better. I'll sit down at a piano and play a tune, and people ask me to play something else. Writing comes more easily to me than music—in large part, I think, because with writing you can get up when you're stuck and pace around and think the problem out. That doesn't work well in piano playing. And also, I think, I'm one of the people who just love writing more. A modest man, I assure you, with much to be modest about. I'll never be Mark Twain. But this coming year is the one in which I'm going to find out if I can at least, at long last, be me. If I work hard and give my very best, can I make a living? I guess I'm about to find out!
I'd like to thank the people who stop by occasionally and read these jottings, especially the ones I've never met. I wonder what you're like, and hope things are good for you. I don't know if you celebrate Christmas where you are. I don't myself, technically, but I like the idea—hope, benevolence, charity, all that fun stuff. Good luck, and be happy. Happy holidays and season' greetings, for those who like to keep it ecumenical. And a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, OK? Peace out, man!
That's a phrase coined by the philosopher Gilbert Ryle, in the context of an argument he was having with with René Descartes, and such things are, in Mr. Obama's now-famous remark, above my pay grade. But I slept late, it being Christmas Eve, then came down to make coffee. I brought the laptop with me, set it on a coffee table and turned it on, and in a few clicks I was streaming music to my stereo.
Baroque, it was, and it filled the room with that era's vision of peace and beauty. And I thought about all the sophisticated machinery and engineering, the long string of servers and transmitters, and this music entered that machinery, found its way all the way through, and came out the speakers and into my living room. Curious, isn't it? The music was originally made in a studio in Germany, maybe, or wherever—hearts and minds, heads and hands, rosined bows drawn across the strings, fingers moving—and then it got recorded, and today it finds its way through the Intertubes and to me, and I sit here thinking, "how lovely."
And there I'll have to leave it for now. The cat just came downstairs for petting, and he gets extra petting during Christmastide, which is not to say he's starved for affection at other seasons. But for those of you who are celebrating the season, and for those of you who might like to hear an oldie but goodie, a bit of Corelli:
OK, I couldn't resist:
Oh, just one more:
Baroque, it was, and it filled the room with that era's vision of peace and beauty. And I thought about all the sophisticated machinery and engineering, the long string of servers and transmitters, and this music entered that machinery, found its way all the way through, and came out the speakers and into my living room. Curious, isn't it? The music was originally made in a studio in Germany, maybe, or wherever—hearts and minds, heads and hands, rosined bows drawn across the strings, fingers moving—and then it got recorded, and today it finds its way through the Intertubes and to me, and I sit here thinking, "how lovely."
And there I'll have to leave it for now. The cat just came downstairs for petting, and he gets extra petting during Christmastide, which is not to say he's starved for affection at other seasons. But for those of you who are celebrating the season, and for those of you who might like to hear an oldie but goodie, a bit of Corelli:
OK, I couldn't resist:
Oh, just one more:
I woke up early to finish a magazine piece and checked the temperature outside, which was 17 F. I don't care where you live, that's pretty cold. So I got to thinking about pump handles. Several generations ago it was an American boy wintertime thing to dare other, more gullible boys to lick the handle of the iron water pumps that were commonly found on farms and such. No less a literary personage than Laura Ingalls Wilder mentions this in her book Farmer Boy.
Now, for goodness' sake, I hope you haven't run out to try it and see what happens, because your tongue freezes to the handle. Unless someone brings hot water, or you wait until spring arrives, you won't leave the spot without also leaving behind a goodish chunk of your tongue. This differs from the tortures of the Inquisition in being worse because you've done it to yourself.
I know it seems cruel, and is cruel, but it's really just nature teaching you to be wiser in the future. It also helps the social group get a sense of each other, don't you think? If you know that someone has licked a pump handle in the winter after being told to, you have a useful piece of information if, say, in later life you are wondering if you should give that person power of attorney or whatever.
If all the victims of pump-handle lickings could speak to us today, they would probably express the hope that other people learn from their heartache so that what happened to them never happens to anyone else. I think things are improving along these lines—the gradual disappearance of iron water pumps probably has a lot to do with that—but I also think we can draw some conclusions from this that can help us in other life situations. Here they are:
We can now term this new understanding the Pump Handle Principle. As a gulllible person myself who learned, as life went on, to be a little more judiciously suspicious, I can only hope it does some good out there. There are fewer pump handles about, maybe, but my guess is that society still has the same ratio of cruel to gullible people that it always did.
Now, for goodness' sake, I hope you haven't run out to try it and see what happens, because your tongue freezes to the handle. Unless someone brings hot water, or you wait until spring arrives, you won't leave the spot without also leaving behind a goodish chunk of your tongue. This differs from the tortures of the Inquisition in being worse because you've done it to yourself.
I know it seems cruel, and is cruel, but it's really just nature teaching you to be wiser in the future. It also helps the social group get a sense of each other, don't you think? If you know that someone has licked a pump handle in the winter after being told to, you have a useful piece of information if, say, in later life you are wondering if you should give that person power of attorney or whatever.
If all the victims of pump-handle lickings could speak to us today, they would probably express the hope that other people learn from their heartache so that what happened to them never happens to anyone else. I think things are improving along these lines—the gradual disappearance of iron water pumps probably has a lot to do with that—but I also think we can draw some conclusions from this that can help us in other life situations. Here they are:
1) The fact that a person is daring you to do a thing is a strong hint that you should not do that thing.
