The Sheila Variations

Happy (??) Place

I can't quite say these make me "happy" (like most of my other entries in this category) - but I can say that ever since I encountered de Chirico's stuff, in my Humanities class in high school, I have been fascinated by it. it's got its hooks in me. I find it scary - like a terrible dream - but I can't look away. There's something monotonous about it all - he always has the same elements: -- an approaching train (sometimes all you can see is the smoke coming into the "frame), elongated shadows, huge piazzas, some kind of Roman classical statuary - fragments - long distances - I don't know. I just love his stuff. It reminds me of something. Maybe Sylvia Plath's later poems, with the visions of statuary - and "bald mannequins" in Munich - those creepy un-populated landscapes.

Place Métaphysique Italienne 1921

Ariadne, 1913

Delights of the Poet 1913

Melancholy

Melancolie Hermetique, c.1918

Melancholy and Mystery of the Street, 1914

Song of Love

The Nostalgia of the Infinite,1913-14

The Conquest of the Philosopher

Here's a gallery of his work.

Ooh - and here's another nice one

Switzerland by Design

2 very cool posts by one of my favorite bloggers out there, whose posts are few and far between - but always well worth it (the site is called 100 Years of Illustration and Design):

Here are his two recent posts - one on the high quality of Swissair, down to the design of its ticket folders - and one on the designs of street signs in Switzerland.

Swissair had it all

Driving in Switzerland by design

Happy Birthday, Jonathan Swift!

"[He is] the most vigorous hater we've ever had in our literature." -- Edgell Rickword on Jonathan Swift

Jonathan Swift was born on this day, in 1667. Here's a ton of biographical information if you are interested.

Primarily known for Gulliver's Travels (which I re-read earlier this year - here's my post about it) and A Modest Proposal he was also a poet of pretty uncommon gifts. He's also one of the most quotable of all writers. He's like Oscar Wilde that way, his words have barbs in them - they stick, get a hold on you.

Swift wrote:

But you think that it is time for me to have done with the world, and so I would if I could get into a better before I was called into the best, and not die here in a rage, like a poisoned rat in a hole.

His contempt has echoed across the centuries and given us the primary examples of satire that all writers should study. I am sorry that satire is so tepid these days. I find most of it way too coy, and stupid. They WISH that what they were doing was satire of the highest order - but what they are really doing is just bitching and whining in a tiny airless corner. Swift was merciless. Swift's command of language was impeccable. His observations were ruthless. He cannot be touched to this day.

Swift said, in regards to satire:

Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody's face but their own.

Swift embraced hate, it is true, yet he did not embrace corruption. Most people who fill their souls with hate (and I can think of many examples in our present-day political discourse) completely corrupt their humanity. Their hatred for everyone else (and their inability to look in a mirror - or, no, it's not just inability - it is blatant and conscious REFUSAL to look in a mirror) leaves them with no humanity. Swift does not seem to have had that problem. He was just alert, that's all. He saw the things going on around him, and wrote it all down. He pulled no punches.

I never wonder to see men wicked, but I often wonder to see them not ashamed.

There is such truth in Swift.

And also:

Politics, as the word is commonly understood, are nothing but corruptions.

He called things as he saw them:

We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.

Obviously such blunt truth was highly unwelcome in many circles - and still is today. Oh, how much the pious haters despise those who call them on their phoniness!! Again: it all comes back to this: Can you look in the mirror? Can you face yourself? Can you entertain the possibility that that which you hate is also inside of you? Oh ho ho no. Many people don't even know what the HELL you are talking about when you talk like that!

But then there is also this:

It is in men as in soils where sometimes there is a vein of gold which the owner knows not.

The belief in the good in people. Not universally - oh, no. Swift was perfectly willing to see some people as just plain assholes with no redeeming qualities - and I'm pretty much with him on that. But occasionally - where you least expect it - a "vein of gold".

Many professional haters have ZERO senses of humor. Oh, they think they do, and I see them chortling on political talk shows, throwing zingers at their opponents - and their witless followers guffaw "Ho ho ho" in response, but there is no actualy humor there. None.

But Swift used humor. He used it like a whip, yes, but also - well - there's something like this statement which makes me laugh out loud every time I read it:

There were many times my pants were so thin I could sit on a dime and tell if it was heads or tails.

Self-knowledge - a willingness to include himself in his own merciless searchlight:

Where I am not understood, it shall be concluded that something very useful and profound is couched underneath.

And his poems, let's not forget them. They're funny, biting, mean ... and yet sometimes so heartfelt (the ones to Stella - the woman he loved all his life - comes to mind) that they bring tears to my eyes.

You don't want to skim these. Read. Read them.

A Satirical Elegy: On the Death of a Late Famous General
His Grace! impossible! what dead!
Of old age, too, and in his bed!
And could that Mighty Warrior fall?
And so inglorious, after all!
Well, since he's gone, no matter how,
The last loud trump must wake him now:
And, trust me, as the noise grows stronger,
He'd wish to sleep a little longer.
And could he be indeed so old
As by the news-papers we're told?
Threescore, I think, is pretty high;
'Twas time in conscience he should die.
This world he cumber'd long enough;
He burnt his candle to the snuff;
And that's the reason, some folks think,
He left behind so great a stink.
Behold his funeral appears,
Nor widow's sighs, nor orphan's tears,
Wont at such times each heart to pierce,
Attend the progress of his hearse.
But what of that, his friends may say,
He had those honours in his day.
True to his profit and his pride,
He made them weep before he dy'd.
Come hither, all ye empty things,
Ye bubbles rais'd by breath of Kings;
Who float upon the tide of state,
Come hither, and behold your fate.
Let pride be taught by this rebuke,
How very mean a thing's a Duke;
From all his ill-got honours flung,
Turn'd to that dirt from whence he sprung.

I love the line: "How very mean a thing's a Duke". It just says it all.

And here is my favorite of the "Stella poems":

Stella's Birthday March 13, 1727
This day, whate'er the Fates decree,
Shall still be kept with joy by me:
This day then let us not be told,
That you are sick, and I grown old;
Nor think on our approaching ills,
And talk of spectacles and pills.
To-morrow will be time enough
To hear such mortifying stuff.
Yet, since from reason may be brought
A better and more pleasing thought,
Which can, in spite of all decays,
Support a few remaining days:
From not the gravest of divines
Accept for once some serious lines.

Although we now can form no more
Long schemes of life, as heretofore;
Yet you, while time is running fast,
Can look with joy on what is past.

Were future happiness and pain
A mere contrivance of the brain,
As atheists argue, to entice
And fit their proselytes for vice;
(The only comfort they propose,
To have companions in their woes;)
Grant this the case; yet sure 'tis hard
That virtue, styl'd its own reward,
And by all sages understood
To be the chief of human good,
Should, acting, die, nor leave behind
Some lasting pleasure in the mind;
Which by remembrance will assuage
Grief, sickness, poverty, and age;
And strongly shoot a radiant dart
To shine through life's declining part.

Say, Stella, feel you no content,
Reflecting on a life well spent?
Your skilful hand employ'd to save
Despairing wretches from the grave;
And then supporting with your store
Those whom you dragg'd from death before?
So Providence on mortals waits,
Preserving what it first creates.
Your gen'rous boldness to defend
An innocent and absent friend;
That courage which can make you just
To merit humbled in the dust;
The detestation you express
For vice in all its glitt'ring dress;
That patience under torturing pain,
Where stubborn stoics would complain:
Must these like empty shadows pass,
Or forms reflected from a glass?
Or mere chims in the mind,
That fly, and leave no marks behind?
Does not the body thrive and grow
By food of twenty years ago?
And, had it not been still supplied,
It must a thousand times have died.
Then who with reason can maintain
That no effects of food remain?
And is not virtue in mankind
The nutriment that feeds the mind;
Upheld by each good action past,
And still continued by the last?
Then, who with reason can pretend
That all effects of virtue end?

Believe me, Stella, when you show
That true contempt for things below,
Nor prize your life for other ends,
Than merely to oblige your friends;
Your former actions claim their part,
And join to fortify your heart.
For Virtue, in her daily race,
Like Janus, bears a double face;
Looks back with joy where she has gone
And therefore goes with courage on:
She at your sickly couch will wait,
And guide you to a better state.

O then, whatever Heav'n intends,
Take pity on your pitying friends!
Nor let your ills affect your mind,
To fancy they can be unkind.
Me, surely me, you ought to spare,
Who gladly would your suff'rings share;
Or give my scrap of life to you,
And think it far beneath your due;
You, to whose care so oft I owe
That I'm alive to tell you so.

"Does not the body thrive and grow By food of twenty years ago?" Yes, Swift ... yes, it does.

And this one - hee hee:

Oysters
Charming oysters I cry:
My masters, come buy,
So plump and so fresh,
So sweet is their flesh,
No Colchester oyster
Is sweeter and moister:
Your stomach they settle,
And rouse up your mettle:
They'll make you a dad
Of a lass or a lad;
And madam your wife
They'll please to the life;
Be she barren, be she old,
Be she slut, or be she scold,
Eat my oysters, and lie near her,
She'll be fruitful, never fear her.

Michael Schmidt's book Lives of the Poets has a chapter devoted to Jonathan Swift, John Gay, and Alexander Pope - it's called "Three Friends". Schmidt's book is a must-read for poetry lovers. He's not a critic, first of all. He's an editor and a book publisher. He's a fan of poetry - and he writes like a fan writes - not like a critic - and yet his knowledge is encyclopedic.

Here is some of what he has to say about Jonathan Swift:

His vexed relations with women, especially "Stella" and "Vanessa", and his disgust with physical functions, have given much latitude to Freudian interpretations. Disgust informs much of the prose and verse, but so does a real interest in common people, their language, actions and concerns. The verse opens on this area of his genius, and on his darker musings. It possesses the satiric virtues of the prose with an additional element: the "I" speaks, speaks as itself, with an uncompromised acerbity that few poets have masterd. When he died in 1745, Ireland and England were in his debt. The topicality that limits the appeal of some of his prose is itself the appeal of the verse: it catches inflections and remembers small actions now lost -- the voices of gardeners, street vendors, laborers ... the tone of a cryptic man of conscience speaking of his world, his bitter, life, his wary loves.

