The Sheila Variations

Movies and stuff

I got this list from Tracey ... I changed the rules, though. To me, there's an enormous difference between like and love - so I changed the rules and separated out "like" from "love".

THE RULES
Bold movies you have watched and liked.
Turn red movies you have watched and loved.
Italicize movies you saw and didn’t like.
Leave as is movies you haven’t seen.

No comments on this one. [UPDATE: comments opened now - thanks for the link House Next Door] You can email me your outrage or support, should you feel it necessary. (Okay, someone just emailed me with one word: "Support." It made me laugh out loud. Thank you!) I'm just fading fast today, and feel kind of anxious. And I have hours to go before I sleep. And a flight out of town tomorrow at the crack of doom (I believe Macbeth says that somewhere. Yes. He does.
'Why do you show me this? A fourth! Start, eyes!
What, will the line stretch out to the crack of doom?
Another yet! A seventh! I'll see no more.')

Anyway. Here's the list. Feel free to do ye olde meme if you want to.

Looking at this list all together it is clear that I am biased towards movies made before 1960. I just prefer them. Also some people go apeshit when they hear I don't like a particular movie. That's okay. I like Finnegans Wake and lots of people think I'm crazy, too.

The Godfather (1972)
The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
The Godfather: Part II (1974)
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)
Pulp Fiction (1994)
Schindler’s List (1993)
Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)
Casablanca (1942)
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
Star Wars (1977)
12 Angry Men (1957)
Rear Window (1954)
No Country for Old Men (2007)
Goodfellas (1990)
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
City of God (2002)
Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)
The Usual Suspects (1995)
Psycho (1960)
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
Citizen Kane (1941)
The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
North by Northwest (1959)
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)
Fight Club (1999)
Memento (2000)
Sunset Blvd. (1950)
Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)
The Matrix (1999)
Taxi Driver (1976)
Se7en (1995)
Apocalypse Now (1979)
American Beauty (1999)
Vertigo (1958)
Amélie (2001)
The Departed (2006)
Paths of Glory (1957)
American History X (1998)
To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
Chinatown (1974)
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
The Third Man (1949)
A Clockwork Orange (1971)
Pan’s Labyrinth (2006)
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
Alien (1979)
The Pianist (2002)
The Shining (1980)
Double Indemnity (1944)
L.A. Confidential (1997)
Leben der Anderen, Das [The Lives of Others] (2006)
The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
Boot, Das (1981)
The Maltese Falcon (1941)
Saving Private Ryan (1998)
Reservoir Dogs (1992)
Forrest Gump (1994) I wish there was a category for "deeply despised"
Metropolis (1927)
Aliens (1986)
Raging Bull (1980)
Rashômon (1950)
Singin’ in the Rain (1952)
Rebecca (1940)
Hotel Rwanda (2004)
Sin City (2005)
Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
All About Eve (1950)
Modern Times (1936)
Some Like It Hot (1959)
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
The Seventh Seal (1957)
The Great Escape (1963)
Amadeus (1984)
On the Waterfront (1954)
Touch of Evil (1958)
The Elephant Man (1980)
The Prestige (2006)
Vita è bella, La [Life Is Beautiful] (1997)
Jaws (1975)
The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
The Sting (1973)
Strangers on a Train (1951)
Full Metal Jacket (1987)
The Apartment (1960)
City Lights (1931)
Braveheart (1995)
Cinema Paradiso (1988)
Batman Begins (2005)
The Big Sleep (1946)
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
Once Upon a Time in America (1984)
Blade Runner (1982)
The Great Dictator (1940)
The Wizard of Oz (1939)
Notorious (1946)
Salaire de la peur, Le [The Wages of Fear](1953)
High Noon (1952)
Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (1983)
Fargo (1996)
The Bourne Ultimatum (2007)
Unforgiven (1992)
Back to the Future (1985)
Ran (1985)
Oldboy (2003)
Million Dollar Baby (2004)
Cool Hand Luke (1967)
Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003)
Donnie Darko (2001)
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)
The Green Mile (1999)
Annie Hall (1977)
Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949)
Gladiator (2000)
The Sixth Sense (1999)
Diaboliques, Les [The Devils] (1955)
Ben-Hur (1959)
It Happened One Night (1934)
The Deer Hunter (1978)
Life of Brian (1979)
Die Hard (1988)
The General (1927)
American Gangster (2007)
Platoon (1986)
V for Vendetta (2005)
Judgment at Nuremberg (1961)
The Graduate (1967)
The Princess Bride (1987)
Crash (2004/I)
The Wild Bunch (1969)
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)
Letters from Iwo Jima (2006)
Heat (1995)
Gandhi (1982)
Harvey (1950)
The Night of the Hunter (1955)
The African Queen (1951)
Stand by Me (1986)
Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004)
Witness for the Prosecution (1957)
The Big Lebowski (1998)
The Conversation (1974)
Little Miss Sunshine (2006)
Wo hu cang long [Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon ] (2000)
The Grapes of Wrath (1940)
Gone with the Wind (1939)
3:10 to Yuma (2007)
Cabinet des Dr. Caligari., Das [The Cabinet of Dr Caligari] (1920)
The Thing (1982)
Groundhog Day (1993)
The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)
Sleuth (1972)
Patton (1970)
Toy Story (1995)
Glory (1989)
Out of the Past (1947)
Twelve Monkeys (1995)
Ed Wood (1994)
Spartacus (1960)
The Terminator (1984)
In the Heat of the Night (1967)
The Philadelphia Story (1940)
The Exorcist (1973)
Frankenstein (1931)
Anatomy of a Murder (1959)
The Hustler (1961)
Toy Story 2 (1999)
The Lion King (1994)
Big Fish (2003)
Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998)
Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
Young Frankenstein (1974)
Magnolia (1999)
A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
In Cold Blood (1967)
Rosemary’s Baby (1968)
Dial M for Murder (1954)
All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)
Roman Holiday (1953)
A Christmas Story (1983)
Casino (1995)
Manhattan (1979)
Ying xiong [Hero] (2002)
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)
Rope (1948)
Cinderella Man (2005)
The Searchers (1956)
Finding Neverland (2004)
Inherit the Wind (1960)
His Girl Friday (1940)
A Man for All Seasons (1966)
Arsenic and Old Lace (1944)
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)

The Books: "Amongst Women " (John McGahern)

Next book in my on my adult fiction shelves:

Amongst Women by John McGahern

This book is all tied up with my father. I will never look at this book or think about this book without thinking about my father. I don't even know what else to say about it, really. John McGahern, who passed away in 2006 (I wrote about him here), is the greatest contemporary Irish writer. Or ... he was. Rest in peace. In a recent interview with Anne Enright (that I linked to a couple days ago) - she says about McGahern: "I find being Irish quite a wearing thing. It takes so much work because it is a social construction. People think you are going to be this, this, and this. I can't think of anything you might say about Irish people that is absolutely true. [Irish writer John McGahern, who died in 2006] was an immensely angry, dangerous, and subversive writer. But he was domesticated by the Irish academy incredibly fast. There's the idea of the 'authentic Irish' that he keys into."

McGahern writes "quiet" books - domestic interior dramas - but I'm with Enright. The wellspring underneath his work is volcanic. He is in no way, shape, or form SAFE. As a matter of fact, Amongst Women was one of those books that made my heart hurt. Literally. You know how sometimes you feel like there is an actual bruise on your actual heart? That's what this book did. I almost couldn't finish it. McGahern's work cuts way close to the bone, for me. And sometimes life is easier if you just ignore certain realities, sometimes it gets too intense. McGahern, in Amongst Women, in his quiet specific way - opens up the psychologies of that whole family to me, the reader ... and I get it ... He makes me get it. But Enright's point is also well-taken. Ireland has a way of pillorying and then celebrating their famous artistic sons. Joyce could tell you a bit about that. McGahern had similar experiences. McGahern doesn't write political books, not necessarily - but I suppose most everything is political in Ireland. At least on some level. There was an article in the UK Times about McGahern a year or so ago (link no longer available). An excerpt:

He was recognised as a master craftsman: a succession of awards and prizes confirmed that. But McGahern also came to be seen as something he never was, nor tried to be: a chronicler of Ireland's journey from the past and an explorer of Irish identity.

As he tried to explain in interviews, this way of looking at things held no attraction for him. It was not interesting; there was something childish in questing after the machinery of identity. He disliked the notion of the writer as romantic artist, a courageous solo swimmer in a sea of archetypes.

He wrote about the world he knew and the world his people had known for generations in rural Ireland. He came from the Catholic middle classes, and although he had left the faith behind, he refused to condemn it. It was part of what he was.

It has always been too easy to stereotype McGahern. When his second novel, The Dark, was banned in Ireland, and he was forced by the Catholic church to resign from his teaching job in Dublin, some wanted to use him as a cause celebre, a literary crusader against the old repression.

McGahern rejected the role. He noted that Samuel Beckett was one of the few to inquire after his personal opinion before agreeing to join an anti-censorship campaign. To others, it seemed that McGahern must have been so deeply brainwashed by Irish Catholicism that he refused to denounce it.

But he was no campaigner. If there was any denouncing to be done, it could be undertaken by the reader after engaging with the truth of his fiction. He did not want to dignify the ban by openly opposing it. Readers of his work could see what had angered the hierarchy: not just the frank sexuality, but a portrait of a religious institution without spirituality, devoted to secular power.

See what I mean? His books rattled the status quo. And yet he also was not an "issue" writer. He didn't do "issue" books. And he refused to fit into the little box that some elements wanted him to be in. He left the faith - but in my opinion, nobody writes about Irish Catholicism like John McGahern. And his "refusal to condemn in" sufficiently left many very upset. You know. People wanted to 'own" him. He refused to be owned.

I'm making him sound rather ponderous, and he is just the opposite. He's just a damn fine writer and Amongst Women and That They May Face The Rising Sun (or By the Lake in the US) are routinely listed on any list of the greatest Irish novels. He is a master at prose. I don't know how he does it.

Amongst Women is about, mainly, Michael Moran - father of 5 - widower - married again ... an old Irish Republican, who now is left without a war. It's a present-day novel, so Moran is bitter = oh God is this man bitter - about where Ireland is going now, and the "gangsters" running things. There is no place for Michael Moran in the new order, and yet he was one of the ones who fought for the country. He's very similar to "The Citizen" in James Joyce's Cyclops episode in Ulysses (excerpt here). It's like he's not domesticated. And yet he lives in a house, and has to submit to normal life again. But he bucks against it. And he takes out his own misery on the family - who spend the entirety of their lives, tiptoeing around him, trying to guess his moods, adjusting, disappearing, submitting. This book has to be the best examination of that whole Irish father-daughter dynamic - which can be so baffling to outsiders. I'm talking about tribal loyalty here. It goes beyond love, loyalty, duty, familial responsibilities. It's about tribe. Maggie, Sheila, and Mona are the three grown daughters - trying to live their own lives, and yet - they will never ever truly cut the cord. After they get married or go to college, they still come home every weekend. They tiptoe around their father, and have whispered conversations behind his back. The entire house revolves around Michael Moran's moods. He has his old IRA buddies over, to relive past glories - and they are grim evenings, Moran needing to dominate - always.

But here's where McGahern is a genius, and I have no idea how he does it. Michael Moran is not a character on a page - he is a living breathing man ... and while you may be glad that he is not your father ... you love him so much that you get that bruise-thing on your heart I mentioned earlier. His pain, his loss, the horribleness of getting old ... becoming useless ... and a man who cannot express himself, a man who cannot say, "Hey, I'm in pain here ..." or "I'm scared of how lonely I am" or whatever ... a man like that is always alone. His daughters sense this, so they hover around him, making sure he will never be alone. They may have their own feelings about how he treats them, how he treats everyone - but if anyone ever says a word against him - they would be cut off forever. Even the daughters' husbands. It is FORBIDDEN to talk against Michael Moran. The daughters can do so amongst themselves ... but no one else - not even intimate in-laws - can enter that territory. This is what TRIBE means.

God, I so get that.

My family feeling is tribal as well.

Michael Moran is one of the great literary characters. I will never forget him. And what a confusing experience it is getting to know him. You hate him sometimes. You roll your eyes at his exaggerated sense of himself as an Irish warrior. You wish he would soften up. You ACHE for him. God, do you ache.

I have tears in my eyes. This book means a lot to me.

Here's an excerpt. Michael Moran has re-married - a woman in the town, Rose (another wonderful character). She did not know him well when she married him. She married an unknown. A widower with 5 children. So there is much about him that frightens her. His moods, his sudden viciousness ... She's on uncertain ground. She loves him. Loves him dearly. But God can this guy be a son-of-a-bitch. Wonderful character. This excerpt starts from Rose's point of view ... but as you'll see, it's a gentle omniscent narrator - we flow from one person's POV to another..

EXCERPT FROM Amongst Women by John McGahern

Often when talking with the girls she had noticed that whenever Moran entered the room silence and deadness would fall on them; and if he was eating alone or working in the room - setting the teeth of a saw, putting a handle in a broken spade on a wet day, taking apart the lighting plant that never seemed to run properly for long - they always tried to slip away. If they had to stay they moved about the place like shadows. Only when they dropped or rattled something, the startled way they would look towards Moran, did the nervous tension of what it took to glide about so silently show. Rose had noticed this and she had put it down to the awe and respect in which the man she so loved was held, and she was loath to see differently now. She had chosen Moran, had married him against convention and her family. All her vanity was in question. The violence Moran had turned on her she chose to ignore, to let her own resentment drop and to join the girls as they stole about so that their presences would never challenge his.

He came in late, wary, watchful. The cheerfulness with which Rose greeted him he met with a deep reserve. She was unprepared for it and her nervousness increased tenfold as she bustled about to get his tea. Sheila and Mona were writing at side tables; Michael was kneeling at the big armchair, a book between his elbows, as if in prayer, a position he sometimes used for studying. All three looked up gravely to acknowledge their father's presence; but, ssensing his mood at once, they buried themselves again in their schoolwork.

'Where's Maggie?' he demanded.

'She went to visit some friends in the village.'

'She seems always to be on the tramp these days.'

'Shes going around mostly saying goodbye to people.'

'I'm sure she'll be missed,' he said acidly.

Rose poured him his tea. The table was covered with a spotless cloth. As he ate and drank she found herself chattering away to him out of nervousness, a stream of things that went through her head, the small happenings of a day. She talked out of confusion: fear, insecurity, love. Her instinct told her that she should not be talking but she could not stop. He made several brusque, impatient movements at the table but still she could not stop. Then he turned round the chair in a fit of hatred. The children were listening though they kept their eyes intently fixed on their school books.

'Did you ever listen carefully to yourself, Rose?' he said. 'If you listened a bit more carefully to yourself I think you might talk a lot less.'

She looked like someone who had been struck without warning but she did not try to run or cry out. She stood still for a long moment that seemed to the others to grow into an age. Then, abjectly, as if engaged in reflection that gave back only its own dullness, she completed the tasks she had been doing and, without saying a word to the expectant children, left the room.

'Where are you going, Rose?' he asked in a tone that told her that he knew he had gone too far but she continued on her way.

It galled him to have to sit impotently in silence; worse still, that it had been witnessed. They kept their heads down in their books though they had long ceased to study, unwilling to catch his eye or even to breathe loudly. All they had ever been able to do in the face of violence was to bend to it.

Moran sat for a long time. When he could stand the silence no longer he went briskly into the other room. 'I'm sorry, Rose,' they heard him say. They were able to hear clearly though he had closed the door. 'I'm sorry, Rose,' he had to say again. 'I lost my temper.' After a pause they thought would never end they heard, 'I want to be alone,' clear as a single bell note, free of all self-assertiveness. He stayed on in the room but there was nothing he could do but withdraw.

When he came back he sat beside the litter of his meal on the table among the three children not quite knowing what to do with himself. Then he took a pencil and paper and started to tot up all the monies he presently held against the expenses he had. He spent a long time over these calculations and they appeared to soothe him.

'We might as well say the Rosary now,' he announced when he put pencil and paper away, taking out his beads and letting them dangle loudly. They put away their exercises and took out their beads.

'Leave the doors open in case Rose wants to hear,' he said to the boy. Michael opened both doors to the room. He paused at the bedroom door but the vague shape amid the bedclothes did not speak or stir.

At the Second Glorious Mystery Moran paused. Sometimes if there was an illness in the house the sick person would join in the prayers through the open doors but when the silence was not broken he nodded to Mona and she took up Rose's Decade. After the Rosary, Mona and Sheila made tea and they all slipped away early.

Moran sat on alone in the room. He was so engrossed in himself that he was startled by the sound of the back door opening just after midnight. Maggie was even more startled to find him alone when she came in and instantly relieved that she hadn't allowed the boy who had seen her home from the village further than the road gate.

'You're very late,' he said.

'The concert wasn't over till after eleven.'

'Did you say your prayers on the way home?'

'No, Daddy. I'll say them as soon as I go upstairs.'

'Be careful not to wake the crowd that has to go to school in the morning.'

'I'll be careful. Good night, Daddy.' As on every night, she went up to him and kissed him on the lips.

He sat on alone all until all unease was lost in a luxury of self-absorption. The fire had died. He felt stiff when he got up from the chair and turned out the light and groped his way through the still open doorway to the bed, shedding his clothes on to the floor. When he got into bed he turned his back energetically to Rose.

She rose even earlier than usual next morning. Usually she enjoyed the tasks of morning but this morning she was grateful above all mornings for the constancy of the small demanding chores: to shake out the fire, scatter the ashes on the grass outside, to feel the stoked fire warm the room. She set the table and began breakfast. When the three appeared for school they were wary of her at first but she was able to summon sufficient energy to disguise her lack of it and they were completely at ease before they left for school. When Moran eventually appeared he did not speak but fussed excessively as he put on socks and boots. She did not help him.

'I suppose I should be sorry,' he said at length.

'It was very hard what you said.'

'I was upset over that telegram my beloved son sent. It was as if I didn't even exist.'

'I know, but what you said was still hard.'

'Well then, I'm sorry.'

It was all she demanded and immediately she brightened. 'It's all right, Michael. I know it's not easy.' She looked at him with love. Though they were alone they did not embrace or kiss. That belonged to the darkness and the night.

'Do you know what I think, Rose? We get too cooped up in here sometimes. Why don't we just go away for the day?'

'Where would we go?'

'We can drive anywhere we want to drive to. That's the great thing about having a car. All we have to do is back it out of the shed and go."

"Do you think you can spare the day?' She was still careful.

'It's bad if we can't take one day off,' he said laughingly. He was happy now, relieved, pleased with himself, ready to be indulgent.

He backed the Ford out of the shed and faced it to the road. Maggie had risen and was taking breakfast when he came in.

'Is there anything you want, Daddy?'

'Not a thing in the wide world, thanks be to God.' She was relieved to hear the tone. 'You'll have the whole place to yourself today. Rose and myself are going away for the day.'

'When do you think you'll be back, Daddy?'

Rose had left out his brown suit and shirt and tie and socks and he had started to dress.

'We'll be back when you see us. We'll be back before night anyhow,' he said as he tucked his shirt into his trousers, hoisting them round his hips.

'I'm holding everybody up,' Rose fussed self-effacingly. She looked well, even stylish in a discreet way, in her tweed suit and white blouse.

'Daddy looks wonderful. I hope I'm not too much of a disgrace,' she laughed nervously, moving her hands and features in one clear plea to please.

'I'm bound to be taken for the chauffeur,' he laughed out, mispronouncing the word with relish but he was not corrected as he hoped.

'There'd never be a fear of that,' she said wtih feeling.

They set off together in the small car, Rose's girlish smiles and waves only accentuating the picture of the happy couple going on a whole day's outing alone together. Maggie watched the car turn carefully out into the main road and then she went and closed the gate under the big yew tree.

Brooklyn Academy of Music: Macbeth

I saw Patrick Stewart do Macbeth tonight, at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. It was a lovely evening. It's freezing today and I trekked out there, and emerged into the utter chaos of Atlantic and Flatbush. A couple was having a screaming fight about a drug deal gone awry on the sidewalk. The girl shouted, "There's fuckin' police all around us right now. They're already curious about what we talkin' about - let's get the fuck outta here!" And then. The Scottish play! Perfect. It was like I had already seen the Flatbush Avenue version of "Unsex me here"! I had a glass of wine in the lobby, warming up, and people milled about, and it was a wonderful atmosphere. At intermission, a couple struck up a conversation with me about the play, and it was great fun. We were trying to figure out where the hell Banquo was going when he ran off before intermission. We missed a line of dialogue or something. I mean, I get that he knows he will be killed. But where the hell you going, bro? But it was fun. I liked them. They were wondering who MacDuff was - they hadn't caught his name. "Who was that man with the wife and kids?" "That was MacDuff - he's a noble who was really close with Duncan. And I hate to break it to you, but his whole family is dunzo in the next act." hahahaha

This production (highly acclaimed in England, and now here for a run) takes place in Stalinist Russia, which I loved. It had a more chilly quality than some other productions of it I've seen. The set was stark and bare, no scene changes. They used video projections during certain sections - which was QUITE effective, for the most part. Like the forest moving. That was projected. Things abstracted, becoming more and more fragmented - as Macbeth and his Lady wife slowly went mad. There were a couple of moments - just a couple - when I thought it was over-produced. The play itself, just as a work of literature, is terrifying. It's one of the most gruesome of all of Shakespeare's plays. I mean, the monologue that reports on the deaths of MacDuff's family - you just get the picture in your head of children screaming and being slaughtered. You really don't need to add TOO much to it. For the most part, I thought the video projections were awesome (the visions of enormous totalitarian armies marching, with Soviet-esque banners waving - very evocative) - but a couple times I was pulled out of it.

Patrick Stewart was incredible. His soliloquies ... God, he didn't hit a wrong note. I had a moment when he was doing the "tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow" monologue where I almost got disoriented and I didn't know what to focus on. First of all, his performance of it - quiet, bitter, underplayed - he just SAID it ... was marvelous. You just lost yourself in it. But because of that, I was suddenly struck by the words - yet again ... you know, it's easy to take Shakespeare for granted. And to hear it - really HEAR it ... to hear that language, to hear those words that are so well-known now, so damn famous ... and to realize, as though for the first time, just how damn brilliant Shakespeare is. It's like being in the actual presence of God. Or a higher power. Whatever you want to call it. It's beyond "good". It is an emanation of a deep and human truth, passed down through the ages ... and here it is. Before us. A man wrote this. A human being wrote this.

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

It boggles the mind.

Kate Fleetwood played Lady Macbeth like Eva Peron. She thristed for power. She emasculates her husband like a pro. Patrick Stewart's body language in response to her "are you a man?" comments was wonderful. Subtle, and eloquent. He just kind of collapsed, a little bit. Not hugely. But he strutted in in their first scene together - and she embraced him, and they were kissing, and passionate - saying their opening lines - eating each other up, his hands all over her, her breasts, her thighs ... and then she starts going off on what she thinks needs to happen next, and she is so far beyond him at that point, she is so much further down the path ... that he is struck dumb, in response. A bit helpless. What is she asking me to do? He is wearing military garb, combat boots, he is the picture of a virile strutting man. But Lady Macbeth just unmasks him, disarms him ... He is helpless and she uses that against him. She was terrific.

I have seen so many terrible "Out damn'd spot" monologues ... you know, the actress uses it as an opportunity to become a gibbering gleaming-eyed maniac. Kate Fleetwood was real. And because it was real to her - she WAS out of her mind. Her hands writhed about, and I actually started feeling the sticky blood all over MY hands, just watching her. This was no kitchen-sink acting. She rose to the occasion. But without any fanfare. The play is horrifying. It's horrifying in its action, and the plot points. But even more so - it is horrifying psychologically. The two of them cannot stop their ambition, and for a moment - all seems possible. But to live with the repercussions, to walk through life knowing that murder got you there ... neither of them are up to that.

The relationship those two created was fantastic. You believed they were husband and wife. They played all the notes right. The chiding, the sex, the way they know what the other person is going to say even before the words are out ... They were marvelous together.

But my favorite part of the whole production - was how they handled the witches. SO GOOD. SO SO GOOD. Those witches are tough, man ... tough to play (and I should know, since I played one of them once, in a production so bad it still makes me shiver - post about it here, and photos here, here, here ... horrors. I heard some of my lines come back to me in the play at BAM and felt a shiver of shame. "Doubtless it stood ..." ACK!). It's so easy to go over the top. And how do you make "double double toil and trouble" scary?? It so easily can just be SILLY.

These witches were truly frightening. BRAVO. To the director and the production design, the costume design ... who came up with the theme for those witches. They were omnipresent. They weren't isolated out in a wild heath (the way I've seen it done in many productions) ... they weren't cackling and rubbing their hands over a froggy-filled fire. They all wore grey institutional dresses, with white aprons, and white veils on their heads. They were either nurses on the battlefield, or workers in the kitchen. They were in disguise. They took on many guises. They were all of the same physical type - young women, thin, probably 22, 23 years old. Little thin women. You couldn't tell them apart, they were identical. And they scared the SHIT out of me.

great work. I have never before seen a production of Macbeth where the witches were actually frightening. These girls were malevolent. They had the bodies of teenagers, but they were dressed as rigid identical matrons. Black tights, black shoes. They chopped up food in the kitchen, wielding knives, slashing at bread, and then carrying it to the table, holding the knife behind them in a clenched fist. The action went on around them, but they were always there. And occasionally - Patrick Stewart would glance up at one of them, and hesitate for a bit. It would give him a start. Do I know that girl? Have I seen her before? She ladles soup onto my plate ... but there's something about her ... she seems familiar ...

The witches were my favorite part of the show. Very innovative. I've never seen them handled so well.

The Books: "Atonement " (Ian McEwan)

Next book in my on my adult fiction shelves:

Excerpt from Atonement by Ian McEwan

Ian McEwan is such a good writer that there were times, when reading this book, when I had to just put it down, and absorb it. I needed time to let it filter down. Not just the plot - which is devastating, inevitable, like a Greek freakin' tragedy - no way out ... but the writing itself. There were times when I was left almost baffled by how good he is. He's good in the big stuff, and he's also good in the minutia. Like, I know that I SEE things in this world, and I see things that are so specific, and so ... indicative of other things ... in the way that McEwan does ... but could I describe it?? I'm not being self-deprecating, I know I'm a good writer, but McEwan made me want to be better. But he's also so good that it seems daunting. For example (and this is just one of many in the book):

She should have changed her dress this morning. She thought how she should take more care of her appearance, like Lola. It was childish not to. But what an effort it was. The silence hissed in her ears and her vision was faintly distorted -- her hands in her lap appeared unusually large and at the same time remote, as though viewed across an immense distance. She raised one hand and flexed its fingers and wondered, as she had sometimes before, how this thing, this machine for gripping, this fleshy spider on the end of her arm, came to be hers, entirely at her command. Or did it have some little life of its own? She bent her finger and straightened it. The mystery was in the instant before it moved, the dividing moment between not moving and moving, when her intention took effect. It was like a wave breaking. If she could only find herself at the crest, she thought, she might find the secret of herself, that part of her that was really in charge. She brought her forefinger closer to her face and stared at it, urging it to move. It remained still because she was pretending, she was not entirely serious, and because willing it to move, or being about to move it, was not the same as actually moving it. And when she did crook it finally, the action seemed to start in the finger itself, not in some part of her mind. When did it know to move, when did she know to move it? There was no catching herself out. It was either-or. There was no stitching, no seam, and yet she knew that behind the smooth continuous fabric was the real self -- was it her soul? -- which took the decision to cease pretending, and gave the final command.

I know exactly the experience he describes so perfectly there. I have done that. I have wondered those things. But to put it into words like that ... Atonement took my breath away on nearly every page.

But it was also one of the most wrenching reading experiences I have ever had. The only book I can think of that RUINED me at its end in the same way was Geek Love, by Katherine Dunn (post about the book here). I burst into sobs at the end of that book. That's never happened before. And I remember where I was when I finished Atonement. I was living with Jen in Hoboken, and I was sitting on the floor of my room. My door was closed. I came to the last sentence, and it was like there was a tiny hiccup deep inside of me - which let loose the flood gates. If you've read Atonement then you know that up until almost the very last sentence you think things are one way ... and then you realize that no, things are not that way at all. They are this way. And any germ of hope you might have been hanging onto is shattered. I started sobbing - and it immediately became about my own losses in life, my own disappointments, the things I have lost that I can never get back, the love I had that I lost and had to find a way to go on living ... I was a mess. Poor Jen was doing yoga in her room or something and heard me start howling, and a soft knock came on the door ... "Sheila? You okay?" "Yup! I'm fine!" I sobbed in response. "Just finished Atonement, that's all!"

The book upset me so much that last year I picked it up to read it again, got through one page and then thought: Nope. Cannot put myself through it. Nope.

Written from many different points of view - which is essential to the book's success, I think. Because the book is about, in so many ways, how trapped we are in our own skins - how we look out of our own eyes and see the world one way, and we can never enter another's experience. We see things happening, and we may mis-interpret - but to us, it is reality. There is no overlap. There is no possibility of connection. Briony, the 13-year-old girl who is really the key to the whole book, the linchpin, is a fantasist, it is true. She writes stories and plays, and is deathly serious about all of it. She doesn't make things up, that's not Briony's fatal flaw. It's that she dramatizes life, she makes up narratives - and I guess all little kids do that, but Briony does it in this particular situation - and two lives are ruined. Well. More. I would say her life was ruined as well. Although she does turn it to her advantage much later in her life - her way of "atonement" - but seen in that light, the "atonement" of the title is horrifically ironic. It becomes a ghastly joke. How do you atone for something like that?

I remember as I was reading the book (and I knew nothing about it, I did not know which way it would go, or what would happen - I had avoided reviews with spoilers) - things were going so badly, like - so unbelievably badly - that you can sense the ruin approaching. It's horrible. You want to leap in and intervene - which, in my opinion, would mean, saying, "Everybody: Don't listen to a word that Briony says. She's a little fantasist and she doesn't know what she's talking about." I'm still mad at her. But anyway, I remember saying to my dad something like, "Well, I'm halfway through ... and things are going really bad ... but I'm hoping that the title ... well, the title is Atonement ... so hopefully that will mean something." My dad (who hadn't read the book) said, "I don't think it's a happy ending." "No, I know. I can feel it." It's awful, because you know you're approaching the end ... and you have already been through so much with the rest of the book - the terrible events of that weekend party ... and then you skip ahead in time, a couple of years ... and WWII has started ... and now we're in London ... and you hope ... you just hope that maybe things worked out in that little blank interim we had. Maybe McEwan is holding something out on us. Well, he sure is. And he releases it at the end, and shatters all your hopes and dreams. Thanks, bro!

I'm writing about this book as though I am afraid of it. I actually did feel fear for almost the entirety of the book. It tapped into a deep well inside of me, from almost the first page ... and I guess there's nothing worse (on a small level, and on a large level) than being completely misunderstood. Or when you hurt someone by accident ... and you SO didn't mean to hurt them!! ... but it happened anyway ... and oh God, what an awful awful feeling that is. A sense of urgency comes over me when I am in that situation. I must fix this IMMEDIATELY. It's terrible. And misunderstanding is at the heart of so much of the world's tragedies - and the misunderstanding that happens in Atonement is devastating. It seems small, at first. Briony saw something, and misinterpreted what she saw. That happens a lot. Especially with little kids when they encounter something in the adult world that they do not understand. No biggie, right? But the way McEwan writes about it ... you just start feeling this overwhelming sensation of dread. Like: oh God. No, Briony, what you saw is what you THINK you saw, and because you make up little stories you're making this one up, too - what you saw is NOT what you think you saw. You have made the whole thing up! But Briony is not one to let things lie (witness her play rehearsals ... she's obsessive, serious, and ... there's something rigid about her that makes you know she is headed for a huge fall - I recognized myself in Briony, I really did - which is why I think I had such a violent reaction to her.) ... Briony becomes fired up with her interpretation of what she saw. She casts herself as the Rescuer, the Savior. She will "save" her sister. Then everyone will know how special Briony is! What a heroine she is!

And so. Briony makes an accusation. And then, just watch how the events unfold. Inevitably. Doors clanging shut behind everyone involved, no way back, no way out.

You could live until you were 110. You could never atone for something like that.

I won't say anything more about the book. Obviously it's one of the most powerful books I have ever read. So powerful that I'm not sure I can ever go through it again. In fact, I dreaded today's excerpt. The book gives off a malevolent glow on my bookshelf, full of its terrible truths, its bleak death-knell of hope. But still: McEwan's writing is something else, man. He has written many books, but this is his masterpiece.