2) Another hint is if you cannot imagine a single reason that any good would come of the thing you're being dared to do.
3) Yet another hint is if you can, however, imagine that the person doing the daring would laugh uproariously if the thing being dared turned out to discomfit you in some way.
We can now term this new understanding the Pump Handle Principle. As a gulllible person myself who learned, as life went on, to be a little more judiciously suspicious, I can only hope it does some good out there. There are fewer pump handles about, maybe, but my guess is that society still has the same ratio of cruel to gullible people that it always did.
Alan Ladd and noir queen Lizabeth Scott in 1951's Red Mountain. Sometimes a cigar is not just a cigar, nor a gun just a gun. I don't actually know what's going to happen in the scene, having never seen the film, but keep in mind that everyone in Hollywood in the '50s, including the grips and best boys and cooks at the studio commissaries, was in analysis and could read erotic metaphors as easily as a copy of Variety. I read that she was never married and was unusually open about, shall we say, the reason that marriage was not of interest. Took some heat for it, too. (This seems awful to say about a woman who's now 86 and avoids publicity, but there's a point to be made here.) Just one more example of why I keep telling everyone—on the blog here, at parties, strangers on the street—that the Fifties were much more interesting than they get credit for if you only watch Nick at Nite, OK? That's all I'm trying to say.
And make up your minds about that over the holiday break, because the asteroid has landed.
I'm a fairly friendly and easygoing person by nature, but—and this may shock you—I do have a slightly snarky side. That said, it should be stipulated that Wendell Jamieson, an editor at The New York Times, is probably in no way a bad person and has, I am sure, worked hard to achieve the position he holds.
But.
I spent a few years long ago in the newspaper business myself, and besides meeting a lot of dedicated, talented, and eminently reasonable people, I met quite a few others that I then characterized as "breathtakingly pompous mediocrities." These folks were fairly bright, had gone to good schools, then went to a daily newspaper in some town like Roanoke, Virginia or Knoxville, Tennessee, and in this early phase had learned to produce a newspaper story relatively free of the chronic stylistic crudenesses that mark the lower tiers of journalism. This is not a murderously difficult thing to do, by the way, if you have half an ear for writing style.
In an economic boom, these people might eventually get hired by a big paper, a metro daily like the Times or the Philadelphia Inquirer. This had a very bad effect on the ego of some of these folks. They came to regard themselves as oracles, as geniuses, as blazing talents who deeply benefited humanity every single time they sat down at their work stations and began to type. They were Caesars, conquerers of the keyboard, but unfortunately the newspaper had neglected to provide them with a slave to stand behind their office chairs and whisper to them, "Remember, thou art mortal." So they got in the habit of thinking that everyone was a big dope except them, and they had the responsibility of explaining the world to the rest of us.
Which brings me to Mr. Jamieson. I'm glancing over the home page of the Times this morning, and I see this feature headline: "It's a Miserable Life: 'It's a Wonderful Life' is a Terrifying Story." No way, I say to myself; no freaking way. But I click through, and it's true. Mr. Jamieson has an insight for us:
Really? Tell us more!
We missed that part. Even though it takes up most of the movie, and drives the story—there wouldn't be a story without that part. But we missed it—missed it every time we watched the movie, which for "lots of people" is a few dozen times by now—missed it because we had gotten up at the about the midpoint to get another cup of eggnog, stopped to tie a bow on the cocker spaniel's collar, and only came back to the television for the last three minutes. Or because we're too damn dumb.
I'm willing to excuse Mr. Jamieson to some extent—people, lots of people, can be incredible dopes—but I really think we have to give them the benefit of the doubt on this one. There's a dark element to most stories, because you can't really have a story without conflict, and it's human nature to imagine dark things. "It's a Wonderful Life" is, in fact, a dark story. So is the Harry Potter series, and "The Wizard of Oz," and "Little Red Riding Hood." Lots of people like those stories, and the darkness, set as a foil against the eventual triumph, is most of the reason why.
But hey, it's Christmastime. Mr. Jamieson is open enough to say that he liked the movie the first time he saw it, as a teenager, and he still gets choked up today. Like I say, I think he's probably not a bad guy. He may just have gotten into the habit of thinking people need him to explain things to them, that the reputation "It's a Wonderful Life" has for being sentimental means people only see a cheery holiday tale, whatever that is. (Does one even exist?) It's an occupational hazard, this tendency to pontificate. So let us all resolve, during this magical holiday season, to realize not only that most people are pretty decent if allowed to be, but that most people are capable of seeing the bleedin' obvious if you hit them over the head with it about eleventy-dozen times, which is pretty much the case in "It's a Wonderful Life." And seriously—God bless us, everyone.
But.
I spent a few years long ago in the newspaper business myself, and besides meeting a lot of dedicated, talented, and eminently reasonable people, I met quite a few others that I then characterized as "breathtakingly pompous mediocrities." These folks were fairly bright, had gone to good schools, then went to a daily newspaper in some town like Roanoke, Virginia or Knoxville, Tennessee, and in this early phase had learned to produce a newspaper story relatively free of the chronic stylistic crudenesses that mark the lower tiers of journalism. This is not a murderously difficult thing to do, by the way, if you have half an ear for writing style.