Jonathan Swift described style, in writing, as "proper words in proper places". I think he pretty much mastered that - in his prose, certainly, but also in his poems. There isn't an extra word there - there is no FAT in his language - he has pared everything down to its essentials. The verses come to us as though they were born complete - and perfect.

More from Schmidt - and this, I believe, is a brilliant point:

In the more ambitious pieces Swift challenges the reader ... There is a unique irony at work, not normative, like Dryden's, but radical: thematic rather than stylistic. This is why his poems, even the most topical, retain force today. "I take it to be part of the honesty of poets," he wrote, "that they cannot write well except they think the subject deserves it." The subjects he chose he approached as if for the first time, as if we stepped from the chill, clear world of reason into a world of men.

More (I see his point here about Swift not being quotable, not really - most of the quotes I excerpted above were from his prose works - His poems are pretty much complete as they are - and need to be read straight through - they are difficult to excerpt. They depend on momentum and continuity):

Swift is hard to recommend as a poet because he is hard to quote out of context. There are few purple passages, detachable maxims; the poetry is drawn evenly through the poem in ways that out-of-context quotation violates. The epitaphs, the spoofs, the eclogues, the anecdotes spoken by various voices, the ironic love poems, the first-person poems, will not be broken up into tags like the rich couplet bric-a-brac of Pope. In Swift we come upon a writer who might have preferred to be called versifier rather than poet. There is a difference in kind in his work from that of his predecessors; and he is not "polite" enough to have beguiled his contemporaries into imitation. He stands alone, he doesn't sing, he never ingratiates himself. He speaks, and he understands how the world wags.

And on that note, I will close this ginormous post - but I will let William Butler Yeats have the last word on Jonathan Swift:

Swift's Epitaph
Swift has sailed into his rest;
Savage indignation there
Cannot lacerate his breast.
Imitate him if you dare,
World-besotted traveller; he
Served human liberty.

Yup. Imitate him if you dare.

Diary Friday

In honor of an old DEAR friend who has just "found" me through the Internet: Phil!!! I can't even begin to describe the adventures I had with this person, how much he was in my life at one point - how insanely funny he is - and how COOL it is to be back in touch with him again. Our biggest adventure ever was performing at the Milwaukee Summer Fest (there was also that little matter of our run-in with the law) - and so here, in all its highly edited glory, is a Diary Friday of that experience.

I performed with Pat McCurdy at the Milwaukee Summer Fest. He hired me, and 3 friends (Ann Marie, Kenny, and Phil) to be his back-up group. We made up goofy dances and the like. We spent 4 days in Milwaukee, having various adventures.

It is, to date, maybe the most fun I have ever had in my entire life.

I've left out the snarky present-day comments that I usually do with Diary Friday, interjecting my judgment on who I was in the past. I still can't snark about who I was in that 4 day period - my exhilaration, my commitment, my excitement ... I was so ALIVE in those 4 days. No snarking about that!

I still tremble with laughter at some of these old jokes. "Please don't ever leave me alone with Connie. Promise me." "I promise."

Phil's daily bag-stress.

Oh, and I also just BURST into laughter right now when I remembered Pat interrupting my pre-show prayer.

We're standing in a circle before the show, each saying a little prayer. We're goofing on the Madonna prayer-circle she does before each show - but we're kind of serious. It's a bonding group experience - getting psyched to do the show. It comes my turn. We're all standing in a circle, holding hands.

I'm like, "Dear God, help us to do really well tonight. We thank you for this opportun--"
Pat interrupts, he obviously hasn't been listening to me at all: "Sheila, you are stacked."

hahahahaha Guffawing right now!!

SUMMER Milwaukee Summer Fest

The inside of my head is a kaleidoscope. It feels like I have been gone for weeks. This has been an "epoch" in my life, as Anne of Green Gables would say. The shows were unbelievable. A fantasy. A dream come true. Literally thousands of people cheering. All of us bursting through the green curtains, the music pounding, the lights hot and bright, the screaming throngs, yes, throngs - what a RUSH. As Phil said after the first show, "This was huge. This was huge." That's the perfect word. The whole thing was huge.

Monday in Milwaukee:
The first night the show ended up being canceled. It had begun to rain. The sky was apocalyptic. Black and swirling and ominous with lightning forks. The sky was greenish as well. It was gorgeous, in a way, but we all resented it. Phil said, in regards to the sky being green, "That's not right. That's never right." He's such a sailor.

The images of our time swirl by me.

The 4 of us in the back of the van, wearing our freshly ironed Pat T-shirts (Ann did that at the hotel) and shorts (girls in black, boys in green) and as Pat was taking corners we were all falling into each other and propping each other up.

I announced, "We have no boundaries anymore."

Pipe picked us up.

The 4 of us were insane, waiting for him down in the lobby. Pipe laughed at us. "You guys didn't have to wait down here!"

I was jittery and nervous.

Every time Pipe would break suddenly or make a fast turn, Phil would yell out, "Hey! There's dancers back here!"

We all had secret moments of bonding and excitement, through touching and eye contact. I love my fellow dancers. By the second show, we had leapfrogged to the point where we were all like brothers and sisters. It was great.

We went and picked up Mike. He was standing on the sidewalk outside of his apartment, holding his guitar, with 2 cowboy hats piled on his head -to give to me and Ann Marie for our line-dancing during "Imagine a Picture". He remembered!

We then went to go get Pat. The rain hadn't really started yet when we pulled up in front of Pat's house - we were all feeling a little bit claustrophobic in the un-airconditioned van. We all got out. The sky was spectacular. The 4 of us hooked our feet up on this iron fence, holding onto the bars, and watched the sky as though it were a movie. The wind was enormous. The trees were all freaked out with the leaves turned upside down and grey. The air was thick and grey. The sky was angry and filled with incredible lightning. Everything was greenish. It was all so beautiful, but I couldn't really succumb to the beauty because I wanted us to perform so badly. My insides were a total circus.

There were so many moments when I would step outside myself and the experience for a second, and look around at my beautiful fellow cast members, all of us in crisp white Pat T-shirts, and I would have to burst into laughter. Ann and I had our cowgirl hats on, and we went to a parked car to check out our reflections. We practiced our line dance on the sidewalk.

Then Pat came out of his house - we all piled into the van. Pat drove and Pipe climbed into the back with us dancers and we were off.

We sat in Parking Lot E for an hour. We were waiting for the word: show or no show. It poured tropically for that whole time. No A/C. No windows, except for the 2 in front and those had to be open only a crack because the rain was being blown in horizontal lines by the frigging funnel clouds all around us. The stuffiness was nearly unbearable. I kept thinking someone would call the ASPCA like they do with dogs trapped in cars at the beach.

"My tongue is swelling." I said.

"I think it's lightening up," said Kenny, when the downpour reached its heaviest moment. He literally had to yell to be heard. We roared with laughter.

We could hear the crowd screaming for the BoDeans - they weren't performing outside - so their show was on.

Ann finally declared, "I don't care anymore!" and went outside. Now, it was only drizzling - the downpour had stopped. We all got out to breathe the cooler air.

Eventually, the show was canceled.

Meanwhile, Bob, Ann's new boyfriend, way on the other side of the midway, was trying to scam his way over to the Miller Oasis by saying to various Summer Fest employees, "My girlfriend is performing tonight!" Is that the funniest thing?

Pipe dropped us all off at the hotel. Once we dancers were all alone with each other, we felt more comfortable expressing our open disappointment. We had all kept instinctively quiet in the van. We're grateful to be involved at all, but once we were alone, we all were like: SHIT. And of course, by this point, it had cleared up and was now a beautiful cool night.

The boys drove back up to the farmhouse where they were staying. We all were slightly disheartened. We had reached such a fevered pitch getting ready beforehand in the motel room, all for naught.

Ann and I crashed in the lovely air-conditioning. We had basically moved in. Clothes hanging, hot rollers everywhere, makeup scattered. When Pat walked in on Wednesday, he glanced around and said, "You live here now." The nesting instinct.

Oh, this is funny:

It is scary how in sync Ann and I are. More and more, we shriek things out in unison. Weird things, obscure things, out-of-nowhere things. She and I were meant to be friends. It had to happen. At one point in the van, we said an entire sentence in unison. There was a pause. Everyone is so used to this by now, but Phil couldn't help but say, "You guys really do speak in unison more than anyone else I know."

Tuesday in Milwaukee
Ann and I awoke. In unison. Of course.

It was early and we needed coffee so we went out in search of a Dunkin Donuts. It was already very hot. There was a whitish haze in the air. We ate at the D&D we finally found, and then drove back to the hotel room (our home).

Kenny had had this idea of getting T-shirts made up for all of us, Summer Fest/Pat McCurdy shirts. None of us could stop saying the words "I'm with Pat" the entire time. So we wanted the shirts to say "I'm with Pat" across the front. Ann and I decided to do a little research on our own so we got out our Milwaukee yellow pages and started making calls. We alternated. Comparison shopped. Asked a million questions. Ann took notes. We were all spread out on her bed, phone books, phone in between us, pad of paper, we were very business-like. We were also very into instant gratification, and it didn't look like it was gonna happen.

"I want this now," said Ann.

During all of this, Ann decided that she wanted to get a massage, so she started making calls regarding that and she found one right down the street. As she was discussing prices with this woman, I decided that I wanted to get one too. Ann basically told this woman our whole life story in order for us to get appointments that day. "You see, we're only in town for a couple of days because we're performing at Milwaukee Summer Fest-" (Ann rolled her eyes at me, and I burst into laughter.) So Edel, the masseuse, rearranged her schedule for us.