Here's an excerpt. It's from early on in the book. Before the shit goes down. But it's building here. Briony intercepts the note. The note that has that word in it. "Cunt". But the context it is in (it's a love note) is beyond her understanding, and she already has misinterpreted the moment by the fountain ... she feels the danger in the air, she senses the threat (even though she is totally wrong). She's gathering her forces. I know she's just a little girl, but her desire to be admired, to have attention, to elevate herself into visibility - is not only her downfall, but the downfall of the other two parties involved.

It makes me want to scold her. "Now, Briony, this is grown-up stuff, and you are just a little bratty girl, don't flatter yourself that you understand anything. Run away and play now, and let the grown-ups carry on with their grown-up lives. You are not a part of it yet. Don't flatter yourself." I would like to condescend to her within an inch of her life, I would like to crush her spirit, to see her crumble into insecurity - to have her KNOW that she doesn't know anything ... That's what the book brings up in me. It's devastating.

But ... and this is the most difficult level ... it's also a book about writing. Briony is NOT just a silly little girl who makes up stories. She is a writer. And her later life will play that out. She knew who she was ... even back then. She is a writer. Everything that happens to her, even as a small child, is grist for the mill (you can see it in the excerpt). I was like that as a child. I am like that now. Sometimes "the urge to be writing [is] stronger than any notion of what [I] had of what [I] might write." It's totally true. The writing-urge is within her. She's playing God, in a sense - and isn't that what writers do? Play God? Moving the characters around, unleashing tragedies upon them, seeing how they react? Briony does it in her little plays as a girl, she does it in her life - with brutal consequences - and she does, indeed, become a writer of some renown.

I also don't think it's an accident that it's a WORD that starts Briony on her terrible journey. It's the WORD that confirms her fears of what she saw at the fountain. A writer. Responding to the call of the word, however mistaken.

But again. There is no atonement. There is no taking back that devastating moment when she made that choice.

Great book.

Excerpt from Atonement by Ian McEwan

The very complexity of her feelings confirmed Briony in her view that she was entering an arena of adult emotion and dissembling from which her writing was bound to benefit. What fairy tale ever held so much by way of contradiction? A savage and thoughtless curiosity prompted her to rip the letter from its envelope - she read it in the hall after Polly had let her in - and though the shock of the message vindicated her completely, that did not prevent her from feeling guilty. It was wrong to open people's letters, but it was right, it was essential, for her to know everything. She had been delighted to see her brother again, but that did not prevent her from exaggerating her feelings to avoid her sister's accusing question. And afterward she had only pretended to be eagerly obedient to her mother's command by running up to her room; as well as wanting to escape Cecilia, she needed to be alone to consider Robbie afresh, and to frame the opening paragraph of a story shot through with real life. No more princesses! The scene by the fountain, its air of ugly threat, and at the end, when both had gone their separate ways, the luminous absence shimmering above the wetness on the gravel - all this would have to be reconsidered. With the letter, something elemental, brutal, perhaps even criminal had been introduced, some principle of darkness, and even in her excitement over the possibilities, she did not doubt that her sister was in some way threatened and would need her help.

The word: she tried to prevent it sounding in her thoughts, and yet it danced through them obscenely, a typographical demon, juggling vague, insinuating anagrams - an uncle and a nut, the Latin for next, an Old English king attempting to turn back the tide. Rhyming words took their form from children's books - the smallest pig in the litter, the hounds pursuing the fox, the flat-bottomed boats on the Cam by Grantchester meadow. Naturally, she had never heard the word spoken, or seen it in print, or come across it in asterisks. No one in her presence had ever referred to the word's existence, and what was more, no one, not even her mother, had ever referred to the existence of that part of her to which - Briony was certain - the word referred. She had no doubt that that was what it was. The context helped, but more than that, the word was at one with its meaning, and was almost onomatopoeic. The smooth-hollowed, partly enclosed forms of its first three letters were as clear as a set of anatomical drawings. Three figures huddling at the foot of the cross. That the word had been written by a man confessing to an image in his mind, confiding a lonely preoccupation, disgusted her profoundly.

She had read the note standing shamelessly in the center of the entrance hall, immediately sensing the danger contained by such crudity. Something irreducibly human, or male, threatened the order of their household, and Briony knew that unless she helped her sister, they would all suffer. It was also clear that she would have to be helped in a delicate, tactful manner. Otherwise, as Briony knew from experience, Cecilia would turn on her.

These thoughts preoccupied her as she washed her hands and face and chose a clean dress. The socks she wanted to wear were not to be found, but she wasted no time in hunting. She put on some others, strapped on her shoes and sat at her desk. Downstairs, they were drinking cocktails and she would have at least twenty minutes to herself. She could brush her hair on the way out. Outside her open window a cricket was singing. A sheaf of foolscap from her father's office was before her, the desk light threw down its comforting yellow patch, the fountain pen was in her hand. The orderly troupe of farm animals lined along the windowsill and the straitlaced dolls poised in the various rooms of their open-sided mansion waited for the gem of her first sentence. At that moment, the urge to be writing was stronger than any notion she had of what she might write. What she wanted was to be lost to the unfolding of an irresistible idea, to see the black thread spooling out from the end of her scratchy silver nib and coiling into words. But how to do justice to the changes that had made her into a real writer at last, and to her chaotic swarm of impressions, and to the disgust and fascination she felt? Order must be imposed. She should begin, as she had decided earlier, with a simple account of what she had seen at the fountain. But that episode in the sunlight was not quite so interesting as the dusk, the idle minutes on the bridge lost to daydreaming, and then Robbie appearing in the semidarkness, calling to her, holding in his hand the little white square that contained the letter that contained the word. And what did the word contain?

She wrote, "There was an old lady who swallowed a fly."

Surely it was not too childish to say there had to be a story; and this was the story of a man whom everybody liked, but about whom the heroine always had her doubts, and finally she was able to reveal that he was the incarnation of evil. But wasn't she - that was, Briony the writer - supposed to be so worldly now as to be above such nursery-tale ideas as good and evil? There must be some lofty, godlike place from which all people could be judged alike, not pitted against each other, as in some lifelong hockey match, but seen noisily jostling together in all their glorious imperfection. If such a place existed, she was not worthy of it. She could never forgive Robbie his disgusting mind.

Trapped between the urge to write a simple diary account of her day's experiences and the ambition to make something greater of them that would be polished, self-contained and obscure, she sat for many minutes frowning at her sheet of paper and its infantile quotation and did not write another word. Actions she thought she could describe well enough, and she had the hang of dialogue. She could do the woods in winter, and the grimness of a castle wall. But how to do feelings? All very well to write, She felt sad, or describe what a sad person might do, but what of sadness itself, how was that put across so it could be felt in all its lowering immediacy? Even harder was the threat, or the confusion of feeling contradictory things. Pen in hand, she stared across the room toward her hard-faced dolls, the estranged companions of a childhood she considered closed. It was a chilly sensation, growing up. She would never sit on Emily's or Cecilia's lap again, or only as a joke. Two summers ago, on her eleventh birthday, her parents, brother and sister and a fifth person she could not remember had taken her out onto the lawn and tossed her in a blanket eleven times, and then once for luck. Could she trust it now, the hilarious freedom of the upward flight, the blind trust in the kindly grip of adult wrists, when the fifth person could so easily have been Robbie?

Snowflakes

What a photo! Perfect!

All the photos on that blog of our recent snowfall in Manhattan are magical. It's an incredible site in general - I love it.

Thanks, Ms. Baroque, for linking to it.

I love this photograph

It's like some messed-up dark fairy tale. A difficult journey through a dark forest.

from V magazine

Richard Pryor: "Live on the Sunset Strip"

It's rare that someone is so brilliant that you start to cry, in response. Spontaneously. You just dissolve into tears, even though what the person is doing is comedic.

Richard Pryor's live concert in 1982 is one of those rare moments.

It's when you realize that what you are looking at is the damn truth, man. It's almost like the hairs on the back of your neck rise up. This is comedy, yes. So funny that even years after seeing it for the first time "Who you gonna believe? Me or your lyin' eyes?" still makes me lose it. I'm never READY for it, even though I KNOW it's coming ... and it is just as funny the 20th time as it is the first.

But, for me, what is amazing about this particular show, and my response to it .. is that I find myself getting frightened. Not because of what he is revealing to me about himself, although that is honest and beautifully so ... but because of how he forces me to be truthful about myself. There's no bullshitting here. There's no deflection here. TRY it. Just try it. Just try "relishing your rightness" in the presence of this man. See how far you get.

Do you want to be RIGHT? Or do you want to join the rest of us fuck-ups, and be honest?

It's a goosebump-making performance.

It's when you realize that you are in the presence of someone who is willing to go there. To look within. To take that which is weak and ugly within him ... and bring it out into the light ... so that we all can look at it, and recognize ourselves in it, and not be afraid or ashamed anymore ...

THAT is what Richard Pryor is doing in this concert.

He's untouchable.

Like the clip below - where he describes his last moment in Africa. It's funny, sure, but it also grips you at your throat. This is as good as it gets, my God. This is a man unmasked. He has unmasked himself, and in so doing, says to us, "It's okay. Just be honest. Stop protecting, stop defending ... you know you're human ... you're like this, too."

It is the greatest gift a performer can give to his audience.

"I can't think of anything you might say about Irish people that is absolutely true."

WONDERFUL interview with Anne Enright, author of The Gathering, winner of the Man Booker Prize last year. I finished it near my birthday last year (post here) - and had mixed feelings about it, although the writing knocked me on my ass. I just LIKE her as a person, too - every interview I've read with her has been fascinating. Seems like a lady I'd like to have a pint with.

She says in the interview:

Q. Where does the idea of "authentic" Irishness come from?

A. From the diaspora. They dreamt about Ireland and reinvented it. Ireland is a series of stories that have been told to us, starting with the Irish Celtic national revival. I never believed in "Old Ireland." It has been made all of kitsch by the diaspora, looking back and deciding what Ireland is. Yes, it is green. Yes, it is friendly. I can't think of anything else for definite.

I read that, and thought of the piece I wrote "Road Works Ahead". I'm a writer. I read other people's thoughts and think of my own work. That's the way it goes. I still get emails about that "Road Works Ahead" piece. Irish people, Irish-American people - but mostly straight Irish. After I wrote that piece, an Irish newspaper linked to it, a big one, a national paper - and my piece was used as a launching-off place for an op-ed column - by an Irishman, who was worried about what had happened to that good old Irish hospitality. I felt a cringing within me when I saw that I had been referenced, I have a sensitivity towards how i come off ... i didn't want to seem like I was criticizing Ireland, or behaving like an obnoxious irish-American, pissed off that there were no more leprechauns. But the op-ed column was quite honest, and quite open ... it took my observations (made as an outsider, yes) and started to ask questions, based upon those observations. And the response I got was overwhelming. And also quite respectful and nice. It was great. Like I said, people still email me about that piece.

I am (a couple generations removed) a member of the diaspora and I recognize it in her words. I recognize it from the conversation I had with Eamon in the piece I wrote above. The whole Quiet Man thing, and the whole ambivalence about progress and change.

And I LOVED LOVED LOVED Anne Enright's thoughts on Joyce. I literally giggled with glee when I read them:

Q. Almost every review of an Irish writer's work makes comparisons to James Joyce. Is it hard to get away from him?

A. I don't want to get away from him. It's male writers who have a problem with Joyce; they're all "in the long shadow of Joyce, and who can step into his shoes?" I don't want any shoes, thank you very much. Joyce made everything possible; he opened all the doors and windows. Also, I have a very strong theory that he was actually a woman. He wrote endlessly introspective and domestic things, which is the accusation made about women writers - there's no action and nothing happens. Then you look at "Ulysses" and say, well, he was a girl, that was his secret.

Marvelous. I want to read that to my father. He will appreciate it.

Full interview here.

Delirium

Patrick and myself today:

"I liked the Twizzler dress."
"You just scared me. I had zoned out, and that was like a ZAP."

Later: "TWIZZLER."

"Quizmn! I'm working in Quizmn!"

"Oh for God's sake. It's a novel. Was he born on a cold dark day?"
"THE AIR IS THICK AND STILL."

"Wah wah wah, everything's harder for Sheila than it is for everybody else! I am so sorry. I'm being a baby."
"It's okay. I bitch sometimes, too."

"Damn, Gina!"

"I do not want to hear about the West Nile Virus when I am cooking a sausage."

"Oh FUCK why do you show me the font and the fucking HTML form information - I do not want that! DON'T SHOW IT TO ME. I AM NOT RETARDED."

"Don't mind me. It's just my ADD kicking in."
"I totally understand."

Unbelievable dance number

Fred Astaire said the following performance was "the greatest dance number ever filmed": The Nicholas Brothers - in Stormy Weather. Clip below the fold.

Speechless. Not just the technical brilliance - (it just keeps getting more and more amazing, with every passing second - and the big finish just knocks me out) - but also the sheer JOY of that dance. It's brought me to tears.

Enjoy!!

(thanks Bob at Eternal Sunshine ... watching that really brightened my rather dark day)

The Books: "Charming Billy " ( Alice McDermott)

Next book in my on my adult fiction shelves:

Charming Billy by Alice McDermott

Alice McDermott writes about Irish-American life and the Irish-American experience (straddling Vatican II into now) - like nobody's business. Charming Billy is almost creepy to me, because she just gets it all so right. It sounds right, the houses are right, the masses are right - the family stuff is right ... and her writing is not flowery, or sentimental - in many ways, she reminds me of Dennis Lehane (excerpt of Mystic River here), although she doesn't write crime books. It's the STYLE. It's the TYPE of person she writes about. The Irish-Americans - the folks from Southie in Boston - the third-generation people, with grandmothers and great-grandmothers who speak in brogues - you know, my peeps. McDermott doesn't write about it in a precious way - or a fetishizing way. It's just real.

Charming Billy won the National Book Award the year it came out, and I think that's pretty cool - because Charming Billy doesn't have a lot of sturm und drang - it's not about a politically hot topic - it's not focusing on mental illness or depression - it's not "important" at all. But God spare us from only reading "important" books. Charming Billy is the story of a family who gathers in a bar in the Bronx - after the funeral mass of their family member Billy - he's an uncle, a cousin, whatever - and the family sits around and talks about him, telling stories. Billy had a long life. He was a big drinker. He had a great lost love - Eva, an Irish girl. He had a new wife - Maeve - and she's relatively new to the family (but again, with the whole Irish tendency of not accepting newbies - the family doesn't quite know how to deal with her - she's not really "one of them" yet) - and everyone tells stories, and sometimes the narrator (who is a member of the family - it's a first-person book, although often it doesn't feel that way, because she is telling the stories of Billy's life, not her own) - anyway, sometimes the narrator will go back into the past, and share her memories of Billy, and the memories will come to life on the page. The whole thing takes place in one day, sitting around the bar in the Bronx, shooting the shit about their dearly departed Billy.

And who can say why this was such a lovely read? Having described "what happens", I can imagine it doesn't sound all that compelling.

But it's what I call a "soft" read. You can just sink into it. You can lose yourself. The writing is not insistent, or clever. It's just GOOD. It's good story-telling. And it has the breath of reality in it. I have been to more Irish wakes than I can count. We have a big family and my childhood was punctuated by truly tragic deaths, out of the blue deaths, dear dear family members dying young, horrible. And to me, McDermott just captures the vibe at the after-gatherings of such funerals. I mean, Irish wakes are a cliche - but there's much truth in cliches. I recognize myself in this book. I see my family. Alice McDermott has perfect pitch.

And I love the title of the book.

Billy is not always a pleasant man to get to know. He had a drinking problem. He was old-school Catholic boy. But yes. He was "charming". That word can have snotty connotations - like it has lost its meaning. What does it mean when someone REALLY has "charm"? What is charm? Billy had it. There is much to mourn.

Lovely book. I have all of Alice McDermott's other books, based just on my love of Charming Billy - but I have yet to read any of them. I love her writing.

Here's an excerpt. I love love love the bit about the waiter placing the ice cream on the table. And how Alice McDermott describes it perfectly. That's good writing.

EXCERPT FROM Charming Billy by Alice McDermott

"Well, he always drank," Kate said. "But for a very long time it seemed he drank harmlessly. I remember him feeling no pain when he was on leave, before he went overseas, but that was understandable. I remember the night he came home and told us that Eva had passed away. He went straight to bed afterwards and I called Dennis to see if I could learn anything more and Dennis said they'd both had quite a lot to drink the night before, which was understandable, too. It was probably as hard for Dennis to tell him as it was for Billy to hear the news."

His sister Rosemary said, "I remember he had one too many at Jill's christening. I was worried about him riding the subway home."

"But for years he never missed a day of work," Kate told us. "And he was there to open the shoe store every Saturday morning from the time he started into the early sixties, when Mr. Holtzman finally sold the place to Baker's. I don't think Mr. Holtzman ever knew he drank. Certainly no one at Edison knew until near the end."

But Mickey Quinn held up his hand. "They knew," he said wisely.

"But not until fairly recently," Kate said. "Maybe when he went into the hospital in '73, the same year my Kevin graduated from Regis."

But Mickey Quinn frowned and shook his head slightly apologetically, as if over something that was only slightly askew. "They knew," he said again. "We all knew. I left Irving Place in '68 and the fellows in the office knew Billy was a drinker even then. They covered for him, mostly in the afternoon. He'd go out on a call after lunch and not come back to the office and they'd cover for him. Everyone liked him. They were glad to do it."

"I think Smitty might have covered for him, too," his sister Rosemary said. "In the shoe store. Do you remember Smitty? Mr. Holtzman's assistant - the little bald man?" He was remembered. "I went in there one Saturday, we were looking for Betty's First Communion shoes, and Billy was just coming in from lunch. I had the feeling he'd had a few. I mean, he was fine, and the kids were always happy to see him, but I noticed Smitty did all the measuring and got out all the shoes. Billy mostly sat. Which wasn't like him. He was sucking a peppermint."

"When was this?" Kate asked as her wealthy husband, trained at Fordham Law, might do.

Rosemary paused to calculate. "Betty was in second grade. 1962." Almost in apology: "He was drinking in '62."

Dan Lynch raised his hands. "Well, what does it mean? He was drinking before that, too. Down at Quinlan's. Saturdays after work. Sunday evenings. Hell, I was always there, too, and my liver's fine."

"So when did it become a problem?" cousin Rosemary asked.

"He started AA in the late sixties," Kate told her. "And then again around '71 or '2."

"He took the pledge on that Ireland trip. That was '75."

"What good did it do?"

"I thought it would stick. Maeve did, too."

Dan Lynch was chuckling, his hand around his small glass. "I remember Billy saying that AA was a Protestant thing, when you came right down to it. Started by a bunch of Protestants. He said he didn't like the chummy way some of them were always calling Our Lord by his first name. I drove him to the first meeting and waited to take him home, 'cause Maeve didn't want him driving, and when he came out he said you could tell who the Catholics were because they'd all been bowing their heads every ten seconds while the Protestants bantered on about Jesus, Jesus, Jesus."

(And sure enough, up and down our stretch of table, heads bobbed at the name.)

Sister Rosemary said, "He didn't like them calling God a Higher Power, either - which I guess was the official AA term. Nondenominational, you know. He said it only proved that none of them had a sense of humor. He said you'd have to be God Himself to get higher than most of these guys had been."

There was a bit of low laughter. "Billy had an irreverent streak," MIckey Quinn said. "I liked that about him."

"The way Father Joyce explained it to me," Dan Lynch went on, "the pledge was the Catholic take on AA. He said it was like Holy Orders itself - you signed on and there was no going back. An unbreakable oath never to take another drink. Billy thought it was the real thing."

"But he broke it."

"There's plenty of priests that break their Holy Orders, too," Dan Lynch told them.

"Well, it got him over to Ireland, anyway," cousin Rosemary said. "I tried to talk him and Maeve into going over any number of times, but I never could do it."

"Maeve isn't one to travel," sister Rosemary said. "She's a homebody. Always has been."

Kate leaned toward us all, folding her hands on the table: a tasteful ring of diamonds, a gold bracelet, a professional manicure. "I often wondered," she said slowly. "I never had the heart to ask him, but I wondered if Billy went to visit the town Eva came from. While he was there."

Her sister shook her head. "Billy would have said so if he had. He wasn't one to keep things to himself."

Kate paused only a moment to consider this. "But he might not have wanted it to get back to Maeve, you know," she said. "He might have thought she wouldn't want to hear about a pilgrimage like that."

"Who would?"

"She knew about Eva?" Bridie said, whispering too, adding, "Thank you," as the waiter took her empty plate.

"I'm sure," Kate said. "Thank you." And then: "Actually, I don't know. I'd imagine she knew something about her."

"He must have told her something."

"Dennis would know," Mickey Quinn said. "They were always real close."

But Dan Lynch objected. "I was the best man at Billy's wedding," he said. "We were pretty close, too."

"Well, did he tell Maeve about the Irish girl?"

Dan waved his hand impatiently. "I'm sure he told her something. You know, it's not the sort of thing men talk about. And I'll say this for Billy, you never heard him mention that girl again, once he married Maeve."

"Ask Dennis," cousin Rosemary whispered.

The selected dessert was brought in: two scoops of vanilla ice cream in cold stainless-steel bowls. Hands in lamps to make the poor man's job easier as he reached between their shoulders. Thank you.

"I remember watching Maeve come down the aisle," Dan Lynch said, lifting his spoon, holding it like a scepter. "She was on her old man's arm, but it was clear as you watched her that she was shoring him up, you know, keeping him straight. She was smiling as sweetly as any bride, but there was a determination in the way she walked, you know, the way she held her shoulder up against his, like it was a wall about to topple. She took hold of his arm when they got to the first pew, I mean a good grip, right here." He demonstrated, taking hold of his own forearm, spoon and all. "The old man banged his foot against the kneeling bench - you could hear it all over the church - and for a minute it looked like he'd go down headfirst. But she got him in there and got him seated. She maneuvered him. By sheer force of will, I'd say. And then she gave a little nod, as if to say, Well, that's done, and came up the steps to marry Billy." He sipped his beer. "Ready to take him on, is what I remember thinking. She was a plain girl, but determined."

"Very quiet," Mickey Quinn said. "Go over there for dinner and Billy would do most of the talking."

"He was lucky to find her," sister Rosemary said. "My mother always siad there's nothing more pathetic than an old bachelor who's not a priest. That's what she thought Billy would be, after the Irish girl. An old bachelor. No offense, Danny."

And Dan Lynch laughed, blushed a little across his bald dome. Sipping his beer and shrugged. None taken - the story here being that Danny Lunch was such a connoisseur of beauty and behavior that no flawed wife could have pleased him and no flawless one could have been found.

"Did you ever meet her?" Bridie from the old neighborhood whispered. "The Irish girl?"

The two sisters exchanged a look across the table - the kind of look they might have exchanged had they been eyeing the last bite of a shared piece of cake. "She came to the apartment," Kate said, scooping it up. "It was just before she went back home. Billy borrowed Mr. Holtzman's car to go into the city to get her."

"She was very pretty," Rosemary added, taking a crumb. "Like Susan Hayward."

"Oh, I didn't think so," Kate said. "But she had nice hair, dark auburn. And big brown eyes. She wasn't very tall, even a little chubby. Billy brought her for Sunday dinner and then couldn't eat a bite himself. He was so - I don't know what - so delicate with her. The way he spoke to her, and watched her and listened to her. She did have a nice voice, you know, the poor girl" (a reminder to us all that she had died young), "with her brogue and all. My mother's brogue got thicker just listening to her. They were good-looking together, Eva and Billy. A handsome pair. Better looking together than singly, somehow. He was lovestruck, that's for sure. We kidded him when he got home, after he'd taken her back to the city. We put his plate out on the dining-room table when we heard him coming up. We'd saved it. He'd hardly eaten a bite. We said, 'What was wrong with your dinner, Billy?'" She began to laugh. "We said, 'How are you going to marry this poor girl if her mere presence takes your appetite away? Billy,' we said, 'she'll be at your dinner table every day, breakfast too, when are you going to eat? You'll starve. You'll waste away to nothing. You'll have to sneak over here just to calm down enough to have your dinner.' We gave him such a hard time."

"And do you remember what Momma said?" sister Rosemary asked. Kate swallowed her smile, looked blank. Professional makeup, too. "No."

Well pleased, Rosemary said to my end of the table, "You know my mother thought herself a kind of psychic." She was getting her share of the story, after all. "She read cards and had dreams. And she said after Billy left that when she touched the girl's hand she felt four quick pulses in her own stomach, like baby kicks, which meant they'd have four children."

"Or that your mother had indigestion," Mickey Quinn said.

"More likely," Kate said. "You know how my mother cooked."

"She wasn't a much better prophet."

But Bridie shook her head. "I don't know," she said. "It might have been true. I mean, you could say if the girl had lived, that's how many children they might have had."

Dan Lynch said solemnly, "Which would have made this a different day."

"It would have been a different life."

Mickey Quinn shook his head and leaned back in his chair, as if to avoid all such speculation. "I'll have that cup of coffee now, please, when you get the chance," he said to the waiter's back.

"A different life," Dan Lynch repeated, and raised his beer.

The light through the window behind Maeve had begun to change now. A trace of shadow coming between the dark trunks of the trees, the clouds breaking up, perhaps.

"I don't agree with that," sister Rosemary said softly. "I've done a lot of reading in this regard, with Billy the way he was. Alcoholism isn't a decision, it's a disease, and Billy would have had the disease whether he married the Irish girl or Maeve, whether he'd had kids or not. It wouldn't have been such a different life, believe me. Every alcoholic's life is pretty much the same."

"Now I don't agree," Dan Lynch said under his breath, and Kate added, "It's not always fatal."

"I say it's a matter of will," Dan Lynch said, speaking up, keeping Kate from running away with the talk once again. "I drank side by side with Billy LYnch for nearly forty years. My liver's fine. Billy never had the will to stop."

Sister Rosemary frowned, shaking her head. "That's not fair. When he went to Ireland, when he took the pledge, he was truly determined. He told me so. You know what faith Billy had. And you know how seriously he took that trip. He was truly determined that time. But the disease had him in its grip." She raised a fist, showing them.

Dan Lynch poured himself and Mickey Quinn another beer. "Well, let me tell you what he told me," he said. "Down at Quinlan's, maybe a year or two after the Irish girl died. He told me," he said, lifting his glass, pointing around it, "that after year was a weight on his shoulders. Every hour was, he said." He pointed to Kate. "Remember when you said he was like a man waiting for a bus, when he was waiting to get her back here? Well, when you said that I thought: It never changed. He was still waiting, years after she'd died. But she was waiting to go to her now. Ever since the night Dennis told him the news, he was waiting to die. I'm sure of it."

"But there was Maeve," Bridie from the neighborhood cried.

"That's not fair to Maeve," sister Rosemary said.

Dan Lynch shook his head. "I'm not saying a word against Maeve. She had a lot to handle, that's for sure. But if you ask me, Billy had a foot in the hereafter even before he met Maeve." He glanced up the table and then leaned forward, lowering his voice because the guests were beginning to thin out, Billy's friends and relatives getting up to have a few more words with Maeve, to go to the bathroom, or to get another drink before departing.

"We went to Mass together once. Feast of the Assumption. August 15. We'd both stopped into Quinlan's after work, a blazing hot day if there ever was one, hot as Hades, and both of us realized at the same time what the date was. We hightailed it over to 6:30 Mass at St. Sebastian's and, I don't know, I glanced at Billy, just after Communion. It struck me that it wasn't any thought of Our Lord or the Blessed Mother that put that look on his face. It was the girl. The Irish girl. When he turned his eyes to heaven, that's who he saw."

"Oh, nonsense," sister Rosemary whispered.

Mickey Quinn studied the ceiling. Down the table, a few heads turned, perhaps sensing a fight.

Dan Lynch took a sip of his beer, pursed his lips around the taste. "What's nonsense is all this disease business," he said. "Maybe for some people it's a disease. But maybe for some there are things that happen in their lives that they just can't live with. Things that take the sweetness out of everything. Maybe for some it's a sadness they can't get rid of or a disappointment that won't go away. And you know what I say to those people? I say good luck to those people." He raised his glass, raised his chin. "I say maybe they're not as smart and sensible and accepting as every one of us," indicating every one of us with a sweep of his beer, "but they're loyal. They're loyal to their own feelings. They're loyal to the first plans they made - just like Billy was loyal to Holtzman and the job he gave him. And like he would have been loyal to her if she had lived and come back here and they'd gotten married. Just like he was loyal to Maeve. Billy never breathed another word about that girl after he married Maeve. But the girl was first, and for Billy she would always be first. That's the kind of guy he was. Maeve couldn't change him."

"I think he went to her grave when he was in Ireland," Kate said suddenly. "I just have the feeling that sometime while he was over there he went to the town she was from and visited her grave. I think it was the whole reason he made the trip."

Rosemary shook her head, appealed to Mickey Quinn, who was intent on dissolving the sugar in his coffee. "He went with Father Ryan to take the pledge," she said patiently. "To make the retreat. To quit drinking."

But Kate said, "Oh, Rose, think about it. Ireland's not the only place that has retreats for alcoholics. He could have made one over here. Maybe he thought if he went to her grave he could put something to rest, finally. Put his feelings for her to rest so then he could quit drinking."

"But he couldn't," Dan Lynch said sadly, and poured another little beer.

"He couldn't," Kate agreed. "Which is why it didn't stick, as determined as he was."

But Rosemary's mouth was set. "No," she said firmly. "Look, there are faster and more pleasant ways of killing yourself. I tell you, I've read everything there is about this. Alcoholism is a disease, it's genetic. Our own father ruined his liver as well and probably would have died the same way if he hadn't gotten cancer. And Uncle John in Philadlephia was an alcoholic. And two of his sons - Chuck and Peter - go to AA. And Ted. And Mary Casey and Helen Lynch. And Dennis's father was no teetotaler either."

"Uncle Daniel died of cancer," Dan Lynch said indignantly. "He was no drunk." He turned to Bridie and Mickey Quinn. "He brought his six brothers and a sister over here and God knows how many other friends and relations. All on a motorman's salary."

"He was a saint," Bridie from the neighborhood said, nodding. "My mother always said so."

"Okay," Rosemary said. "God bless Uncle Daniel, but my point is that our family has what they call a genetic predisposition to both cancer and alcoholism. Billy had it in his genes."

"When he came back from Ireland," Kate said softly, stroking the stem of her glass. "June of '75 - I remember because my Daniel had just graduated from Fordham - he went straight out to Long Island. Out to the little house. Dennis was there, it wasn't long after he'd lost Claire. Remember how he used to rent the place back from his mother's tenant so he could spend his vacation? Well, Billy wasn't home for more than a day when he took the train out - and he hadn't been there in years."

"Meaning?" Rosemary asked coolly.

"Meaning he went back to the place he first met her. Eva. He was trying to work something out."

"Oh, honestly," Rosemary said. "It had been nearly thirty years. What was there to work out? It was a shame that she died, but Billy had thirty years of living since then. I mean, come on, name me anything that's going to stay with you that strongly for thirty years."

Which seemed to silence our end of the table for a moment, as if the thing we would mention had only momentarily slipped our minds.

Cousin Rosemary poked her swizzle stick into the remaining ice in her glass. "It's all water under the bridge," she said, as if water from under the bridge was the very thing the tall glass contained. "What's the point of even discussing all this now? Billy was here and now he's gone, and I for one just can't believe it. Despite his troubles." Tears now. "I'll miss him. I'll miss his voice over the phone. I'll miss his smiling face."

"Hear, hear," Mickey Quinn said.

But Dan Lynch raised his beer again. He was whispering, his voice fierce. "I just don't think it credits a man's life to say he was in the clutches of a disease and that's what ruined him. Say he was too loyal. Say he was disappointed. Say he made way too much of the Irish girl and afterwards couldn't look life square in the face. But give him some credit for feeling, for having a hand in his own fate. Don't say it was a disease that blindsided him and wiped out everything he was." He bit off a drink, his face flushed. "Do the man that favor, please."

Sorcerer

I watched Sorcerer last week - my own wee at-home tribute to the great Roy Scheider.

The film was pretty much dead on arrival when it opened in 1977. Friedkin had been riding a high wave with The French Connection and The Exorcist - the American auteur thing was spiralling out of control (but damn, it created some damn fine films in that decade) - and Friedkin was one of the biggest examples of the new trend. You see any picture of him in the 70s and he's wearing Ray Banz and a long silk scarf like he's some French aesthete strolling through Los Angeles. With Jeanne Moreau, his wife, on his arm.