In an economic boom, these people might eventually get hired by a big paper, a metro daily like the Times or the Philadelphia Inquirer. This had a very bad effect on the ego of some of these folks. They came to regard themselves as oracles, as geniuses, as blazing talents who deeply benefited humanity every single time they sat down at their work stations and began to type. They were Caesars, conquerers of the keyboard, but unfortunately the newspaper had neglected to provide them with a slave to stand behind their office chairs and whisper to them, "Remember, thou art mortal." So they got in the habit of thinking that everyone was a big dope except them, and they had the responsibility of explaining the world to the rest of us.
Which brings me to Mr. Jamieson. I'm glancing over the home page of the Times this morning, and I see this feature headline: "It's a Miserable Life: 'It's a Wonderful Life' is a Terrifying Story." No way, I say to myself; no freaking way. But I click through, and it's true. Mr. Jamieson has an insight for us:
Lots of people love this movie of course. But I’m convinced it’s for the wrong reasons. Because to me “It’s a Wonderful Life” is anything but a cheery holiday tale.
Really? Tell us more!
“It’s a Wonderful Life” is a terrifying, asphyxiating story about growing up and relinquishing your dreams, of seeing your father driven to the grave before his time. ... It is a story of being trapped, of compromising, of watching others move ahead and away, of becoming so filled with rage that you verbally abuse your children, their teacher and your oppressively perfect wife.Like I said, it's a little breathtaking to realize that Mr. Jamieson honestly believes that "lots of people" somehow missed the relentless and explicit examples of George Bailey's sacrifices, disappointments, and frustrations. Frank Capra is too subtle and cryptic a filmmaker, you see, and it takes a NYT editor to explicate matters. We all missed the part—it somehow went over our heads—where Bailey, now faced with going to prison, shrieks imprecations at his whole family and rushes out to commit suicide by jumping in an icy river, and then is subjected to a vision of himself as a nonexistent cipher, running desperately through the cruel dystopic hell that his home town has become, rejected by the callous, sad, or bitter people he once knew as friends, wife, mother. No kindness, no love, no hope. Hell is other people, and the universe a nightmarish moral vacuum.
We missed that part. Even though it takes up most of the movie, and drives the story—there wouldn't be a story without that part. But we missed it—missed it every time we watched the movie, which for "lots of people" is a few dozen times by now—missed it because we had gotten up at the about the midpoint to get another cup of eggnog, stopped to tie a bow on the cocker spaniel's collar, and only came back to the television for the last three minutes. Or because we're too damn dumb.
I'm willing to excuse Mr. Jamieson to some extent—people, lots of people, can be incredible dopes—but I really think we have to give them the benefit of the doubt on this one. There's a dark element to most stories, because you can't really have a story without conflict, and it's human nature to imagine dark things. "It's a Wonderful Life" is, in fact, a dark story. So is the Harry Potter series, and "The Wizard of Oz," and "Little Red Riding Hood." Lots of people like those stories, and the darkness, set as a foil against the eventual triumph, is most of the reason why.
But hey, it's Christmastime. Mr. Jamieson is open enough to say that he liked the movie the first time he saw it, as a teenager, and he still gets choked up today. Like I say, I think he's probably not a bad guy. He may just have gotten into the habit of thinking people need him to explain things to them, that the reputation "It's a Wonderful Life" has for being sentimental means people only see a cheery holiday tale, whatever that is. (Does one even exist?) It's an occupational hazard, this tendency to pontificate. So let us all resolve, during this magical holiday season, to realize not only that most people are pretty decent if allowed to be, but that most people are capable of seeing the bleedin' obvious if you hit them over the head with it about eleventy-dozen times, which is pretty much the case in "It's a Wonderful Life." And seriously—God bless us, everyone.
Today I was at a house I'm doing an article about, a house that's both aesthetically pleasing and advanced in the use of green building techniques. They were having a kind of open house for the press, and a close friend who also writes for magazines and such was there too. One thing about the house is that they have giant wooden barn doors on rollers to close off the large windows in the living room, and when we were leaving, the homeowner demonstrated how they work. My friend's twentysomething daughter was home for the holidays and had come along, and she observed that the heavy wooden barriers would be handy if the house were "attacked by zombies." It was three hours ago, and I'm still laughing about it. I think things like that all the time, but I'm very, very slowly learning not to give voice to them when I'm among the grownups.
If I'd been checking Sully at 10:23 p.m. last night, instead of sleeping the sleep of the just, I'd have seen it was Beethoven's birthday. S. linked to a vid of the Moonlight Sonata (first movement, of course)—sort of an aural milk and cookies deal. But it's today now! Rise and shine! So me, I thought I'd put up one of the happiest, most upbeat pieces of music I know, Ludwig von's Piano Sonata No. 21 in C major, the "Waldstein." Some sources say it's "nicknamed the Waldstein." Personally this terminology seems vaguely wrong to me. People named Vincent can be nicknamed "Vinnie," people with curly hair can be nicknamed "Fuzzy," people with no hair can be nicknamed "Curly." And they're all your pals, the lovable lugs. But for all their undoubted virtues, they are not, let's face it, the enduringly beautiful creations of a transcendent genius, as they would be the first to admit. So maybe "nickname" isn't precisely the term we want here.