Ann said, "I am totally unembattled about this. I want a massage today." Ann Marie makes things happen. Our appointments were later in the day so we decided to go have lunch at a Mexican restaurant that Ted recommended to me. I called the restaurant (Ann and I were all about the yellow pages this morning), got directions (which Ann and I later chose to ignore, somehow feeling that we knew the city better than the native who gave us the directions), and we set off.

It was a hot hazy day.

We shrieked along the freeway. It was so fun to be on a kind of vacation together. Summer! A whole day of nothingness! In Milwaukee! With this enormously exciting event in the evening.

We had the windows rolled down. Ann was driving fast, it was windy and loud - glorious! Then, suddenly, Ann rolled up my window and my fingers got crushed. Then followed a white-hot three seconds of total chaos. Poor Ann. Suddenly I started screaming at the top of my lungs in total panic, "OPEN THE WINDOW! OPEN THE WINDOW!" At first Ann thought I was joking since my screaming was so hyperbolic. For the one second that she thought I was joking, and the window didn't go down, I then thought that the window was stuck, so then I really lost my mind. "OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD!" Then she rolled down the window - oh, I just BURST into laughter just now remembering this whole thing, the 2 of us screaming and crying - I was clutching my clawed hand, and then I burst into stormy primal tears. It was a physiologically-based cry, like sneezing or sleeping. It was a literal bursting into tears. I cried for 20 minutes.

Poor Ann felt so bad, and so she started crying, and there we were. Cruising down the freeway, both of us in tears.

She kept imploring, "Bend your fingers! Can you bend them?"

Just writing this down is making me laugh.

Once I began crying, I started crying about my whole life, and how clumsy I am (even though this was not a case of clumsiness). I could not stop crying once I started. Ann kept saying, with tears streaming down her face, "This wasn't your fault!"

Well, my fingers are fine. They were a little bruised the next day but that was it.

Somehow, though, the crying released many of the stress toxins I had coursing through my veins. Out they came with my tears. It was a great stress-reducer. Also, once all the toxins were out, the crying stopped immediately.

It was like a huge clap of thunder. The pressure released, the sky was clear again, the air cool and fresh.

We had a lingering Mexican lunch that was very yummy and we both had 2 margaritas. We had a surly rude waitress. I sucked down my 2 drinks, limp as a dishrag from the crying, and then had a nice tequila buzz, and then Ann and I had a fascinating terrific discussion about religion. It was a GREAT talk.

We left the restaurant, emerged into the hot air, and drove off, singing along to "Close Every Door" from Joseph, at the tops of our lungs. Windows wide open. The weather was a sauna.

We went and had incredible massages.

The whole day was about toxin expulsion. Crying, tequila, huge conversation about religion, massage. We left Edel's with oil on our skin, in these uplifted spacy states, like we had been roaming the Milky Way and were trying to relearn our bodies again.

We went back to A/C land. There was a busted soda machine in the lobby. Ann pressed the Coke button, she didn't even put any money in, and it was like winning a slot machine. Cokes kept pouring out. We were laughing hysterically. We loaded ourselves down with so many cans that we could not open our door. Girls, take a step back. We got a bucket of ice and filled it with our free sodas.

Just as funny was the boys showing up at our door later on, we opened up the door to admit them, and there they were, beaming with glee and greed, each holding about 7 cans of soda. They thought they would surprise us. I swung open the door so that they could see the bucket overflowing with our soda cans.

The 4 of us were out of control. We really did have the comfort level of siblings with each other. We ruled the hotel from Room 230. We were filming a "backstage video" of our experience - so we moved furniture, we filmed in the lobby. We stole sodas.

We then had a quick run-through in the room. We definitely weren't as insanely excited as we had been the night before. We were a tiny bit jaded because of the cancellation.

Pipe came to get us and called up from the parking lot. He could hear our raucous behavior from down below.

We all bustled about. We each had a bag filled with stuff for the show. Phil continuously lost track of his bag. "Where's my bag? Where's my bag?" "Have you seen my bag?" "No, I'm fine - just having my daily bag stress." It got to the point where every time I heard the word "bag" come out of Phil's mouth, I'd start to laugh.

Ann was in charge of all the hats in the show. She said, "Do you want me to own the hats?" "Own" the hats. She meant "own" in an emotional sense, as in "taking responsibility" - which is so damn funny.

We climbed into the van with a very different energy from the night before.

It was hazy and extraordinarily hot, but we were at least confident that a show would happen. Pipe was so cute, pointing out Milwaukee landmarks to us (we, who were blind in the back), telling us stories about buildings.

We arrived at the Fest and went to Lot E again. We all piled out again.

I was amazed by the overpass. It fascinated me so much that Pat eventually started to referring to it as "Sheila's bridge". Pat had tickets for all of us, and we clustered around him like children waiting for dad to dole out allowance. All of us in our matching outfits. GOOFY. We were little Pat McCurdy chicklets. Then we were off, walking briskly through the throngs, holding bags, guitars, hats. Excitement mounting. Every third person we passed hailed Pat. "Pat!" "Hey, there's Pat!" "Pat, where you playing?" "Pat! Hi!"

Crowds and crowds of people. Hazy pink night. Neon beer signs everywhere. Sounds of music, sounds of screams from where Janet Jackson was performing. Everything was shimmery. And above it all was that magical prehistoric-looking overpass. Everything was so vital, so incredible. I'm ALIVE. It was one of those nights when I love everyone I see. It was so much fun, walking briskly through the Fest and its throngs with Pat.

We got to the Miller Oasis with its monolithic stage. Pat took us around to the back where there was a ramp going up into the backstage area, which was teeming with activity, security people on the edge, another band setting up, their entourage milling about.

This was funny: the name of the band preceding us was something along the lines of "Malatini". As were were driving over, someone asked, "Who's going before us?" and I said, "Mahi Mahi." This was a big hit, and within about 10 minutes, it was assimilated into everyone's vocabulary. Later, at the Fest, I overheard Pipe Jim say to someone, totally seriously, "Okay, so once Mahi Mahi finishes ..."

None of us felt like exploring the Fest. We all felt the need to be in the immediate backstage area. There was so much to soak up! So many sensations! This was so big-time for us. In our own chaotic way, the 4 of us needed to focus. We needed to be all about the show. We had to wear Miller Oasis stickers. I loved having mine. We were all very into our stickers. Every moment was memorable, it was that kind of evening. Every image was a keeper. It was one of those rare times in life where I could totally observe my own life and think, "How cool! Look at how COOL my life is!" And yet I was still present in every moment. Vivid vivid VIVID. Technicolor. My eyes saw everything with microscopic clarity.

There were kegs of free beer backstage. There were 3 dressing rooms and the bands rotated. They were air conditioned and they had a terrible smell. The carpet was red and stained. Pat looked at the stain, glanced at me and said, "Musicians", shaking his head.

I immediately began to set up all my stuff, hanging up my change of costume, laying out all the shit I'd need during the show. It was so funny because during our "backstage video" - we faked a fight between the 4 of us in the hotel room, we all began bickering and bitching at each other, and the entire time I kept packing up my bag, arranging my stuff on the bed, and Phil yelled at me, "Oh, the whole WORLD belongs to Sheila, right??" Hysterical. It became this big joke, and then there I was - totally taking over one corner of the dressing room with all my stuff.

Kenny gathered all of us players together and we went into the backstage area to discuss logistics. We talked through stuff, got familiar. I just love the images so much of the 4 of us in shorts and Pat McCurdy T-shirts and sneakers and red stickers, walking around, having quick little summit meetings.

"Okay, so during Drive in Reverse..."
"All right, then, so we'll come on from this side for Groovy Thing..."
"Should I set up the cowboy hats here or--"
"Kenny, will you come on from this side for Mick, because..."

We wrote out the song list twice and taped them up where we could refer to them if we needed to during the frenzy of the show. There were all kinds of long-haired roadie types walking around and I was consummately in the way. I said, "Excuse me" 10 times. Ann and I loved to stand in the huge open "door" and watch the Summer Festers walk by, eating, drinking beer, looking up at us. With our Miller Oasis stickers. It gave us a nice important feeling.

We were all totally stressed, waiting for the show to begin. Pipe later called us all "jungle animals", because we were all 4 of us pacing back and forth. Separately. In our own worlds.

The 4 of us and Pat stood in a circle before the show (like Madonna did with her dancers in "Truth or Dare") to bond, and get psyched, and offer up wishes, one by one, to God. In the middle of my turn, in the middle of one of my sentences, Pat, who had been looking at me, totally interrupted my prayer and said, "Sheila, you are stacked."

I am still laughing about that.

The show of course was magic. Dreams come true. Thousands of screaming people.

After the show, the 4 dancers stood in the dressing room, soaking wet with sweat, speaking all at the same time, drinking free beer, talking nonstop. It was a raging success for all of us. I think Pat was very relieved. We were all blithering and chattering, twitching with adrenaline.

The 4 of us went out with Pipe and Mike afterwards to a bar, where a bunch of their friends were. Phil and Kenny were really into partying, but I was not due to my increasing recording anxiety. The bar was very smoky so I started having a mild panic attack that I would wake up the next day with no voice.

Connie was at the bar. Basically, Ann Marie is deathly afraid of Connie. She confessed this to me. "Don't ever leave me alone with Connie." I promised.

Pipe came over to me and Ann and was so sweet, talking to us, being mellow, telling us stories, taking care of us. He'd make you soup at a low moment. He'd rub your feet. He's a caretaker.

Kenny and Phil stayed on at the bar, and the rest of us left.

The night was unbelievably hot, and the air actually felt thick. We were all laughing about how Ann's mom used to say to her kids, "Don't hang" on nights such as this.

There we were, 1:30 in the morning, drowsing off to sleep in the back of the van as Pipe drove us through the deserted streets of Milwaukee.

The guys were going to crash in our room, and they promised us that they would be quiet.

And they were SO NOT QUIET when they came in. they were giggling like, literally, 8-year-old brothers. Ann and I had crawled into the same bed, and we fell fast asleep.