Sorcerer was filmed on location - insanely. For example: less than 5 minutes of it takes place in Jerusalem - so dammit, they went to Israel. Unbelievable costs escalated. They filmed on location in the jungles of the Dominican Republic - as well as in the streets of New Jersey. There were 2 or 3 scenes that took place in Paris, so of course they all went to France. It was out of control. Also, to make matters worse for the money-men in Hollywood - there was only one "name" in it - Roy Scheider (who was at the top of his game in the 70s). The rest of the actors were foreigners - much of the film is in subtitles. What?? Every step of the way was a fight for Friedkin - who had complete creative control and went nuts with his power. Friedkin had won the Best Director Oscar for French Connection, surprising many - so he basically did what he wanted to do. Hang the budget. Hang the money guys. What do THEY know. The director was king.

Little did Friedkin know that yes, the director WAS king, but a very new kind of director was about to be born. At the very same time his crew was hurtling around the globe filming 2 minute scenes in one country, 3 minute scenes in another ... a little geeky dude nobody really thought much of - at least not in comparison to the bigwigs of the day (Peter Fonda, Coppola, Scorsese) - was making a movie up in the Bay Area about robots and some kind of intergalactic war or some such shit. Who knows. Who cares. Robots? Whatever.

Sorcerer was finally completed. Trailers were put together. The money-dudes and the powers-that-be still thought, when they looked at The Sorcerer - what the hell is this. Nobody is gonna want to see this. It rains for 90% of the picture. We have subtitles. No stars except for Scheider. It's bleak. It ends on a horribly inevitable note.

The little geek from the Bay Area had completed his movie as well, and it was decided to run the initial trailer for The Sorcerer during the first screenings. History was about to change.

In Peter Biskind's Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex-Drugs-and-Rock 'N' Roll Generation Saved Hollywood (marvelous book) - Biskind describes what happened during the first screenings of the stupid sci-fi robot movie:

The Sorcerer trailer Bud Smith cut played in front of Star Wars at the Chinese Theatre. Says Smith, "When our trailer faded to black, the curtains closed and opened again, and they kept opening and opening, and you started feeling this huge thing coming over your shoulder overwhelming you, and heard this noise, and you went right off into space. It made our film look like this little, amateurish piece of shit. I told Billy [Friedkin], 'We're fucking being blown off the screen. You've got to see this.'" ...

Friedkin went with his new wife, French actress Jeanne Moreau. Afterward, he fell into conversation with the manager of the theatre. Nodding his head toward the river of humanity cascading through the theater's doors, the man said, "This film's doing amazing business."

"Yeah, and my film's going in in a week," replied Billy nervously.

"Well, if it doesn't work, this one'll go back in again."

"Jesus!" Friedkin looked like he had been punched in the stomach. He turned to Moreau, said, "I dunno, little sweet robots and stuff, maybe we're on the wrong horse." A week later, Sorcerer did follow Star Wars into the Chinese. Dark and relentless, especially compared to Lucas's upbeat space opera, it played to an empty house, and was unceremoniously pulled to make room for the return of C3P0 et al.

"Maybe we're on the wrong horse ..."

They were. Sorcerer was an enormous bomb. It was barely seen at all. Star Wars mania swept away everything in its path. The monetary losses were astronomical for Sorcerer. It was over. It would take years for Friedkin to recover.

The thing about Sorcerer is: you must see it outside of that context. Or, it's interesting to know the context in which it opened - like: TOTALLY wrong time for a movie like that to open. 1972? It might have been a massive hit. But 1977? Not a chance. The pendulum was shifting.

But I happen to think - and I know I'm not alone - that Sorcerer is not only Billy Friedkin's masterpiece, but it's a masterpiece in general. Friedkin has a gift ( a GIFT, I tell you) of creating action sequences that feel so real they are almost disorienting. Action sequences just aren't done like that now. It's rare, anyway - there are exceptions. I am thinking of the famous car-chasing-train sequence in The French Connection (clip here). And even more astonishing to me - the car chase on the freeway - going the OPPOSITE direction of oncoming traffic - in To Live and Die in LA (you can see snippets of it in the teaser/trailer here) - that's gotta be one of the greatest action sequences I have ever seen. I find myself whirling into a tailspin when I watch it - thoughts coming fast and furious, making no sense .... "how on earth did they do this ... oh fucking SHIT look out ... is this really happening? how did they do it? AHHH, look out ..." It's exhilirating. You realize - when you see sequences like that - how much we miss when things are too computerized. I am not anti-technology - but to see that sequence in To Live and Die in LA puts every CGI experience I have had to shame. It's fucking AWESOME, is what it is.

Friedkin's sense of reality - however it was he created it - doesn't just apply to action sequences - although he really can't be topped in that regard. In general, when things happen in Friedkin's movies, it looks like they are really happening. For example, there's a scene in Sorcerer where the workers at the oil field in the nameless Latin American country start to riot - because of the explosion that had happened - and they start to storm one of the military trucks in the area. It is a terrifying scene - there aren't a lot of cuts - so you really feel like what you are looking at is actually happening. It's like the big crowd scenes outside the bank in Dog Day Afternoon (clip here). To me, those people don't feel like extras. They feel like a fucking CROWD. A crowd that could, at any moment, morph into something dangerous and violent. And it's done in lots of long shots, and helicopter shots ... it's not created in the editing room (or not entirely) - it feels like we are looking at an EVENT.

Sorcerer - even with its implausible moments - always feels like an EVENT. It's gripping. The acting is uniformly awesome. The action sequences are beyond reproach - so much so that a couple of them are nearly unwatchable. I get too nervous. Roy Scheider is amazing.

It's a masterpiece. It just came out in the wrong year.

It used to be very hard to find - but now with Netflix, you can get it easily. I can't recommend it highly enough if you haven't seen it.

The entire plot circles around 4 guys - on the run from crimes in other countries - who end up in this rainy jungly Latin American country - and they take a job where they have to transport 6 boxes of nitroglycerine through terrible terrain - seriously, if you hit a bump in the road (and there are barely any roads at all in the fictional country) - the whole thing will blow up. So the two trucks set out - to reach their destination ... and the journey of the nitro across the country - and all the obstacles and fear and problem-solving and desperation - make up the whole film.

I was watching it last week, and at one point I got up to get a drink or something - and I found myself tiptoeing into my kitchen. I did it without thinking - and tiptoed around getting my glass out of the cupboard and opening the fridge - and it suddenly occurred to me, 'Why the hell am I tiptoeing?"

And then I realized why: I didn't want the nitro to blow up.

You know, the nitro that doesn't really exist because it's only in a movie. Whatever - I TIPTOED, DAMMIT.

Below - you'll see not only the most stunning sequence in the film - but one of the most stunning action sequences in any film. EVER. It's up there with the crowd dragging the boat over the mountain in Fitzcarraldo - where you know you are watching something totally extraordinary, a once in a lifetime event (trailer here). In the scene from Sorcerer below, there are a couple of long shots where it convinces you: they are really doing this.

Basically it's a monsoon. They're in a truck. They come to a bridge. They need to cross it. Nitro is in the back of the truck. And just watch what happens - and watch how it is done. No fakery here. We're looking at something that is really happening. However they 'did it', however they made it occur - I don't know ... but the illusion is complete. Unbelievable.

"I Told You So, You Fucking Fools"

or ... that's what Robert Conquest reportedly wanted to call the new edition of his book The Great Terror when it came out with updated information - information which basically not only vindicated Conquest (who had been pilloried for years), but MORE than proved his case. In almost every situation, he had actually underestimated the number of millions killed by Stalin. Here's one of my posts on The Great Terror (and an excerpt from the book) - it's one of the most important books of the 20th century. And man, can that dude write!! He's a poet, too. Seriously, Robert Conquest is one of my intellectual idols.

Anyway, here's a lengthy awesome piece in The New Criterion about The Great Terror - great stuff.

I would totally pick up a book called I Told You So, You Fucking Fools.

Here's all my stuff on Stalin, for those of you so inclined.

"The shiny guy always worries."

Star Wars re-capped by a 3-year-old.

(thanks House Next Door)

The Books: "The Road" (Cormac McCarthy)

Next book in my on my adult fiction shelves:

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

Kate and my sister Jean were the ones who made me read this book. This terrible terrifying haunting book. I read it in 2 days, I think - maybe less - not just because I couldn't put it down, but because I was afraid to put it down, because then I would be left alone with my thoughts, and oh no, we can't have THAT! I remember Kate saying to me, in this small scared voice over the phone, "Sheila ... do you know what a catamite is?" "No, I don't." "I didn't either. Now I do, and I wish I had never learned it." "What is it?" "Just read the book." The word "catamite" occurs once in the book, if I can recall - once. And there is no given definition - if you don't know what it is, you have to look it up. And yeah, I looked it up, and yeah, I wish I had never learned what that word means. It's kind of startling, because the book is written in the starkest prose possible. It's not like Richard Powers' books, where you need a dictionary nearby just to get through a page. So the word "catamite" pretty much SHRIEKS at you off the page - and to me, just the word itself is terrifying. The definition is terrifying, too - especially when you don't think of it in terms of ancient history, but when you think of it in terms of your own son - and what will be done to him if you get separated - but it's terrifying just in the context of the rest of the book, and how it is written. The word comes across like a screaming violin chord out of the silence.

If you haven't read the book, all I can do is say: read it. I can't say it's a good experience. It's a horrifying experience - but it's a helluva book. He's a helluva writer. (Congrats to Mr. McCarthy, by the way ... it was nice seeing him there at the Oscars. I love his face.)

I grew up in fear of nuclear winter. My childhood occurred at the ass-end of the Cold War. I remember watching The Day After on television and it just haunted my dreams, stalking me ... It was such a helpless feeling. To think of a nuclear bomb going off nearby - and the horror that would ensue. It all just seemed so unfair. Little children would burn up? What would we do Where would we go?

The Road takes place in a post-apocalyptic world. A father and son (who remain nameless) are traveling south through the ashy burnt-up landscape - trying to get to a warmer climate. They walk through what used to be the United States. The son is a young boy, 8 or 9. Tears streamed down my face as I read the book. McCarthy is (if you've read his other stuff) the opposite of a sentimental writer. The guy is brutal. But God, such a master. The relationship between the father and son is drawn starkly, there are long conversations - with short little sentences - the boy asking questions, the father answering. The struggle is to find canned food wherever they can. There are no other people. Or - for the most part, there are no other people. In the post-apocalypse - man has reverted to savagery. There are now clear 'good guys' and 'bad guys'. The bad guys have become cannibals. A war has gone on - for food and survival. The father and son come across small towns - where there are heads on spikes on the outskirts. If you see another human being, you do not feel joy at the fact that there is another survivor - you feel terror that this person might be a bad guy. Not to mention the whole catamite situation. Women play no part in this new world. They are barely mentioned. The father and son have a gun - with a limited amount of bullets. The father and son have been abandoned by the wife/mother ... she couldn't take it. There are flashbacks to this. The father remembers calmer times, happier times ... from before the nuclear winter. But now it is just the two of them. Walking. There is snow. But everything is polluted. Nothing swims in the lakes. The water is ruined. Cormac McCarthy just creates this new world in such a nightmarish clarity - the fact that there are no colors ... you ACHE for a color to show up ... at least, I did. God, where is the green? Can't we see a patch of blue? You realize, as you read it, what a miraculously beautiful world we live in. Sunsets, stars, waves, flowers ... what glory it all is ... how much it all would be missed.

It's a wrenching book. It left me exhausted. There is a strange grain of hope at the very end ... actually, all the way through there is a strange grain of hope ... just because you love these two characters ... and if they survive, then maybe there would be hope for whatever civilization will arise in the aftermath. There's not much hope, because everything has been destroyed. Whatever will be built will take centuries ... it's all over. Mankind as we know it is over. But the father and son represent hope for humanity. Like the father says to the son, when they are shivering with cold at night, "We carry the fire with us." He means it literally - like: we do not have fire right now, but we will be warm because "we carry the fire with us". But he also means it in a more transcendent sense, as in - you. Me. We are the hope of the world. The fire of life, the fire of the human race, is within us. We carry it with us. No matter how bad things get.

I can't say I enjoyed The Road. It was too upsetting. But I'll sure never forget it. Highly recommended.

Here's an excerpt. Father and son are in the woods ... and a man comes upon them - terrifying - malevolent - and the father shoots him. The man's head explodes all over the son's face. The father picks up the son and they run off though the woods. The "this is my job" part below still brings me to tears.

EXCERPT FROM The Road by Cormac McCarthy

He made two more trips into the woods, dragging armloads of brush and limbs to the bridge and pushing them over the side. He could see the glow of the fire from some distance but he didn't think it could be seen from the other road. Below the bridge he could make out a dark pool of standing water among the rocks. A rim of shelving ice. He stood on the bridge and shoved the last pile of wood over, his breath white in the glow of the firelight.

He sat in the sand and inventoried the contents of the knapsack. The binoculars. A half pint bottle of gasoline almost full. The bottle of water. A pair of pliers. Two spoons. He set everything out in a row. There were five small tins of food and he chose a can of sausages and one of corn and he opened these with the little army can opener and set them at the edge of the fire and they sat watching the labels char and curl. When the corn began to steam he took the cans from the fire with the pliers and they sat bent over them with their spoons, eating slowly. The boy was nodding with sleep.

When they'd eaten he took the boy out on the gravelbar below the bridge and he pushed away the thin shore ice with a stick and they knelt there while he washed the boy's face and hair. The water was so cold the boy was crying. They moved down the gravel to find fresh water and he washed his hair again as well as he could and finally stopped because the boy was moaning with the cold of it. He dried him with the blanket, kneeling there in the glow of the light with the shadow of the bridge's understructure broken across the palisade of treetrunks beyond the creek. This is my child, he said. I wash a dead man's brains out of his hair. That is my job. Then he wrapped him in the blanket and carried him to the fire.

The boy sat tottering. The man watched him that he not topple into the flames. He kicked holes in the sand for the boy's hips and shoulders where he would sleep and he sat holding him while he tousled his hair before the fire to dry it. All of this like some ancient anointing. So be it. Evoke the forms. Where you've nothing else construct ceremonies out of the air and breathe upon them.

He woke in the night with the cold and rose and broke up more wood for the fire. The shapes of the small treelimbs burning incandescent orange in the coals. He blew the flames to life and piled on the wood and sat with his legs crossed, leaning against the stone pier of the bridge. Heavy limestone blocks laid up without mortar. Overhead the ironwork brown with rust, the hammered rivets, the wooden sleepers and crossplanks. The sand where he sat was warm to the touch but the night beyond the fire was sharp with the cold. He got up and dragged fresh wood in under the bridge. He stood listening. The boy didn't stir. He sat beside him and stroked his pale and tangled hair. Golden chalice, good to house a god. Please don't tell me how the story ends. When he looked out again at the darkness beyond the bridge it was snowing.

All the wood they had to burn was small wood and the fire was good for no more than an hour and perhaps a bit more. He dragged the rest of the brush in under the bridge and broke it up, standing on the limbs and cracking them to length. He thought the noise would wake the boy but it didn't. The wet wood hissed in the flames, the snow continued to fall. In the morning they would see if there were tracks in the road or not. This was the first human being other than the boy that he'd spoken to in more than a year. My brother at last. The reptilian calculations in those cold and shifting eyes. The gray and rotting teeth. Claggy with human flesh. Who has made of the world a lie every word. When he woke again the snow had stopped and the grainy dawn was shaping out the naked woodlands beyond the bridge, the trees black against the snow. He was lying curled up with his hands between his knees and he sat up and got the fire going and he set a can of beets in the embers. The boy lay huddled on the ground watching him.

The new snow lay in skifts all through the woods, along the limbs and cupped in the leaves, all of it already gray with ash. They hiked out to where they'd left the cart and he put the knapsack in and pushed it out to the road. No tracks. They stood listening in the utter silence. Then they set out along the road through the gray slush, the boy at his side with his hands in his pockets.

They trudged all day, the boy in silence. By afternoon the slush had melted off the road and by evening it was dry. They didn't stop. How many miles? Ten, twelve. They used to play quoits in the road with four big steel washers they'd found in a hardware store but these were gone with everything else. That night they camped in a ravine and built a fire against a small stone bluff and ate their last tin of food. He'd put it by because it was the boy's favorite, pork and beans. They watched it bubble slowly in the coals and he retrieved the tin with the pliers and they ate in silence. He rinsed the empty tin with water and gave it to the child to drink and that was that. I should have been more careful, he said.
The boy didn't answer.
You have to talk to me.
Okay.
You wanted to know what the bad guys looked like. Now you know. It may happen again. My job is to take care of you. I was appointed to do that by God. I will kill anyone who touches you. Do you understand?
Yes.
He sat there cowled in the blanket. After a while he looked up. Are we still the good guys? he said.
Yes. We're still the good guys.
And we always will be.
Yes. We always will be.
Okay.

In the morning they came up out of the ravine and took to the road again. He'd carved the boy a flute from a piece of roadside cane and he took it from his coat and gave it to him. The boy took it wordlessly. After a while he fell back and after a while the man could hear him playing. A formless music for the age to come. Or perhaps the last music on earth called up from out of the ashes of its ruin. The man turned and looked back at him. He was lost in concentration. The man thought he seemed some sad and solitary changeling child announcing the arrival of a traveling spectacle in shire and village who does not know that behind him the players have all been carried off by wolves.

Geek

You know you're a US presidents geek when you accidentally buy the same biography of Chester Alan Arthur twice. Chester freakin' Alan Arthur? Ooh, let me bone up on Chester Alan Arthur ... need to have two of the same biography ... one for work, one for home ....

Next up? Millard freakin' Fillmore. Fun!

No. It's not fun. But it's totally interesting, and I'm getting a bit autistic about it.

It is also just proof that I have too many books. I am unaware of what I already own.

I'm going chronologically thru the presidents, reading bios of each. I'm on Andrew Jackson now. There's a lot I didn't know. You know, like James K. Polk's teenage agony.

The Books: "Shopgirl: A Novella" (Steve Martin)

Next book in my on my adult fiction shelves:

Shopgirl by Steve Martin

I have great fondness for this lovely and piercing short book. Steve Martin, as a writer (his plays, his essays in The New Yorker, his stories) has always touched me. This is the dude who wore an arrow through his head and played the banjo? Yes, it is. That's one of the things that I have always loved about Steve Martin, and what set him apart, in my opinion, from other comedians. There was always something very "heady" about Steve Martin's comedy - even though it LOOKED crazy and chaotic and he roller-skated around on The Tonight Show dressed up as a pharaoah. There was still something extremely intellectual about it.

Last year I read his memoir about his stand-up years (Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life) and it was one of my favorite books from 2007. Just fantastic. The consciousness he had about what he was trying to do ... the different elements that converged (magic tricks, banjo, why he wore the white suit) - and also how PLANNED it all was. Much of it did come to him by accident, or were just evidence of his proclivities (he loved magic tricks, worked in a magic, shop as a teenager, etc.) - but how he put it all together, clipping, honing, deciding - was all a matter of conscious choice. This wasn't just a happy accident. It was Steve Martin's intellectual rigor - asking himself, "Does this work? Why does it not? Let me make it work. Okay, it doesn't work. Let me drop it then ..." It's a fascinating book, one of the best I have ever read about a particular artist's creative process - and one that is quite singular, I think. He walked away! After playing stadiums - he walked away. He wasn't an honest stand-up, meaning - he did not upend his personal life for the amusement of the crowds. Not that there's anything wrong with that, Jesus - don't take the comparison as me saying one is better than the other. There was a persona - the guy in the white suit, with the arrow thru his head ... He said he wanted to look like a refugee "from the straight world". Ironically, Steve Martin never did drugs. Or, he did drugs one night - had a horrifying experience where he thought he was going to die - and never did them again. Which is incredible when you think about the appeal of his stand-up and how so much of it was aimed at totally STONED people ... but Martin was never stoned. He is, in a way, a very straight-and-narrow guy. There's something very sympathetic about him. At least for someone like me, who often (99% of the time) leads with her brain. I am not an intuitive person. Or, i can be - but it's the brain that is always paramount. It causes a lot of problems. It makes me the rigid (ie: fragile) person that I am. But it also is what makes me interesting, creative, and voracious. It's a tough balance. It has given me a lot of grief. People see intellectual passion and assume all kinds of things about you ... and they are bound to be disappointed. At least that has been my experience. I could be a very loving open warm person, and to my friends I am that, etc. - but when I feel insecure, threatened, out of my depth, or just bored - I am armored up in the brainiac's defense. It is second nature. Steve Martin seems to have a similar thing going on - and maybe that's why I have always responded to him. I loved him when I was a kid, when half of his jokes went over my head ... and I'm not wacky about him when he tries to be "cuddly" and takes on "pater familias" roles - to me, he's not convincing in them.

But let me bring it back to Shopgirl and now mention the film that was made of his book: when Steve Martin plays someone isolated, and kind of cold - like the Ray Porter character - he is fantastic. I thought he was fantastic in the part. I don't know who Steve Martin is. I know (from his book) that he has a crowd of lifelong friends - people he feels in debt to ... he knows the help he has gotten to get to his position, and he is grateful, and still kind of in awe about how the whole thing happened. But when he steps into Ray Porter - the chilly 50-something bachelor - who sees "something" in Mirabelle, the young woman behind the glove counter - you can't imagine anyone else in the role. Steve Martin is, at heart, an isolated guy. Think of him all alone on those massive stadium stages, in his white suit, making balloon "animals". I am not convinced by him in ensemble pieces - but in Shopgirl he was wonderful - I think it's his best performance yet. Well worth seeing, if you haven't.

But now let me talk about his writing, because I don't want the movie to take away from the book. It's a slim novel, and the writing is spare, almost elegant. He does not go off into flights of description, he stays on point. There are three main characters: Mirabelle, a depressive artist who lives in LA, and works behind the glove counter at Sak's. Ray Porter, a successful businessman who shuttles between Seattle and LA, and who pursues Mirabelle. Jeremy - the young messy anarchic font-designer who also pursues Mirabelle. Mirabelle is a quiet serious woman, who lives a quiet lonely life (and Martin so GETS that kind of quietness - it is the type of quiet that could describe my life as well). I read the book and not only enjoyed it - but felt named by it. I felt recognized. Mirabelle is not 'swept away' by Ray Porter - he's in his 50s, totally inappropriate for her - but he, in all his chilly isolation, does "see" her. And it is a powerful experience, being seen. It can be dangerous. At least it can for me. Because "being seen" doesn't mean anything other than someone else really 'sees' you - for who you are, maybe even sees things you don't see. But to place an expectation of a specific RESULT on "being seen" - is what is dangerous. That is what has broken my heart time and time again. Being seen is so powerful that it seems like it MUST, it HAS TO, lead to something "more". It must, right? It can't be otherwise! And when you are lonely, it becomes even more acute. It seems like being seen will also SAVE you. This is what Mirabelle experiences when she is with Ray. They do have sex, and all that - but for Mirabelle, what is going on with him, is profound. It's profound for Ray, too - but he is in a different place, and in a way - he doesn't realize how dangerous the situation is. He thinks Mirabelle understands the situation, he thinks they have an understanding: of course the relationship won't "go" anywhere ... but for now, it is lovely, right? Ray is not a cad, though - he really isn't. He is a lonely intellectual-minded man, who flies around in private jets, eats in the kitchen standing up - and finds Mirabelle's innocence completely captivating. He feels guilty, though - she is a young woman, after all ... so he buys her expensive gifts - things that overwhelm her. Shoes, purses, etc. He has exquisite taste. Lonely quiet Mirabelle, on antidepressants, begins to blossom. Again, Ray doesn't realize how dangerous it is to be the agent of someone's blossoming - if you don't expect to stick around. On the flipside, there is Jeremy - a young guy, who can barely do his own laundry - who orates at Mirabelle about the nature of the music business, and fonts, and his ambition ... who struggles with condoms, who is, in general, a big man-boy. But again: he sees something in Mirabelle. Jeremy's journey in Shopgirl is almost my favorite of the whole book. I don't want to write more about it - because I'm making it sound conventional and maybe even a little bit preachy - and it is neither of those things. The way it is written is what is unconventional about it. The "voice" of the book (and that whole "voice" concept will come up again and again in the book - you'll even see it in the excerpt below) struck me right away. This is not a casual in-the-moment voice. Of course not. It's Steve Martin. Steve Martin's genius had to do with his distance from things - hard to explain (but he does a great job of it in his memoir). He is not in the thick-and-thin of life ... he stands slightly to the side. That's what the voice of this delicate little book sounds like. I loved the voice. It is (not to give anything more away) completely omniscent - which might seen a bit heavy-handed for such a tiny little love story. But Martin uses it very consciously. It is how the story NEEDS to be told. I love the sound of the book. There are times in the thick-and-thin of life, the unfairness of events, the up and down of fortune ... when I also yearn for an omniscent voice. It's just great how Martin sets it all up.

Here's an excerpt. It's one of those times in the book when I feel recognized by the prose. The beginning of it stays quite matter-of-fact ... the voice is calmly telling us what it is like for Mirabelle. But then at the end of the excerpt - watch how it shifts. Great stuff. Because when we are consumed with self, we often cannot see ourselves. And sometimes it takes an observer to tell us who we are. Kind of like Jack Nicholson does to Diane Keaton in the pancake-making scene in the middle of the night in Something's Gotta Give. They have known each other for 24 hours - and he says a couple of pointed things to her and she says, "I can't decide if you hate me ... or if you're the only person who's ever gotten me."

That's what is going on in this book. It's a lonely book. Loneliness can change your personality. It can warp (permanently) what once was straight and sure. Loneliness is a condition, and it has long-term effects. After a certain amount of time, being in relation with your fellow man begins to feel stressful, even though you desire it. Loneliness warps. Mirabelle is on that path.

EXCERPT FROM Shopgirl A Novella by Steve Martin

the weekend

It is 9 a.m., and for the second time that morning Mirabelle is awake. The first time was two hours earlier when Jeremy slipped out, giving her a kiss good-bye that was so formal it might as well have been wearing a tuxedo. She didn't take it badly because, well, she couldn't afford to. She also is glad he's gone, not looking forward to the awkward task of getting to know a man she's already slept with. A little eye of sunlight forms on her bed and inches its way across her bedspread. She gets up, mixes her Serzone into a glass of orange juice, and drinks it down as though it were a quick vodka tonic, fortifying herself for the weekend.

Weekends can be dangerous for someone of Mirabelle's fragility. One little slipup in scheduling and she can end up staring at eighteen hours of television. That's why she joined a volunteer organization that goes out and builds and repairs houses for the disadvantaged, a kind of community cleanup operation, called Habitat for Humanity. This takes care of the day. Saturday night usually offers a spontaneous get-together with the other Habitat workers in a nearby bar. If that doesn't happen, which this night it doesn't, Mirabelle is not afraid to go to a local bar alone, which this night she does, where she might run into someone she knows or nurse a drink and listen to the local band. As she sits in a booth and checks the amplifiers for Jeremy's signature stencil, it never occurs to Mirabelle to observe herself, and thus she is spared the image of a shy girl sitting alone in a bar on Saturday night. A girl who is willing to give every ounce of herself to someone, who could never betray her lover, who never suspects maliciousness of anyone, and whose sexuality sleeps in her, waiting to be stirred. She never feels sorry for herself, except when the overpowering chemistry of depression inundates her and leaves her helpless. She moved from Vermont hoping to begin her life, and now she is stranded in the vast openness of L.A. She keeps working to make connections, but the pile of near misses is starting to overwhelm her. What Mirabelle needs is some omniscent voice to illuminate and spotlight her, and to inform everyone that this one has value, this one over here, the one sitting in the bar by herself, and then to find her counterpart and bring him to her.

But that night, the voice does not come, and she quietly folds herself up and leaves the bar.

The voice is to come on Tuesday.

My Oscar picks

These are not necessarily what I think SHOULD win - but what I think WILL win. I will not editorialize here in this post (except to say that the fact that Zodiac was snubbed all around is totally baffling to me. That was the best movie I saw last year, hands down. Not to mention the all-around snub of The Darjeeling Limited which was also one of my favorites from last year). So this post is just a declaration of my intentions. I won the Oscar pool last year at Dublin 6 (I chose Lives of Others over Pan's Labyrinth as best Foreign Language film and that made all the difference between me and 200 bucks) - and I want to win it again. Normally I'm all "ooh, I'll jinx it if I say it beforehand" but right now? No. Let's be open and clear.

There are some awards I am more invested in than others (JULIE CHRISTIE JULIE CHRISTIE) ... but here's what I think WILL win. Let's see how I do.

Best Picture
No Country For Old Men

Best Actor
Daniel Day-Lewis

Best Actress
Julie Christie

Best Supporting Actor
Javier Bardem

Best Supporting Actress
Cate Blanchett

Best Director
Joel and Ethan Coen

Best Original Screenplay
Juno

Best Adapted Screenplay
No Country For Old Men

Best Animated Feature
Ratatouille

Best Art Direction
Sweeney Todd

Best Cinematography
There Will Be Blood

Best Costume Design
Atonement (we'll throw 'em a bone)

Best Documentary
No End in Sight

Best Documentary Short Subject
Sari's Mother

Best Film Editing
No Country For Old Men

Best Foreign Film
The Counterfeiters

Best Makeup
La Vie en Rose

Best Original Score
Atonement (throw 'em another bone)

Best Original Song
"Falling Slowly"

Best Animated Short
I Met the Walrus

Best Live Action Short
The Tonto Woman

Best Sound Editing
There Will Be Blood

Best Sound Mixing
Transformers

Best Visual Effects
Transformers

The Books: "Life of Pi" (Yann Martel)

Next book on my adult fiction shelves:

Life of Pi by Yann Martel

There was a good year when you looked around at people on the subway, and you always knew that at least one of them would be reading Life of Pi. It was everywhere. My sister gave it to me for my birthday a couple years ago - she had loved it.

I finally picked it up in 2006 (I have to be in the mood for fiction - and I have also expressed before my natural - and sometimes unfair - antipathy to really popular books that "everyone" seems to be reading.) - but in 2006 I read a lot of new fiction, popular stuff - and Life of Pi was one of those books. I read it in 3 days. Couldn't put it down.

To me, the book was really about narrative - how we create our own stories, to survive this life. I wrote about that here. The entire book is a gripping shipwreck tale - a young Indian boy and a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker (how much do we love Richard Parker??) - trapped in a lifeboat, hundreds, maybe thousands of miles from land ... but there is a twist at the end (I wouldn't dream of giving it away) that calls it all into question. But it's not a gimmick, of an M. Night Shamalamadingdong device - it struck me as totally plausible. Narrative is what we humans have. It is what we have always had. From the first caveman who came "home" and drew pictures on a wall to show his triumph over a woolly mammoth. We tell stories to each other. Some are true, some are lies, some are exaggerations. There are all kinds of reasons for stories. Some people are pathological with their stories, and you can't tell what is true. Some people THINK they don't tell stories - they think that there is such a thing as "the way it is", objectivity, etc. - so they tell their stories in a different manner than the person who tells the story about the biggest fish he caught - where exaggeration is understood, and accepted. But when you get right down to it, each of us are trapped in our own experience - there is only one me, there is only one you ... Nobody can tell me what it is like to be ME, and I cannot presume to know what it is like to be you. All we have, as in-roads into each other's lives, are the stories we tell one another. And each story is basically us saying, "This is who I am. This is what it is like for me."

Life of Pi, for the most part, didn't feel like a story, or a tall tale. It is written in unsentimental clear language, and much of it is structured in a "so this happened next", "and then this happened". manner, Much of it is nearly unbelievable. I mean, he is on a tiny lifeboat with a Bengal tiger. But the way Yann Martel writes Pi's experiences ... how he figures out how to survive - not just the lifeboat experience - but the lifeboat experience with a dangerous man-eating animal 2 feet away. It is one of the all-time great survival stories. He must figure out the food situation, the water situation - he must somehow feed Richard Parker - so that Richard Parker doesn't eat HIM - but he also must feed himself. Pi is not a super-human. He is a teenager. But in this particular situation, the life-force asserts himself, and he does what it takes. He has to be very creative. I read the book, and at one point I thought, "My God. What would I do in this situation? Would I give up?" It's relentless.

One of the things I really loved about the book was that Richard Parker was not anthropomorphized. He obviously had a personality - most animals do - he has reactions to things, he makes eye contact with Pi, he snarls, etc. - and Pi definitely forms a "relationship" to Richard Parker - but it is out of necessity. Or - partly necessity. The excerpt I chose to post today shows that there is a bit more going on there for Pi ... but it's not like Richard Parker is, at heart, a cuddly warm beast just DYING for the chance to "make friends" with an Indian boy. No. He is a ferocious animal. And he always seems dangerous. He always seems "other" - meaning: he does not seem like a human being in a tiger suit. Ever. He is always a tiger. Yann Martel really goes into all of this - what tigers are like, how they behave ... Richard Parker, as tiger, totally comes alive. If you've read the book, don't you think that is true? He just seems so alive to me. But still alien.