I'm getting a little sidetracked. Here's the first movement of the "Waldstein," played super-fast by that wacky Friedrich Gulda (who faked his own death in 1999, among other wackinesses). I'd prefer another version, but the first movement is 11 minutes long, so you can't have the whole thing on YouTube at a normal tempo. The Gulda version is fine, but go buy Radu Lupu's. It'll make an excellent Christmas present, btw. But not for me! I already have it. I'd prefer cash.
BTW again, do any of you remember the Infamous W.? She of the notoriously bad judgment in matters great and small? She sent me a newspaper story about how the recession is affecting prostitutes in Las Vegas, and called it a "blogging opportunity." It doesn't seem that remarkable to me. The higher-priced prostitutes are doing fine, and the lower-priced ones are doing extremely well. The midrange models? Not so well. It kind of figures, if you think about it. Personally I prefer to think about Beethoven. Small minds think small thoughts, Infamous W.!
I'm getting a little sidetracked. Here's the first movement of the "Waldstein," played super-fast by that wacky Friedrich Gulda (who faked his own death in 1999, among other wackinesses). I'd prefer another version, but the first movement is 11 minutes long, so you can't have the whole thing on YouTube at a normal tempo. The Gulda version is fine, but go buy Radu Lupu's. It'll make an excellent Christmas present, btw. But not for me! I already have it. I'd prefer cash.
BTW again, do any of you remember the Infamous W.? She of the notoriously bad judgment in matters great and small? She sent me a newspaper story about how the recession is affecting prostitutes in Las Vegas, and called it a "blogging opportunity." It doesn't seem that remarkable to me. The higher-priced prostitutes are doing fine, and the lower-priced ones are doing extremely well. The midrange models? Not so well. It kind of figures, if you think about it. Personally I prefer to think about Beethoven. Small minds think small thoughts, Infamous W.!
I had never been to the famous Christmas (well, "holiday," I suppose) extravaganza they do at Longwood Gardens, which is damn near walking distance from me. Longwood Gardens is a place some member of the du Pont family lived once, and making gunpowder for a disputatious world is lucrative, so it's one of those places where you literally can't believe how well these rich people live. I go there fairly often, but I'd never been to the famously crowded Chr—uh, holiday thing, but this year I went, the way certain New Yorkers finally get around in middle age to see the Statue of Liberty.
Of course it was quite something, but without making a total project out of it I couldn't convey the real charm, which was what it's like to be among all the lights and flowers they arranged for us at night. The famous conservatory, which one usually sees in the day, was dark above (it's a greenhouse, see) and seeing it with the lighting they'd devised—they have a huge staff, all in the service of impressing you, and they usually succeed—seeing this was really very cool.
But it was being outside that really made it magical, and it would take a very serious effort to convey it. The trees all through vast grounds were wound about with intensely colored lights, and you needed a cinematographic poet like Peter Weir to convey what it was like to walk through them. Unless you were fatally hip—which thank goodness, I'm not, I mean, gee whillikers—it was really pretty special.
Right now I'm plunging into a whirl of freezing rain and other fun stuff to go to my writers' group holiday party deal. Wish me luck!
Of course it was quite something, but without making a total project out of it I couldn't convey the real charm, which was what it's like to be among all the lights and flowers they arranged for us at night. The famous conservatory, which one usually sees in the day, was dark above (it's a greenhouse, see) and seeing it with the lighting they'd devised—they have a huge staff, all in the service of impressing you, and they usually succeed—seeing this was really very cool.
But it was being outside that really made it magical, and it would take a very serious effort to convey it. The trees all through vast grounds were wound about with intensely colored lights, and you needed a cinematographic poet like Peter Weir to convey what it was like to walk through them. Unless you were fatally hip—which thank goodness, I'm not, I mean, gee whillikers—it was really pretty special.
Right now I'm plunging into a whirl of freezing rain and other fun stuff to go to my writers' group holiday party deal. Wish me luck!
From Hemingway's To Have and Have Not, after heavily armed Cuban revolutionaries have hijacked Harry Morgan's boat and ordered him to take them across the straits of Florida:
He had abandoned anger, hatred and any dignity as luxuries, now, and had started to plan.
Because of a certain name that's been in the news lately, the Times resurrected a two-year-old piece by my hero Calvin Trillin lamenting the rise of several politicians whose names are not amenable to use in verse. That's because among the other things he does with comprehensive awesomeness and seemingly effortless aplomb, Trillin writes "deadline verse" about news events for The Nation. (He says he is "partial to politicians with iambic names that rhyme with a lot of disparaging words.") I'm happy to say he was up to the formidable task and disposed of Mr. Blagojevich with that same aplomb I mentioned earlier. But when I read about his concern over rhyming the name, I thought maybe I'd try myself. It's a fools-rush-in sort of thing, I guess. At any rate, here's my attempt to imitate the master:
Poetic Muse! Assist me now! I pine! I've lost the joy of which
I once did sing, because I cannot rhyme the name "Blagojevich."
My need is great! The crimes are vile, and yet it's odd, the boy of which
we speak might not be tarred in verse 'cause he's named Rod Blagojevich.