Wednesday in Milwaukee
Ann and I woke up, in unison, and LOVED the image of bare-chested straight-guys Kenny and Phil in bed together. The mood of hilarity began.

Kenny woke up and introduced a sleepy Phil as "Joe" and said that he had met "Joe" at "the Pabst stage." We did some more filming of our backstage video, and then the boys drove up to spend the day at the farmhouse. Kenny's sister from France was coming in that day with her husband and daughter. It was a very funny ruffled sleepy morning with the boys.

I was tightly coiled up - knowing that I was recording the duet with Pat later that day.

Mike and Ann made plans for the morning. He was in a tour guide mode. They went to go take a tour of a brewery, and then Pat came to pick me up, and we drove to the studio. I took one look at the recording booth and had a brief flash, "I can't do this. I don't want to do this." But I instantly repressed the freak-out.

All I can say about the recording experience is that it was just perfect. I loved it so much. Once we were both in the booth, headphones on, I felt ready. No more fear. Before, I had clearly been showing some tension because Pat had taken me by the shoulders and shook me. Hard.

And then - we did the duet in one take. Live. So what will end up being on the CD will be us actually singing to each other - rather than him recording his part, and then me recording my part separately. We went through it once, together, just to get the feel for it - and then it ended up coming out perfectly.

We sat and listened to it afterwards for about 3 times. It was so weird. Hearing my voice floating through the recording studio.

By the time we left, for Pat to drive me back to the hotel, the sun rays were long and lazy. It was still really hot. We were tired, relieved, happy. When I walked back into Room 230, Ann was asleep in the room. The silence of the air-conditioned space surrounded me. It's a strange thing, living in a motel. It's hard to settle. Ann and I did as much as we could, filled the drawers with clothes, made our beds, but I guess it's harder to settle down emotionally.

Stasis in darkness. Surreal. Time outside of time.

Then the insanity for that night's show started up again.

Ann was having some kind of allergy attack which she fought as best she could.

We began our preparations again, waiting for the boys to arrive. It was a tiny bit rainy again. When the boys showed up - Kenny said something wonderful. He said to us, "You guys, let's try to remember ... even if tonight is canceled - let's try to hold onto the fact that we at least got to do it once. And last night was so incredible. Let's not forget that, no matter what." He was right.

We had a mini-rehearsal in the room again. There was something so heartwarming about every moment. Phil doing "jazz hands", and reminding all of us not to forget our "jazz hands", is enough to carry me through many a darkened hour.

We all were high on each other, cracking each other up. Our windows were open for air circulation. We feared that Ann Marie was having a reaction to too much air-conditioning in her life. Pipe pulled into the parking lot. Room 230 faced front, right over the lot - we had just run through one of the big "dance numbers". We had to laugh as we did it. We were just so ridiculous. And when we finished it, we all started clapping and screaming and cavorting, and this is when Pipe got out of the van. We heard a voice call up to us.

He said, "I heard the commotion and thought: 'Gee, who could that be ...'"

We are children. And off we went again, carrying bags and hats and various hair products.

The rain stopped.

There was the excitement, again, of getting our tickets and walking through the crowd, and gaping up at "Sheila's bridge". Jackie and Ken were coming!

We were all, by this point, so "over" the Miller Oasis thing. We put on our stickers, totally blase, stashed our stuff, and then scattered to the 4 winds to explore. Ann and I walked around, in our Pat T-shirts and stickers. We saw a lot of drunken scenes. The ground underfoot was slick and sticky with spilled beer. We saw a girl fall off a picnic table into a puddle of beer and then get dragged off by her 2 friends. We saw girls dancing on picnic tables wearing white bikini tops and shorts.

It was a gorgeous night, hazy but cool. The pressure of the day released.

Ann and I passed by one of those little fake recording studios. By this point, we had only 10 minutes til we were supposed to be back at the Oasis, so we totally pulled rank on the other people in line, flashing our stickers at the people working: "We're performing in 20 minutes- can you squeeze us in fast?" They did. We put on headphones and literally shrieked our way through "Like a Virgin". God. It really sounds AWFUL. Total impulse thing. Ann is such a great friend for adventures like that.

We all converged on the Mecca that was the Miller Oasis. Ann and I stood on the little cement stairwell balcony, sipping free beer, and watching the parade go by. We soaked up the attention we got just for being backstage.

The show, again, was beyond belief. Over 3000 people cheering for us. The sound they made was a literal ROAR.

After the show, Pat had to go do another show at one of the local clubs - so we all tagged along. We rode in the back of the equipment van. So fun. All of us drinking beer out of paper cups, holding Pat masks, laughing at all the groups we saw out of the back of the van, wearing Pat masks, strolling through the streets. It was as though a strange cult had come to town.

At the club, it was like we were stars. People flocked around us, bought us drinks. The 4 of us all sat at one table at the club, wearing our "I'm With Pat" T-shirts that Kenny had pro-actively gotten done. Kenny's sister and her husband were there with us. We were this little enclave. I had on my black shorts, my fishnet stockings, my combat boots, my derby. Like Madonna's girlie show or something.

Shots of liquor that tasted like Dentyne were bought for all of us. We were totally carousing.

Ann Marie ran into people who were clients of hers from her actual job - so WEIRD. So who knows that they think of her life now. People had this impression that this was what we did for a living, traveled around with Pat, wearing "Pat" uniforms.

Pat played Drive in Reverse during his show at the club, and the 4 of us stormed the stage to do our GOOFY dance. I was laughing so hard. We were the biggest geeks in the world. We had so much attention paid to us. We sat at our VIP table, pounding back beers, bouncing off the walls, reliving the shows, dancing with each other, giving each other love and affirmation about the amazing-ness of this entire experience.

Phil was taking pictures and burning all of our corneas.

Celluloid Food

A not-to-be-missed post about food in the movies which has set my mind a-spinning with my own ideas and thoughts.It's also made me hungry.

She ain't kidding about that scene in Miracle Worker . If you take that scene for granted, as I sometimes do (like: I remember it, I know it's good, I know it's kinda violent, I know it's a battle of wills, whatever - etc.) - trust me: you need to see it again. It's something else. Man!!!

Here's the Youtube link

Meet Me in St. Louis

A lovely and interesting post about Meet Me in St. Louis - by someone who has just seen the film for the first time. I like the thoughts on infant mortality - an interesting take on Tootie's behavior.

More awesome-ness

Gallery of novelizations.

Ha!!

By the way, if you are a fan of slasher films of the 70s and 80s (cough ALEX cough) - you have GOT to go check out the rest of that site!!

Awesome

Go check out the Polish film poster of the week.

Controlled chaos

New York's finest gathering in the subway, getting ready to watch over and control the mayhem that was the Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony at Rockefeller Plaza.

Happy birthday, Louisa May Alcott!

"November is the most disagreeable month in the whole year," said Meg, standing at the window one dull afternoon, looking out at the frostbitten garden.

"That's the reason I was born in it," observed Jo pensively, quite unconscious of the blot on her nose.

-- Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott

Louisa May Alcott was born on this day, in 1832. (I just LOVE that picture of her above. The dress!!)

To me, Little Women is a perfect book (even with the whole Laurie debacle, and the advent of the German professor which never works for me, to this day) - it is a book I go back to again and again and again - always seeing something new in it, always finding new levels. The characters seem to grow up with me. When I first read it, when I was 10 years old, I was ALL ABOUT JO. And my love affair with Jo continues to this day. She is one of my favorite female characters ever written (it's a tie between Jo March and Harriet the Spy). Jo LIVES. No one can convince me that she is just a fictional character. Nope. You cannot do it.

But as I have grown up, and as I have continuously gone back to the book - the other sisters have come to the foreground - I see myself in all of them. Parts of me are like Amy, parts of me are like Meg, and I would like to think that parts of me are like Beth. But honestly: Jo is the one. Jo is the one I most relate to. She's the artist. The tomboy. The independent wild spirit. The one who is afraid to make the wrong choice. The one who sticks to her guns.

I still am not really reconciled to the fact that she and Laurie did not end up together - HOWEVER, I can see Jo's point. They were like brother and sister. But ... but ... but ... couldn't that have segued into a love thing? The intimacy they have together, the comfort?

When I was a kid, I HATED the professor. With his stupid German accent, and his goofy poetry as he wooed Jo. I resented the fact that he wasn't Laurie. I loved Laurie.

Now I know that Louisa May Alcott was forced by her publishers to marry Jo off. She wanted her to stay single. And if you really think about it, THAT would be much more logical - it makes much more sense that Jo, even with all her passion, and her ability to understand men (in a way that Meg, the one with all the love affairs, doesn't) - would choose to spend her life alone. She would marry her writing. In that day and age, those were the choices. It was the choice Louisa May Alcott herself made. She could not submit to the demands of wifehood and motherhood - it would infringe on her writing. She knew it, even when she was 15 years old, and wrote in her journal: "I will do something by and by. Don't care what, teach, sew, act, write, anything to help the family; and I'll be rich and famous and happy before I die, see if I won't!"

Alcott grew up in Concord, one of 4 girls, and part of what we would now call an activist family. They were abolitinists. Social reformers. Her mother was a social worker. Her father was an educational philosopher (more on this extraordinary man here, and had a belief in communal living (Louisa May Alcott wrote some funny pieces about these experiments of her father's, and having to submit to them as a young girl.) Her father (Amos Bronson Alcott - also born on this day) was buddies with Emerson, and part of the Transcendentalist movement. At the time, her father's views on teaching were very controversial: He actually believed that students should enjoy learning. Heaven forbid! He thought that students should be actively involved in their own education, and not just sit back and be passive little drones. Her father thought it was very important to have a beautiful classroom - not just desks and a chalkboard. He poured his heart (and finances) into a school - which ran for a couple of years - but then went under, putting the family at financial risk. Louisa May Alcott eventually, many years later, would be pretty much the sole supporter of her parents. She made a ton of money DURING her lifetime, which is quite rare. Her parents just weren't the money-making types - obviously. As a young teenager Louisa May Alcott had a passionate girlish love of Emerson - a crush, if you will. His intellect, his library that she was allowed to use, whatever ... She adored him.