The "author's note" at the beginning of the book (which sets up the almost documentary feel to the whole thing ... it's written as though it is non-fiction, or as though it is a journalist's rendering of this amazing shipwreck story) contains the phrase: "I know a story that will make you believe in God."

That's quite a promise.

But it also goes back to what I was saying before - about narrative, and the different purposes of narrative in our lives. It has been with us from the beginning of consciousness. Why do we tell stories? To entertain, to explain, to deflect criticism, to puff ourselves up with importance ... there are a million reasons. Life of Pi, from the get-go, is set up as a "story" - many books are not, of course - even though they are, indeed, stories. But other books have a trompe l'oeil feel - it's a different kind of story. Life of Pi admits, at the beginning, that this is a "story". The story itself is so gripping that you lose yourself in it (or at least, I did) - and then - at the very end, you are reminded, once again, that this is a story. Story does not equal lie, by the way - although sometimes stories are lies. And sometimes a lie is just as good as the truth, or even better. A lie can help us survive this awful world, with its tragedies and unfairness. And so at the end of Life of Pi, the story re-asserts itself, as STORY - the reader must grapple with the implications of that. And we are faced with a choice: which story do we believe? One is "the better story". One is (or might be) the truth. We have to choose. Just like Pi had to choose.

If you haven't read Life of Pi, I highly recommend it.

Here's an excerpt.

EXCERPT FROM Life of Pi by Yann Martel

It was Richard Parker who calmed me down. It is the irony of this story that the one who scared me witless to start with was the very same who brought me peace, purpose, I dare say even wholeness.

He was looking at me intently. After a time I recognized the gaze. I had grown up with it. It was the gaze of a contented animal looking out from its cage or pit the way you or I would look out from a restaurant table after a good meal, when the time has come for conversation and people-watching. Clearly, Richard Parker had eaten his fill of hyena and drunk all the rainwater he wanted. No lips were rising and falling, no teeth were showing, no growling or snarling was coming from him. He was simply taking me in, observing me, in a manner that was sober but not menacing. He kept twitching his ears and varying the sideways turn of his head. It was all so, well, catlike. He looked like a nice, big, fat domestic cat, a 45-pound tabby.

He made a sound, a snort from his nostrils. I pricked up my ears. He did it a second time. I was astonished. Prusten?

Tigers make a variety of sounds. They include a number of roars and growls, the loudest of these being most likely the full-throated aaonh, usually made during the mating season by males and oestrous females. It's a cry that travels far and wide, and is absolutely petrifying when heard close up. Tigers go woof when they are caught unawares, a short, sharp detonation of fury that would instantly make your legs jump up and run away if they weren't frozen to the spot. When they charge, tigers put out throaty, coughing roars. The growl they use for purposes of threatening has yet another guttural quality. And tigers hiss and snarl, which, depending on the emotion behind it, sounds either like autumn leaves rustling on the ground, but a little more resonant, or, when it's an infuriated snarl, like a giant door with rusty hinges slowly opening - in both cases, utterly spine-chilling. Tigers make other sounds too. They grunt and they moan. They purr, though not as melodiously or as frequently as small cats, and only as they breathe out. (Only small cats purr breathing both ways. It is one of the characteristics that distinguishes big cats from small cats. Another is that only big cats can roar. A good thing that is. I'm afraid the popularity of the domestic cat would drop very quickly if little kitty could roar its displeasure.) Tigers even go meow, with an inflection similar to that of domestic cats, but louder and in a deeper range, not as encouraging as one to bend down and pick them up. And tigers can be utterly, majestically silent, that too.

I had heard all these sounds growing up. Except for prusten. If I knew of it, it was because Father had told me about it. He had read descriptions of it in the literature. But he had heard it only once, while on a working visit to the Mysore Zoo, in their animal hospital, from a young male being treated for pneumonia. Prusten is the quietest of tiger calls, a puff through the nose to express friendliness and harmless intentions.

Richard Parker did it again, this time with a rolling of the head. He looked exactly as if he were asking me a question.

I looked at him, full of fearful wonder. There being no immediate threat, my breath slowed down, my heart stopped knocking about in my chest, and I began to regain my senses.

I had to tame him. It was at that moment that I realized this necessity. It was not a question of him or me, but of him and me. We were, literally and figuratively, in the same boat. We would live - or we would die - together. He might be killed in an accident, or he could die shortly of natural causes, bt it would be foolish to count on such an eventuality. More likely the worst would happen: the simple passage of time, in which his animal toughness would easily outlast my human frailty. Only if I tamed him could I possibly trick him into dying first, if we had to come to that sorry business.

But there's more to it. I will come clean. I will tell you a secret: a part of me was glad about Richard Parker. A part of me did not want Richard Parker to die at all, because if he did I would be left alone with despair, a foe even more formidable than a tiger. If I still had the will to live, it was thanks to Richard Parker. He kept me from thinking too much about my family and my tragic circumstances. He pushed me to go on living. I hated him for it, yet at the same time I was grateful. I am grateful. It's the plain truth: without Richard Parker, I wouldn't be alive today to tell you my story.

I looked around at the horizon. Didn't I have here a perfect circus ring, inescapably round, without a single corner for him to hide in? I looked down at the sea. Wasn't this an ideal source of treats with which to condition him to obey? I noticed a whistle hanging from one of the life jackets. Wouldn't this make a good whip with which to keep him in line? What was missing here to tame Richard Parker? Time? It might be weeks before a ship sighted me. I had all the time in the world. Resolve? There's nothing like extreme need to give you resolve. Knowledge? Was I not a zookeeper's son? Reward? Was there any reward greater than life? Any punishment worse than death? I looked at Richard Parker. My panic was gone. My fear was dominated. Survival was at hand.

Let the trumpets blare. Let the drums roll. Let the show begin. I rose to my feet. Richard Parker noticed. The balance was not easy. I took a deep breath and shouted, "Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, hurry to your seats! Hurry, hurry. You don't want to be late. Sit down, open your eyes, open your hearts and prepare to be amused. Here it is, for your enjoyment and instruction, for your gratification and edification, the show you've been waiting for all your life, THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH! Are you ready for the miracle of it? Yes? Well then: they are amazingly adaptable. You've seen them in freezing, snow-covered temperate forests. You've seen them in dense, tropical monsoon jungles. You've seen them in sparse, semi-arid scrublands. You've seen them in brackish mangrove swamps. Truly, the would fit anywhere. But you've never seen them where you are about to see them now! Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, without further ado, it is my pleasure and honour to present to you: THE PI PATEL, INDO-CANADIAN, TRANS-PACIFIC, FLOATING CIRCUUUUUSSSSSSSSSSSS!!! TREEEEEE! TREEEEEE! TREEEEEE! TREEEEEE! TREEEEEE! TREEEEEE!"

I had an effect on Richard Parker. At the very first blow of the whistle he cringed and he snarled. Ha! Let him jump into the water if he wanted to! Let him try!

"TREEEEEE! TREEEEEE! TREEEEEE! TREEEEEE! TREEEEEE! TREEEEEE!"

He roared and he clawed the air. But he did not jump. He might not be afraid of the sea when he was driven mad by hunger and thirst, but for the time being it was a fear I could rely on.

"TREEEEEE! TREEEEEE! TREEEEEE! TREEEEEE! TREEEEEE! TREEEEEE!"

He backed off and dropped to the bottom of the boat. The first training session was over. It was a resounding success. I stopped whistling and sat down heavily on the raft, out of breath and exhausted.

And so it came to be.

Plan Number Seven: Keep Him Alive.

Comments

I need to preserve my energy, and that is why I closed comments. Please don't take it personally. It's nothing any of YOU have done. It's my life right now and what I need. I have appreciated the emails of concern - and I did NOT appreciate the one scolding email that told me my blog was "lesser" because of the no-comments. Whatever, dude. You don't know me, and you don't know what I'm going through. I am still going to leave most of them closed, just for my own stability -thanks for understanding. I'll just play it by ear - and leave some open - some closed - but the book excerpts I definitely want to leave open. That I think I can handle. Feel free to comment as you would normally. No need to hold back. Hanging out with book lovers of all stripes does wonders for my spirit. I love to hear from you all.

The Books: "The Magic Mountain" (Thomas Mann)

Next book on my adult fiction shelves:

The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann

Methinks I need to read this mutha again. I read it 10 years ago and while much of it struck me as literally some of the most brilliant thought-provoking stuff I had ever read - and even now, flipping through the book - phrases leap out at me, and send shivers down my spine ... but even with all that, much of it washed right over me. I know it is partly a function of where I was at in my life when I read it, etc. etc. I was in grad school, which was already intellectually, physically, and emotionally challenging (as it is meant to be) - and not much space was left over for The Magic Mountain - which you can't just sit down and read, in a casual manner. It demands engagement. It demands a bit of WORK on the part of the reader. And normally I love that kind of work (uhm, as should be apparent) - when someone tells me a book is "easy" and they mean it as a compliment, normally I lose interest. Just my personal taste here. I read to lose myself completely. If a book is too obvious or too formulaic, I am pulled out of it - by my own boredom. I like a challenge. That's why I sit around reading Leviathan for fun. It's hard. I like that hard-ness. But The Magic Mountain needs to be read when you have a bit more space around you - or at least that's the case with me.

The Magic Mountain always makes me think of Mitchell. He moved to Chicago 8 or 9 months after I had moved there, and he moved in with me. I lived in one room. Let's be honest. It had a stove and a fridge against one wall, and a tiny bathroom, where your knees touched the opposite wall when you were on Ye Olde can. There was actually a long narrow corridor (sort of) which acted as a closet - but other than that - it was a ROOM. M., my main flame in Chicago, who spent much time in that ROOM with me, referred to it lovingly as "the box". His friends would try to be polite to me, and say, "So it's a studio? Or a one-bedroom?" I would open my mouth to reply and M. would roar in, saying loudly, "No. No. It is a BOX." I don't know why he was complaining - he was in his mid-20s and was still living at home with Mom and Dad! But "the box" was always a big joke. And there was also a caged elevator - where you had to yank the cage open to get into the rickety thing - and it always stalled between floors and you'd have to yell for help. It was hysterical. But it was my first apartment I ever had by myself - and I loved it. I had a single bed - or no, let's be honest. It was a mattress lying on the floor. I had zero money when I moved to Chicago - zero - it was a cliche: I moved with 2 suitcases and a head full of dreams. In a month I had temped enough (wearing my one skirt and my one blazer from the Salvation Army) to make enough for one month's rent and security deposit. The box cost 350 bucks a month.

So when Mitchell moved in with me - into that space- you can imagine the hilarity. We slept together on the single mattress on the floor. My cat Sammy crawled all over us. When I wanted to have M. over, Mitchell would go sleep over at Jackie's. It was perfect. Mitchell also arrived in Chicago with zero cash, but he got a job with a theatre company in about a week - so he started working immediately. And I will always remember that Mitchell was reading The Magic Mountain during his first months in Chicago. I still remember what the book looked like. It was a second-hand, third-hand paperback he had probably bought for 25 cents - it was falling apart when he got it. It had a bright yellow cover with bright blue writing. And it was an old translation. Meaning: there is a 15 page section of the book entirely in French. In MY translation of the book, that French is translated into English. In Mitchell's book, it remained in French. Mitchell could have skipped over that part. He knew enough French to say "aricoverts" and "Leslie Caron" with aplomb ... he also loved to muse ponderingly, "Ou sont les neiges d'antan" at a propos moments. You know, you'd say something like, "God, we had such a great time in college, didn't we? We didn't even know how good we had it." And Mitchell would stare off into the distance wistfully, and murmur, "Ou sont les neiges d'antan?" hahahahaha How do you say "asshole" in French? Anyway, Mitchell was determined that the French section of the book would NOT defeat him. He would read every word. And he did. He got a French-English dictionary - and methodically went through every page, putting together what was being said. I was very impressed. It took him 2 weeks to read those pages. He would read sections out loud to me, in halting French, and tell me what it meant. When I wanted to go to sleep, he took a pillow and a blanket into the bathroom, and curled up on the bathmat, to read in French late into the night. That's what I'm talking about - when I say that difficulty has its own rewards, and often difficulty is the best gauge that you are actually engaged in the writing.

So I always associate The Magic Mountain with Mitchell, and the box. And also Mitchell's general intellectual curiosity - which always spurred me on in my own reading. It still does.

Thomas Mann's experience of the writing of The Magic Mountain is almost as interesting as the book itself. His wife had been in one of those Alpine sanatoriums - sort of like what Katherine Mansfield went through, and many other folks suffering from tuberculosis and other degenerative diseases ... and Mann's experiences visiting his wife gave him the idea for the book. But then WWI happened - and Mann stopped writing the book. The upheavals were such that Mann took another look at his book - and saw in it the germs (pun intended) of something much larger. He saw that European society itself was sick. That destruction was stronger than creation. That something rotten, so to speak, was in the state of Denmark. So he went back and re-wrote what he had already written. Is sickness a metaphor for something larger? Mann seemed to think so - and much of the book does take on the psychological affects of illness - and what that might say about the society at large. I'm thinking now of the brilliant movie Safe, where Julianne Moore's character basically becomes allergic not just to the environment, but to life itself. The world is what is ill - and if you respond to it by becoming sick yourself, then that is just further evidence. It's almost like Heller's Catch-22: It is an insane world, and if you respond to it in a sane way - then YOU will be seen as the insane one. Yossarian believes that people are trying to kill him. His commanding officers are exasperated and say, "Of course they're trying to kill you! This is war!" Yossarian doesn't see what difference THAT makes. So what that it's war? He still flies over the earth in his plane and knows that people below are shooting at him. He does not even accept the construct. And boy oh boy, does that make you insane to the rest of the world, who accepts the rules. And therein lies the Catch-22. If you are healthy in a sick sick world ... then perhaps it is YOU who are sick. So Hans Castorp - the lead character in The Magic Mountain - is sick, and goes to a sanatorium. While there, he meets all kinds of different people - and they are representative of many elements of European society - all of them hovering on the precipice of the cataclysm that will be WWI. Hans is a German. I don't think I'm reading into this when I say -Mann saw a corrupt depravity in German society at the time (well, he saw it everywhere - but being German, he saw it in Germany much more clearly) - something that if taken to heart could make you physically ill. But of course much of this takes place on another level, sub-conscious ... Who knows what it is that is making us sick? Hans ends up staying in the sanatorium for many years. You can even see it as proof that being institutionalized just makes one grow sicker. The rules of the sanatorium do reflect the rules of the outside world - but in many ways they are inverted. Life itself starts to seem dangerous. And sickness - actual sickness - becomes a shield, one's armor against the destructiveness of the world itself. When Hans leaves the sanatorium finally - WWI has broken out - and he is conscripted into the army. All hell is about to break loose. The infection is coming through the skin. Sickness can no longer be contained in the sanatorium. It's out. No more metaphors. Only reality. And God help us all.

There's so much more in this rigorous book that I am not remembering - but that is what I am left with. I read all of Katherine Mansfield's letters and diaries when I was in high school and college. She was very very ill. And by the end of her life, she had become desperate for a cure - any cure - racing all over Europe, taking quacks seriously, succumbing to what we now would call "new age" alternative medicine - anything that might stave off her death. I think it is surmised that her mad dash around Europe at the end probably hastened her death, increasing her panic and stress. She yearned for an icy blast of air to "clean" her diseased lungs. That was the cure at the time. Lie in a lawn chair in the middle of a snowfield, wrapped in blankets ... the cold will do the rest. This is the atmosphere to which Hans Castorp submits himself. And the longer he is there, the more incomprehensible it becomes to him that he will ever be "out", and healthy. The sickness takes hold while he is there - rather than lessening. Mann, of course, is making enormous points, like 20th-century life points - about who we are, as a human race, and what we are capable of - the horrors, the carnage. Sickness is a metaphor.

Even just flipping through this magnificent book right now makes me realize I need to read it again. It's an intellectual feast.

Here's an excerpt. I love the bit on "beware of irony" ... "beware of it in general". Oh, how I agree with that. And the bit about "paradoxes" gives me a chill of dread. The whole book gives me a chill of dread, actually. There's a fog in the sanatorium - it's an alternate universe with its own rules ... where 'checking out' of the travails of life is paramount. But Mann writes about it physically - the thick turgid beer, the anxiety of clear thinking (evident in the excerpt below), the clouds of cigar smoke ... just the way the dining room is set up, with thick white linen on the table, and thick muffled carpeting ... I don't know. As I recall, the point is not to get well. Not really. The point is to drown. To smooth soft edges. To submit. The main feeling up there is disorientation. Time begins to lose meaning. You begin to lose faith that you could EVER make it on the outside. It becomes easier and easier to just stay, to foster your own sickness - so that you never have to leave. You can see Hans Castorp go through such an experience in the excerpt below. The sickness re-trenches itself - with his explicit permission.

EXCERPT FROM The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann

How did young Hans Castorp actually feel about all this? For instance, did the seven weeks he had demonstrably, indubitably spent with these people here feel like a mere seven days? Or did it seem to him just the opposite, that he had lived here now much, much lover than he really had? He asked himself those same questions, both privately of himself and formally of Joachim - but could not come to any decision. Probably both were true: looking back, the time he had spent here that far seemed unnaturally brief and at the same time unnaturally long. It seemed everything to him. in fact, except how it really was - always presuming, of course, that time is part of nature and that it is therefore permissible to see it in conjunction with reality.

In any case, October was close at hand, might arrive any day now. Hans Castorp had no trouble figuring out that much; and besides, he heard mention made of the fact in the conversations of his fellow patients. "Do you realize that it's only five days till the first of the month?" he heard Hermine Kleefeld say to two young men of her acquaintance, Rasmussen the student and the thick-lipped lad, whose name was Ganser. Dinner was just over, its odors still heavy in the air, and people were lingering among the tables, chatting and putting off their rest cure. "The first of October - I noticed it on the calendar in the management office. This will be the second one I've spent at this cozy resort. Well fine, summer, or what there was of it, is over - we've been cheated out of it, just as we're cheated out of everything else in life." And she sighed with her half a lung, shaking her head and directing her doltish, sleepy eyes at the ceiling. "Cheer up, Rasmussen," she then said, slapping her comrade on one drooping shoulder, "and tell us some jokes!"

"I know only a few," Rasmussen replied, his hands dangling chesthigh like fins. "But I don't tell them very well - I'm always too tired."

"Not even a dog," Ganser said between his teeth, "would want to go on living like this much longer." And they laughed and shrugged.

Settembrini had been standing close by, too, a toothpick between his lips, and as they were leaving he said to Hans Castorp, "Don't believe them, my good engineer, never believe them when they squawk - and there's not a one who doesn't, although they all feel very much at home here. Lead a free and easy life - and then demand you pity them. Think they have a right to bitterness, irony, cynicism. 'At this cozy resort!' Well, isn't it cozy? I would certainly say it is, and in the most dubious sense of the word. 'Cheated,' the little minx says - 'cheated out of everything in life at this cozy resort.' But send her back to the plains and her life down there would leave you in no doubt that her sole object was to get back up here as soon as possible. Ah yes, irony! Beware of the irony that flourishes here, my good engineer. Beware of it in general as an intellectual stance. When it is not employed as an honest device of classical rhetoric, the purpose of which no healthy mind can doubt for a moment, it becomes a source of depravity, a barrier to civilization, a squalid flirtation with inertia, nihilism and vice. And since the atmosphere in which we live provides very favorable conditions for this swamp plant to flourish, I may hope - or perhaps I must fear - that you do understand me."

The Italian's remarks were truly the sort that, if Hans Castorp had heard them down in the plains seven weeks before, would have been mere noise; but his stay up here had made his mind receptive for them - receptive in terms of intellectual understanding, though not necessarily in terms of sympathy, which perhaps is the most telling factor. For although in the depths of his soul he was glad that, despite everything that had happened, Settembrini continued to speak with him as he did, continued to teach, to warn, to try to influence him, his own perceptive powers had advanced to the point where he would criticize the remarks and withhold his agreement, at least to some extent. "How about that," he thought, "he talks about irony in almost the same way he talks about music. The only thing missing is for him to call it 'politically suspect' the moment it stops being an 'honest and classical means of instruction'. But if 'no healthy mind can for a moment doubt its purpose,' what sort of irony is that for heaven's sake, if I may ask? - assuming I am to have a say in any of this. That would just be dry pedantry!" (Such is the ingratitude of immature youth. It accepts the gift of learning, only to find fault with it.)

Nevertheless, he would have found it all too risky to put his insubordination into words. He limited himself to objecting to Herr Settembrini's critique of Hermine Kleefeld, which seemed unjust to him - or which, for other reasons, he wanted to see as unjust.

"But the girl is ill," he said. "She is truly, positively very ill and has every reason to be in despair. What do you want from her, really?"

"Illness and despair," Settembrini said, "are often only forms of depravity."

"And what about Leopardi," Hans Castorp thought, "who explicitly despaired of science and progress? Or what about our good schoolmaster himself? He's ill and keeps coming back up here. Carducci wouldn't have been all that happy with him, either." But aloud he said, "Fine fellow you are. The young lady may breathe her last any day now, and you call her depraved. You'll have to explain that for me. If you had said that illness is sometimes a result of depravity, taht would at least have been plausible, or -"

"Very plausible," Settembrini broke in. "My word! So you would have agreed had I left it at that?"

"Or if you had said that illness sometimes is made to serve as a pretext for depravity - I would have accepted that, too."

"Grazie tanto!"

"But illness as a form of depravity? Which means, not that it arises from depravity, but is itself depravity? Now that's a paradox."

"Oh, I beg you, my good engineer, do not lay that at my door. I despise paradoxes. I loathe them. You may assume that everything I said about irony also applies to paradoxes, and more besides. Paradox is the poison flower of quietism, the iridescent sheen of a putrefied mind, the greatest depravity of all. By the way, I also notice you are coming to the defense of illness yet again."

"No, what you say interests me. It reminds me of some of the things that Dr. Krokowski lectures about on Mondays. He, too, declares illness to be a secondary phenomenon."

"No pure idealist, he."

"What do you have against him?"

"Precisely that."

"Don't you approve of analysis?"

"Not every day. It's very bad and very good, by turns, my good engineer."

"How am I supposed to take that?"

"Analysis is good as a tool of enlightenment and civilization - to the extent that it shakes stupid preconceptions, quashes natural biases, and undermines authority. Good, in other words, to the extent that it liberates, refines, and humanizes - it makes slaves ripe for freedom. It is bad, very bad, to the extent that it prevents action, damages life at its roots, and is incapable of shaping it. Analysis can be very unappetizing, as unappetizing as death, to which it may very well be linked - a relative of the grave and its foul anatomy."

"Well roared, lion," Hans Castorp could not help thinking, as he usually did when Herr Settembrini uttered something pedagogic. But now he said, "We recently participated in some illuminated anatomy downstairs on the ground floor. That's what Behrens called it when he X-rayed us."

"Ah, so you've now scaled to that level, too. Well?"

"I saw the skeleton of my own hand," Hans Castorp said, trying to recall the emotions that had stirred in him at the sight of it. "Have you ever had him show you yours?"

"No, I'm not the least bit interested in my own skeleton. And what was the medical finding?"

"He saw strands, strands with nodules."

"The imp of Satan!"

"You called Director Behrens that once before. What do you mean by it?"

"You may be sure that I choose the term deliberately."

"No, you're not being fair, Herr Settembrini. I'll admit that the man has his weaknesses. After being here awhile, even I don't find the way he talks that congenial; there's something so fierce about it, especially when you think of the grief that he felt at losing his wife up here. But what an admirable, respectable man he is all in all, a benefactor to suffering humankind. I recently met him as he was coming from an operation, a rib resection, a matter of life or death. And to see him like that, coming from such a difficult, practical task, made a big impression on me. He was still flushed and had just lit a cigar to reward himself. I was envious of him."

"How very generous of you. And your sentence is?"

"He did not mention any definite length of time."

"Not bad, either. So let us go and lie down, my good engineer. Assume our positions."

They said good-bye outside room 34.

"Well, go on up to your roof, Herr Settembrini. It must be more amusing to lie there in the company of others than alone. Do you find it entertaining? Are they interesting people, the ones you take your rest cure with?"

"Oh, nothing but Parthians and Scythians."

"You mean Russians?"

"Russians, male and female," Herr Settembrini said, and a tightening was visible at the corner of his mouth. "Adieu, my good engineer."

No doubt about it, he had meant something by that. Hans Castorp entered his room in confusion. Did Settembrini know what was going on with him? Presumably he had been spying on him for educational reasons, taking careful note of where his eyes were directed. Hans Castorp was angry at the Italian, and at himself, too, because it was his own lack of self-control that had provoked the gibe. He gathered up some writing materials to take out with him for his rest cure - because there could be no more delays, a letter home, his third, would have to be written - and he went on being angry, muttering things about this windbag and quibbler, who was sticking his nose into things that were none of his business, but who hummed little songs at girls in public. By now, he no longer felt like taking up the task of writing. This organ-grinder and his insinuations had definitely spoiled the mood for it. But one way or the other, he had to have winter clothes, money, underwear, shoes - everything, in fact, that he would have brought with him had he known he would be here not for just three weeks at the height of summer, but ... but for a still-undetermined period, which, no matter what, was sure to last into some of winter, indeed, given assumptions and circumstances up here, would very probably include the whole season. And that, or at least the possibility of it, would have to be shared with his family. It would require real work this time - making a clean breast of things and no longer pretending otherwise to himself or them.

And it was in this spirit that he wrote, making use of a technique he had freqently seen Joachim employ - sitting in his lounge chair, with his fountain pen in hand and a writing case against his raised knees. He wrote on sanatorium stationery, taken from an ample supply in his table drawer, to James Tienappel, the uncle to whom he felt closest of the three, and asked him to inform the consul. He spoke of an unforeseen vexation, of misgivings that had proved justified, of the necessity, on good medical advice, of spending a part of the winter, and perhaps all of it, up here, since cases such as his own were often more stubborn than those that began more spectacularly and since the important thing, really, was to intervene decisively and so arrest his case's progress for good and all. Seen from this angle, he suggested, it was a stroke of fortune, a happy turn of fate, that he had chanced to come up here and had occasion to be examined; because otherwise he would probably have remained unaware of his condition much longer and perhaps have learned of it in a much more distressing fashion. As for the estimated time of his cure, one should not be surprised if he might have to make a winter of it and would be able to return to the plains hardly any earlier than Joachim. Notions of time here were different from those applicable to trips to the shore or stays at a spa. The month was, so to speak, the shortest unit of time, and a single month played no role at all.

It was cool; he was wearing his overcoat, had wrapped himself in a blanket, and his hands turned red as he wrote. At times he would look up from his paper, covered with reasonable and convincing phrases, and gaze out into the familiar landscape, which he hardly noticed anymore: the long valley, its exit blocked today by pale, glassy peaks; the bright pattern of settlement along its floor, glistening now and then in the sun; and the slopes, covered partly by rugged forests, partly by meadows, from which the sound of cowbells drifted. Writing came more easily as he went along, and he no longer understood how he could possibly have been afraid of this letter. As he wrote, he came to see that nothing could be more plausible than his explanations and that of course his family at home would be in perfect agreement with them. A young man of his social class and circumstances took care of himself when that proved advisable, he made use of facilities set aside expressly for him and people like him. That was only proper. Had he returned home, they would have sent him right back up here upon hearing his report. He now asked them to send the things he needed. And in conclusion he asked that necessary funds be sent regularly. Eight hundred marks a month would take care of everything.

He signed it. That was done. This third letter home was comprehensive, it did the job - not in terms of conceptions of time valid down below, but in terms of those prevailing up here. It established Hans Castorp's freedom. This was the word he used, not explicitly, not by forming the syllables in his mind, but as something he felt in its most comprehensive sense, in the sense in which he had learned to understand it during his stay here - though that was a sense that had little to do with the meaning Settembrini attached to the word. And as he heaved a sigh, his chest quivered as the wave of terror and excitement that he knew quite well by now swept over him.

Blood had rushed to his head as he wrote, his cheeks burned. He picked up Mercury from the nightstand and took his temperature, as if he could not let this opportunity pass. Mercury climbed to one hundred degrees

"You see?" Hans Castorp though. And he added a postscript: "This letter has been quite an effort. My temperature stands at a hundred degrees. I see that for the time being I shall have to keep very quiet. You will have to excuse me if I do not write more often." Then he lay back and lifted a hand to the sky, palm out, just as he had held it behind the fluorescent screen. But daylight had no effect on its living form, the stuff of it grew even darker and more opaque against the brightness and just its outer edge shone reddish. It was the living hand he was accustomed to seeing, washing, using - not the alien scaffold he had seen in the screen. The analytical pit he had seen open up before him that day had closed again.

Today in history: February 22, 1980

I post this for all those hockey fans out there, of course, but I also post it for David and Maria's wee daughter, who is playing Al Michaels in a school-play version of Miracle on Ice. I so want to hear her little voice making that famous call!

"DO YOU BELIEVE IN MIRACLES?? YES!

That famous photograph of the team FREAKING OUT features, in the foreground, defenseman Jack O'Callahan, straddling defenseman Mike Ramsey (in the HBO documentary Do You Believe In Miracles? - Ramsey says, with a look on his face which brings a lump to my throat just mentioning it: "I'll take that picture ....... to my grave with me.") ... with absolute MAYHEM behind them. Their joy is still infectious, so many years later.

Like most of us who were alive at that time, and at all aware of anything, I have vivid memories of the 1980 Winter Olympics, and of these college kids who came along and slayed the Russian dragon. I was particularly into the whole thing because of the Boston presence on the team. My family's from Boston. There was a regional component to our triumph, as well as a national component.

I didn't really get the context of it while it was happening - the Cold War context, and also the hockey context - just how huge a dynasty the Russians had, in terms of how they played the game, how they dominated international hockey, etc.

Keep an eye open for the documentary : "Do You Believe in Miracles" I own it, naturally, but I'm sure it is available otherwise. Even without the topic, which I love - it is one of my favorite documentaries ever made. I watch it so often that it's embarrassing. But it NEVER. gets old.

Narrated beautifully and simply by Liev Schrieber - with interviews with Jim Craig, Herb Brooks, Jack O'Callahan, Craig Patrick, Eric Strobel, Dave Silk (who was my personal favorite, I admit it) - and many others - the documentary just GETS the big-ness of the event. It GETS the magnitude. I get goose-bumps watching it.

Herb Brooks said later, in a filmed interview with Kurt Russell, "The greatest sporting event of the 20th century, voted by Sports Illustrated, was not given to an individual - it was given to a team."

That, to him, meant the most. And it is why he absented himself from the celebration on the ice. In the footage of that day, you can see him hurrying off into the darkness beneath the stadium, while his players go apeshit on the ice. It is THEIR moment, not his.

Al Michaels, the dude who made the famous "Do you believe in miracles?" call (which - when you listen to it - in the moment - AS the game is going on - you just can FEEL the emotion, the amazement - the guy is absolutely flipping out - it's awesome). But anyway, he is also interviewed quite a bit in the documentary - and he said at one point, in terms of how the game happened at 5 pm on a Friday night - and the network made the unprecedented decision to tape it and then re-play it that night at 8 pm - because by that point, everybody wanted to see this match-up - He said, "And so on Friday, you had this bizarre circumstance of people filing into the arena for what was, essentially, a matinee. Little did any of those people know that they were about to witness one of the greatest sporting events of their lives."

More posts on the Miracle on Ice here:

February 9, 1980

"Someone's gonna beat those guys ..."

Kurt Russell as Herb Brooks

Happy place

The HBO documentary

Happy birthday to Sharon's dead boyfriend ...

... George Washington, who was born on this day in 1732.

Thomas Jefferson on George Washington:

The moderation and virtue of a single character probably prevented this Revolution from being closed, as most others have been, by a subversion of that liberty it was intended to establish.

More awesome quotes (and a video clip) below:

Martha Washington wrote a letter to a relative on the eve of her husband's departure to the Convention in 1774:

I foresee consequences; dark days and darker nights; domestic happiness suspended; social enjoyments abandoned; property of every kind put in jeopardy by war, perhaps; neighbors and friends at variance, and eternal separations on earth possible. But what are all these evils when compared with the fate of which the Port Bill may be only a threat? My mind is made up; my heart is in the cause. George is right; he is always right. God has promised to protect the righteous, and I will trust him.

PATRICK HENRY, on his return home from the first Continental Congress in 1774 was asked whom he thought was the foremost man in the group:

"Colonel Washington is unquestionably the greatest man on that floor."