He's far from coy, this governor, but God! the far-from-coy of which
he stands accused will ne'er be limned in verse! That Rod Blagojevich.
First of all, people, if you want to send strangers around to try to persuade me to join your religion, for goodness' sake, don't send the kind of people who make me think, You know, I really need to start answering the door discreetly armed. I mean, honestly, this guy, sixtyish or so, had the scariest eyes you've ever seen outside of a Southern Gothic movie. Sad, brown bassett eyes, with a deep and perfectly circular crease in the flesh around each one, like he presses coffee cups against his eyes for eight hours a day. I've never seen anything like it, and hope to never again.
He was stocky, this guy, with a heavy overcoat and a narrow-brimmed fedora. Behind him was a bigger, younger, more heavily built guy, dressed in work clothes and a knit cap—I should mention that it was bitter cold—and he had a perfectly round head too small for his body, small, piggish eyes, and that pink complexion that looks permanently scalded. He could have been the muscle for the old guy, I don't know. The old guy hands me a brochure, and of course it's for a church. I take it and thank him briskly.
Now he wants to know if I attend a particular church. Here comes the roping-in part of the pitch! "I prefer not to discuss that with strangers," I say. I mean for this to sound firm and final, and not exactly curt—did I mention it was really cold?—but at any rate the guy leans backward as if my sinful errancy is a fierce wind against which he can barely hold his ground. He's at least got the wit to see there's no sale here. "Well," he says, turning away with a faintly dejected air, "discuss it with the Lord."
I don't know. And I mean that—I really don't. I started doubting the existence of any supreme beings around the age of nine, I'd say. It feels like I have some sort of soul-like substance lurking inside me, but if I do, I don't have the faintest idea what it is, or where it comes from or where it goes. We see through a glass darkly if we see at all, that's clear enough. If there really is a Oneness, a Godhead in which human beings somehow partake, it's almost certainly unknowable to human minds, inconceivable, inexpressible. I think people sometimes sincerely feel that they're in touch with that thing. But to say you know it, to say it takes a certain form and wants us to do certain things and so forth, is, in my own humblest of opinions, a form of sacrilege. It's like saying you can see the whole universe. You may think you can, but in fact your nervous system isn't equipped to.
The breeze just blew a leaf through the air, and the cat, who's sitting on the piano, turned his head to watch it. It's in his nature to watch things that move, because they might be food. And it's clearly in our own human nature to wonder about life, and the universe. But I honestly wonder if we'll ever know more about those topics than the cat knows about leaves. And frankly, I just don't have much time for people who come to my door because they know how things are and they want to tell me about it.
I don't want to come off as any more eccentric than I already do, so I won't be putting a sign on my door explaining all this. But I'd like to. Something like this, maybe:
And one last thing: If you're going around to other people's houses doing this, can I make a suggestion? The verb in the sentence "Discuss it with the Lord" is in what grammarians would call the imperative mood. If you want to keep your sales prospects in a good mood themselves, you probably shouldn't, you know, sort of order them to do anything. Just sayin.'
He was stocky, this guy, with a heavy overcoat and a narrow-brimmed fedora. Behind him was a bigger, younger, more heavily built guy, dressed in work clothes and a knit cap—I should mention that it was bitter cold—and he had a perfectly round head too small for his body, small, piggish eyes, and that pink complexion that looks permanently scalded. He could have been the muscle for the old guy, I don't know. The old guy hands me a brochure, and of course it's for a church. I take it and thank him briskly.
Now he wants to know if I attend a particular church. Here comes the roping-in part of the pitch! "I prefer not to discuss that with strangers," I say. I mean for this to sound firm and final, and not exactly curt—did I mention it was really cold?—but at any rate the guy leans backward as if my sinful errancy is a fierce wind against which he can barely hold his ground. He's at least got the wit to see there's no sale here. "Well," he says, turning away with a faintly dejected air, "discuss it with the Lord."
I don't know. And I mean that—I really don't. I started doubting the existence of any supreme beings around the age of nine, I'd say. It feels like I have some sort of soul-like substance lurking inside me, but if I do, I don't have the faintest idea what it is, or where it comes from or where it goes. We see through a glass darkly if we see at all, that's clear enough. If there really is a Oneness, a Godhead in which human beings somehow partake, it's almost certainly unknowable to human minds, inconceivable, inexpressible. I think people sometimes sincerely feel that they're in touch with that thing. But to say you know it, to say it takes a certain form and wants us to do certain things and so forth, is, in my own humblest of opinions, a form of sacrilege. It's like saying you can see the whole universe. You may think you can, but in fact your nervous system isn't equipped to.
The breeze just blew a leaf through the air, and the cat, who's sitting on the piano, turned his head to watch it. It's in his nature to watch things that move, because they might be food. And it's clearly in our own human nature to wonder about life, and the universe. But I honestly wonder if we'll ever know more about those topics than the cat knows about leaves. And frankly, I just don't have much time for people who come to my door because they know how things are and they want to tell me about it.
I don't want to come off as any more eccentric than I already do, so I won't be putting a sign on my door explaining all this. But I'd like to. Something like this, maybe:
Hello
I do not need any new magazines, or to have my rugs cleaned, or to receive messages intended to save my soul. If I did I would make the necessary arrangements with someone other than random strangers on my porch. Please spare your knuckles the wear and tear of knocking. Thank you.