In 1862, Alcott (as always, determined to make a living - and to contribute financially to her family) traveled to Washington DC as a Civil War nurse. By this point, Alcott had already started getting stuff published - poems, short stories in the Gothic melodramatic vein ... She actually preferred Gothic melodramas to the kinds of books that later would make her name. (She despised Little Women and found the writing of it extremely tedious.) Her experience as a nurse in the Civil War prompted her to publish a book called Hospital Sketches. At that point, her publisher asked her if she would write a book "for girls". Never one to back off from a challenge, Louisa May Alcott sat down and wrote Little Women in two months. She had grown up with 3 sisters - and she put her entire childhood and life into that book, even as she hated doing it, and didn't think the book would amount to much.

Little Women was published in 1868 and was an immediate rip-roaring success. The publisher, within only a couple of weeks of its publication, begged Alcott to get to work on a sequel. So Alcott did. Another smash success. Louisa May Alcott had become a star.

Every book she wrote after that was eagerly awaited for by a breathless loving public. Success had, indeed, come - her childish ambitions to be 'rich and famous' came to fruition tenfold ... but 'happy'? Was she happy?

She never married. She ended up taking care of her sister May's daughter - after May died from complications in childbirth. Being a surrogate mother to this young girl was one of the most fulfilling experiences of Alcott's life. She kept writing, kept publishing ... although she began to get more and more ill from mercury poisoning she had received years earlier during the Civil War (she had, like many other Civil War nurses, contracted typhoid fever - and at the time, the proscribed cure was something called "calomel" - a drug laden with mercury).

Near the end of her life, Alcott became active in the suffragette movement. Her father (an extraordinary man in his own right) had always been a feminist himself:

His passion was to see that his four daughters were educated, well-rounded, and part of the intellectual community helived in. (Some heavy-hitters there - Emerson, Thoreau, etc.) Louisa's father kept detailed diaries during the raising of his 4 girls, chronicling everything about each one of them. His whole thing was early education - the importance of the first couple of years - and again, you don't ever get the sense that he thought this was only good for BOYS. On the contrary. Here's a snippet of a letter Louisa's father wrote to Elizabeth Cady Stanton in 1869, which gives you some idea of who this man was:

Woman is helping herself to secure her place in a better spirit and manner than any we [men] can suggest or devise, it becomes us to take, rather than proffer Consels, readily waiting to learn her wishes and aims, as she has so long, and so patiently deferred to us.

In 1879, Louisa May Alcott was the first woman to register to vote in Concord - for the school committee election. Pretty awesome, huh?

Her beloved father passed away on March 4, 1888. Louisa May Alcott died two days later.

An extraordinary woman.

She didn't care for the book that made her name ... and probably wished that her legacy was different ... but that's okay. It is not for the artist to decide what the audience will react to, what the reader will respond to. She created something with Little Women that transcends the ages, that pierces through the centuries. It is a classic book. And perhaps it's fitting, in a way, that she wrote it for hire, pretty much - it was not her idea, and yet - look at what she was able to create. Look at what she was able to bring out!!

Those 4 girls are immortal.

When I was 16 years old, one of the assignments we had in our Drama class was to do a one-person show - maybe 15, 20 minutes long - based on either a real person from history, or a fictional character - and we had to come into the class as that character, and do a monologue - based on our research - and then take questions from the class - in character. I still remember my core group of friends and their projects: Beth came in as Mae West. She was incredible. She had on a blowsy blonde wig, and wore a tight sparkley dress - and I still remember the shock when Beth started telling us all about birth control options - because Mae West was an early champion of birth control for women. It was awesome. Beth was fearless. Betsy did Paddington Bear (although she has no memory of this! But I SWEAR it is true!!) (and I still remember how one of the questions for Betsy was: "Why don't you eat some of your marmalade?" and Betsy - who despises marmalade - had to dip her hand into the jar, take out a big scoop of it, and eat it - pretending she liked it. Now that's dedication to the acting craft!). Michele did Marilyn Monroe. Unbelievable. Michele was an amazing actress, a natural. She got the sadness beneath the blonde glamour of Marilyn.

And I did Louisa May Alcott.

One of my first forays into the one-person show format ... I did hours and hours and hours of research for a mere 20 minute piece - because I had no idea what questions people would ask, and I had to be ready for anything!

It was great, because I had known nothing about her before that. I had just read Little Women and we had also visited her house in Concord on a family trip (a great thing to do if you are in the area). Orchard House:

Once I learned all this stuff about her, my admiration for her grew. I loved that our birthdays were almost the same. She was a Sagittarius too.

Little Women. Here's the excerpt I posted from it - an excerpt that still, after so many times reading it, brings a lump to my throat.

I don't know if I would call Little Women a great book - but I would say that it is something much better than "great": it is beloved. And that is a rare and precious thing.

Happy birthday, Louisa May!

Autumn leaves

Pretty pretty.

The Books: "Dubliners" - 'An Encounter' (James Joyce)

Next book on my adult fiction shelves:

Dubliners - by James Joyce - excerpt from the second story in the collection: "An Encounter".

A creepy little story that follows on the heels of the death-theme in 'The Sisters', the story before it. Only this one has to do with spiritual death. Although I suppose you can say that the priest in 'The Sisters' - who loses it (mentally) after breaking a chalice - also has to do with spiritual death. In 'An Encounter', we start to see Joyce's feelings about Ireland - and what it has to offer to its young sons. The only opportunities are outside of Ireland. There's that one letter Joyce wrote to Nora - before they de-camped forever - something about "nobody can touch each other here" ... He didn't just mean sexually, although that was part of his meaning. He felt that the rigidity of the morality in Ireland caused love and intimacy to become twisted and sick. And I suppose if you look at 'An Encounter' in that light (which I couldn't help but doing - that letter Joyce wrote to Nora came into my mind immediately when I re-read the story last night) - it's quite a tragic story. Because what are we here for, on this planet, except to love one another? The encounter that the two young boys playing hookie have in this story is incredibly creepy, and I suppose acts as some kind of warning to our young narrator. The man they meet in the field, his yellow teeth, his creepy monotonous voice, his twisted sexuality ... perhaps it says to the young narrator: "One day, this could be you!"

The story begins with a game of wild Indians. Our narrator, a schoolboy, loves these games, but more than that - he loves what they signify. (Excerpt below).

But there's a vague dissatisfaction in all of this - because he knows he will never have such adventures at home. You can feel the stifling atmosphere in the story. Not just of his house, or of Dublin - but of the whole damn country. He and a friend end up playing hookey one day - they want to cross the Liffey in a ferryboat, and go off to some destination where they can have an Indian war, and be completely wild. So. They meet up one morning and off they go. Along the quays, the narrator is struck by the boats lined up ... one is a Norwegian vessel, which really strikes his fancy. (Let's remember Joyce's obsession with Ibsen.) He stares at the markings on the ship, and also scans the faces of all the sailors - looking for blue eyes, which somehow seems to mean something to him. However, he doesn't see any blue eyes. Perhaps because the sailors, as is true with most ships, were of a multicultural variety ... but our narrator doesn't know that. He's looking for true-blood "Norwegians" ... who knows what they might have to tell him? Even just getting a glimpse of someone who came from so far away seems like it might be good luck ... or it might change HIS life somehow.

The boys never reach their planned destination - and lie in a field, just lolling about. A man walks by. Then he turns, and walks by again. Finally, the man sits down with them. He starts to talk to them. The boys don't really like him - he's quizzing them about what books they have read - Have you read Thomas Moore? Lord Lytton? He tells them about his book collection (like the boys care) - and then starts to ask them if they have "sweethearts". Our narrator says no - kind of surprised by the "liberalism" of the question - and the man says it is very important for boys to have at least one sweetheart. He then launches into a monologue about women, and their soft hair and skin - and how lovely they are - and blah blah - the way Joyce describes his voice and his manner of speaking makes you think that maybe he is trying to hypnotize the boys, lull them into a sleepy sort of state. He uses repetition, keeps saying the word "soft", keeps circling back to the same images ... Reading it, I want to say to him, "Get LOST, perv!" The man then says something about needing to be excused for a minute - and he walks off a little ways away. They're in a field - where is the man going? Narrator's friend Mahony exclaims, "Look what he's doing!" We never see what "he's doing" - but I assume he's masturbating. The man comes back, sits down, and then starts to talk about how boys should be whipped - and he goes off rhapsodically into a monologue about the importance of whipping boys if they are bad ... and you get the sense that he is more aroused by the thought of whipping little boys than he is by the thought of women's soft hair and skin.

Thankfully, narrator and Mahony escape - without anything terrible happening ... and they go off towards home again. Never having had their Indian war.

I don't think it's accidental, too, that Joyce makes a big deal about how the man has these green eyes - eyes that make you want to look away. Unlike the "blue eyes" of the Norwegian sailors that the narrator dreams about. Green to me signifies Ireland, emerald isle ... so there's an indictment of his country and its ignorant rigidity and superstition in the man they encounter in the field.

In order to live a full and free life, one MUST leave Ireland. That seems to be what the story is saying. I'll excerpt from the beginning of the story - where the themes are set up. It's almost like this predicts the ending of Portrait of the Artist ... with the eventual exile, the necessary exile.

'An Encounter' is another step on the journey to maturity and adulthood - which is the trajectory of The Dubliners. The narrator in 'The Sisters' was a young boy, still suffocated by the world of adults around him. Here, we begin to see him (although he is a different boy) breaking away. Looking forward, outward. Also inward, too, I guess - since this IS Joyce we're talking about!

Excerpt from Dubliners - by James Joyce "An Encounter".