Abigail Adams first met Washington in 1774, and wrote to her husband:

You had prepared me to entertain a favorable opinion of him, but I thought the half was not told me. Dignity with ease and complacency, the gentleman and the soldier look agreeably blended in him. Modesty marks every line and feature of his face.

When George Washington was elected (unanimously) by the First Continental Congress to be Commander in Chief (this was in June, 1775) - here was the brief acceptance he made:

"Lest some unlucky event should happen unfavorable to my reputation, I beg it may be remembered by every gentleman in the room, that I this day declare, with the utmost sincerity, I do not think myself equal to the command."

GEORGE WASHINGTON, writing to Martha on June 18, 1775, following his nomination as commander in chief

My Dearest: I now sit down to write to you on a subject which fills me with inexpressible concern, and this concern is greatly aggravated and increased when I reflect upon the uneasiness I know it will give you. It has been determined in Congress that the whole army raised for the defence of the American cause shall be put under my care, and that it is necessary for me to proceed immediately to Boston to take upon me the command of it.

You may believe me, my dear Patsy, when I assure you, in the most solemn manner, that, so far from seeking this appointment, I have used every endeavour in my power to avoid it, not only from my unwillingness to part with you and the family, but from a consciousness of its being a trust too great for my capacity, and that I should enjoy more real happiness in one month with you at home than I have the most distant prospect of finding abroad, if my stay were to be seven times seven years.

But as it has been a kind of destiny that has thrown me upon this service, I shall hope that my undertaking is designed to answer some good purpose.

George Washington describes here what a general expects in his aides:

The variegated and important duties of the aids of a commander in chief or the commander of a separate army require experienced officers, men of judgment and men of business, ready pens to execute them properly and with dispatch. A great deal more is required of them than attending him at a parade or delivering verbal orders here and there, or copying a written one. They ought, if I may be allowed to use the expression, to possess the Soul of the General, and from a single idea given to them, to convey his meaning in the clearest and fullest manner.

GEORGE WASHINGTON, letter to Joseph Reed, early December, 1775, after a disappointing recruiting drive

I have oftentimes thought how much happier I should have been if, instead of accepting the command under such circumstances, I had taken my musket on my shoulder and entered the ranks; or, if I could have justified the measure to posterity and my own conscience, had retired to the back country and lived in a wigwam. If I shall be able to rise superior to these and many other difficulties which might be enumerated, I shall most religiously believe that the finger of Providence is in it to blind the eyes of our enemies, for surely if we get well through this month it must be for want of their knowing the disadvantages which we labor under.

George Washington wrote the following on the eve of his inauguration in 1789:

It is said that every man has his portion of ambition. I may have mine, I suppose, as well as the rest, but if I know my own heart, my ambition would not lead me into public life; my only ambition is to do my duty in this world as well as I am capable of performing it, and to merit the good opinion of all good men.

David McCullough describes, in his book on John Adams, the first inauguration day:

On the day of his inauguration, Thursday, April 30 1789, Washington rode to Federal Hall in a canary-yellow carriage pulled by six white horses and followed by a long column of New York militia in full dress. The air was sharp, the sun shone brightly, and with all work stopped in the city, the crowds along his route were the largest ever seen. It was as if all New York had turned out and more besides. "Many persons in the crowd," reported the Gazette of the United States "were heard to say they should now die contented - nothing being wanted to complete their happiness - but the sight of the savior of his country."

In the Senate Chamber were gathered the members of both houses of Congress, the Vice President, and sundry officials and diplomatic agents, all of whom rose when Washington made his entrance, looking solemn and stately. His hair powdered, he wore a dress sword, white silk stockings, shoes with silver buckles, and a suit of the same brown Hartford broadcloth that Adams, too, was wearing for the occasion. They might have been dressed as twins, except that Washington's metal buttons had eagles on them.

It was Adams who formally welcomed the General and escorted him to the dais. For an awkward moment Adams appeared to be in some difficulty, as though he had forgotten what he was supposed to say. then, addressing Washington, he declared that the Senate and House of Representatives were ready to attend him for the oath of office as required by the Constitution. Washington said he was ready. Adams bowed and led the way to the outer balcony, in full view of the throng in the streets. People were cheering and waving from below, and from windows and rooftops as far as the eye could see. Washington bowed once, then a second time.

Fourteen years earlier, it had been Adams who called on the Continental Congress to make the tall Virginian commander-in-chief of the army. Now he stood at Washington's side as Washington, his right hand on the Bible, repeated the oath of office as read by Chancellor Robert R. Livingston of New York, who had also been a member of the Continental Congress.

In a low voice Washington solemnly swore to execute the office of the President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, to "preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States." Then, as not specified in the Constitution, he added, "So help me God", and kissed the Bible, thereby establishing his own first presidential tradition.

"It is done," Livingston said, and, turning to the crowd, cried out, "Long live George Washington, President of the United States."

George Washington said:

Men may speculate as they will, they may talk of patriotism; they may draw a few examples from current story - but whoever builds upon it as a sufficient basis for conducting a long and bloody war will find themselves deceived in the end - For a long time it may of itself push men to action, to bear much, to encounter difficulties, but it will not endure unassisted by Interest.

On August 17, 1790, George Washington visited Newport Rhode Island - and visited the Jewish congregation of the Touro Synagogue (which still stands - gorgeous building. We went on a field trip there in grade school). The congregation presented an address to George Washington, welcoming him to Newport, and to their synagogue. A couple of days later George Washington wrote an eloquent response. Both the address as well as Washington's response were printed in all of the "national" newspapers at the time.

August 21st, 1790
To the Hebrew Congregation in Newport Rhode Island.

Gentleman.

While I receive, with much satisfaction, your Address replete with expressions of affection and esteem; I rejoice in the opportunity of assuring you, that I shall always retain a grateful remembrance of the cordial welcome I experienced in my visit to Newport, from all classes of Citizens.

The reflection on the days of difficulty and danger which are past is rendered the more sweet, from a consciousness that they are succeeded by days of uncommon prosperity and security. If we have wisdom to make the best use of the advantages with which we are now favored, we cannot fail, under the just administration of a good Government, to become a great and happy people.

The Citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy: a policy worthy of imitation.

All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship. It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights. For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.

It would be inconsistent with the frankness of my character not to avow that I am pleased with your favorable opinion of my Administration, and fervent wishes for my felicity. May the children of the Stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other Inhabitants; while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and figtree, and there shall be none to make him afraid. May the father of all mercies scatter light and not darkness in our paths, and make us all in our several vocations useful here, and in his own due time and way everlastingly happy.

G. Washington

From Joseph Ellis' book The Founding Brothers:

First, it is crucial to recognize that Washington's extraordinary reputation rested less on his prudent exercise of power than on his dramatic flair at surrendering it. He was, in fact, a veritable virtuoso of exits. Almost everyone regarded his retirement of 1796 as a repeat performance of his resignation as commander of the Continental Army in 1783. Back then, faced with a restive and unpaid remnant of the victorious army quartered in Newburgh, New York, he had suddenly appeared at a meeting of officers who were contemplating insurrection; the murky plot involved marching on the Congress and then seizing a tract of land for themselves in the West, all presumably with Washington as their leader.

He summarily rejected their offer to become the American Caesar and denounced the entire scheme as treason to the cause for which they had fought. Then, in a melodramatic gesture that immediately became famous, he pulled a pair of glasses out of his pocket: "Gentlemen, you will permit me to put on my spectacles," he declared rhetorically, "for I have not only grown gray but almost blind in service to my country." Upon learning that Washington intended to reject the mantle of emperor, no less an authority than George III allegedly observed, "If he does that, he will be the greatest man in the world." True to his word, on December 22, 1783, Washington surrendered his commission to the Congress, then meeting in Annapolis: "Having now finished the work assigned me," he announced, "I now retire from the great theatre of action." In so doing, he became the supreme example of the leader who could be trusted with power because he was so ready to give it up.

George Washington's last words:

"I feel myself going. I thank you for your attentions; but I pray you to take no more trouble about me. Let me go off quietly. I cannot last long."

Mark Twain wrote in 1871:

I have a higher and greater standard of principle [than George Washington]. Washington could not lie. I can lie but I won't.

Gouverneur Morris said, upon the death of this great man:

It is a question, previous to the first meeting, what course shall be pursued. Men of decided temper, who, devoted to the public, overlooked prudential considerations, thought a form of government should be framed entirely new. But cautious men, with whom popularity was an object, deemed it fit to consult and comply with the wishes of the people. AMERICANS! -- let the opinion then delivered by the greatest and best of men, be ever present to your remembrance. He was collected within himself. His countenance had more than usual solemnity -- His eye was fixed, and seemed to look into futurity. 'It is (said he)too probable that no plan we propose will be adopted. Perhaps another dreadful conflict is to be sustained. If to please the people, we offer what we ourselves disapprove, how can we afterwards defend our work? Let us raise a standard to which the wise and the honest can repair. The event is in the hand of God.'--this was the patriot voice of WASHINGTON; and this the constant tenor of his conduct.

My father said, in regards to Washington being our first President:

"We were so lucky."

And below: "George Washington's awesome-ness", featuring the lyrics:

"Washington, Washington,
6 foot 8
Weighs a fucking ton
Opponents beware
Opponents beware
He's coming
He's coming
He's coming ..."

Happy birthday, George! And thanks!

The Books: "The Call of the Wild" (Jack London)

Next book on my adult fiction bookshelves:

The Call of the Wild by Jack London

This is one of those books I was forced to read in 8th grade (not even 10th or 11th grade - when I was a bit older - but 8th grade!) - and absolutely LOVED. I was also forced to read The Red Badge of Courage in 8th grade, which I decidedly did NOT love - but Call of the Wild captured my imagination. It scared me. I remember being afraid of the wildness of the wolves ... and wanting Buck to go back home where he could be safe and warm ... but then I also remember thinking: You know what? Running free through the snow and howling at the moon isn't too shabby either. But still: the transformation Buck has to go through, from a domestic pet to a wild pack-dog (and not just the wild pack-dog, but the leader of the pack) was FASCINATING to me. I kept thinking, as I read it - in junior high - as each chapter went on, "It's not too late for someone to save him ... someone needs to swoop down and save Buck ... he can still go back!" But eventually there comes a point - where no. Buck cannot go back. And he must get strong and alpha - or he will not survive. There are lessons in this for all of us. It's a brilliant book. It's about animals, but the entire time I read it - I kept inserting myself into Buck and wondering, "How would I do? How would I cope with that?" And you begin to realize that Buck is actually becoming himself, his true self ... that his domestic days were the unnatural respite ... and that being wild is who he really is. By the end of the book it is incomprehensible to imagine Buck lying curled up in front of a fire and playing fetch with a little boy. Buck has not "reverted". He has inhabited his true destiny. And it took a lot of pain and confusion and fighting. He is not a conscious animal, at least not in the way human beings are conscious. He does not reflect. But he knows that the sound of the pack - calls something up in him, something primal and OLDER than anything he has ever known. The destiny of his biology.

Over the years I have read the book more times. It's a favorite of mine. The story always gets me (and this particular excerpt I'm doing today really really resonates with me) - but also, let's just take a minute to acknowledge the magnificence of Jack London's writing. My God. I want to call his writing muscular. That's what comes to mind. It has oomph, it has no self-importance, and yet when it comes time to make his big point - Jack London holds nothing back (like in the excerpt below). I can't think of a writer writing today who uses words in the way London does. It's poetry - but it's also like a documentary film. It's BOTH.

Here's the excerpt - it's my favorite bit from the whole book. I mean, check out that last paragraph. Jesusmary and joseph, wish I could write like that.

EXCERPT FROM The Call of the Wild by Jack London

In the days that followed, as Dawson grew closer and closer, Buck still continued to interfere between Spitz and the culprits; but he did it craftily, when Francois was not around. With the covert mutiny of Buck, a general insubordination sprang up and increased. Dave and Sol-leks were unaffected, but the rest of the team went from bad to worse. Things no longer went right. There was continual bickering and jangling. Trouble was always afoot, and at the bottom of it was Buck. He kept Francois busy, for the dog-driver was in constant apprehension of the life-and-death struggle between the two which he knew must take place sooner or later; and on more than one night the sounds of quarrels and strife among the other dogs turned him out of his sleeping robe, fearful that Buck and Spitz were at it.

But the opportunity did not present itself, and they pulled into Dawson one dreary afternoon with the great fight still to come. Here were many men, and countless dogs, and Buck found them all at work. It seemed the ordained order of things that dogs should work. All day they swung up and down the main street in long teams, and in the night the jingling bells still went by. They hauled cabin logs and firewood, freighted up to the mines, and did all manner of work that horses did in the Santa Clara Valley. Here and there Buck met Southland dogs, but in the main they were the wild wolf husky breed. Every night, regularly, at nine, at twelve, at three, they lifted a nocturnal song, a weird and eerie chant, in which it was Buck's delight to join.

With the aurora borealis flaming coldly overhead, or the stars leaping in the frost dance, and the land numb and frozen under its pall of snow, this song of the huskies might have been the defiance of life, only it was pitched in minor key, with long-drawn wailings and half-sobs, and was more the pleading of life, the articulate travail of existence. It was an old song, old as the breed itself - one of the first songs of the younger world in a day when songs were sad. It was invested with the woe of unnumbered generations, this plaint by which Buck was so strangely stirred. When he moaned and sobbed, it was with the pain of living that was so old the pain of his wild fathers, and the fear and mystery of the cold and dark that was to them fear and mystery. And that he should be stirred by it marked the completeness with which he harked back through the ages of fire and roof to the raw beginnings of life in the howling ages.

Seven days from the time they pulled into Dawson, they dropped down the steep bank by the Barracks to the Yukon Trail, and pulled for Dyea and Salt Waters. Perrault was carrying despatches if anything more urgent than those he had brought in; also, the travel pride had gripped him, and he purposed to make the record trip of the year. Several things favored him in this. The week's rest had recuperated the dogs and put them in thorough trim. The trail they had broken into the country was packed hard by later journeyers. And further, the police had arranged in two or three places deposits of grub for dog and man, and he was traveling light.

They made Sixty Miles, which is a fifty-mile run, on the first day; and the second day saw them booming up the Yukon well on their way to Pelly. But such splendid running was achieved not without great trouble and vexation on the part of Francois. The insidious revolt led by Buck had destroyed the solidarity of the team. It no longer was as one dog leaping in the traces. The encouragement Buck gave the rebels led them into all kinds of petty misdemeanors. No more was Spitz a leader greatly to be feared. The old awe departed, and they grew equal to challenging his authority. Pike robbed him of half a fish one night, and gulped it down under the protection of Buck. Another night Dub and Joe fought Spitz and made him forego the punishment they deserved. And even Billie, the good-natured, was less good-natured, and whined not half so placatingly as in former days. Buck never came near Spitz without snarling and bristling menacingly. In fact, his conduct approached that of a bully, and he was given to swaggering up and down before Spitz's very nose.

The breaking down of discipline likewise affected the dogs in their relations with one another. They quarrelled and bickered more than ever among themselves, till at times the camp was a howling bedlam. Dave and Sol-leks alone were unaltered, though they were made irritable by the unending squabbling. Francois swore strange barbarous oaths, and stamped the snow in futile rage, and tore his hair. His lash was always singing among the dogs, but it was of small avail. Directly his back was turned they were at it again. He backed up Spitz with his whip, while Buck backed up the remainder of the team. Francois knew he was behind all the trouble, and Buck knew he knew; but Buck was too clever ever again to be caught red-handed. He worked faithfully in the harness, for the toil had become a delight to him; yet it was a greater delight slyly to precipitate a fight amongst his mates and tangle the traces.

At the mouth of the Tahkeena, one night after supper, Dub turned up a snowshoe rabbit, blundered it, and missed. In a second the whole team was in full cry. A hundred yards away was a camp of the Northwest Police, with fifty dogs, huskies all, who joined the chase. The rabbit sped down the river, turned off into a small creek, up the frozen bed of which it held steadily. It ran lightly on the surface of the snow, while the dogs ploughed through by main strength. Buck led the pack, sixty strong, around bend after bend, but he could not gain. He lay down low to the race, whining eagerly, his splendid body flashing forward, leap by leap, in the wan white moonlight. And leap by leap, like some pale frost wraith, the snowshoe rabbit flashed on ahead.

All that stirring of old instincts which at stated periods drives men out from the sounding cities to forest and plain to kill things by chemically propelled leaden pellets, the bloodlust, the joy to kill - all this was Buck's, only it was infinitely more intimate. He was ranging at the head of the pack, running the wild thing down, the living meat, to kill with his own teeth and wash his muzzle to the eyes in warm blood.

There is an ecstasy that marks the summit of life, and beyond which life cannot rise. And such is the paradox of living, this ecstasy comes when one is most alive, and it comes as a complete forgetfulness that one is alive. This ecstasy, this forgetfulness of living, comes to the artist, caught up and out of himself in a sheet of flame; it comes to the soldier, war-mad on a stricken field and refusing quarter; and it came to Buck, leading the pack, sounding the old wolf-cry, straining after the food that was alive and that fled swiftly before him through the moonlight. He was sounding the deeps of his nature, and of the parts of his nature that were deeper than he, going back into the womb of Time. He was mastered by the sheer surging of life, the tidal wave of being, the perfect joy of each separate muscle, joint, and sinew and that it was everything that was not death, that it was aglow and rampant, expressing itself in movement, flying exultantly under the stars and over the face of dead matter that did not move.

Sheila OMalley? NO.

No shit!

I have had all of those experiences described in the article.

I'm with you, ODowd. I have been there. Repeatedly. I have edited my own damn name, in order to make a computer "accept" me. I have succumbed to the idiocy of the computer programmers because I need to exist, in this world, and I need to be able to fill out forms and vote and get on planes. But I do it all UNDER PROTEST. Because I know my own name, thankyouverymuch, colonial vestiges or no. And last time I checked, there was an apostrophe in it. (Or to quote Izzard: "We pronounce 'herb' 'H-erb' - because there's a fucking 'h' in it.") Irish names have been around way longer than computers, and it's not like we are a RECENT influx of immigrants and computers have to catch up with the blossoming demographic. Come on. We've been here since the beginning. It's not OMalley. It's just not! Additionally: to abbreviate my last name as "O" is incorrect. It's Sheila O'M. This has been drummed into my brain repeatedly since I was a kid. So if someone unknowingly believes that O'Malley shortened is "O", I feel I must correct them. It's my name. There's nothing casual about a name. It irritates me when I am FORCED to misspell it in order for a computer to recognize me. John Proctor haunts me in this regard.

Richard Pryor

A terrific post. I love Richard Pryor - but I have not seen the movie in question. It's on the queue now, though, I can tell you that.

Eclipse

David drove me home last night and the eclipse was in full flower as he pulled down my street. So we got out of the car and stared up at it, in awe. It was beautiful. A cold black night. And there were two BEAMING stars above the eclipsed moon. We almost never see stars in the city - so they really stuck out. Maybe they were planets but I don't think so. David, my good friend. He took care of me last night. And thankfully, we didn't run into any queens with cross-bows this time.

"The wedding is off!"

Mr. Macedonia-Obama Man has emailed me. Here is what he writes:

You know ... I was going to ask you to marry me, but now that I have found out how snarky you can be ... the wedding is off!

I love how he declares "the wedding is off" as though I would have had no say in any of it anyway. What wedding? The one in your head, bro? Is your name Muriel, by any chance? Do I even know you? He also seems to assume that I should be flattered by his near-proposal.

So he's just gonna take his toys and go home now! "The wedding is off!" stamp-stamp-stamp-slam door! That'll show her! See what she's turning down! She'll miss me, boy, I'll show her!

People are so crazy. I find it exhausting. And yet also kind of funny. Like I said in that first post: my Macedonia book excerpt continues to get me into trouble and brings me the attentions of all sorts of lunatics.

The Books: "The Pursuit of Alice Thrift" (Elinor Lipman)

Next book on my adult fiction bookshelves:

The Pursuit of Alice Thrift by Elinor Lipman

I read this wonderful book last year. Alice Thrift is a medical intern - in surgery - a rather macho field ... and she is having a tough tough time of it. She was an A student, but other than that - unremarkable. She finds the job stressful, she is condescended to by the head surgeon, and she also is kind of a humorless person - who is unable to look within herself and calm herself down. And yet even with all that - you just love this character. The whole "picking up on social clues" thing is WAY over poor Alice Thrift's head. She doesn't "get the joke". Ever. So life always seems to be going on outside her orbit. She looks around at her fellow interns, and doctors and nurses - and watches their rapport - and wonders how on earth they do it. Alice's mother - an invasive nosy woman - tells her daughter, blatantly, that she thinks she has Asperger's Syndrome. She leaves pamphlets about Asperger's lying around. Alice's mother had a VERY close relationship with her own mother - who dies during the course of the book - and wonders why she can't share that closeness with her own daughter. Closeness of the kind Alice's mother wants is horrifying to Alice. Like when Alice is sitting on the toilet and wants to close the bathroom door - her mother gets hurt. "Why can't we continue our conversation as you urinate? Why must you shut me out? My own mother never shut me out! Are you menstruating now, Alice? My mother always was aware of when I was menstruating. It is that kind of closeness I want us to have. I want us to talk intimately through the night about our FEELINGS." Alice couldn't imagine anything worse than staying up all night with ANYONE to talk about "feelings". She doesn't get the whole "feelings" thing, anyway.

The book opens with Alice getting married. She marries this obviously horrible playa type guy - who tells her he is a widower. She marries him for various reasons - he comes on hard, seems unfazed by her so-called Asperger's, and also - her family kind of pooh-poohs him because he's a traveling salesman. Through various twists and turns, she marries him. You know it's a horrible mistake.

And yet let us not forget that this book is a comedy. Lipman writes comedies. Before the marriage to this horrible guy, Alice lives with a guy who is a nurse at the hospital. They are just roommates. His name is Leo. Leo was looking for a roommate - who was NOT a nurse, because of the whole gossip grapevine thing - and if he had a "sleepover" with a lady-friend, he didn't want it to be all around the hospital. Alice wouldn't know how to gossip if you gave her a pamphlet ... so she fits the bill. Alice and Leo, in their own way, become friends. Leo is SUCH a great character. He is much beloved at the hospital - kind of a star - everyone likes him, he's good at what he does, and he actually likes his job - which Alice finds baffling. She can't stand her job - and the hours, and the stress. Leo kind of takes Alice on - not as a project, but just ... he tries to loosen her up. He's a GUY. Boston Irish. Comes from a huge Catholic family. He's handsome. He's funny. His mother is insane, and has religious iconography all over her house. You know. The usual. Totally not the kind of guy you would see with a plain Jane picked-last-for-kickball type like Alice. But Leo - Leo is kind. Leo treats her with humor. He also tells her the truth. About what she needs to work on, in her personality ... but he also backs off when she tells him to back off.

The story has many intersecting plot-lines ... Alice's courtship with Ray, the horrible widower ... Leo's responses to that ... Leo's girlfriend (a snotty midwife) ... Alice moving out on her own ... and befriending a girl down the hall named Sylvie - really, it's Alice's first friend. There are family issues, and job issues (Alice falls asleep during surgery while holding the retractor) ... but gradually, you begin to realize - and it's subtle at first, you can't tell which way the book will go - gradually, it becomes apparent that the book is going to be about Alice and Leo.

And it couldn't be more romantic. And humorous.

Alice, the humorless surgeon. Leo, the handsome masculine male nurse. She gets MARRIED to the other dude ... who is also an awesome character (in his horrible-ness - you know, he says stuff like, "Want to have a sleepover, Alice?" And when she wonders what that means - because she's Alice and she doesn't pick up on courtship cues - he says, "You know. Your snatch, my cock, we'll be up all night." !!!!! Even with my brief description of the book, you can probably tell that that kind of language will not go over well with Alice. )

Here's an excerpt. Leo, her roommate, is trying to get to know her better. I love Leo. Leo and Alice are going to throw a party ... this discussion ensues:

I love how Leo treats her. He's kind, but he also doesn't bullshit or condescend. He sees something in Alice.

EXCERPT FROM The Pursuit of Alice Thrift by Elinor Lipman

This is what we imagined: nurses and surgical residents conversing in civilian garb. RNs impressing MDs with their previously underappreciated level of science and scholarship. Exhausted doctors sipping beer while sympathetic nurses circulated with pinwheel sandwiches. Doctors asking nurses if they could compare schedules and find free Saturday nights in common.

When every nurse accepted our invitation and every resident declined, Leo and I had to scramble to provide something close to even numbers. I volunteered to call my medical school classmates who were interning in Boston - there were two at Children's, some half dozen at MGH, a couple more at Tufts, at BU.

"Friends?" he said.

"Classmates," I repeated.

I know what was on his mind: my unpopularity. That the words party and Alice Thrift were oxymoronic, and now Leo was experiencing it firsthand. I said, "Let's face it: I have no marquee value. My name on the invitation doesn't get one single warm body here, especially of the Y-chromosome variety."

"We're going to work on that," said Leo.

"On the other hand, since I'm not known as a party thrower, my invitees will expect a very low level of merriment."

Leo said, "Cut that out. It's not your fault. We're aiming too high. Interns are exhausted. If they have a night off, they want to sleep."

I said, "That's true of the average man, from what I'm read."

"And what is that?" Leo asked.

"I've heard that men will go forth into groups of women, even strangers, if they think there's a potential for sexual payoff."

"What planet are you living on?" Leo asked. "Why do you sound like an anthropologist when we're just bullshitting about how to balance our guest list?"

We were having this conversation in the cafeteria, Leo seated, me standing, since I usually grabbed a sandwich to go. He didn't think I ate properly, so after he'd rattled a chair a few times, I sat down on it.

"If I called my single brothers, not counting Peter," he said, "and they each brought two friends, that would be six more guys."

"Is Peter the priest?"

"No. Joseph's the priest. Peter doesn't like women."

"Okay. Six is a start."

I unwrapped my cheese sandwich, and squeezed open the spout on my milk carton. "I know someone," I finally said.

"Eligible?"

I nodded. So eligible, I thought, that he was pursuing Alice Thrift. "Not young, though. Forty-five. And widowed."

"Call him. Forty-five's not bad. Maybe he could bring some friends."

I said, "Actually, he's the one leaving those messages."

"He's been crooning Sinatra on the latest ones," said Leo. "What's that about?"

"Trying to get my attention." I took a bite of my sandwich.

Leo said, "No lettuce, no ham, no tomato?"

I pointed out that I never knew how long lunch would languish in my pocket before consumption, so this was the safest thing to take away.

Leo paused to consult our list of women. Finally he said, "I see a few of my colleagues who would be very happy with a forty-five-year-old guy. And even more who would pounce on the widower part. How long ago did he lose his wife?"

"A year and a day." I looked at my watch's date. "As of now, a year and two weeks."

"Call him. Tell him you and your roommate are putting together a soiree of hardworking primary-care nurses, who - studies have shown - sometimes go out on the town looking for a sexual payoff just like the males of the species."

I said, "I wasn't born yesterday. I know people have sexual relations on a casual basis."

Leo studied me for a few seconds, as if there was a social/epidemiological question he wanted to ask.

I said, "I've had relations, if that's what your retreat into deep thought is about."

"I see," said Leo.

"In college. Actually, the summer between my junior and senior years. I was a camp counselor and the boys' camp was across the lake."

"And he was a counselor, too?"

"An astronomy major at MIT, or so I believed. He knew all the constellations."

"Sounds romantic," said Leo.

I said, "Actually not. I had wondered what all the fuss was about, so I decided to experience it for myself."

"And?"

I swallowed a sip of milk and blotted my mouth. "Not worth the discomfort or the embarrassment or the trip into town for the prophylactics. And to make it worse, he expected follow-up."

"Meaning?"

"That we'd do it again."

"What a cad," said Leo.

"I found out later he wasn't an astronomy major at all, but studying aerospace engineering. And in a fraternity."

"Did you ever see him again?"

I said no, never.

"So that would be ... like five years ago?"

I shrugged. After a pause, I wrapped the remains of my sandwich in plastic and put it in my jacket pocket.

"Not that it's any of my business," said Leo.

I said I had to run. Would catch him later - I had the night off so I'd do some vacuuming.

"Alice?" he called when I was a few paces from him. I returned to the table.

"I want to say, just for the record, as a fellow clinician, that the fuss you've heard about? With respect to relations? The stuff that, according to movies and books, supposedly makes the earth move and the world go round? Well - and I say this as your friend - it does."

I didn't have an answer; wasn't sure whether his statement was confessional or prescriptive.

"What I'm getting at," he continued, "is that you might want to give it another shot someday."

My book excerpts

... on occasion get me into trouble. A couple highlights:

-- one of my excerpts is now being linked approvingly by a porn site out of the United Arab Emirates which features fat naked ladies having every orifice filled at the same moment in time. Awesome! Needless to say, the book they link to (ON THEIR MAIN GOLDURN PAGE) is not a porn book. It is a novel. I don't know what to do about such situations. Who do I contact to say (in Arabic), "Take that fucking link off your filthy site"?

-- one of my excerpts is being linked to approvingly in a post that contains the words, "Now I am not comparing Obama to Hitler, but ..." Oh. Of course you're not. Needless to say, the book they link to has nothing to do with Obama - it's a book that describes the swooning response of crowds to Hitler in the 1930s. Again, it's an odd thing. How do you say, "Please don't ever link to me again"? Oh well. The blog has ZERO traffic as far as I can tell. So that's good. God forbid some moron comes from that person's site to my site and think that I in any way agree or endorse such ridiculous thinking.

-- one of my excerpts about Macedonia CONTINUES to get me into trouble. A flame-war broke out in Cyrillic on a Macedonian message-board a couple years ago - using MY STUPID BOOK EXCERPT as a launching-off place. I have now received an email from some dude saying, "Do you want to make a big splash in the media this election year? Do some posts on the Macedonia-Obama connection." If you read me for even 2 seconds, you know I have no interest in "making a big splash in the media". Or at least not the media he's talking about. I'd love to have film reviews published in "the media" - but that's not what this dude has in mind. He's all fired up with his CAUSE! And obviously it was that stupid book excerpt that I posted in freakin' 1982 that brought him to my site. But it's a good book excerpt. Biased, yes - but I just post the excerpt. Food for thought. I have considered taking it down - because I certainly don't want to ignite a civil war just because I posted a dumb paragraph from a book. I did enjoy seeing people arguing over the book excerpt in another language - and I actually received some lovely emails in stilted English from Macedonians not only thanking me for my thoughts but thanking me for even knowing where Macedonia is and that it exists. I do what I can to counter-act Kellie Pickler's horrific ignorant influence. One blog-post at a time.

the ex-boyfriends

I've got a few. And just the other day I was saying to my friend Jackie, "Honest to God ... sometimes I get an email from _____ and I feel like - why can't you leave me alone??" It's been 20 years since we dated. Why are you hanging on?? Why do you email me and sign off with such things as: "Nobody knows me as well as you do. Thanks for being there ..." After 2 freakin' decades of being separated. But the funny thing is ... I DON'T really want them to "leave me alone". If they suddenly stopped emailing me, I would feel bereft. Not that these are romantic emails. Of course not. It's just shit they don't feel comfortable telling anyone else. Even after 20 years. When I'm feeling lonely, sometimes the emails from these dudes is salt in Ye Olde wounds ... even if I am happy (HAPPY) that we are not together. Like: damn, can't someone say that crap to me and ALSO share my bed at night? For God's SAKE. HOWEVER. I do not feel comfortable totally trashing this gift from God (and that is how I see it. I would probably never say that to the men in particular - they might get freaked - but yes. I feel that God has blessed me in this regard - with these guys, who feel the need to reach out to me, on occasion.) It's like they go along without me, for sometimes years, and then need to touch base, get my opinion, bitch about things, talk, whatever. I don't know - there's something about being known and also remembered ... it's very grounding. And so in a weird way, I do feel lucky. (As well as cursed). But lucky that there are one or two guys out there (well, probably more - but only two are in regular contact with me) remember me. That I am specific to them. I am not generalized into "ex-girlfriend" vagueness. I am still Sheila to them. The girl who gives them this, who listens to them in this particular way ... It's not a burden. It really isn't. And I bitch about it, at times, because I need to vent. Everyone needs to vent. I wonder what it is about me that is so essential to these ex-boyfriends. They do not torment me, or stalk me. They just never shut that door. We do not exchange nicey-nice Christmas cards. We do not chat on the phone. There is still something intense there ... and so the emails pile up. Monday I moaned to Jackie in a "for God's SAKE, just leave me alone" tone. Then yesterday, out of the blue, email from Michael. Which totally pierced through what was happening ... he was thanking me for something ... and he went right to the heart of the matter. There was a "nobody understands me but you" thing going on ... and even though just the day before I had felt even vaguely harassed by the intense communications I get from time to time ... in that moment yesterday, my eyes filled with tears - he emailed me out of the blue ... in response to an email I had sent him maybe a month ago ... but it came yesterday. And yes. I took a moment to thank God for Michael. To thank God for the ex-boyfriends who keep in touch, who remember me specifically, and who help me remember who I really am.