P.S. I'm glad you're happy in your certainty. I'm happy in my lack of it.
P.P.S. Have a nice day!
And one last thing: If you're going around to other people's houses doing this, can I make a suggestion? The verb in the sentence "Discuss it with the Lord" is in what grammarians would call the imperative mood. If you want to keep your sales prospects in a good mood themselves, you probably shouldn't, you know, sort of order them to do anything. Just sayin.'
A friend and I were having a talk today about the need to enjoy and be knowledgeable about a literary genre you're working in if you care about ancillary, secondary things like being successful. Like f'rinstance, I've got a romance novel written during National Novel Writing Month, and it observes the romance novel genre rules and I think has a bit of potential, but it's not exactly a confession to say that at this point I've written one more romance novel than I've actually read.
I have an annoying habit of being able to think of exceptions to almost any rule, so I mentioned to my friend a literary sensation from 1969 titled Naked Came the Stranger. A newspaper columnist looked at the current bestselling novels and decided that things had come to a pretty pass, and to prove it he collaborated with a couple of dozen other newspaper types to produce a deliberately awful novel with lots of sex in it. The plot, if plot it be, involves a woman
who revenges herself for her husband's infidelity by becoming even more of an infidel than he is. The writers gave themselves a collective name—"Penelope Ashe," which I think is like the Best. Pseudonym. Ever.—and of course the book became a huge hit.
My own romance book has some sizzling sex scenes itself, as sizzling as a nerdy guy's imagination can provide. Plus it's about pirates and whores! Oodles of fun for the whole family. I've been mulling my own pseudonym—"Lacey Lustgarten" seems to have possiblities—but I haven't settled on that. It's pretty important to get it right. As far as being trashy enough to succeed, I do have some fears. These days, 1969 looks like Boston in 1669—my evidence? The prosecution has one exhibit, your honor. There's no doubt, we live in a golden age of skank, but hey, bloom where you're planted, right?
Just be really—OK, really, really—good at what you do:
I don't have much to say about l'affaire Blagojevich per se, but one does notice that in addition to being as crooked as a dog's hind leg, the man has the blowhard bullyboy's tendency to lard the F-word into his speech with no discrimination at all, like people who coat everything with ketchup. It's just a meaningless repetitive noise, like an "um" or a "you know."
Now, I'd like the young people particularly to gather around and pay attention: There's a right way to use this particular word. Imagine you're talking to someone, trying to make a point, and you have a bullwhip in your hand. You could crack the bullwhip all the time, which would eventually just bore and annoy the listener, or you could wait until you want the listener's attention to spike up. Or you could compare it to slapping the table hard with your hand. If you do that constantly, people think you're nuts. If you do it once, they think you mean what you say.
A conversation with a writer friend comes to mind. She expresses herself vividly, tartly, but usually in a way that could play unaltered on the radio. But once she was telling me that her husband, who makes his living mainly by being a mime, had written a book so good that she was envious and annoyed thereby. She was offended by the cosmic injustice of it, the way Amadeus portrayed Salieri feeling about the talent that God had disproportionately bestowed on the vulgar, impious Mozart. Her temper flared, talking about it. "He's a f---ing mime!" she said. See what I mean? There's a smart, classy way to cuss, and while it may be too late for Mr. Blagojevich, young people can resolve to cuss that way and the rest of us can too.
Now, I'd like the young people particularly to gather around and pay attention: There's a right way to use this particular word. Imagine you're talking to someone, trying to make a point, and you have a bullwhip in your hand. You could crack the bullwhip all the time, which would eventually just bore and annoy the listener, or you could wait until you want the listener's attention to spike up. Or you could compare it to slapping the table hard with your hand. If you do that constantly, people think you're nuts. If you do it once, they think you mean what you say.
A conversation with a writer friend comes to mind. She expresses herself vividly, tartly, but usually in a way that could play unaltered on the radio. But once she was telling me that her husband, who makes his living mainly by being a mime, had written a book so good that she was envious and annoyed thereby. She was offended by the cosmic injustice of it, the way Amadeus portrayed Salieri feeling about the talent that God had disproportionately bestowed on the vulgar, impious Mozart. Her temper flared, talking about it. "He's a f---ing mime!" she said. See what I mean? There's a smart, classy way to cuss, and while it may be too late for Mr. Blagojevich, young people can resolve to cuss that way and the rest of us can too.
As I mentioned the other day, economic uncertainty is making people review their spending habits. This is nothing new to me—as a lifelong publishing guy, my life has always been economically uncertain—so I've learned a thing or two about amusing myself without yachts and such.
Which brings us to book clubs, book groups, what have you—people who read a book and then sit around and talk about it. The Times had an article today about how dissension arises sometimes—one person tries to take over, or people just want to drink and gab about their kids, or the books aren't your cup of tea. It's not a bad article, I guess, but it's hardly news. People don't just leave book groups, they leave mechanics and spouses and continents. You're dissatisfied, you fold your tents and go. There are other book groups. But they do offer a chance of stimulating conversation about something besides how the boss is a jerk. Just check bookstores and libraries around. Or start one yourself!