It was Joe Dillon who introduced the Wild West to us. He had a little library made up of old numbers of The Union Jack, Pluck and The Halfpenny Marvel. Every evening after school we met in his back garden and arranged Indian battles. He and his fat young brother Leo the idler held the loft of the stable while we tried to carry it by storm; or we fought a pitched battle on the grass. But, however well we fought, we never won siege or battle and all our bouts ended with Joe Dillon's war dance of victory. His parents went to eight o'clock mass every morning in Gardiner Street and the peaceful odour of Mrs. Dillon was prevalent in the hall of the house. But he played too fiercely for us who were younger and more timid. He looked like some kind of an Indian when he capered round the garden, an old tea-cosy on his head, beating a tin with his fist and yelling:

-- Ya! yaka, yaka, yaka!

Everyone was incredulous when it was reported that he had a vocation for the priesthood. Nevertheless it was true.

A spirit of unruliness diffused itself among us and, under its influence, differences of culture and constitution were waived. We banded ourselves together, some boldly, some in jest and some almost in fear: and of the number of these latter, the reluctant Indians who were afraid to seem studious or lacking in robustness, I was one. The adventures related in the literature of the Wild West were remote from my nature but, at least, they opened doors of escape. I liked better some American detective stories which were traversed from time to time by unkempt fierce and beautiful girls. Though there was nothing wrong in these stories and though their intention was sometimes literary they were circulated secretly at school. Oe day when Father Butler was hearing the four pages of Roman History clumsy Leo Dillon was discovered with a copy of The Halfpenny Marvel.

-- This page or this page? This page? Now, Dillon, up! Hardly had the day ... Go on! What day? Hardly had the day dawned ... Have you studied it? What have you there in your pocket?

Everyone's heart palpitated as Leo Dillon handed up the paper and everyone assumed an innocent face. Father Butler turned over the pages, frowning.

-- What is this rubbish? he said. The Apache Chief? Is this what you read instead of studying your Roman History? Let me not find any more of this wretched stuff in this college. The man who wrote it, I suppose, was some wretched scribbler that writes these things for a drink. I'm surprised at boys like you, educated, reading such stuff. I could understand it if you were ... National School boys. Now, Dillon, I advise you strongly, get at your work or ...

This rebuke during the sober hours of school paled much of the glory of the Wild West for me and the confused puffy face of Leo Dillon awakened one of my consciences. But when the restraining influence of the school was at a distance I began to hunger again for wild sensations, for the escape which those chronicles of disorder alone seemed to offer me. The mimic warfare of the evening became at last as wearisome to me as the routine of school in the morning because I wanted real adventures to happen to myself. But real adventures, I reflected, do not happen to people who remain at home: they must be sought abroad.

Nice things said to me yesterday on my birthday

"Today is certainly one of the most important days of my life ..." - my mother

"I'm glad you were born." - Kate

"Happy birthday dot org." - Caitlin

"We're proud of you. You're a good girl." -- my father

"Harpee Barthdar Dar Sharlar." - Jean

"Hey, Sheil, hope you enjoyed my gift! I sent you a tarantula farm!" - Bren

"Sheila, you are so marriageable." - Preeta

"I am watching 'The Boy with Green Hair' AT THIS VERY MOMENT!!!" - Alex

"Sheil-babe O'Malley
workin' at the Pit
Someone has a pizza
and they didn't order it
Sheil-babe O'Malley
takes the pizza pie
Gives it to the people
And we begin to cry
Sheil-babe O'Malley
workin' at the pit ..." -- Jackie

And a long phone message from Allison that made me cry.

I was love-bombed yesterday.

And I topped it all off with an insane night of karaoke in Korea Town. Many funny stories to follow, involving tamborines, vodka tonics, inappropriate duets, and a renewed love of Olivia Newton-John. We also had two pizzas delivered directly to our karaoke room. Knock on the door, and there was the little pizza guy - as though this dark room with couches and a karaoke screen was our own personal apartment. And to order more drinks, you just picked up the phone on the wall - and a voice said, "Yes?" and you would give your order and shortly it would appear. Genius. And, to reiterate, "Xanadu" is the best song ever written.

Happy birthday, William Blake!

He may be one of my favorite poets, and I have to thank the doppelganger for introducing me to him. Or - I should say - RE-introducing me to him. I know I read "The Chimney Sweep" in the poetry survey class I took in college - but it wasn't until after the conversation he and I had about Blake at the infamous party where we first met - that I thought: "Hmmm. Need to give Blake another look." I am SO glad I did!!! What a poet!!

Fascinating man as well.

He was a poet (virtually unknown in his own lifetime), and also an engraver (I've put some of his startling work in the extended entry - but if you want to see more of his work, check out this link.) He did illustrations for children's books, religious books, volumes of poetry ... and now his stuff is considered pretty much priceless.

William Blake was born in 1757 in London - the third of five children. He went to school until he was 14 - and then had to go to work. He got a job as an apprentice to an engraver - which is how he ended up making his paltry living. He lived in pretty much poverty for his entire life. He married at 25 - to the illiterate Catherine Boucher. Blake taught her how to read, and they ended up becoming collaborators in bringing out volumes of his poetry. He did engravings to illustrate his poems. Catherine was the one who bound the books, and got them ready for publication. The entire thing was a joint production - they did all the work themselves.

The two of them never had any children. They were extremely unconventional, shall we say - and visitors tell of stopping by the Blake house to find the two of them sitting out in their back garden completely naked. Just hanging out, reading, working together - NUDE. No shame. They had a whole philosophy about nakedness, and sex, and innocence - that there was nothing dirty about any of that stuff. It was human prudery that made celebration of the body a dirty thing. But still - some of the tales told about Blake are hysterical. I would have LOVED to meet the guy. He sounds amazing.

William Blake had visions. He speaks about them openly and much of his work has a phantasmagorical religious feeling to it. When he was a young boy, he said he looked up into a tree and saw that it was full of winged angels. He would get visions of Gabriel, the Virgin Mary, yadda yadda.

His view of God, the Spirit, the Holy Trinity, what have you - is so inspiring to me. It's vital, it's alive, and it seems to be all about love. There's not too many people I would call "genius" - but Blake I most certainly would. On the edge of sanity? Sure. Whatever. Many geniuses are.

However - again - William Blake, despite these astonishing works of poetry he put out during his lifetime - died unrecognized.

Now, though, he is considered to be one of the greatest poets in the English language. If you haven't encountered William Blake's stuff, I highly recommend you giving it a look. It's not the EASIEST poetry to get into - but God, every single page is chock-full of so much ... you can't believe that it came from only one man.

His poem about the little lisping chimney-sweep is in the "canon" - If you took any kind of sweeping Poetry 101 course, you probably would have encountered it. I'll post it below. But it's really his long form poems, especially the SPECTACULAR "Marriage of Heaven and Hell", where the guy literally has no equal. None. Blake has no peers.

Here's the one about the chimney sweep, which is - in its own way - an indictment of the society in which he lives - a society that treats its most innocent members in such a horrible way.

"The Chimney Sweep" - from Songs of Innocence

When my mother died I was very young,
And my father sold me while yet my tongue
Could scarcely cry 'weep! 'weep! 'weep! 'weep!
So your chimneys I sweep, and in soot I sleep.

There's little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head,
That curled like a lamb's back, was shaved: so I said,
"Hush, Tom! never mind it, for when your head's bare,
You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair."

And so he was quiet; and that very night,
As Tom was a-sleeping, he had such a sight, -
That thousands of sweepers, Dick, Joe, Ned, and Jack,
Were all of them locked up in coffins of black.

And by came an angel who had a bright key,
And he opened the coffins and set them all free;
Then down a green plain leaping, laughing, they run,
And wash in a river, and shine in the sun.

Then naked and white, all their bags left behind,
They rise upon clouds and sport in the wind;
And the angel told Tom, if he'd be a good boy,
He'd have God for his father, and never want joy.

And so Tom awoke; and we rose in the dark,
And got with our bags and our brushes to work.
Though the morning was cold, Tom was happy and warm;
So if all do their duty they need not fear harm.

And here ... for those of you who are interested ... is "Marriage of Heaven and Hell" in its entirety (accompanied by more of Blake's engravings).

Just go with it. Just succumb.

As you can see, the guy was so ahead of his time that he is timeless. He predicts the Beat generation, he predicts modernism, he would fit in with the poetry slams of today (except that he is, well, you know - GOOD) ... He was a man who plumbed his unconscious for material. He brought what was within him - OUT. His poetry is the literary version of Van Gogh's Starry Night. Van Gogh was not interpreting the sky. That was actually how Van Gogh saw the stars. Get into Van Gogh's world. See the world through HIS eyes. William Blake is the same way.

I think my favorite line from William Blake is:

The eagle never lost so much time as when he submitted to learn of the crow.

I have reminded myself of those lines from time to time, when I am surrounded by mediocrity. Mediocrity that wants to bring you down. Wants you to be mediocre as well, so that you won't make anyone feel bad.

Yup. I'm a snob. I plan on being an eagle and I will no longer submit to learn from crows. Don't waste my time.

Thanks, Blake! Wish I could have visited you and your wife in your back garden, and sat around with you all, nude, drinking tea, and talking about angels.

Here are some quotes by and about William Blake. Enjoy!