The Books: "The Way Men Act" (Elinor Lipman)

Next book on my adult fiction bookshelves:

The Way Men Act by Elinor Lipman

My book excerpt series keeps me focused - I don't know why. It's a habit. Like daily exercise, or a monthly massage. I need it. Probably more than the people who read me need it - although I always do love the comments on these posts - but why I continue has more to do with what it does for me mentally. It's methodical, I have very little choice in what to post (meaning: next book on the shelf is ... and whatever it is, I go with it.) There's comfort in that.

The Way Men Act is another favorite of mine, by Elinor Lipman. Again, the title (and the cover art) might put some readers off, but all I can say is: the book is lovely. Wonderful characters, funny funny funny - and with insights that could cut glass. Melinda has moved back to her home town after years away. She has opened a flower shop. She suddenly finds herself surrounded by all the people she went to high school with - only now they are married, have kids, and are unbelievably condescending to the sad single girl in their midst. Melinda is kind of used to that, though. A smart girl, but she didn't go to college. People find this difficult to grasp. She dated one guy (Seth) for a couple years who truly could not get his mind around this face - and kept trying to change her, make her more ambitious. Melinda knows she is not ambitious - but that doesn't really bother her. It's everybody else who seems to have a problem. Libby - another old classmate of Melinda's - has also recently moved home - and is working in a boutique in the shop right next to Melinda's. They become "friends". Sort of. It's more like commiserating in misery. Melinda - at 29 - still doesn't know "what shes doing" in her life - and it seems like by now she should know. She goes to dinner parties and answers questions from baffled couples about her dating life, or "what she wants" in life - she knows she should be more ambitious but she just can't seem to get anything going. (Lipman is a master at creating this kind of character. Although she doesn't really repeat herself in terms of characters - this KIND of character is classic Lipman.) Then - a new bookshop opens up on Main Street - and it's run by Dennis Vaughan - a gorgeous single black guy - who throws Libby and Melinda into a tailspin. And also poor Melinda's mother - who can't help but say, any time Melinda mentions the smallest bit of tension with Dennis, "Could it be a racial thing?" Melinda sighs. "No, mom. It's not a racial thing." Dennis is one of those characters in a romantic comic novel ... it's hard to pinpoint what it is that is so great about him. It's kind of like trying to figure out WHY someone is a palpably effective romantic leading man in film. Some guys can do it (Russell Crowe) - other guys cannot (Matthew McConaghey) ... McConaghey may have other gifts, and I believe he does - but the powers that be keep trying to make him a leading man, and sorry - it's just not convincing. If it were going to happen, it would have happened by now - because he keeps being put as a "leading man" (and I do not absolve him from responsibility here either - one of the greatest gifts an actor can have is "know thyself"). His best work was from his early career - when he was not well-known - Dazed and Confused being the best example. He's no leading man! Despite the golden abs and the pearly whites. He's a goofy weird character actor! He should be playing small parts in larger movies with bigger stars - he should play "cameos" - he really should.

Anyway. Back to my book. Dennis Vaughan is that rare rare thing: an effective and awesome leading man. He's complex, but he's also funny (it's great how Lipman can actually create a character about whom other people say, "He's so funny!" and then have him actually BE funny. Creating a character who is pro-actively funny is NOT an easy task ... but she does it here). Melinda and Libby kind of end up as rivals for Dennis. I can't remember much of the intricacies here - it's been years since I read it - but I do remember falling in love with Dennis. In all of his foibles, and weirdness (because he's not perfect - this isn't a bodice-ripping romance novel - this is a book about real people) - you just ache for Melinda to "get" him. But of course it won't be that easy.

Even just writing this much about it has made me want to read the book again.

Melinda works in a flower shop so she finds herself making flower arrangements for all her old high school pals, as they go off and get married. Libby had actually dated Dennis (in her mind) in high school - and she is still, at 29, all tormented and weird about it. Dennis informs Melinda that, uhm, no. They never dated. But Libby doesn't know that. More romances happen along the way - I suppose Dennis is seen as off-limits to Melinda, mainly because Libby is so weird about him, and their teenage so-called relationship ... so poor Melinda is having recreational non-committed sex all over town with various gentlemen ... and her married friends are snots about it, and murmur things like, "I hope you're being safe ..." ... and "Don't you ever want to get married?" etc. etc. But over the course of the book - in all its twists and turns - you begin to see that it is Dennis she wants ... and also ... it is Dennis - bachelor Dennis - who is right for her. And she for him.

It's kind of a beautiful book - funny memorable characters, great writing, vintage Lipman.

EXCERPT FROM The Way Men Act by Elinor Lipman

I had this boyfriend, Seth, for four years in California. He supposedly loved me, and his friends thought I was a breath of fresh air, which is what the graduate-level educated (cell biology, U.C. San Diego) say about the high-school educated if the latter is pretty and the former wish they were sleeping with her, too.

We met while I was waitressing at one of the ice cream parlors that had an extended menu of soups, sandwiches, and salads, and didn't mind its patrons sitting around for hours over four-dollar dinners, refilling their coffee cups, switching to decaf after 8 p.m. Seth left 50 percent tips: two bucks for a $3.98 chicken salad plate. Besides he was cute for a scientist: sandy hair and eyeglasses of a yellowish tortoiseshell. I made the first move: Where was he from originally? Connecticut! Holy shit - I was from Massachusetts ... Melinda LeBlank ... Harrow ... Just temporarily while I was earning some money for college ... Where have I applied? Nowhere, officially, until I establish residency. Maybe Santa Cruz? Maybe the moon?

Seth talked about this in subsequent conversations, which turned into dates, into making out on the beach, into me moving into his rented house on a flat street of boring basementless houses with carpets in otherwise gorgeous LaJolla. He loved to talk about my plans for college; he'd work it in to introductions when his lab friends met me for the first time. Lest you think she's a clerk in a flower-packing business; lest you can't judge her intelligence by yourself and need some credentials like "will be going to college next year"; "is thinking about applying to the enology program at Davis ..."

The fact is, I understood his apologies: I wouldn't live with someone who had my level of ambition, either. I wrote away for applications to San Diego, Santa Cruz, Davis, Santa Barbara, Sacramento State and MacMillan back home, where they were obliged to give me, as long as I claimed 114 Woodrow Avenue, Harrow, as my permanent address, free tuition.

Receiving the fat application forms was one thing; filling them out with no motivation behind it, and on the basis of someone else's ambitions, was practically impossible. Seth was baffled that I had taken the bare minimum of tests - only SATs but no Achievement Tests. What kind of high school was this? Now look what you'll have to do.

He brought home a Dictaphone from the lab: I could speak my essays into it; an oral first draft. Why not talk about growing flowers and how you've grown through that. They'll like that working with your hands/working with the earth stuff. Maybe tell that story about the guy who didn't speak English and you couldn't speak Spanish and didn't know anything about flowers at first so you called them all by their Spanish names; couldn't figure out the orders, never realizing -

"They're not looking for idiots," I said.

"That's not the point of that story. The point is something multicultural. It's saying that flowers transcend cultures and languages and that there's no absolutes with flowers. His 'lino' is your 'lily'. And you, the English-speaking American citizen, were the one who was at a disadvantage, as if the flowers were the great leveler. It's a good anecdote, and funny. They love when you use humor to make a point."

Years later, when I heard Dennis's radio commentaries, his life lessons drawn from fish and fake bugs, they reminded me of Seth's sappy idea for my college essay. I said no, forget it; I wasn't going to turn working alongside Carlos and identifying flowers by their Spanish names into a college essay which proved It's a Small World After All.

Seth hadn't known someone like me, since he grew up in Connecticut and went to prep school. Not that prep school underachievers all went to college; the few who didn't traveled around Europe with plans for deferring their education for one year. Nobody just moved away aimlessly. If they took dead-end jobs it was for Life Experience and tuition money. Nobody got sidetracked and kept the dead-end job for four years. "You would have known people like me if you'd gone to the public high school," I pointed out.

Seth conceded that I was probably right. There probably were smart kids who didn't automatically go to college - first-generation kinds of patterns, parents who hadn't gone either. Seth could imagine this world about as well as he could imagine there were families out there where fathers abandoned mothers, and mothers remarried traveling salesmen and handed out coupons in supermarkets. I was a refreshing change for Seth, a walk on the wild side - or at least on the working-class side - and I knew it would be my floundering around that got to him in the end. His class notes from Dartmouth didn't only say that somebody married this Liz or that Katherine, but identified them with "Williams '84" or "Yale '85" so the groom's classmates could approve, without picture or personal acquaintance, on the basis of one proper noun.

What could Seth have said about me: Part-time waitress? Flower picker? Future college freshman?

After enough time had passed to make me a California resident, after the dates passed when my applications were due, after I failed to write to Harrow High and ask Mr. Alberghini the list of questions I was supposed to ask him about references and transcripts, Seth said he didn't get it at all: Did I want to pick flowers in the hot California sun until I developed skin cancer? Had I been lying to him all along about my goals?

I said sure I wanted to have a degree and a profession, and God knows that was the only thing that counted in his book especially now that his sexual needs were under control. He'd realized that what you appreciated in a girlfriend wasn't necessarily what you wanted in the mother of your children.

And I knew he'd call it something else.

I got home from the fields, as I liked to call it, one night soon after that, and there he was wearing a dish towel tucked into his belt as a half-apron.

"Sit down," he said grandly. "I have a treat for you." I slid into the breakfast nook, quite enthralled with this gesture - Seth acting out the role of a television-commercial mate having dinner ready for his working woman. Then he put a dinner plate down in front of me. The meal was slime and mold, literally - the stuff I'd put in plastic containers weeks before and forgotten. There was something long and watery brown that might have been scallions - there was a small red rubber band at one end. Another lump on the plate might have been goulash - now completely penicillin. Something else was a furry gray: old canned fruit cocktail? And the remaining thing, now peachy-orange, was a mound of elbow macarony that had retained the shape of its home for the past few months: a margarine tub.

"A balanced meal from the four mold groups," Seth said.

"Very funny," I said.

"I was looking for the grated Parmesan and I found everything but."

"And you decided you'd teach me a lesson?"

"I can't live like this," he said.

"If you're home more than I am, why am I responsible for what grows in our refridgerator?"

"I'm not the one who saves a tablespoon of goulash. When do you think you're going to use one tablespoon of goulash? What are the odds?"

"You're exaggerating. I save portions."

"To what end?"

"All right," I said. "Enough. This is harassment. You've made your point."

"I threw out a garbage bag full of stuff that was inedible. There were a half-dozen bottles with a dribble of relish in each one. That's not me. You're the condiment queen."

I picked up my pocketbook and walked out. He asked where I was going and I said, "You're too chicken to admit what the real reason is, so this is how you're breaking up with me."

"I didn't say anything about us breaking up."

"Why? You can't live like this, remember? I'm a stupid, terrible person because I let mold grow in your refrigerator. If I'd gone to college this would never have happened. Isn't that what you're saying?"

I was out the door by now, and heading for the driveway, not running, not very fast at all. He had time to yell an apology; he even had time to stop me and throw his arms around me. But he didn't try. He had found a reason to send me back where I'd come from, something other than the Yankee warnings he'd been raised on about coming from different worlds. And in the version he told our mutual friends later, I was the unreasonable one, the one who couldn't take a joke. They probably all listened and nodded and agreed, "Melinda can't take a joke," then rushed to fix him up with graduate students they knew who they'd been keeping in the wings, women with degrees who kept boxes of baking soda in their refrigerators.

ginger

In memory

alex, dear, you have no idea how much i needed to read that this morning.

best friends

I've been waiting for Larry to get to Best Friends in his month-long Burt-Reynolds-a-Thon - I always had a great affection for the film (and Goldie Hawn, in particular, is one of my faves. When she's on? Nobody better.)

I loved his review. Haven't seen the film in years - must rectify that.

In honor of president's day:

Last night, I had a nightmare about James K. Polk's gallstone operation. I had just read a harrowing description of it - and could not (still cannot, actually) get it out of my mind (if you don't know what was done to him, Google around, you'll eventually find it). No anesthesia, no antiseptic - I cannot even imagine. He was 17 years old when it was done.

I woke up at 2 am, with my hands clutching at my own legs ... trying to stave off the surgeon's knife from 1811 as it were.

I had a big president's day thing planned but couldn't do it. James K. Polk's agony will have to do instead!

The no comments thing will probably be temporary. I just can't have comments right now. i need to preserve my energy - and I don't know, it feels right at the moment.

You know you're a US President geek when you dream about an operation that occurred almost 200 years ago.

charles lamb

charles lamb (read that bio - day-um, that's some intense stuff) has come up quite a bit recently. in one of my ulysses posts - and then a conversation i had this weekend with my mother about him. she was reading anne fadiman's recent collection of essays - i gave it to dad for christmas - and fadiman wrote a big essay on charles lamb - and how he was a master of the essay. anyway, you know how suddenly something (like charles lamb) is on your radar - and you start seeing him everywhere? or you learn a new word, and it suddenly shows up in every commercial, radio broadcast, billboard that you see? here's a post about charles lamb. mum, i post this for you.

an excerpt from lamb about poets writing at the time of shakespeare:

“A puritanical obtuseness of sentiment, a stupid infantile goodness, is creeping among us, instead of the vigorous passions, and virtues clad in flesh and blood, with which the old dramatists present us. Those noble and liberal casuists could discern in the differences, the quarrels, the animosities of man, a beauty and truth of moral feeling, no less than in the iterately inculcated duties of forgiveness and atonement. With us all is hypocritical meekness, A reconciliation scene (let the occasion be never so absurd or unnatural) is always sure of applause. Our audiences come to the theatre to be complimented on their goodness. They compare notes with the amiable characters in the play, and find a wonderful similarity of disposition between them. We have a common stock of dramatic morality out of which a writer may be supplied without the trouble of copying it from originals within his own breast.”

fascinating. now that is some fine writing.

thanks, ken, for the following link to charles lamb's tales from shakespeare. isn't it beautiful?

over the top

jim emerson's post on over-the-top perfromances

the comments are great too.

i think meryl streep is best when she's over-the-top in comedies.

i love when an actor dares to go BIG ... dares to be misunderstood by an audience ... doesn't play it safe. sometimes it falls flat. hugely flat. but i do admire the risk.

speaking of mommie dearest - i heard faye dunaway speak, once, and she spoke intricately about her experience filming that movie, and what it was meant to be - as opposed to what it turned out to be. an actress has only so much control. but the most fascinating thing was dunaway saying that it was never meant to be a "realistic performance". she said, "I thought of it as being like Kabuki theatre - that was how I approached it."

seen in that light, she was phenomenal.

Friends

Reading this makes me happy and envious. I will be there in a couple of weeks. Not soon enough for me!

Oh, and guys - here's this

41 years

Happy anniversary, Mum and Dad, from your first-born.

Movie quote game canceled

Sorry. Something came up.

The Books: "Isabel's Bed" (Elinor Lipman)

Next book on my adult fiction bookshelves:

Isabel's Bed by Elinor Lipman

Isabel's Bed was a pretty major hit at the time - one of Lipman's biggest - and it's another book that makes me laugh out loud, but also become so engrossed that I miss appointments, and forget where I am. She's so good. On every level. Her books are not "mood" books - about weaving a web with her prose (like Nancy Lemann's books are). Her books have plot and structure. The dialogue is crisp and snappy. But it would be very wrong to think of Lipman as a utility writer, or a good craftsman. She is both of these things - but she's more than that. It's hard to be invisible as a writer. And it doesn't suit every writer to be so. Michael Chabon is never invisible. Some people hate him for that reason. I happen to love him, but there you have it. Elinor Lipman is so good that she is nearly invisible. Her writing does not call attention to itself, but when you look at it through a microscope, it is impeccable. And not just impeccable - but lovely, evocative, poetic. That's a true master.

Isabel's Bed is awesome - with its multilayered structure. First you have Harriet - a struggling writer in New York - whose live-in boyfriend of 12 years or something like that - breaks the news to her that he is going to marry someone else. HOLY SHIT. Can you imagine? You put in 12 years of your life ??? This tragic event throws Harriet into a panic about her life, her career - she is trying to sell a novel, she is having no luck ... so, out of desperation, she moves to Cape Cod, to try to finish her book. She is having no luck in writing it. It's a serious novel about her parents marriage - if I can recall correctly. You know, a serious book. Desperate, she answers an ad in some trade magazine - looking for a "ghost writer". Turns out that Isabel Krug - a notorious person, a tabloid favorite - is looking for someone to write her memoir for her. Isabel is famous because she was in bed with her millionaire lover - when the wife came in and shot her husband (Isabel's lover) through the heart. There was then a spectacular murder case - a tabloid frenzy - Isabel's face splashed everywhere - the "mistress of the murdered man" etc. It would be like if Amy Fisher was looking for a ghost writer. Although Joey is still alive. But you know - that's the level of tabloid notoriety that Isabel Krug has. Isabel lives on the Cape - in isolation - with her long-time butler/assistant - and Harriet, a serious writer, gets the job of ghost-writer to this woman. Who is nuts - a true Lipman character. Self-involved, she has ZERO boundaries, is completely honest to a fault, kind of coarse - and yet - gradually - you just fall in love with this crazy woman. Harriet moves in with Isabel. She interviews her over a series of weeks about what happened. The cold empty Cape is the background for all of this.

It's a wonderful book. So funny, and completely absorbing. Great characters, twists and turns - and also I love it because, in a way, it's about the writing process. I can't help but put myself in Harriet's shoes. How on earth would I deal with this woman??

Isabel expects the book to be flattering to herself. But Harriet wants to write the truth. This might get rocky! Of course it begins as strictly a professional relationship - but because Isabel has no boundaries - she can't help but start to get involved in Harriet's journey (you can even see it in the excerpt below - when you can sense that Isabel wants company for dinner). Harriet does not welcome this personal intrusion ... but naturally you cannot resist Isabel. Nobody ever could.

Pete - Isabel's assistant - becomes a very important character as well. You just love the guy. And yeah. Harriet eventually loves him, too.

Like I said - many layers here. Great stuff.

Here's an excerpt.

EXCERPT FROM Isabel's Bed by Elinor Lipman

There weren't even bubbles in the bath to obscure her private parts from me, her acquaintance of less than twenty-four hours. It was not the lolling soak of Calgon commercials; this was Isabel soaping her wash cloth and scrubbing her armpits and crotch in a manner I hadn't done in front of Kenny after a decade of intimacy. I sat on a wrought iron stool at the foot of the black marble steps, which led to her elevated, sunken tub. She talked and soaked, talked and scrubbed, then talked and rinsed, while I tried to be as casual about her nudity as she was, and while many Isabels bounced off the mirrored walls.

And there was no getting around her breasts, especially i the context of Isabel as tabloid paramour, as the woman Guy VanVleet died for. They were big. Enormous. They drooped from their own weight below the bath water, then surfaced on display, areolas the size of coasters. I wanted to ask if they were real, but decided that no certified plastic surgeon would have built those. Ordinarily I'd feel sorry for a woman with water-balloon breasts, knowing the burdens they imposed, but I could see that Isabel prized them and regarded them as my first research project, as if seeing them would help me write between the lines.

I said, "Do we want to start with your life and proceed chronologically, or do we start with the night Guy was shot?"

" 'The Night Guy Was Shot,' " Isabel repeated. "Write that down. I like that." I made a note on my first blank page.

"Are you writing in shorthand?"

"Not lists you may be reading," I said.

"Good thinking."

"How are we going to approach it?" I asked again.

Isabel turned on the crystal faucet and ran more water into the black tub. "Approach what?" she asked, sinking deeper and closing her eyes.

"The narrative."

"I've been talking into tapes for months. You play them back and take it all down and that's where we get a book."

When I didn't answer, she said, "Don't get nervous. I know I'm not writer. I only meant, first you'll listen to the tapes, then you'll ask me questions to fill in the blanks. Then you'll make it into a book. I'll give you all the newspaper clippings I have and when you're done, we'll get started."

"Are you going to be the only source?"

She sat up a little straighter and said, "I don't understand your question."

"What if I want to interview some of the principals?"

"Like who?"

"Mrs. VanVleet?"

"Fat chance."

"You don't think she'd cooperate?"

"Why should she? As a favor to me, or as a good citizen?"

"Do you know where she is?"

"Pomfret, Connecticut. A cushy sanitarium for the rich and criminally insane."

"Wouldn't you cooperate if someone were writing a serious piece of journalism on the case?"

"Not with me, I wouldn't! She hates my guts."

I asked what Nan's sentence was.

"No sentence! She was found not guilty by reason of temporary insanity, which is what you plead if you'd rather be in a mental hospital than a prison. She's there until the shrinks give her a clean bill of health." She stood up and extended her hand, meaning towel.

"I'd love to talk to her," I said.

"It's my book. It's about me. Nan VanVleet can write her own book."

"Just for background? You want people to think it's balanced."

"I've got two years of clippings plus the transcripts, plus videotapes of my testimony. Examination, cross-examination, the works."

"Do you have her testimony on tape, too?"

She looked perplexed: What am I, a documentary filmmaker?

I didn't want to argue with my large, naked boss. I said I was going to find a nice sunny spot in my room and read as much as I could by Monday.

Isabel neither endorsed this plan nor objected to it, but I sensed a hesitation. "Is that okay with you?" I prompted.

"Fine. Pete Xeroxed about a million pages."

"I read pretty fast."

Still, she was quieter than she'd been all morning. I asked if talking about the case opened the old wounds. I mean, it wasn't all that long ago. Post-traumatic stress disorder and the like.

She shrugged: nah.

So I said I'd be breaking for meals, naturally. How many would we be for dinner?

Her face brightened and the brisk toweling resumed. "Just the three of us," she said.

Valentine's Day plan

I have no self-consciousness about being single. None. ZERO. I have SADNESS about being single ("sadness" is a tepid word for what I actually feel), but sadness is an entirely different thing. I have NO shame about it (and hey, maybe I should, but whatevs - I've got enough shame about all kinds of other things, no need to pile it on).

So what this all means is: I have NO problem going to movies by myself (I actually love it - do it a couple times a week, in a good week) - I go out to dinner by myself all the time - and just sit there and read. It's one of my favorite things to do. I have a couple pubs where I go to unwind - and in typical Irish fashion - have a pint, and read. And am left alone. It's important to find that kind of joint. Lots of people feel self-conscious about doing these "couples-ish" activities alone, and I get that - I get that people feel that way - but I have ZERO self-consciousness about it. It's just something I'm past, or over. Maybe it's because of where I live? Where it's basically a CROWD scene at every moment ... it's easy to get lost here, to truly feel invisible.

Like I said, it makes me SAD sometimes - but I honestly try not to think about it anymore, because life is too short, and I love going to the movies by myself (and actually, if I did have a boyfriend - I would probably STILL go to the movies, on occasion, by myself - it's just something I love) ... and I love love love sitting in a quiet corner in a pub, reading my book, and just hanging out with myself. Maybe people look at me pityingly. It's highly possible. Or maybe they look at me with wonderment, like: "I could NEVER just sit there by myself ... I'd be too self-conscious!" (And that's what I hear a lot of people saying who are unhappy with the holiday - they are angry at how they THINK that they - a single freak - will look to others). Here's my view on that: I don't let strangers rent space in my brain. Especially not hostile strangers. Judge-y strangers. I have enough of that head-trip going on all by myself. As David said to me a couple weeks ago, "Sheila, you are lethal company to yourself when things get rough." Lethal is right. No need to let lethal people into my life, since I have the most to fear from myself. My friends, my family, boyfriends from my past who stay in touch with me, and who still love me ... THEY are the people who get to hang out in my brain. And tell me stuff. And whisper things in my ear. And murmur encouragement. Or give me tough love. They are welcome. But strangers? The media? Afternoon talk-shows? Women's magazines? Nope. You guys do not get to hang out in my brain.

To the "I would feel self-conscious going out to dinner by myself" crowd - I want to say that I do feel your pain. I have been there myself. But I urge you: just give it a try! If you feel you want it! Enjoy your own company! Have a date with yourself. I know it sounds so corny, but it's true. If I have a week where I'm going out every night (and it rarely happens - but let's say I do) - I end up feeling very "off" ... and pretty much hole up alone for the entire weekend in a cocoon of glorious solitude. It's not that I WANT alone-time, it is that I have now come to count on it for my equilibrium. It's a priority to me to work it in.

You know how there are people who say, "I wish I had more time to read!" (Huge pet peeve of mine, but whatevs, I'll let it go.) What you need to get is that I MAKE time to read. It's like exercise. The people who say "I wish I had more time ..." or "I would exercise if I had more time ..." are missing the point. You MAKE the time if you really have it as a priority. And if you can't? Then you need to let it go. Don't blame it on not having enough time. I know plenty of mothers with young babies who MAKE time to read because it is a priority for them. (A friend of mine said to me, a couple of weeks after the birth of her baby, "So, I can only read short stories now! No more novels! The story must fit in during a nap-time ..." which just made me laugh. Good solution - if you NEED to read.) They don't feel like themselves if they are not reading. Perhaps with an infant they read 2 pages a week, as opposed to 2 chapters - but they READ. Same with exercise.

A dear friend of mine was diagnosed with a pretty terrible illness last year. She is a busy woman, with a job, a husband, two kids. Her life is go-go-go-go. Now I don't want to speak for her ... but I do know that with the diagnosis she had to make time to decompress. And lie on the couch. It HAD to happen. Even though dinner needed to be made, the kids lunches packed, etc. It hadn't ever been a priority before - basically because she was busy and shit needs to get done. Laundry, gardening, bills, everything! I know she struggles with just coming home from work and lying down on the couch for an hour ... she yearns to get up and bustle about. But that time (and I'm sure there's some give and take with it, times when she really MUST work thru it, and get an important task done) has to be factored in now. For her health. Other things had to get shuffled aside - because no, you cannot do it all. It is up to YOU, the individual, to figure out: okay. What is essential for my well-being (physical and mental) - and what is not? It's SO hard to prioritize sometimes! It takes some soul-grappling.

So I get annoyed with the "I would if I only had more time ..." excuse - about anything. It reminds me of Stephen King saying, "Bad writers are the ones who don't write. Period" How many times have I heard people say, "I have a novel in me - if I just had the time ..." What a fucking insult to those of us who actually do sit down and churn out pages every goddamn day in the hopes that we will get a break, get it published, get a foothold. I DON'T have the time, often. I wake up at 5 in the morning sometimes because if I don't get in my pages for the day, I feel "off". And then there's the exercise. How do I get that in? I have been really REALLY struggling with that over the last couple of months, and I just can't seem to make it work. But I need to figure out something, and it has to be a plan of some kind ... something structured because I, for one, need a plan. At least in that area. I don't need a pre-planned structure to sit down and write every day. I write when I have the flu, I write when my heart is broken, I have kept writing, even over the last couple of months when I have been dealing with serious illness, and loss, and all kinds of heavy shit. I sit down and write because I MUST. I become mentally unbalanced if I don't, and I am not exaggerating. But exercise - I need to have a calendar, and put it in the calendar a week ahead of time ... so that that time is blocked out (and etc. etc.) I guess I'd say (not that anyone asked, but again, whatevs) if you hear yourself saying "I wish I had more time .. then I would do such and such ..." Just take a look at that. Take a look at how you might be victimizing yourself. Let yourself off the hook about your schedule. Don't pile it on. If something isn't a priority, it's not a priority - so do your best not to feel guilty. Don't put yourself through a head-trip because you can only read 2 pages in a day, as opposed to your usual speed. Don't victimize yourself by TIME. It's so so easy to do ... the time ticking away in each day is louder in my ears with every moment ... but I am really really working on this now. It's a priority. And my quality of life has gone up - even though my circumstances have remained the same (and actually, in some cases, gotten much much worse.)

So. What does all of this have to do with Valentine's Day?

I guess I don't have self-consciousness about being single today. The onslaught of publicity is ... whatever, it's annoying (when you watch the news and you see a little blinking heart over today's date in the weather report - you know, that's a bit much) ... but I don't know. Life's too short. I will NOT be victimized by Hallmark.

I am alREADY sad that I don't have a mate. But I don't feel embarrassed or anything about walking around alone today.

So. Here's ye olde planne. I got home at 2 a.m. last night so I can't wait to get home and crawl into pjs. But the plan is:

1. Read a couple chapters of Post Captain, by Patrick O'Brien. Having a BLAST with the second volume in the series. I mean, Jack Aubrey being smuggled through Spain in a bear suit? And Maturin's love affair with the awesome Diane Villiers? (Oh, and don't tell me what happens!!) The possible love-triangle ... Stephen's a spy ... and Jack doesn't know it ... So far, most of this book has taken place on land, and Jack Aubrey is on the run from creditors, who basically want to arrest him. Anyway. Wonderful. Absorbing. TOTAL page-turner. With a "jewel" on every page (like I wrote about before).

2. Dan!! DBW! Just got word that The Cowboys is waiting for me at home. I can't WAIT to see it. Had to bump it up to the top of the queue. And it arrived. Ahhhh, very excited for a little John Wayne fest tonight.

3. Go on a moisturizing FRENZY. It's been cold this week, colder than any other week we've had thus far - and my skin feels scaly and dry. I am obsessed with skin care. Seriously. It's a daily ritual - but today I need to go the extra mile. I look forward to breaking out all the products. The elbow-cream is different from the foot-cream is different from the neck-cream is different from the "quenching" cream. Ahhh. My skin feels thirsty just thinking about it.

4. Pass out by 10:30. Maybe spend a bit of time with Hitachi. Whatever. Have a glass of wine. Chill out. Curtains closed.

Nice.

So yeah. I'm sad. I'm lonely. It aches. (Please please resist giving me advice or a pep talk. If you're my friend in real life, and you KNOW me, then I welcome it - ... but I'm not looking for a pep talk in the comments section. That WILL make me feel self-conscious! My interest on my blog is, first and foremost, expressing myself. Please read me in that manner, if you possibly can!)

Sadness, yes. Aching? Yes.

But I'm not at all self-conscious or embarrassed that that is my plan for the night. It looks kinda nice, actually.

Declarations of Love

Matt has a 5 for the day (declarations of love in movies and television). Wonderful choices, I think. Made me think of others I would like to add. And bless you for including "the phone scene" in It's a Wonderful Life. I have never, and I mean never, seen a scene that palpitates with as much erotic suppressed energy as that scene. It's almost unbearable.

Transylvania on 24th Street

I was at The Cutting Room, a dark and semi-swank music club and lounge on 24th Street. There is a cavernous front room, with low leather couches, enormous gilt-framed portraits on the wall (giving the place a creepy Dracula-esque air), chandeliers, and lights so low you almost cannot see where you are going. In the back, behind closed doors, is the stage. Everyone at the Cutting Room is gorgeous, and there is, indeed, a velvet-roped apparatus thing in the front that you need to get through in order to enter. It's so big that you really can settle in with your companion in relative privacy, even though the joint is always packed. And the jukebox plays classic 70s rock. Or, not even "rock". For example "California Dreamin'" played 3 times in the hour and a half that I was there. And this is a jukebox, remember. People are choosing this music. And it's loud, but not loud enough that you have to shout. It's a great joint. There are huge windows looking out on 24th street, with massive heavy red velvet curtains hanging. You feel like you're stepping into some crazy person's house when you enter. Or like you are going to visit the Dunwich family. Sitting over at her own table is a palm reader. She sits there all night, just waiting for people to come over, should they choose. She has long thick black hair. One of the tables is a Pac-Man game. You can sit, and rest your martini on the screen (as I saw a couple do), and play Pac-Man to your hearts content.

It's so dark that these are crap pictures. But the darkness somehow (to me) does capture the creepy Transylvania feel of The Cutting Room. Or, actually - judging from the hotties everywhere in sight - (for example: the chick in the 1940s throwback dress, sleeveless, with a tattoo swirling down her arm, big combat boots - playing Pac-Man and sipping on her martini) - more like Interview with a Vampire ...

One of the chandeliers.

The vast darkness of the space. You can see the giant creepy portraits on the opposite wall.

I had a moment where I was talking on my cell phone at the same time I was blackberrying someone. Yup. I'm the asshole. Oh well. I'm certainly not alone. So I decided to capture my meta moment. Realizing that I am totally behaving like Julia Allison right now.

The jukebox.

Valentine

This post (on one of my favorite sites out there) is related to my spitball Valentine story. Yes. It was a nice tradition.