If you absolutely require a life free of annoying people, however, maybe a book group isn't quite the thing. I'm trying to think of how you could live without ever being annoyed by people. A Trappist monastery? Your own island? Build a rocket? The choices aren't good. Anyway, if you want intellectual stimulation and an excuse to interact with people, even if they're imperfect, check out the book club idea.
Which brings us to book clubs, book groups, what have you—people who read a book and then sit around and talk about it. The Times had an article today about how dissension arises sometimes—one person tries to take over, or people just want to drink and gab about their kids, or the books aren't your cup of tea. It's not a bad article, I guess, but it's hardly news. People don't just leave book groups, they leave mechanics and spouses and continents. You're dissatisfied, you fold your tents and go. There are other book groups. But they do offer a chance of stimulating conversation about something besides how the boss is a jerk. Just check bookstores and libraries around. Or start one yourself!
If you absolutely require a life free of annoying people, however, maybe a book group isn't quite the thing. I'm trying to think of how you could live without ever being annoyed by people. A Trappist monastery? Your own island? Build a rocket? The choices aren't good. Anyway, if you want intellectual stimulation and an excuse to interact with people, even if they're imperfect, check out the book club idea.
I dragged myself across the frozen countryside yesterday to take part in a local Sierra Club open house in the East Falls section of Philadelphia. As soon as I got inside the location it was held, I started looking turning around in circles. It was an old mansion, once the only dwelling in the now-crowded neighborhood, built by the founders of the defunct Hohenadel brewery. The dining room was beautifully paneled in dark, book-matched wood, but had no ceiling. You could see the joists and floorboards above, the PVC plumbing, and the fringe of lath around the gaping hole, like a monk's tonsure.
The fireplace had faces on the ends of the mantel. I was just a bit fascinated—it was like when the image of Marley startled Ebenezer Scrooge by looming from a door knocker. If you like to imagine spooky things, there's nothing quite like a dilapidated mansion, is there?
The fireplace had faces on the ends of the mantel. I was just a bit fascinated—it was like when the image of Marley startled Ebenezer Scrooge by looming from a door knocker. If you like to imagine spooky things, there's nothing quite like a dilapidated mansion, is there?
A few minutes ago I leaned against the wall in the hallway, in one of those still, silent moods that don't really involve active thought. Sun fell on my office desk; the computer's fan whirred quietly. The breeze blew leaves up and down the alley, and stirred a furled umbrella over a table in the neighbor's yard. Bare branches, brown leaves. And earlier, a phone call. Afraid I have some bad news, the caller said, and of course I knew what it was. Her husband found her this morning.
She loved the humor to be found in life, and pursued it with the blazing-eyed avidity of a prospector in a gold rush. She'd sit around the table as the wisecracks flew, her face aglow with wicked glee. But she had a tender heart; she fretted about the problems of everyone she cared about, as if they were all broken-winged birds. She liked black cats and the Welsh border country, where she was a girl, and she liked umbrellas, the bigger the better, and always had a couple of them in her cubicle, for emergencies. I told her once that if the rains ever fell hard and long enough to cause flooding, she could probably use one as a lifeboat.
I'll get back to work in a while, and exercise, and make soup. Just not right now. Right now it's just the sunlight on the desk, the leaves outside. The whirring of the computer, the dog barking across the alley.
She loved the humor to be found in life, and pursued it with the blazing-eyed avidity of a prospector in a gold rush. She'd sit around the table as the wisecracks flew, her face aglow with wicked glee. But she had a tender heart; she fretted about the problems of everyone she cared about, as if they were all broken-winged birds. She liked black cats and the Welsh border country, where she was a girl, and she liked umbrellas, the bigger the better, and always had a couple of them in her cubicle, for emergencies. I told her once that if the rains ever fell hard and long enough to cause flooding, she could probably use one as a lifeboat.
I'll get back to work in a while, and exercise, and make soup. Just not right now. Right now it's just the sunlight on the desk, the leaves outside. The whirring of the computer, the dog barking across the alley.
I was listening to the BBC the other morning, and for once I heard some news out of Iraq that charmed and cheered me. We all knew it gets hot there—110 F. in the summer is pretty much average for Baghdad—but I'd never heard about what it's like in the winter. Well, the announcer was saying that on what would seem like a summer's day in England, temperature in the 60s, the Iraqis were going around in earmuffs. I liked that a lot.
I'm currently reading a book by Marion Winik titled The Glen Rock Book of the Dead, and so far it's more fun than it might sound. Admittedly, it's about scores of people the author once knew who are no longer with us. But it's by no means gloomy. In fact, I was struck at how its mood differed from an impression I'd gotten in my childhood reading. Like most kids in history, I was given books to instruct and uplift, books about individuals who struggled to achieve great things. Usually the books would dwell on the period of work and crisis and final achievement and then gallop through the rest of the individual's life. Often this was an oddly rushed, uncomfortable denouement, as if the biographers were quietly embarrassed at what came next. Family tragedy, sickness, decay, neglect—the triumphant phase of life would often devolve into a sad collapse, it seemed. I didn't find it chilling, exactly—I was a child, after all—but it was like a sudden cold breeze on an otherwise warm autumn afternoon, a hint of things to come.