"He had no public: he very early gave up publishing in any serious sense. one obvious consequence, or aspect, of this knowledge is the carelessness that is so apparent in the later prophetic books. Blake had ceased to be capable of taking enough trouble." -- F.R. Leavis

Improvement makes strait roads, but the crooked roads without Improvement, are roads of Genius. -- Blake

"I mean, don't you think it's a little bit excessive?"
"The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom. William Blake."
Pause.
"William Blake?"
"William Blake!"
"William Blake???"
"William Blake!!!"
-- Bull Durham

"I do not condemn Pope or Dryden because they did not understand imagination, but because they did not understand verse." -- William Blake

"The prophetic robe with its woof of meekness and its warp of wrath was forced on [Blake] by loneliness and his modest station in life." -- Robert Graves

"In his youth, [Blake] had a gift of simple and fair speech; but he lost it. Although he could always catch the heavenly harmony of thoughts he could seldom mount them on a fitting chariot of rhythm and rhyme. His fine passages were the direct gift of the Muse, and are followed by lines of other origin." -- Edward Thomas

"It is an honesty against which the whole world conspires, because it is unpleasant." -- T.S. Eliot

"Think of a white cloud as being holy, you cannot love it, but think of a holy man within the cloud, love springs up in your thoughts, for to think of holiness distinct from man is impossible to the affections. Thought alone can make monsters, but the affections cannot." -- Blake

"He is very eighteenth century." -- T.S. Eliot

"The emotions are presented in an extremely simplified, abstract form. This form is one illustration of the eternal struggle of art against education, of the literary artist against the continuous deterioration of language." -- T.S. Eliot on "Songs of Innocence" and "Songs of Experience"

"In America in the late 1940s Allen Ginsberg, interested in Supreme Reality, alone and suffering a 'dark night of the soul sort of,' his lover Neal Cassady having sloped off, and having himself just masturbated, with a volume of Blake before him - 'I wasn't even reading, my eye was idling over the page of "Ah, Sun-flower," and it suddenly appeared - the poem I'd read a lot of times before.' He began to understand the poem, and 'suddenly, simultaneously with understanding it,' he 'heard a very deep earthen grave voice in the room, which I immediately assumed, I didn't think twice, was Blake's voice.' This 'apparitional voice' became his guiding spirit: 'It was like God had a human voice, with all the infinite tenderness and anciency and mortal gravity of a living Creator speaking to his son.' On Ginsberg this 'anciency fathered Howl, though the Blake simulacrum was aided by the hallucinogens popular at the time, the recipe for Part II of the poem including peyote, just as for Kaddish he was assisted by amphetamine injections. 'The amphetamine gives a peculiar metaphysical tinge to things, also. Space-outs.' Blake managed his visions without substance abuse. Ginsberg's appropriation of the poet of innocence and experience did much to promote Blake to the alternative culture of the 1950s and 1960s." -- Michael Schmidt, "Lives of the Poets"

"a completely and uncompromisingly individual idiom and technique ... individual, original, and isolated enough to be without influence." -- FR Leavis

"You cannot create a very large poem without introducing a more impersonal point of view, or splitting it up into various personalities. But the weakness of the long poems is certainly not that they are too visionary, too remote from the world. It is that Blake did not see enough, became too much occupied with ideas." -- TS Eliot

"Romantic writers glorified childhood as a state of innocence. Blake's 'The Chimey Sweeper', written in the same year as the French Revolution, combines the Romantic cult of the child with the new radical politics, whichcan both be traced to social thinker Jean-Jacques Rousseau. It is the boy sweep, rather than Blake, who speaks: he acts as the poet's dramatic persona or mask. There is no anger in his tale. On the contrary, the sweep's gentle acceptance of his miserable life makes his exploitation seem all the more atrocious. Blake shifts responsibility for protest onto us." -- Camille Paglia, "Break, Blow, Burn"

Some of William Blake's extraordinary engravings below:

Christ in the sepulcher guarded by angels - 1805

Whirlwind of Lovers (Illustration to Dante's Inferno)

The Ancient of Days - 1794

Isaac Newton - 1795

The Books: "Dubliners" - 'The Sisters' (James Joyce)

Next book on my adult fiction shelves:

Dubliners - by James Joyce

James Joyce said: "When you remember that Dublin has been a capital for thousands of years, that it is the 'second' city of the British Empire, that it is nearly three times as big as Venice it seems strange that no artist has given it to the world."

Dubliners is James Joyce's first book - a collection of short stories. It was finally published (after much brou-haha) in 1914. Publishers balked (especially in Ireland) at the frank portrait of Dublin - with its prostitutes, its fake piety, its aimless wandering young men ... I mean, all of that, yes - was very shocking at the time. But I think there was more to the reaction than just rigidity and prudery. Obviously, Joyce touched a nerve. Joyce was telling the truth, as he saw it, about his own country. I think it might have been seen as a betrayal in some circles. Not like he was LYING, no - quite the opposite. They were mad at him for telling the truth. It made them look bad. It was not, shall we say, a flattering portrait. Of course I have my own opinion about that. James Joyce's feelings about Ireland were complex and contradictory. He loved it, it was his homeland - he could never write about anything else - even when he had been living in exile for 20 years - it was to Ireland his mind constantly went in his work. But he could never live there. It was the most suffocating place for him imaginable. So he was not forgiven for choosing to de-camp. Not at that time. I love that Joyce is so honored now, and that Ireland has decided to be proud of their wayward son - but they ran him out of town on a rail back in the early years of the 20th century. He aired the dirty laundry of the "family" out in public. They hated him for it. It's like the reaction today when any African American dares to say that maybe (just maybe) the problems of their community SOMETIMES start from WITHIN the community. Maybe not EVERYTHING can be blamed on slavery. Maybe they need to look WITHIN. Now a white person can never say these things - but watch the reaction when a black person says something like that. These people are pilloried. Shrieking ravens of outrage fly up into the air, blacking out the sun. I see it as a similar reaction to Joyce's writing from the Irish back then, it's not a: "Hey you, stop LYING" reaction. It's a "Hey you, stop telling the TRUTH and making us look bad to outsiders!" reaction. It's understandable, I'm not sayiing I don't understand the reaction. There's a sense that a persecuted group needs to stick together, remain united You can see it in the gay community too sometimes - a need for uniformity. Women, too. Etc. There is nothing new under the sun. There have been identity politics at every time in history - it's just now that we have more official names for it. Groups need to stick together, the rank and file all must agree on the rules, and nobody can break the rules. Well, James Joyce broke the rules. He aired the Irish dirty laundry (literally) in public. George Bernard Shaw said, after reading Ulysses - which shocked and disgusted him, "If a man holds up a mirror to your nature and shows you that it needs washing -- not whitewashing -- it is no use breaking the mirror. Go for soap and water."

Well. Obviously that is a rare response. Most people - when shown a mirror and told, "You suck" - will fight back. And that's what happened to Joyce. He told the truth, and, as per usual with truthtellers, was not congratulated for it.

He left Ireland in 1904 - fleeing with his lover, Nora - leaving scandal and debt behind him. They settled down eventually in Trieste. Joyce had been publishing things here and there, he already had powerful allies like Yeats - who helped him out, thought there really was something special in his writing. But publishers still balked. If you read Dubliners all the way through - and try to put yourself back in 1908, 1909 - and imagine reading it then - put it in the context of its time - you can see what a shocking book it must have been. I have more to say about that, but I'll do it later. Anyway, Dubliners finally was published in 1914.

Harry Levin, the editor of my Portable James Joyce, writes in his introduction:

He left too early for the Revolution; he arrived too late for the Renaissance. His undergraduate idol, the subject of his first published article, was not Yeats but Ibsen. He greeted the Irish Literary Theatre with a polemic against folksy estheticism. He outraged his college debating society by expounding the iconoclasms of European drama. On several visits home from the Continent, between the ages of twenty and thirty, he considered whether some journalistic or pedagogical niche existed for him in the cultural life of his native city. In his single play, Exiles, as in actuality, he pushed this problem toward a negative conclusion. In his short stories, Dubliners, the recurrent situation is entrapment. Their timid protagonists are trapped into marriage ("The Boarding House"), kept from eloping ("Eveline"), wistfully envious of colleagues who get away ("A Little Cloud"). In "Counterparts" a father makes his son the victim of his own frustrations. The plight suggested in "The Dead" is that of a mill-horse harnessed to a carriage, pulling it round and round a public statue.

Escaping from the treadmill of Dublin, Joyce spent the rest of his life brooding upon it and writing about it. His insistence on calling its denizens by their names, and pointing out its local landmarks, held up the publication of Dubliners for several years.

It was too private. Too spot-on. It revealed too much. It felt like an accusation - which, indeed, it was. Who is HE to accuse US? Ireland, at that time, was a deeply conventional society (in many ways, it still is). Joyce bucked convention. He looked towards Europe for inspiration. And yet (as I said before) - his creative consciousness always went back to Ireland. In all his stories and books, it is Ireland that comes to life. An incredible thing. I find it very moving. People, in general, do not like complexity. They find it threatening, and somehow hostile. They want things to be either or or. Not both at the same time. They cannot hold two opposing thoughts in their head at the same time, they always feel the need to make a choice. And so. It is very difficult for such people to understand that Joyce hated Ireland, and Joyce would kill for Ireland. Joyce could never live in Ireland, but Joyce yearned for it in his heart, in his words, every day of his life. He was Irish. He loved his country. Only something you love can break your heart. Ireland broke Joyce's heart. But simplistic folks only hear the criticism. They are not careful readers. They set themselves up in opposition. They come to it with their biases hard and firm, nothing can get through. You can't read Joyce that way. He demands engagement, he demands that you look within, that your SOUL is with him - not just your intellect.

Here's Levin again, in his introduction:

Those who confuse a writer with his material find it all too easy to make a scapegoat out of Joyce. They make Proust responsible for the collapse of France because he prophesied it so acutely; and, because Joyce sensed the contemporary need to create a conscience, they accuse him of lacking any sense of values. Of course it is he who should be accusing them. His work, though far from didactic, is full of moral implications; his example of esthetic idealism, set by abnegation and artistry, is a standing rebuke to facility and venality, callousness and obtuseness. Less peculiarly Joycean, and therefore even more usable in the long run, is his masterly control of social realism, which ingeniously springs the varied traps of Dublin and patiently suffers rebuffs with Mr. Bloom. The heroine of Stephen Hero, who has almost disappeared from the Portrait, says farewell after "an instant of all but union." By dwelling upon that interrupted nuance, that unconsummated moment, that unrealized possibility, Joyce renews our apprehension of reality, strengthens our sympathy with our fellow creatures, and leaves us in awe before the mystery of created things.