The Books: "Then She Found Me" (Elinor Lipman)

Next book on my adult fiction bookshelves:

Then She Found Me by Elinor Lipman

What a wonderful writer Elinor Lipman is. She's hugely successful - her books sell - but I don't know if she gets the props she REALLY deserves. She tends to get lumped in with chick lit - you can see it in her cover designs - but seriously, she's not like that. She's way better. She's been publishing well-crafted hysterical insightful books for decades now - it's a rare writer who can make me laugh out loud. Lipman can. But she also has the gift of imagination: her characters live on in my memory - like Bernice, the biological mother who suddenly shows up in Then She Found Me. I remember her. She makes an impression. Her latest novel, My Grievance has garnered some of the best reviews of her career, and I was mostly interested in Fay Weldon's words on her in The Washington Post. I read them and felt a ferocious sense of vindication, almost like, "YES. YES." She SAID it. And she's RIGHT:

Elinor Lipman is a far more serious novelist than she pretends to be or is allowed to be by reviewers. (I learned a long time ago that to be taken seriously you need to cut back on the funny lines. I once all but won the Booker Prize for a novel from which, on Kingsley Amis's advice, I had removed anything remotely mirthful. Alas, it was still "all but," so I reverted to my old ways.) Lipman, declining to learn this worldly wisdom, goes on making jokes and therefore tends to get described with adjectives that are good for sales but bad for literary reputations: "oddball," "hilarious," "over-the-top," "quirky," "beguiling" or, worst of all, "summer reading." The prose slips down too easily and pleasantly to allow her to rise into the literary top division, where the adjectives become "piercing," "important," "profound," "significant," "lyrical," "innovative" and so on. Dull, in fact.

But up there at the top is where this enchanting, infinitely witty yet serious, exceptionally intelligent, wholly original and Austen-like stylist belongs. Delicately, she travels the line where reality and fiction meet. Reality being more oddball, quirky and chaotic than fiction can ever be, Lipman inures us to the truth about the way we live by making it up as she goes along, cracking jokes and pretending it's all fiction.

I agree with every word. "Enchanting" is right. "Exceptionally intelligent" is right. Reality is oddball. And you know, being "witty" is a dying art. Lipman keeps it alive. Her prose shimmers with wit. I am in love with her. If you have not discovered her novels, I tell you: do yourself a favor. Pick one up. Don't let the chick lit covers put you off. She is the real deal. My mother actually gave me Then She Found Me as a gift - I don't even think she had read it, but it looked like something I might like. I was so into Lipman's writing from that that I went out and bought every book I could find. THAT is the mark of a good writer. I'm a fan for life.

Then She Found Me is the story of April, a high school Latin teacher, who lives a quiet boring little life. She spends her weekends in her pajamas. She is a serious person. She was given up for adoption. And then one day - Bernice Graverman (a local celebrity - she has a talk-show) swoops back into April's life - saying, "Hi. I am your biological mother." Bernice is the quintessential celebrity. She cares about designer labels. She's always dressed to the nines, head to toe. Her earrings are like dinner platters. She wants to be congratulated for coming back ... but April is kind of like, "Uhm ... why can't you go away again?"

The book has many elements - but one of the things that happens is that Bernice INSISTS on being April's "mother" ... even though April lets her know that kind of intrusion isn't welcome. Bernice is horrified at her daughter's plain appearance ("did that plain girl come from MY loins??") - she can't believe April would rather sit home and READ than go out for cocktails ...

Now of course April resists this intrusion. But naturally, things start to shift anyway. Old patterns start to break up. And April can't help but find herself affected.

It's a wonderful book.

Here is an excerpt. Bernice loves to self-dramatize. She seems to have no concept that April might have some feelings about being abandoned back then ... Bernice is more interested in pumping up the drama of her own life, and making the story into some kind of dramatic monologue. Oh, and her story keeps changing. April wants to know who her real dad is. Bernice hints, deflects, lies, changes her story ...

Bernice sounds like a monster, and in many ways she is - but still, the way Lipman writes her, she is so so so funny. A whirlwind, of perfume and cleavage. Being all dramatic and self-involved. Completely oblivious to the fact that other people might not be so impressed. Obtuse.

This excerpt involves April and Bernice going out to lunch, and Bernice starting to do her monologue (the third or fourth version of it) about who April's real father is. Notice how Bernice treats April like a guest on her talk show.

EXCERPT FROM Then She Found Me by Elinor Lipman

"I want to know everything about you," Bernice said, as we were being seated at Sally Ling's. "Start from your earliest memory. Or start with your life today and work backwards."

I shrugged out of my coat and draped it on the empty chair next to me. I told Bernice I had expected to talk about her first, at least the part about my father.

She pushed away her place setting and leaned forward, arms folded, elbows on the table. Without preamble or protest, she recited her story. "I met him when I was sixteen. I worked in Stockings on the street floor of Jordan Marsh, a buyer in training. It was a more personal department in those days with a great deal of customer contact. Stockings came in boxes, not on racks like greeting cards. I spent my days folding back tissue paper, carefully splaying my fingers inside nylons to demonstrate color and sheerness." She paused. "Am I going into too much detail for you at this juncture?"

"Go on," I said.

"I met Jack at my counter just before Mother's Day. I recognized him as an educated man and spoke accordingly --"

"Jack who?"

"I'm getting to that. 'Doesn't this Schiaparelli have a lovely diaphanous quality?' I asked. I saw the effect immediately. He started, then smiled his brilliant smile. For good measure, noticing his Harvard ring, I said, 'I can't wear my school ring because it snags the hosiery.'

"'Where did you go to school?' he asked.

"'Girls' Latin.' I lowered my voice so the other salesgirl wouldn't hear. 'I'm going to be a senior. They think I'm staying on here full-time.'

"'And where do you live?'

"'Brighton,' I told him. He grinned again and held out a tanned hand. 'I hope to be your next congressman.'

"I said something like, 'You do?'

"'I'm running in the Democratic primary. Maybe you could put in a good word for me with your neighbors.' That's exactly what he said.

"'With pleasure,' I said.

"He patted his pockets and found a parking ticket to write on. I offered him my Jordan Marsh ballpoint. He wrote my n ame and address . . . . Nothing!" Bernice smiled triumphantly.

"Nothing?" I repeated.

"No flinch at the 'Graverman', no reneging on what I sensed was sexual rapport between us out of anti-Semitism. Nothing! He asked if I'd like to help out in the campaign. 'Pretty girls are always needed,' I think is what he said. I blushed, of course. I was totally inexperienced and hadn't learned how to accept compliments graciously. 'If you think I can be of some help,' I said.

"He wrote a phone number on my sales pad. I said I'd call his headquarters that night. He was a beanpole then, and not terribly smooth, but I sensed his greatness. I should have kept that sales slip. It would be worth a lot of money today. And did I mention the stockings? A Mother's Day present for Rose."

Bernice ended her story with a quivering, pained smile.

I laughed. For the first time in her presence, I laughed.

"How dare you," she whispered.

"You're saying my father was Jack Kennedy?"

She stared for a long time, then said, "I know it's not what you were expecting to hear."

"Do you have proof?" I asked.

"He knew about you, if that's what you were wondering."

"John Kennedy got you pregnant?"

"We were deeply in love."

"Wasn't he married?"

"He hadn't even met her yet."

"Why didn't he marry you?"

She patted her stiff bangs. "I loved him too much for that."

"His career, you mean? You were being altruistic?"

"Of course. It would have been political suicide for him to marry me. He'd have been crucified because I was pregnant and it would have been worse that I was a Jew. Jack would have come to resent me, too. Ironically."

"Why 'ironically'?"

"Because if he had chosen me - us - he'd never have been elected. He'd be alive today."

I asked if she was mentioned in any of the Kennedy biographies.

She stared at me again - it was my own schoolmarm's stare, refusing to answer a question of such sass and ill will. "What sells books?" she asked finally. "You tell me. Bernice Graverman or Marilyn Monroe?"

I wanted to tell her that she was either cruel or crazy and in either case insulting my intelligence. I considered "You are a sick woman," or "You're lying." I settled on "I don't look like him at all."

"You don't," she agreed.

"Wasn't he tall?"

Bernice reached for the glass ashtray and placed it in front of her with a petulant clink.

"You're annoyed," I said.

She shrugged.

"Did you expect me to believe you?"

"When you're telling the truth, you don't worry about being taken for a liar."

"So you said to you yourself, I'll tell April I'm her mother and President Kennedy was her father, and then she'll know. Period. That'll impress the hell out of her. Something like that?"

Bernice poked a long red fingernail into an almost flat pack of cigarettes and found one more. She lit it with a silver lighter and exhaled gracefully toward the ceiling. "I'm not an analytic person," she said. "I act first and live with the consequences."

"How old was he?"

"Twenty-nine," said Bernice, "but he looked twenty-two."

"I can't believe someone twenty-nine years old, running for public office, would seduce a sixteen-year-old campaign volunteer, practically on the spot."

"You're very naive. You don't understand the way it was. Politicians did whatever they felt like doing, especially bachelor politicians."

"Where did you go for your trysts?" I asked.

"Charlestown. An apartment of someone he trusted."

"Was he your first?"

"Of course!"

"How long did it last?"

"Weeks, months." Bernice looked away, then added: "For me, a lifetime."

I smiled, thinking that for all her drama she was a terrible actress. I asked if they had managed to be together often.

"Whenever we could. His schedule was impossible."

'Was he good?" I asked in a low voice.

Bernice smiled indulgently. "Terrible, by today's standards. All business. And his back always hurt."

"Was he right- or left-handed?"

"Right."

"Was he circumcised?" I asked.

"If you're trying to trip me up, you won't."

"Why weren't you angry? Didn't you want to ruin his career after he abandoned you?"

Bernice closed her eyes and shook her head, rattled her head vigorously. One toad-sized clip-on earring flew off her earlobe.

I thought: This person is my mother.

Last night. 10:30 pm. Union Square Theatre

We were beside ourselves with excitement. So much of Eddie Izzard's stuff is "had to be there" humor. Like his whole discourse on the Church of England and how that somehow inevitably leads to "cake or death". You really just have to see the whole thing. He's not a punchline-type guy. How can one describe why the phrase, "What is it, Sebastien, I'm arranging matches ..." is HILARIOUS? You just have to see the whole thing!

So to describe to you why, at one point last night, I was laughing so hard tears were streaming off of my face ... will be rather difficult. First of all, there was his acting-out of the "Thou must not covet thy neighbor's ox" commandment.If you're familiar with him, you know he starts with something concrete - and then basically plays it out to its logical (and insane) conclusions. Like his re-enactment of the building of Stone Henge. "Oh, we're building a Henge, are we? Lovely! It's not far, is it?" Or also his whole re-enactment of dinosaurs (imagining what it would be like if dinosaurs had morality, and he suddenly became a T. Rex letting someone else go ahead of him in line) and God basically just doodling whatever the fuck he wanted on a sketch pad - "He will weigh 10 tons, he will have three horns on his head, and he will be a vegetarian ..." He also did a re-enactment of Hannibal and the Alps and the elephants - and he did it IN LATIN. The guy is fucking crazy. He discoursed upon the Stone Age, and he did a whole thing about hunter-gatherers - and suddenly he became the best berry-gatherer in the world - (see, it's all "had to be there") - and other people in the tribe had to stand around holding baskets ready to catch the berries because they were coming so quickly. He did a whole thing on giraffes doing charades. hahahahahaha And I was very pleased with his bit on spiders. And how scary they are. "And so straight men and lesbians are left to deal with it ... We may hate spiders, but gay men and straight women hate them more." He's obsessed with Wikipedia. He looked up the word "spoon" for us, onstage. That became a running gag. I never realized how hilarious Wikipedia is ... just the concept of it.

The guy is brilliant. We were in the FIRST ROW. He was right there!

No more transvestite garb. He looked kind of like a scrubby old English professor. Blazer, black T shirt, jeans.

I'm basically in love with him. It was so so so fun. I'm SO glad to have seen him in person.

In honor (and contempt) of Valentine's Day, I present to you:

A post I wrote years ago. It is called:

AN EYEBALL AND A DOZEN ROSES

I was living in Chicago, having a grand old time. There were a couple of men buzzing around me. One of them, who was so sweet, so nice, a guy I had seen perform numerous times, approached me at a party and, after chatting me up for a while in a very humorous and effortless way, asked me out to dinner.

I said Sure, I would go out to dinner with him. I already knew he was very talented and very funny (having seen him on stage. Henry Kissinger was wrong. Power is not the ultimate aphrodisiac. Talent is. Or - I would say, more specifically, Comedy is the ultimate aphrodisiac.)

As I have said before, I'm not a real date-r, I haven't been on too many "let me pick you up and we'll go have dinner" kind of dates. But this guy was very traditional, and so - like a true gentleman - he set up this entire date (picked the spot, picked the after-dinner spot, etc.)

It turned out being one of the best dates I have ever been on before IN MY LIFE. Not because there were amazing sparks between us (there weren't, at least not romantic ones) - but because of where he took me to dinner, and the people we met there, and what we ended up doing. To give you a small image, it involved a bunch of 70 year old Greek women, caked with makeup, dancing around in a circle, holding hands, gesturing majesterially out to us to join their dance, as their 70 year old Greek husbands, or lovers, stood on the outskirts, throwing money up into the air. 78 year old Greek women picked up 20 dollar bills and plastered them onto their sweaty necks and sweaty 78 year old cleavage. Everyone was laughing, and dancing, and whooping it up, and everyone except for us was over 70 years of age. It was 3 a.m., and he and I joined the geriatric Greek dance, as money swirled through the air. We scuffed through the bills on the floor.

But that's a tangent, and not the story I want to tell which is the story of the Eyeball and the Dozen Roses.

During the great date at the late-night Greek place - for some UNFATHOMABLE reason - I told him that my eye doctor had taken a picture of the back of my eyeball. (Great date banter, Sheila. Way to go.)

He: "Your grey eyes look so lovely. I could drown in their sparkley depths."

Me: "Oh yeah? I should show you a picture of the BACK of my eyeball, pal."

I have no idea how the subject came up - but anyway, he (bless him) seemed completely fascinated by the idea of having a picture taken of the back of his eyeball. (Or maybe he was just being polite. Politeness was in this man's veins. He did gentlemanly things instinctually. Holding out the chair, holding out my coat, holding open the door ...) The photo was very weird and I was kind of obsessed with it - a big red ball, basically - a circle of red. It looked like a close-up photo of the red storm circling Jupiter in the cold depths of space. That was my eyeball, apparently.

During the date at the Greek place - he already set up the next date. "Okay, so Valentine's Day is next week. And I know we don't know each other at all or anything, but I think it would be fun to have a date on Valentine's Day. Whaddya say?"

I said, as I Zorba-the-Greek'ed my way through the carpet of money, plastering 20 dollar bills on my sweaty arms, "That sounds like fun!!"

So.

A date on Valentine's Day. I'm not big on Valentine's Day - not being a romantic type (as this story will OBVIOUSLY prove) - and also: it just seems like a hell of a lot of pressure. But he and I had such an unbelievably fabulous time on that first date, I thought: It's cool. It's cool. We'll have a good time again.

And then I came up with what I considered to be an inspired idea.

Instead of getting him a nice Hallmark-y little Valentine's Day card, I PUT THE PHOTO OF THE BACK OF MY EYEBALL into a little red envelope, with his name on it. On the margins of the photo I wrote, "Happy Valentine's Day."

I know it is insane.

I cannot defend it.

I am just reporting the facts of the case, which are: I put a photograph of the back of my eyeball into an envelope to give to a guy on Valentine's Day.

So I went over to his apartment. We were going out to dinner or something like that. He greeted me at the door, so nice, so sweet. He let me into the apartment - he got me a drink. We didn't really know each other at all, but we had had (hands down) the best date EVER. One for the books. We were kind of proud of ourselves for that.

He went into the kitchen, and came back out, holding a dozen red roses for me. For Valentine's Day.

He got me a dozen red roses.

I gave him a picture of my eyeball.

Let me say it again, just so we all are clear:

He got me a dozen red roses.

I gave him a picture of my eyeball.

The second I saw the roses (and I don't know why I didn't anticipate that he would do such a thing! He was such an old-fashioned gentlemanly kind of guy - I should have expected it - but I have never received a dozen red roses in my life - I never expect that kind of behavior) - Anyway, the second I saw the red roses coming at me, I remembered the little red envelope in my purse, and I could feel my face getting all hot with mortification.

Oh my God. I am such an asshole. I have given him a photograph of the back of my eyeball. What the hell was going through my mind at the time that made me think that was appropriate??? My head was literally burning with embarrassment and shame about my eyeball.

I could no longer bear the agony.

I said, "Okay, so this is completely embarrassing, seeing as you gave me a beautiful bouquet of roses ... but here's what I got you."

He opened it up - looked at the Polaroid - and then he BURST into laughter. (Thank God.)

Throughout the night he kept making jokes, pretending he was describing his Valentine's date to friends who didn't know me:

"Hey, man, did you go out on Valentine's Day?"
"Oh yeah, dude, I went out with this sweet girl I just met."
"Really? What does she look like?"
Long long pause.
"Oh .... she looks like a circle."

Or - when someone would ask him, "What did your date look like?", he would take out the photograph of the back of my eyeball and, smiling proudly, give it to them.

He ended up being very kind about the whole thing, turning it into a huge joke - which I appreciated.

But that is the mortifying story of a man who gave me a dozen roses, while I only gave him my eyeball.

A Coda:

He and I ended up going on something like 4 dates, stretched out over an 8 week period. Obviously there wasn't a sense of urgency to it all - Occasionally we would go to a movie, or out to dinner, whatever - but nothing ever really happened beyond that. There were no games, no weirdness, nothing like that. It just was what it was. I would forget for weeks at a time that he even existed, and then he would call and invite me to do something. I was dating other people, I'm sure he was too. Whatever. No biggie.

So the whole thing ended when I called him up, after another 3 week "break", and asked him to go to a movie, or something like that.

He sounded very hesitant. I could tell immediately something was up.

I said, "What's up?"

He said, "Well ... I guess I'm thinking that we should slow down."

I sat there, on the other end, filled with utter blankness. I thought nothing, I felt nothing - I was completely blank. There was nothing to say, but obviously I was required to respond. In some way. But I had lost my verbal capacity for a moment.

4 dates in 8 weeks? Slow down?

And what finally came out of my mouth, was: "I literally do not know how much slower I can go."

This was greeted by a deafening pause.

And then what came out of my mouth was: "If I go any slower, I think I will stop."

An even louder pause from the other end.

Needless to say, we stopped.

And to this day, amongst my group of friends, "If I go any slower, I think I'll stop" is a favorite phrase. It really works well in a multitude of situations.

I ran into him a couple of years ago at a party in Chicago, and we had a hilarious conversation about our dating. I said, "To this day, that date at the Greek place is the best date I've ever gone on." He said the same was true for him as well.

But I didn't ask him if he had kept the picture of my eyeball. That would have been too embarrassing.

The Books: "The Ritz Of The Bayou - The New Orleans Adventures Of A Young Novelist Covering The Trials Of The Governor Of Louisiana, with digressions on smoldering nightclubs, jazz-crazed bars, and other aspects of life in the tropic zone" (Nancy Lemann)

Next book on my adult fiction shelves: (although this book is actually reportage - oh, well)

The Ritz Of The Bayou - The New Orleans Adventures Of A Young Novelist Covering The Trials Of The Governor Of Louisiana, with digressions on smoldering nightclubs, jazz-crazed bars, and other aspects of life in the tropic zone by Nancy Lemann

This hysterical book is very hard to find. I found my copy, randomly, at The Strand. It still has a dust jacket. I don't think it's even in print anymore. Nancy Lemann had come out with her first novel, Lives of the Saints (excerpt here). It wasn't a major hit, but it got some wonderful reviews - Lemann was compared to Eudora Welty, her book was reviewed in The New York Times - and so she got some cache. There was a trial going on in the mid 80s of the corrupt governor of Louisiana - and Vanity Fair sent Lemann to go report on it, and send back dispatches. A la Dominick Dunne's fun columns on various trials in that magazine. Lemann is from New Orleans. She writes as an insider of that particular town. She obviously loves it dearly. Her thing is comparison, meaning: New Orleans' vibe as opposed to, say, New York's vibe. Or other places. It is in the comparison that the truth can be experienced. At least that seems to be Lemann's view - all of her books have that geographical comparison thematic structure. In The Fiery Pantheon (excerpt here), Grace Stewart and her family go to Istanbul, and sight-see. Grace cannot but help compare the Bosphorus to other rivers she has known, and the weather to the tropic air she knows so well. It's all about comparison. She can't do it any other way. Many people can see things just as they are, in and of themselves. Lemann is not one of those people. Her writing always depends on the focal point of HOME - which, for her, is New Orleans - the green balmy tropics. Everything in the world must be compared to that. Not in a snotty way, she's not like: can anything ever measure up? She's not a regional snob. It's just that New Orleans has such a deep groove in her heart, that she sees it everywhere - in the spring air in New York, in the slow-moving Bosphorus, whatever.

Lemann reported on the trial of the Governor, but she also reported on all of the "offstage" shenanigans - politicos and journalists drinking themselves into a stupor every night, the humor in the courtroom, her human observations - all very Lemann-esque. She's one of THE writers of New Orleans - she just gets that town, and has made it her life's work (or so it seems) to put it and its ineffable qualities into writing. This book - with its hilarious title - is the story of that trial. Because it's Nancy Lemann, it's a small slice of humanity, with dudes in seersucker suits, and cocktails in seedy bars ... she notices everything, and reports it - in that very Lemann way. It is SO worth a read if you're interested. I am so glad I found it. (Now, of course, with the Internet - you can order it ... but back in the mid 90s, before I was online - you were shit out of luck with books like this. You could scour second-hand book stores, etc., - and that is what I did. I pounced on it when I found it like a tiger. I was thrilled!)

Here's an excerpt from early on in the book. It gives you a flavor of the whole thing. To me, it's hypnotic. Lemann actually does know quite a bit about the law - lawyers frequent her books more than any other profession. And so she does, indeed, report on the daily trial, what happens, who says what. But she also reports on the behavior - of the judges, the spectators, the other journalists, the Governor himself ... It's a wonderful little book.

EXCERPT FROM The Ritz Of The Bayou - The New Orleans Adventures Of A Young Novelist Covering The Trials Of The Governor Of Louisiana, with digressions on smoldering nightclubs, jazz-crazed bars, and other aspects of life in the tropic zone by Nancy Lemann

The thing I love about New Orleans is that it is always deserted. This especially after being in New York. If there's one thing we don't have in New Orleans, it's hubbub In New York you wait in long lines to go to a movie. In New Orleans you and your date are the only ones in the theater - except for one elderly couple from Metairie, maybe. The restaurant at the Lafayette Hotel - deserted. The post office - lines? are you kidding? - deserted. Julia Street - deserted. And when in New York you find yourself trapped on a Friday evening between five and seven wondering if the step should actually be taken of going over to Grand Central to wait in a huge mob to find a cab, in New Orleans at that hour there wouldn't be another person on the street, except for one fellow in a seersucker suit. He will be walking slowly down Gravier Street, smoking a cigar. This is peace. Slow time.

Peace is not a thing that can be easily found. I know a great man who says it is not to be found at all. It's just not in the bargain, he says. But I found it in brief terms, in my New Orleans, when it was balmy and eighty-two degrees and everything was green, among the eccentric palms. After these years in New York it was sweet to return, at the end of August, but I did not know that I would remain there, at the trial and in the legislature, for almost one whole year. You spend a year inside a court of law, and it has various effects, and is not easily forgotten.

The trial of the Governor, for racketeering, fraud, and bribery, was conducted in a New Orleans courtroom by a crowd of drawling white-haired gents. It was there that I obtained some education of the world, of politics and men and morals. One deception can be traded for another, greatness and betrayal lie beside each other closely intertwined. The truth, in the end, I think, is likely to be found in a courtroom, but so is a great deal of "human frailty". There is a lot of human frailty floating around.

There is so much human frailty floating around that it is a dramatic thing to see, for better and for worse, and I have to say that there, among the human frailty, I found something I had ceased to expect, and it was written in dramatic script, when otherwise, when it was over, life was written in small print. It is not that I advocate human frailty, but I had never seen so much of it, all at once, and it was a sort of breathtaking spectacle.

The law can be evaded; it is something some dance on the edge of. Some call it fraud, this long intricate equation which it took a year to tell, a case tried twice, and at great length. You would have great contempt for due process to argue that a question of law wasn't settled. As for human frailty, that is another matter.

***

But I went across the lake when it was balmy and eighty-two degrees and in the middle of a raging crisis, the eye of a storm, found this. My heart was back in business when I saw all that human frailty. Among the green palms on the raging lake. There were many actors on the stage, and for myself, I had hardly seen such characters as these, whose drama was conducted for one year.

***

Now if you want to go to the legislature, you have to see Rudy, in order to get in. Rudy does not have a title, but he has a function.

A political columnist first took me to the legislature; he took me to a room in the basement to obtain a press pass.

"Go to the dining room and ask Rudy. He's sitting just inside the door," said the Sergeant-at-Arms. So we went to the dining room, and just inside the door, four sleazeballs were sitting at a corner table smoking cigars.

"Rudy?" said the political columnist.

"Yeh," said one of them, and the political columnist lodged his request to obtain a press pass for me.

Rudy rolled his cigar around in his mouth. He gave me the once-over.

"Tell 'em Rudy says it's okay," he uttered, in his gravel voice.

Rudy sets the tone.

***

The Pope was scheduled to come to New Orleans, later in the year. A local columnist joked that in the morning the Pope would hear the Governor's confession; then he would go to a luncheon. Then he would hear the Governor's confession; then he would go to dinner. Then he would hear more of the Governor's confession; etc. No matter how long he listened, he could not hear the Governor's whole confession, as it would take too long.

Ordinarily I don't spend quite a lot of time looking at the dark side. Politics is not the place to look for saints. It's not exactly the blue vault of heaven there, in politics. But it holds a certain fascination. There is a connection, between the dark side and the light. One without the other could not cause a crisis to convene. It was bigger than I was, and it was bigger than those who conducted it. That was the interesting thing about it, the way I looked at it.

***

The lofty architecture of the capitol describes a megalomaniac grandeur not seen in most state legislatures. It is indeed the work of a megalomaniac, Huey Long. It is an atmosphere indeed that makes you want to idolize someone, presumably the Governor, as in the case of Huey Long, it speaks of his ambition, and lays that burden on his office.

The Senators were joshing in the hall, at the opening of a night session of the legislature, amid the glare of television cameras, against the handsome marble and ornate columns and engravings in the architecture. Fox McKeithen in the hall described how his daddy, a former governor, was Earl Long's protege.

A black Senator gave a convocation. "Just as the walls of Jerusalem fell down, the ways of this state are in need of repair."

A few more legislators made brief speeches. The arrival of the Governor was anticipated, to open the special session.

"Will the committee from the Senate please escort the Governor into the House of Representatives," said the Speaker.

There was a smattering of applause. Some time passed.

"Will the committee please escort the Governor--" said the Speaker -- but the Governor was joshing in the hall with Sixty Rayburn. Then the Governor emerged into the House and took his place and gave his speech, opening with several droll stories, which included a recap of his conversation in the hall with Sixty. The Governor seemed to be obsessed with the reporters, and quoted from many newspaper articles. He read some facts and figures, in his Cajun twang, from his proposal to solve the gigantic deficit. But he was in a contrite mode, as his trial was then behind him, and when you spend a year inside a court of law, as I have said, I do not think it leaves you quite the same.

The Governor recommended a lottery for the state, but everyone was against him. "It should not be an occasion for this anguish and wringing of hands," said the Governor, with a good deal of sangfroid. "Even that citadel of learning Harvard University," he advised, "was originally funded in part by the Massachusetts lottery." To pronounce the name of Harvard, he used a mock-pretentious accent, to indicate how hifalutin the Yankees are - which has long been a source of underdog defiance and anti-intellectual joshing. But among the palm trees and the heat, education of any kind takes on a somewhat different tone, and is a somewhat different thing. And there are many things to be learned there, of a different kind.

***

The Southerners are jaded and cynical, for this is a region accustomed to intrigue, and to an old defeat. A Washington columnist went to New Orleans and heard the Governor give a speech. He reported the many jokes that were told, concluding that here politics is still in business. The familiar theory is that the people of Louisiana would rather be entertained than served with ethics. As has been observed about our Governor, it isn't what he says that matters to the people, but the style in which he says it. And he said it with purple and gold dinner jackets, in a Cajun accent, with champagne corks popping. I think it is accurate to say that the people have a high tolerance for "human frailty", if not a special fondness for it, evidenced by the jurty, and the human frailty argument was often used by the defense lawyers in the case.

As with Earl and Huey Long, Louisiana governors have amassed an excess degree of power in their offices, unlike the governors of other states. As a political columnist has said, in Louisiana we elect our governors to be kings. The nuttier the better, that they should then turn into megalomaniacs, provide public entertainment, and have public breakdowns. One recent governor had been a decent, honest man; he was considered to be too dull. The people re-elected the present Governor instead.

The Prosecutor was not winning when he moralized about the Governor, who is known for gambling, womanizing, and risque bon mots, for people hold few things as dear as those.

***

The alleged crime was the Governor's making $10 million among himself and his cronies, the seven other defendants in the case, through influence and knowledge in state business and state programs - the hospital development business, to be exact; at least half of the deals were made while the Governor was out of office, between his second and third terms. Whether you see this as good or bad depends on your own moral vision. The jury thought it was only mildly bad; though to be more accurate about it, I think they thought it was good. The Governor was born on a sharecropper's farm in a humble Louisiana town, and ended up a millionaire in the opulent imitation antebellum plantation which is the Governor's Mansion on a verdant lawn in Baton Rouge, and this man's rise was a thing that the people respected. He who rises from a humble position to an exalted one is always a subject of drama. It was often said of the Governor during the trial that his was a misspent life - for he has the "political talent" and charisma to lead the people and the legislature, but he does not always use this to the best result. The spirit's willing but the flesh is weak.

***

Power affects all men holding it in a certain definite way. It is not saying that a man may not have the strength to fulfill a vision, if he had the genius to have the vision; or equally, that a man who has a great vision will have the strength to carry it out. It is also not saying that if you had palm fronds painted on the ceiling of your legislature, and Rudy for the Sergeant-at-Arms, it wouldn't drive you batty, too. I cannot give a picture that is black and white. "But I don't think politics is the answer," I said to the courtroom existentialist, "do you?"

"Well, I guess no one really has the answers," said the courtroom existentialist. I didn't really mean to get in such an existential mode, but that is the way with the courtroom existentialist, who then went across the street to grade the oysters at The Pearl. Why, you may ask, does he grade the oysters? Why, indeed. Because it is how he brings order out of chaos, which is why he loves the law, because it does the same.

Burt Young: the smashing-up-of-apartment scene in Rocky

If you don't remember the scene, here is what happens, in recap, let's break it down:

Paulie has invited the press to come and watch Rocky train at the meat locker ... without Rocky's permission. Rocky and Paulie have a small argument, and Rocky - in order to keep the peace with the brother of the girl he is now falling in love with - gives in. He allows himself to be filmed by the local news punching the meat.

Later, we see poor Paulie stumbling home, wasted. He's holding a Christmas wreath. He staggers along the street. He picks up a trash can and meanders into the house. He is a lost soul. He is lonely. Sad. He has basically set his sister up with Rocky so that maybe Rocky can do something for him. You know, tit for tat. But he didn't expect it to go so well. He can't see his sister as a person. A woman. He is abusive to her. Calls her names. He didn't ever think that this romance would blossom. So Paulie, this man, this pained man, living a life of quiet (and sometimes not so quiet) desperation - feels that he will be left alone. And Paulie is not a man who analyzes himself, or expresses his feelings. He just EATS it. You can see it in the hunched way he holds his shoulders, the jerky gestures of his arms ... this guy is holding onto a lot. Just getting through the damn day requires this man to swallow worlds of humiliation. How many people live like that.

Then we cut to the interior.

Rocky and Adrian sit in the living room watching television. Rocky sits in the chair, Adrian on the floor, his arms resting on her shoulders. Their body language says it all. They are now one. They are a unit. Rocky has obviously been telling her about Paulie's annoying qualities - inviting the press to come, how it threw off his workout, etc. And Adrian pleads for pity and patience for Paulie - that he is only trying to help. Meanwhile, Paulie has entered the back of the room, unnoticed. He doesn't overhear the whole conversation, but he hears enough.

He comes in. Clutching his cigar and the wreath. He is in a rage.