But Wink's book isn't about famous people whose lives necessarily faded; it's about everday people with only two shared characteristics: She knew them, and they're dead. The sketches I've read so far have been sometimes poignant but more just matter-of-fact, affectionate, clear-eyed memories of people in the round. In an author's note, Winik says the writing process "never seemed morbid or depressing to me. ... Writing this book has been a chance to hang out with my friends." It's signed "Marion Winik, Glen Rock, Pennsylvania, February 2008," because Glen Rock, of course, is where the author lives.
My copy was sent to me by a mutual friend of Winik's and mine, and when I started reading it, I saw Winik had inscribed it with my name and the phrase, "To life!" Many people will recognize this as a translation of a Jewish toast, L'chaim. But it's also a little hint about the book's subject. When I was reading those biographies years ago, I lived the most vivid parts of the subjects' lives with them, and then watched in dismay as their decay happened in a shocking rush. But the characters in Glen Rock are people I never would have heard of, never became attached or sympathetic to from afar or at all, and the fact of their death is a precondition to our meeting. Winik presents them as miniatures, and their decay or sudden end seem somehow not to matter: they have death in common, so what distinguishes them, what sets them apart from each other, is their life. And that's what stands out. They're in their graves, yes, but also tenderly preserved in a charming little snow globe of memory and art.
As it happens, I saw a local theater group do an adaptation of A Christmas Carol this weekend. And now that I think about it, the Dickens story also acknowledges death without being in the least morbid or lugubrious. So there you are. Memento mori, right? And carpe diem. And while we're on the subject, l'chaim.
But Wink's book isn't about famous people whose lives necessarily faded; it's about everday people with only two shared characteristics: She knew them, and they're dead. The sketches I've read so far have been sometimes poignant but more just matter-of-fact, affectionate, clear-eyed memories of people in the round. In an author's note, Winik says the writing process "never seemed morbid or depressing to me. ... Writing this book has been a chance to hang out with my friends." It's signed "Marion Winik, Glen Rock, Pennsylvania, February 2008," because Glen Rock, of course, is where the author lives.
My copy was sent to me by a mutual friend of Winik's and mine, and when I started reading it, I saw Winik had inscribed it with my name and the phrase, "To life!" Many people will recognize this as a translation of a Jewish toast, L'chaim. But it's also a little hint about the book's subject. When I was reading those biographies years ago, I lived the most vivid parts of the subjects' lives with them, and then watched in dismay as their decay happened in a shocking rush. But the characters in Glen Rock are people I never would have heard of, never became attached or sympathetic to from afar or at all, and the fact of their death is a precondition to our meeting. Winik presents them as miniatures, and their decay or sudden end seem somehow not to matter: they have death in common, so what distinguishes them, what sets them apart from each other, is their life. And that's what stands out. They're in their graves, yes, but also tenderly preserved in a charming little snow globe of memory and art.
As it happens, I saw a local theater group do an adaptation of A Christmas Carol this weekend. And now that I think about it, the Dickens story also acknowledges death without being in the least morbid or lugubrious. So there you are. Memento mori, right? And carpe diem. And while we're on the subject, l'chaim.
A free tip for you: If you're in North America or Europe the next few nights, look to the southwest at dusk. Venus and Jupiter have been hanging like brilliant garden-party lanterns in the violet sky, and the crescent moon will be joining them, out of jealously that they should be admired so much and she not, I suppose. Technically this is called a conjunction, but either way it's worth a lingering look. And here's an article about it that reminds us, among other things, that this doesn't happen often and is worth stopping for.
BTW, I've introduced a new category called "budget bon vivant." This was inspired by the recent worldwide financial brouhaha, but I've been thinking for most of my life about how to live well on the cheap, and the time seems ripe to share the few nuggets I've gleaned. And this is one—to pay attention to the night sky. You've got the big headliners—comets, meteor showers, eclipses, close approaches of the planets, the Northern Lights—and you've got the moon and stars every night of the year. The stars have marched in stately procession across the night sky for billions of years, and will continue for billions more. If you're willing to hear the message, they can tell you that the universe is really a very big place, and the things that trouble you at the moment rather small, actually, in the scheme of things. There's a certain peace in that, if you pick up the right end of it. We often get the same feelings from mountains, or the ocean, or other big things. But we don't all live next to mountains or the ocean. We do all live under the sky, though. So check it out, if you're inclined. There are some good books on the subject. And enjoy. It won't cost you a cent.
BTW, I've introduced a new category called "budget bon vivant." This was inspired by the recent worldwide financial brouhaha, but I've been thinking for most of my life about how to live well on the cheap, and the time seems ripe to share the few nuggets I've gleaned. And this is one—to pay attention to the night sky. You've got the big headliners—comets, meteor showers, eclipses, close approaches of the planets, the Northern Lights—and you've got the moon and stars every night of the year. The stars have marched in stately procession across the night sky for billions of years, and will continue for billions more. If you're willing to hear the message, they can tell you that the universe is really a very big place, and the things that trouble you at the moment rather small, actually, in the scheme of things. There's a certain peace in that, if you pick up the right end of it. We often get the same feelings from mountains, or the ocean, or other big things. But we don't all live next to mountains or the ocean. We do all live under the sky, though. So check it out, if you're inclined. There are some good books on the subject. And enjoy. It won't cost you a cent.