Amen. That's what I meant earlier when I said that if you only see the criticism - then you are only going halfway there. If your sense of threat is so strong that you must fight back without letting anything in, if you are closed to the possibility of being changed ... then you will miss that part of Joyce. You will miss the love.Dubliners is a very insightful book, very revealing - and most of the stories are, to use a terrible word, bitchy. He is gossiping, passing on dirty stories, revealing truths beneath the convention. He does not pull his punches. But ... but ... the collection ends with 'The Dead'. And in 'The Dead' - Joyce pulls his vision back - goes from microscopic to telescopic - and reveals a world of love and loss and grief and humanity ... that only come from the deepest places in his heart.

That is why I say to people who have not read Joyce and who want to know where to start (because, yes, he can be daunting) - I tell them to read Dubliners. Each story is about 5 or 6 pages long - on average (except for "The Dead") - so you can take it in small chunks - easily digestible - and I also tell them, and I tell you now: to read the stories in order. Read them in order! At least your first time through. I dip in and out Dubliners all the time now, picking up this or that story ... but my first time through, I read them in order, first to last. Joyce was very careful about where each story went in the collection - there was, as always, a method to his madness - and so much of his genius (not yet in full flower) is there, in the slow methodical progression - from 'The Sisters' - the first story in the collection - to 'The Dead' - the majestic last story in the collection, and the greatest short story ever written. In 'The Sisters' - a priest is dead, and he lies in a coffin in an upstairs room, and everyone (all women, except for our narrator - obviously a young boy, unused to death) sits in the sitting room downstairs and chats and gossips about the priest upstairs. Death hovers over 'The Sisters'. And so 'The Dead', the last story - in all its tragedy and scope - is a bookend, a counterpart to 'The Sisters'. Joyce did this deliberately. So I'm just saying this as a suggestion to those who want to give Joyce a try. Read Dubliners story by story, going in order. You'll start to see what Joyce was about then. Because in most of these stories, not much happens. There are no big revealing endings - nothing BIG happens - and so the book is all about the cumulative effect. I won't speak about 'The Dead' yet, and its place in the collection - I'll save that for when I get to it. Suffice it to say, that I don't believe that Dubliners would have HALF the reputation it has now if 'The Dead' were not included. It is 'The Dead' that elevates the book into something divine (I mean that quite literally), something transcendent and universal. But again, I'll get to that later.

'The Sisters', the first story in Dubliners is a simple gossipy little story. It feels like you are eavesdropping, your ear pressed up to the door. Many of the stories in Dubliners have that feel. The narrator of the story is a young boy - young enough to still get angry when he is referred to as a child. He appears to live with his aunt and uncle, no parents are mentioned. And Father Flynn - a pretty much fallen priest (he appears to have gone mad) who was his good friend - has had a stroke, and after a couple of days of vigil he passes away. This sparks in the narrator an unfurling stream of memories about Father Flynn, and who he was to him, etc.

That's the excerpt below.

Oh, and one last quote from Harry Levin, who has a way of saying things that I can't - so I'll just pass the mike to him. He's talking at first about the challenges of getting the collection published, and what the official problem with the book was. But then he goes on to talk about what Joyce was DOING in these stories, and why they were so amazing at the time ... something that you might miss today. It's almost like the influence of Marlon Brando in the late 40s and early 50s. What he did was so completely revolutionary - he changed our expectations of actors with one performance ... and now, everyone lives in the wake of his influence. That's just the fact. Of course it was in the zeitgeist of the time, Laurette Taylor, Montgomery Clift, the Group Theatre - the way playwrights were writing changed - opening a way for this new kind of acting, etc. It's just that Marlon Brando, with Stanley Kowalski, gets the credit. It's hard to remember how influential he was - since he changed things so completely that young actors today STILL want to be Marlon Brando. But to go back and see him in Streetcar - to watch that original performance ... it's like trying to get at the source of it. It was so influential. It remains influential today. But sometimes it's hard to remember that since now everyone "acts" like that. The old style of acting is gone forever. So there is no comparison.

So. Back to Joyce. The reason I want to post this next quote from Harry Levin is because - I was rereading 'The Sisters' last night, in preparation for today - and it occurred to me that the semi-stream-of-conscious voice is the voice of most short stories today. We follow an internal journey, we go with the narrator up, down, around ... we understand that events have internal causes as well as external. Remember, Joyce was living in the beginning of the "Freudian century" Freud was, naturally, already at work - and the debate on whether or not Freud was correct on this or that topic, or the question whether or not Freud has had TOO much influence (an opinion with which I wholeheartedly agree) - is irrelevant to this discussion right now. The revolution at the time was: there are things within our hearts and minds that cannot be seen in broad daylight. Childhood contains sparks of events, seen mainly through the 5 senses, that continue to influence us in adulthood. The surface is NOT everything. Joyce was trying to not just write ABOUT that, but to reflect that knowledge IN his writing. That's his whole thing - to get INSIDE that experience.

Now, of course, today, that is how short stories are written, that is the accepted style, no one finds it odd or intrusive to move so closely with another soul, to succumb to a subconscious rendering of events. That's how it's done now, shall we say. But back then it was a revelation. The Russians were doing it ... but the Irish most certainly were not.

Okay, I'll finally let Harry Levin take over now:

Most of Dubliners was written, from earlier notes jotted down on the spot, during Joyce's first year in Trieste, 1905. The manuscript was accepted the following year by the English publisher, Grant Richards, but was not brought out until 1914 because of objections raised by his printers. Meanwhile Joyce had added three more stories to the original twelve and sent them all to the Dublin firm of Maunsel and Company, which printed them, then changed its mind, and destroyed the sheets. When Joyce's insistence finally triumphed over the long delay, the published text included the exceptionable matter; the repetition of "bloody," the innuendo against Edward VII, and - what was most offensive to the Irish publisher and most intrinsic to Joyce's method - the specific mention of local establishments and personalities. The book is not a systematic canvass like Ulysses; nor is it integrated, like the Portrait, by one intense point of view; but it comprises, as Joyce explained, a series of chapters in the moral history of his community; and the episodes are arranged in careful progression from childhood to maturity, broadening from private to public scope. The older technique of short-story writing, with Maupassant and O. Henry, attempted to make daily life more eventful by unscrupulous manipulation of surprises and coincidences. Joyce - with Chekhov - discarded such contrivances, introducing a genre which has been so widely imitated that nowadays its originality is not readily detected. The open structure, which casually adapts itself to the flow of experience, and the close texture, which gives precise notation to sensitive observation, are characteristic of Joycean narrative. The fact that so little happens, apart from expected routines, connects form with theme: the paralyzed uneventfulness to which the modern city reduces the lives of its citizens.

Now. Onto the excerpt from 'The Sisters' - the first story in the collection.

Excerpt from Dubliners - by James Joyce: 'The Sisters'

The next morning after breakfast I went down to look at the little house in Great Britain Street. It was an unassuming shop, registered under the vague name of Drapery. The drapery consisted mainly of children's bootees and umbrellas; and on ordinary days a notice used to hang in the window, saying: Umbrellas Re-covered. No notice was visible now for the shutters were up. A crape bouquet was tied to the door-knocker with ribbon. Two poor women and a telegram boy were reading the card pinned on the crape. I also approached and read:

July 1st, 1895
The Rev. James Flynn (formerly of S. Catherine's Church, Meath Street), aged sixty-five years,
R.I.P.

The reading of the card persuaded me that he was dead and I was disturbed to find myself at check. Had he not been dead I would have gone into the little dark room behind the shop to find him sitting in his arm-chair by the fire, nearly smothered in his great-coat. Perhaps my aunt would have given me a packet of High Toast for him and this present would have roused him from his stupefied doze. It was always I who emptied the packet into his black snuff-box for his hands trembled too much to allow him to do this without spilling half the snuff about the floor. Even as he raised his large trembling hand to his nose little clouds of smoke dribbled through his fingers over the front of his coat. It may have been these constant showers of snuff which gave his ancient priestly garments their green faded look for the red handkerchief, blackened, as it always was, with the snuff-stains of a week, with which he tried to brush away the fallen grains, was quiet inefficacious.

I wished to go in and look at him but I had not the courage to knock. I walked away slowly along the sunny side of the street, reading all the theatrical advertisements in the shop-windows as I went. I found it strange that neither I or nor the day seemed in a mourning mood and I felt even annoyed at discovering in myself a sensation of freedom as if I had been freed from something by his death. I wondered at this for, as my uncle said the night before, he had taught me a great deal. He had studied in the Irish college in Rome and he had taught me to pronounce Latin properly. He had told me stories about the catacombs and about Napoleon Bonaparte, and he had explained to me the meaning of the different ceremonies of the Mass and of the different vestments worn by the priest. Sometimes he had amused himself by putting difficult questions to me, asking me what one should do in certain circumstances or whether such and such sins were mortal or venial or only imperfections. His questions showed me how complex and mysterious were certain institutions of the Church which I had always regarded as the simplest acts. The duties of the priest towards the Eucharist and towards the secrecy of the confessional seemed so grave to me that I wondered how anybody had ever found in himself the courage to undertake them; and I was not surprised when he told me that the fathers of the Church had written books as thick as the Post Office Directory and as closely printed as the law notices in the newspaper, elucidating all these intricate questions. Often when I thought of this I could make no answer or only a very foolish and halting one upon which he used to smile and nod his head twice or thrice. Sometimes he used to put me through the responses of the Mass which he had made me learn by heart; and, as I pattered, he used to smile pensively and nod his head, now and then pushing huge pinches of snuff up each nostril alternately. When he smiled he used to uncover his big discoloured teeth and let his tongue lie upon his lower lip - a habit which had made me feel uneasy in the beginning of our acquaintance before I knew him well.

Oh.

I'm so scared of this. It makes me feel cold inside to look at it. Hold me.