The best thing about the scene (and the most painful) is that it is not just the rage of that moment. It is his rage, ultimately, at his lot in life. Now is it Adrian's or Rocky's fault that Paulie is miserable? Of course not. But Paulie can't see past his own wounded ego, his own pain. It's somebody else's fault. Rocky is going somewhere else now, he is moving out of the same sad narrow circle that Paulie moves in ... Rocky is moving on. And what will happen to Paulie? What will become of Paulie now?

It gets ugly. Paulie takes out a baseball bat and demands that Rocky and Adrian leave. "Get outta my house!"

He smashes a lamp. All hell breaks loose.

Burt Young is magnificent. Because it's not just anger he is expressing. Anger is easy. He's expressing grief, too. And fear. And the only way this particular character could express it would be to wreck his own house.

Paulie gets nasty - shouting, "I GAVE YOU MY SISTER." Adrian is now her own woman. She can feel the ground beneath her feet. She has Rocky. She is an individual. She is no longer cowed and submissive. She shouts back, "Only a pig would say that!"

Paulie flips out. "I'm a pig?" He goes over to the nearby dresser - wielding the bat - shouts, "I don't get married because of you!" He smashes the silver tea set on the dresser. Shouts something else - smashes down again.

Then he goes too far - and shouts something about Adrian being "busted" (meaning, obviously, no longer a virgin).

Like she is supposed to somehow be married to him forever. A spinster. That was what was expected of her. And she has that moment that gives me goosebumps every freakin' time I see it. She kneels by his chair and shouts, "You made me feel like I was a loser." And then she takes this huge breath, a breath that starts at her TOES and fills up every space within her, and she screams, "I AM NOT A LOSER!" Adrian races off to her room, crying.

Paulie yells something about how Adrian "let him take your pants off" and that is when Rocky moves - grabs Paulie and shoves him down into a chair. He doesn't punch him - but man, Paulie is lucky that nothing worse happens to him in retaliation.

They stay there, counterbalanced, for a long tense moment - Paulie is now crying - it's unbelievable - the thing is a masterpiece of acting, the journey he goes on in that scene ... and then Rocky lets Paulie go and goes off to talk to Adrian in her room.

That's the scene. We all remember it.

Here are some quotes about Burt Young and the filming of that scene. I love, in particular, John Avildsen's bit of direction to Young about how to swing the bat at the dresser, and Young's initial resistance ... hard to control a scene like that, you just want to GO ... and Avildsen was asking Burt to choreograph a bit. Burt didn't "get it" at first. But when you see that scene ... it is SO much more powerful because of those pauses Avildsen asked him to put in, it is SO much more powerful because it is not just a generalized going-apeshit scene that we've seen so many actors do. It has depth. It has import. It has theatricality. But I love Young's not getting it at first. Saying, "John ... no ..." and then trying it. It is in the DOING of it that things become clear. And we, as actors, are inside it ... so we sometimes cannot see what is best. Our job is to lose ourselves in the moment. The director is there to guide us, as we dredge up the unconscious. It's just a beautiful example of that whole thing.

Sylvester Stallone: "Burt Young is as tough as they get. A man who has great compassion and great violence. He is a man who can cry easily and explode with volcanic rage. So he has that angst that so many men in the world have - that are not being realized, that don't have that ability to ever shine. They're always being kept in the background because of economic status, or they didn't get the right breaks, or perhaps they don't look a certain way. So they live quiet lives of desperation. And he embodies that desperation."

Robert Chartoff, producer: "We never considered anyone else for the part of Paulie but Burt Young. When we read the script, we thought he was a natural for it and never offered it to anyone but Burt."

Burt Young on the smashing-up-apartment scene: "The narcotic of being a fighter is once in a while, for me ... you got to find things to make you breathe under duress. And that's what you need as an actor. At least you don't get punched in the face as an actor. But you could get punched in the heart when you leave a set, or a stage - and not do honest work."

Sylvester Stallone: "This explosive scene when he pulls the baseball bat out and destroys everything in the house that has value because he has realized he is going to be left alone..."

Talia Shire on Burt Young smashing up the apartment: "It was ridiculous, it was outrageous, it was amazing, it was beautiful. Burt looks for the contradiction - in the language, in the moment, and in the physical application with his own body and how he is going to handle a prop. The bat ... So Burt looks for that, and then he looks for discovery. So that in the moment of doing one of these things, he's not even sure why he's doing it. Then you have a moment when he makes the discovery, and it's usually a vulnerable moment." --

Burt Young: I was gonna wreak havoc. And John [Avildsen] said, "No, no, Burt ... one swing ... and then ... another swing ..." I said, "John! I'm cookin'! I can't do that! It's like you're giving me a line reading!" He said, "Burt. Try it." It was so painful to me. First of all, it was embarrassing. To show that kind of violence in front of everybody. But it worked. That's where John became my director. And friend.

Sylvester Stallone: You see this man come from a drunken state to towering rage to a broken child on the couch. I mean, how much better can it get? It can't get much better.

Robert Chertoff: I feel like I was honored to be present when they did that scene. It was so bloody real, and they did it many times. It was real, and it was scary. Burt Young was just so incredible. The intensity that he brought to it ... well. I think it was clearly captured in the scene.

Comments made to one another tonight while watching "Rambo"

"It appears that Sylvester Stallone has cast the entire nation of Thailand."

"Holy shit, his head just came off."

"Hey, look! That's Ken Howard! The white shadow!"

"I can't believe Stallone is, what, 63 years old? He's incredible."

"Rambo is gonna take care of every single one of those bad guys."

"That Christian nitwit needs to murder someone in order to redeem himself."

"I hope there aren't any big bugs in this movie."

"I am in love with that sniper."

"Sometimes you just need to kill someone."

(All Stallone stuff here)

A perfect gentleman

The Siren has a moving tribute up to Roy Scheider. Sniff.

"Do you bite your thumb at me, Sir?"

This is the kind of anecdote I totally adore. Like the one where Alexander Hamilton dares someone to walk up to George Washington and throw his arm around him in a chummy way. You just did not do that with Washington. The image of Revolutionary War heroes standing around at some tavern playing "I double-dog dare you" games is just so pleasing and funny to me. But here's a good one, too. This is from the biography of James Monroe I just finished, by Gary Hart:

Despite the relative social quiet of the Monroe White House, it was not without a little drama. The story is told of a ministerial dinner at which the British minister Sir Charles Vaughan saw the French minister Count de Serurier, directly across from him, bite his thumb every time Vaughan made a remark. "Do you bite your thumb at me, Sir?" Vaughan finally challenged. "I do," was the Frenchman's reply. They promptly withdrew and were at sword points in an adjoining hall when President Monroe arrived and threw up their swords with his own. Their carriages were called, and Monroe sent them, separately, away.

"Because I need it."

The most moving Roy Scheider tribute I've read yet.

The Books: "Malaise" (Nancy Lemann)

Next book on my adult fiction shelves:

Malaise by Nancy Lemann

Malaise is Lemann's fourth novel - and for the first time, in her writing, I found myself a wee bit bored. I am not sure why. I think this book, in some ways, lacks the "hilarity" of the others, although parts of it are quite funny. And Lemann's funniness is subtle - it's in her language, in the deadpan statements - it's something you either respond to or don't. I can't MAKE you think she's hysterical - some people are tone deaf to certain kinds of humor. There are certain comedians who are very successful and my response to them is: "That is just so not funny to me." So I get that humor is a very personal thing. Nancy Lemann's humor is, yes, in some of the situations people get themselves in ... but it's more in the language itself, and the outlook of the characters, how they see the world. It's very me, and that is a rare rare thing to find in a writer. The following excerpt shows, for me, Lemann's similarity to me - in terms of humor, language, and sort of deadpan outlook on the chaos of the world. It works for me. I was very interested to read the following review - posted on Amazon - and it refers to when Malaise came out in hard cover. Anyway, check this out - she describes the whole Nancy Lemann thing FAR better than I ever could:

People either get Nancy Lemann or they don't. Those who do practically worship her for her deeply elegant, eccentric, hilarious novels about displaced Southerners. Those who don't tend to complain that she's too repetitive. That she is, and a good thing, too. In her lovely and odd novel, Malaise, Lemann uses repetition as she does in all her books: as a wellspring for both humor and meaning. Her characters turn phrases over and over in their minds, as if trying to solve them. In Malaise, those phrases concern California, the death of the British Empire, old age, and graciousness. Fleming Ford is a New York journalist, born in Mississippi, whose husband's work takes the family to Esperanza, a San Diegoesque resort city not far from the Mexican border. As always, Lemann's writing wildly conflates the personal and the geographical. Fleming shuns Esperanza as the ends of the earth. At the same time, and not just coincidentally, she falls in love with Mr. Lieberman, an old Englishman who represents the decorousness that she has left behind. Along the way, we get some astonishing writing, like this aside about a visit to Death Valley: "It's so godforsaken, so historical, and so pure that you are curiously elated. It may be called Death Valley, but the minute you get there you are subsumed by a vast and incongruous gaiety." Addled by nostalgia and despair, Lemann's characters are forever bumping into a vast and incongruous gaiety, and telling us about it over and over and over. We wouldn't have it any other way. --Claire Dederer

"Lemann conflates the personal and the geographical". Totally. That is always her big thing. How places remind us of who we were, or who we want to be, or things we want to forget. How geography plays such a potent role in our destinies. The way she writes about Esperanza is new territory for Lemann - she normally writes about the South (ie: New Orleans) - or New York City. Here she goes to a town that sounds like San Diego (and, in fact, Lemann lives there now) - and Fleming, the main character, is gobsmacked by the sun and the desert. She can't get it off her mind. What it MEANS to live in the desert. Especially since her husband is "in water". She is obsessed with geography, and yet her heart yearns back for "suave" New York.

She has some similarity to Grace Stewart in The Fiery Pantheon in that her ideal involves rectitude, quiet dignity, kindness, stoicism - and, if possible, white hair and seersucker suits and bow ties. Fleming is obsessed with a newspaper mogul named Mr. Lieberman - a 70-something year old guy - who was her boss once. Fleming is married, pregnant with her third child ... and her heart yearns for Mr. Lieberman, even though they are on separate coasts - and, uhm, there's 35 years age difference. You get the sense, though, that Fleming would not have a sordid affair with this man. No. Loyalty is always very important to Nancy Lemann's character, and Fleming is loyal to her husband. It's just that Mr. Lieberman represents a world gone by ... a world she misses - one of men's clubs, and rectitude, and stoically bearing up under grief, and New York, etc.

Obviously, after all of these posts - it should be clear that I am one of those people who love Nancy Lemann, who find her repetitive language to be her greatest gift - and not annoying at all. You have to slow down to get into Lemann's books, most of which are pretty much plot-less. Just slow everything down, and get into the repetitive language, let it work on you ... give up expectations of anything happening, and let your mind off the hook. Start to think about places you have known and loved, how they affected you, where your heart's home is - regardless of where you live, etc. etc. Nancy Lemann can be quite hypnotic.

Malaise came out in 2003. It's 2008 now, dammit. That's a long long time to wait between books. But I'm patient. The second I hear a new one is out, I'll be the first in line to buy it.

EXCERPT FROM Malaise by Nancy Lemann

I have a certain amount of time on my hands due to my career slump and my stunning remove to the other side of the world at age forty in the middle of the journey of our life. I'm supposed to be working on Special Perspectives, which I attempt to dream up at my office in the garage overlooking a canyon. Canyons are weird. I saw a coyote once come up from the canyon: it looks like a rangy berserk sort of wolfhound. No telling what else is down there: foxes, monitors, hyenas going mad.

Special Perspectives - it sounds so official, like some sort of evil Soviet enterprise, some sort of daunting euphemistic committee to winnow out people who should be executed. Or at least who should be airbrushed out of existing photographs. It's like something out of the Politburo. My editor would soon create a new and even more euphemistic title for me: West Coast Special Perspectives Team Coordinator.

The insubstantial nature of the endeavor was betrayed by its vague and redundant title, which continued to go through various changes, in the end returning by a circuitous route to the blandly cheery New Perspectives, in the meanwhile persisting with the perhaps more nebulous Special ones.

In time I did come up with several thought-provoking Special Perspectives pieces on such vague subjects as Optimism, Pessimism, and Nostalgia. But then my Special Perspectives tended to get too apocalyptic. The universe being so vast, who planned it that our green earth and humanity should grow, why are we here, what is before and after, the span before and after life being so immeasurably longer than the span of life itself. I grew seedy hanging out in my pajamas all day trying to figure out the universe.

I kept thinking about atomic particles. Because we are made up of then. And consciousness resides in some of them, and they are never destroyed. And if you look at your television set when a channel is not operating properly and see little white things, those are photons left over from the big bang sixteen billion years ago. You may ask how I know all this. It is because there are a lot of nuclear physicists in Esperanza. There is an emphasis on science. Science nerds. That's quite distinct in this part of California. Most of the nuclear physicists are Russian, and are the parents of my daughter's friends. So at children's birthday parties I take them aside and interrogate them about our atomic particles.

Then I dutifully go to my office in the garage and wallow in nothingness, trying to figure out the central mystery of our finite existence.

I also spend a lot of time with a group of squirming three-year-olds dressed up as ladybugs in a series of incredibly long and complex rehearsals for my daughter's ballet recital. Intrigues ran high among the ladybugs. They formed cliques. They had tantrums. They were heartless. Their mothers snapped. I stayed backstage during the rehearsals marshaling kaleidoscopic varieties of ladybug trauma.

At the actual performance the audience was packed to bursting. The ladybugs were supposed to form a big ring on the stage holding hands, then skip around. Naturally they went too fast and one ladybug got caught in a spinning vortex causing the circle to snap like an electric cord pulled abruptly out of the socket. One ladybug ran to the edge of the stage all alone and started twirling around. Others were madly jumping up and down like human pogo sticks. One ladybug sobbed quietly and inconsolably in a corner - thank God not my daughter. Several ladybugs stared vacantly ahead, paralyzed.

My daughter was the last to leave the stage - trapped in the spotlight like a deer in the headlights. Finally, thank God, she turned a broad smile directly on the audience and scampered toward the wings with her awkward grace amid thunderous applause.

I was so relieved my daughter had not been scarred by the experience that I was walking on cloud nine. But I was crushed with guilt. For once they wheel you out of the delivery room, you carry out of it forever a mother's guilt, no matter how good a mother you are, or how many ladybug rehearsals you attend.

After soothing the frayed nerves of a fifty-year-old man dressed as a giant duck who arrived in a souped-up Corvette to perform at my son's birthday party, I realized I'm not the only one in a career slump.

Somehow when you hire a man over the phone to dress up as a giant duck at your son's birthday party, you expect him to be maybe an enthusiastic college kid or a wholesome young camp counselor. Seeing as he never took off his costume, you might wonder how I even knew that he wasn't a wholesome young camp counselor. It was the frail rasping voice and the delicate fumes of scotch that emboldened me to ask, in the course of making polite conversation, how old he was. Pretty soon the next thing I know he's telling me how his wife left him, he lost his job, he's broke, and if it weren't for the napalm factory in Chicata closing down, he wouldn't be dressed up like a children's fairty-tale character sweating his brains out because it was hotter than hell in there.

In the costume.

That's another thing about Esperanza. It's supposed to be idyllic avocado farms and Mexican-style villages and orange groves, and then suddenly you find out there's a napalm bomb factory just down the road with escaping napalm that they have to shut down. AVOCADO FESTIVAL NOT MARRED BY NAPALM LEAK the local headline will decry.

I guess it's the dark side of paradise.

Wisdom

"Show me a happy set and I'll show you a dull movie."

-- Katharine Hepburn

ANNOUNCEMENT: Movie quote game

I want to do another movie quote guessing game. I am looking at this Friday, 2 p.m. Eastern Standard Time.

If this time DOESN'T work for people - please let me know. Please remember my blog is not at in any way, shape or form a democracy - but if I get enough emails/comments from my main posse (Mark?? Tommy? Jonathan? Stevie? Emily? Mitchell? Tracey? Alex? And Alex N.? There are so many more people whom I want to be there ... you know who you are, my PEEPS!!) - anyway, please let me know if this time doesn't work ... I'll find another time.

Sigh.

I love love love this post. The commentary ("must allow babysitters to live their own lives ...") ... and the series of photos are increasingly funny. They all seem similar (the photos, I mean) - but as you look closer, you see the differences - and it's just awesome. The 3rd and 4th photos from the bottom have made me laugh out loud. Congrats to those two people whom I have never met!!

Valentine's Day

An adorable montage.

The second one kills me. And sorry, but LOOK at Yvonne de Carlo. Gorgeous!!

2 a.m. on a rainy Manhattan night

Cell phone photo from with a dank drippy subway station. It was beautiful and bleak: an underground tiled walkway, wet cement... drunk people, homeless people, regular people, whatever... just moving thru... and a closed Barber Shop stood in the walkway, neon sign gleaming.

1970s posters

A fantastic tribute to Roy Scheider.

Thoreau's journals: "Express it without expressing yourself."

Wow. A wonderful post about Thoreau's journals - and what he had to say about the writing process.

The Books: "The Fiery Pantheon" (Nancy Lemann)

Next book on my adult fiction shelves:

The Fiery Pantheon by Nancy Lemann

The Fiery Pantheon is Nancy Lemann's third novel - which, once again, involves a hilarious (tragi-comic) extended family of wacky Southerners ... many of whom are transplanted to New York City. It also features a heroine -Grace Stewart - who yearns to idolize people. She looks for mentors. She searches for those who embody the qualities she thinks are paramount: stoicism, rectitude, kindness - old-school qualities. She's a young woman, but her heart cracks at the sight of a doddery old gentleman in a seersucker suit, being stoic and kind. She's young - and she's actually a gorgeous woman - but she's embarrassed by her looks, so she makes a huge effort to "be drab". It, of course, doesn't work. Although she is a flirt ("she would flirt at a building") ... she is, essentially, a serious person, looking for serious people to fill her life. If they're doddering old Southern lawyers, who wear seersucker suits, so much the better. She lives and works in New York - and is engaged to a man named Monroe - who is, while a nice person, not quite in that league. He's a simple Southern boy, who drives around on the weekends visiting his army of aged relatives. He waters his lawn in an undershirt. He is, indeed, kind (look at his treatment of his elderly relatives!) But something is missing. Maybe Grace doesn't want that kind of life, even though she's a New Orleans girl herself? Who knows. All we know is when we first meet Grace, she is on vacation with her extended family - and they're all staying at this old-time mansion in Virginia - where an orchestra plays, and you have to dress up for dinner. While they're there, they run into a guy named Walter - a stockbroker with Merrill Lynch in New York - who is also from New Orleans - and he's a young guy, completely mischievous, dissolute - he's always knocking back a cocktail and making inappropriate statements to the house maids. But he's an AWESOME character. So so funny. He notices Grace right away. He notices immediately her pathetic attempts to 'be drab". He sets out to 'get" her. It is then that he realizes that she keeps in her head a "fiery pantheon" of idols ... men she expects others to live up to. You know, people like freakin' Aristotle. Or Cicero. THAT is what she strives for. Walter finds out about Monroe, so he sulks about him - "what is it about this Monroe?". He also sets out to tease Grace mercilessly about "the fiery pantheon" - first of all, he knows he could NEVER get into such a group ... Also (the deeper level) - he senses, somehow, even through his cocktail-infused haze - that Grace is living in a dreamworld, and that's not good for her. She yearns for a "fiery pantheon" and she picks Monroe?? Is this girl out of her mind? She's going to get crushed by life!

The novel is (of course, because Nancy Lemann wrote it) - hilarious. There's a deadpan quality to the voice that totally offsets the wild flights of fancy (which you can see a bit of in the excerpt below). Grace's mother is an awesome character - and completely convinced that everyone on the planet would be better off if they were institutionalized. She can't go out for a family dinner without noticing all of the personality disorders in the restaurant. But the novel is chock-full of people like that - and Walter becomes, over the manic course of the book - where he is nearly driven insane by Grace pretending to be drab and mooning around about her "fiery pantheon" - a truly memorable romantic hero. Even with his dissolute habits.

The Fiery Pantheon has one of my favorite lines in a book ever: "She had a nostalgia for a life she never led."

God, I so understand that.

It's not that I yearn for my own past. It's not that I have an unbearable nostalgia for my own childhood. It is that I yearn for a life I have not lived. That yearning can keep me up nights. Lemann gets that.

Grace yearns for another kind of life than the one she has. Even down to her deliberate "drabbing"-up of her looks. She wants to be a calm quiet sensibile spinster. Full of rectitude and stoicism. Instead she's a flirty glamour girl who attracts every male in a 15 mile radius. And etc.

Love this book. Here's an excerpt.

The Fiery Pantheon by Nancy Lemann

She studied the last suave sight in New York, of the angels atop Grand Central. A policeman patrolled it on a horse from below, the second to last suave sight in New York.

She watched an old movie about W.C. Handy played by Nat "King" Cole. W.C. Handy kept staying in his hometown, Memphis. He kept writing songs of world renown, and poking down Beale Street every night. Once he got to Davenport, Iowa, apparently a jazz outpost of the time. Then he returned home in disgrace to his father. Then he got as far as Cincinnati. Pretty soon he was poking around the Mississippi Delta and made his way to Moorehead, where the Southern crossed the Yellow Dog, as he wrote a song about. Then he was back in Memphis. It reminded her of Monroe.

She kept wishing for a rooted life. Like the street Monroe lived on, where he knew all his neighbors and all their dogs, and they certainly knew him and his dog, considering he devoted his whole life to his dog.

A news program came on. There was a story about a little boy who was a hero for he caught a crook. While reporting the story they showed the nieghboorhood. It was a modest suburb - but there was something in the green, the lawns, the trees, the sidewalks, something indefinable, that reminded her of the South. Just when the children turned the corner, the way they rode their bikes, the way the trees looked - it was someplace very close to the most old and familiar and thus enchanted places of her heart. Why do they have those strange accents? she wondered. Yes, they're in an old familiar green place and they're speaking in a certain jucular and strange accent and locution. The pavements glistened. The sky was black. There were palms. She noticed it was sleazy. That was not a criticism. She would not criticize her region. It was an observation. It reminded her of Florida too. The Gulf South. She waited patiently for the dateline at the end of the story but none was given. But finally just at the last minute before they went to the next thing they blew up the item from a local newspaper that the story had come from and yes, it was The Times-Picayune.

Then she read about Nabokov's youth in Russia, at a ravishing estate outside of St. Petersburg with old parks and gardens, and upon the Revolution, his sudden departure on a throbbing boat across a hopeless sea, to Constantinope and beyond, consigned to exile, never to see his native land again.

She fell asleep and had the recurrent dream of a crushing azure beauty by the sea and she couldn't tell if it was somewhere in the North or if it was the Alabama coast. In this dream, which was disturbingly recurring to her in New York, she searched piteously for the location of the ravishing place, the pellucid green of the sea, the crushing, saving beauty of it, one place to take refuge in, to decide on, but when it came to remember how to find it, whether it was in the North or South confounded her.

Some people have a recurring dream in life, she knew. This was hers.

In the middle of the night she seemed to see a man standing in the room and to feel the touch of his hand, a luminous figure in a dark room. It was in her hotel room and it must have been around three in the morning. Your worst nightmare: to wake alone in the middle of the night with a strange man standing in your room. The apparition appeared to be wearing a seersucker suit and bow tie and tennis shoes. When this became apparent he seemed somewhat less threatening. His identity could then be perceived. When she saw it was Monroe she felt better. She felt she had an overwhelming love for him. This made her feel better, to have an overwhelming love for someone. He was a connection to the past. He was a connection to that spot of land on earth a person holds most dear. She had an uncomplicated love for him. This made her feel better, to have a simple, uncomplicated love for someone. Of all those who could be dear, he was dearest. Why? She felt remorse. Then he bent down and gave her a thick book with a blue cover. It was a book of etiquette. She opened it and there was a pressed flower inside. When she found it he looked away.

Then he said to her specifically, in a slightly pleading tone of criticism: "Grace, you always love the same few things, you always go back to them, you always cleave to them." He did not mean it as a compliment. He seemed to mean it as a criticism. Perhaps he only meant it as truth, which he seemed to disdain, he who above all should be considered guilty of it.

For their honeymoon Monroe planned a trip to the Louisiana countryside. For six days they would go to plantations and Southern gardens and the Gulf Coast. "I don't think I could be alone with you for six days in antebellum homes," said Walter when this was described to him. "Southern gardens and plantations - plus you - that would be a little excessive." That was sort of funny. It was crusty. He couldn't swallow all that plantation tour stuff. Monroe wasn't crusty. He could swallow all that plantation tour stuff. Not only could he swallow it, it was mother's milk to him. He came from one, he had lived on one - a plantation. His whole life was a fantastical and exaggerated portrayal of an old South impossible to exist. But it did exist. Its fantasticalness obsessed her.

Rest in peace, Roy Scheider

Sad sad news. New York Times obit here. More thoughts at Cinematical. Here's Jonathan's post - he includes a clip from Sorcerer.

And here is a not-to-be-missed post on Scheider from Jeremy at Moon in the Gutter.

A compilation of awesome posters of the Scheider-movies from the 1970s.

Probably best known for his role in Jaws, my favorite Roy Scheider performance is in Bob Fosse's All That Jazz (although I am also partial to his performance in The French Connection). But his portrayal of Joe Gideon (Bob Fosse's alter ego) in All That Jazz - a dance man who smokes, fucks, drinks, and pops pills right into open-heart surgery - is one of the all-time great performances by an actor, period. He was nominated for an Academy Award.

Scheider was never afraid to get ugly in his work, or unlikeable, or grander-than-life. He had courage. I can't imagine anyone else in the part of Joe Gideon and ... Roy Scheider is most definitely NOT the obvious choice. But he claimed that part. He IS that part.

"Showtime!"

I think one of my favorite scenes is when they're all in rehearsal in the dance studio - and it's just not. working ... and it's all on him to figure it out, because he's the choreographer, he's the general in charge. Things get tense. But there's a block, somehow ... Gideon can't GET to what he wants to express. It's a classic scene (rarely portrayed on film) of the artistic process. It's not a forgiving montage - where we see, over time, the struggle, and then the triumph. No. We are in the muck and mud with him. He can't get out of the creative block. We are with him thru that. The scene goes on for what feels like an excruciating amount of time ... you yearn for them to cut away, like: let them just work out the problem on their own, leave me out of it. But then comes the breakthrough. Gideon figures it out.

Great great scene, one I treasure for many reasons.

Please leave your favorite performances in the comments section, as a tribute to this great actor.

I don't post the following clip to be in bad taste. I post it because it's perfect. And it is how I will remember him.

Bye-bye, Mr. Scheider. You'll be missed more than you'll ever know.

Babs

I love this photo. Mitchell, Alex - help me: what the hell is going on there? Judging from the chalkboard, with Alice Ghostley's name on it - and Maggie Smith's - it's some Academy Awards moment ... is she on tour? Why does she have the notes in front of her? She looks like she's backstage somewhere ... but I don't recognize the outfit. Help is appreciated. Thank you.

Schizo day

Left my apartment at about 11 to go to church. The day looked like this.

Two hours later, walking home, the day looked like this.

It was so windy I was nearly blown off the causeway.

Half an hour later, this was going on on my street.

And here is where the skyline used to be.

And now it's a cold clear blue twilight with one hell of a ferocious wind.

I fully expect a heat wave in the next 24 minutes.

The Books: "Sportsman's Paradise" (Nancy Lemann)

Next book on my adult fiction shelves:

Sportsman's Paradise by Nancy Lemann

Second novel by Nancy Lemann. Lemann does not drastically change her style from book to book - so if you find her monotonous then that would definitely be a problem. But for my taste, I LOVE every word she writes - and my only complaint is that she doesn't publish more. Lives of the Saints came out in 1985 - I think her fourth novel came out in 2003 or 4? I guess when you write it down like that it's not so long - but it feels that way! Again, in Sportsman's Paradise, Lemann uses the same almost repetitive style ... she keeps coming back to the same themes, and the same images (the white swans on the green pond, etc.) Images like that have meaning for her. Painful bittersweet yearning again is the main theme. The majority of the characters are Southerners (all from New Orleans - just like in Lives of the Saints) transplanted to New York. Some work in New York (like our lead) - others are up visiting. In the summers, this one group of Southerners rents what is basically a compound on the end of Long Island - all of these different cottages - and the men take the ferry into work in Manhattan, and the women stay home with all of the children (the children and their antics, and pyromania, and sweetness of character make up a huge part of the book: Lemann writes children very well). It is summer. Baseball season. Everyone is obsessed.

The lead character is a woman named Storey Collier. She is a cousin to the famous Claude Collier in Lives of the Saints. She has moved to New York because of the suggestion of a bigwig she met on the Gulf Coast - a certain Mr. Underwood - who is an absolutely HILARIOUS character. He acts like a "big cheese". He IS a big cheese. He is strangely emotional. He begins to shout at you for no reason. But he doesn't shout angry things, he shouts things like, "YOU ARE SUCH A WONDERFUL PERSON, GODDAMMIT." He gets her a job at a New York newspaper. He thinks she can go far. She lives in what sounds like Spanish Harlem - with salsa playing outside her window, etc. An "old flame" of hers also works at the paper - his name is Hobby Fox (love her names). He was a professional baseball player - and now is a sportswriter. He is laconic. He pretends to be a misanthrope. Yet Storey sees in him the goodness of the ages. He is not self-pitying, even though his career in baseball was short. Perhaps as a way to be closer to Hobby (she is obviously obsessed with him - they have some sort of "past" although it takes the whole book to figure out just what exactly happened between these two) - she becomes absolutely obsessed with baseball. She lies in bed listening to her transistor radio. She loses sleep on trade nights. She can't stand it. She is in it for the drama. You can tell she loves the sport as well, but she's in it for the psychological truths that baseball reveals. So you can imagine how much I love this book. The way she writes about sports nuts is so right on that it makes me laugh out loud. And also the downright MANIC tragedies that occur - people choking back tears in press conferences, all of the tabloid dramas - everyone in professional sports seems to be on the verge of some kind of mental breakdown. Storey loves it all.

She spends her weekends out on Long Island, in the compound of Southerners - all of whom are wacky, insane, and memorable. There's Margaret, a transplanted Southern belle, who wears leopard-skin bikinis and gets into all kinds of trouble. She has boating parties and gets into massive boating accidents and the Coast Guard has to be called. She adopts broken-down black jazz singers and let them stay in her house. There's the family of 6 children - the father of which seems baffled and dominated by his own life. The wife sits on the porch of their cottage, smoking cigarettes, trying to unwind. There's a lecherous guy named Cedric who shows up, and leers at all the women, and refuses to go home when it's time. Everyone dreads Cedric showing up. And Mr. Underwood (who also has a cottage out there) is the feared and beloved "star" - everyone wonders when he will show up, and everyone wonders what kind of things he will shout at them - "Is Mr. Underwood coming today?" "Mr. Underwood is coming today!" Hobby Fox also takes a cottage out there - so there is a convergence of lunatic comedy every weekend ... and Storey, with her vague streak of melancholy and nostalgia, tries to bear up under it all. She watches Hobby from afar. She plays with the children (you just love those kids). She gapes at Margaret and all of her debacles. She obsesses about baseball.

Anyway, here's an excerpt.

The book makes me laugh out loud. And Lemann, with her strangely repetitive style, almost incantatory, weaves a spell over me. She really does. I'd follow her anywhere. Her last book came out 5 years ago! I'm dying!!

The irony in this book is that Storey (as you will see below) loves to obsess about what is underneath everything. She looks around and see mental crackups everywhere, and obsesses over what it all means. And her love, Hobby Fox, is laconic, dry, and appears to want everyone to think he is a misanthrope. He gently makes fun of her tortured theories about everyone's nervous breakdowns ... and she observes that there is always more to Hobby Fox than meets the eye. But they had a past. They cannot be together now. And so there is a strange yearning between them - a kindness - and all of that thwarted feeling gets poured into baseball.

EXCERPT FROM Sportsman's Paradise by Nancy Lemann

Hobby always has the radio tuned in to baseball games, in a low masculine drone, redolent of Yankeefied spring and summer afternoons. Mr. Underwood too has a love of baseball and also keeps the games on in the office at night if he works late. Due to these influences I find that I myself am developing a growing obsession with baseball and the need to chronicle the progress of the New York team that I follow. Hobby taught me a lot about it. He doesn't follow his old team, in Atlanta. He follow the New York team, while here. His father loved the St. Louis Cardinals, because in his day, they were the team of the South. They were an all-black team who were all extremely cultivated and they had the most beloved manager in baseball. The manager of the New York team is completely listless. The personality of the New York team mystifies me. They have a certain elegance, I think because they are so stoic. If they get a home run or something good they try not to smile or act excited. If someone gets a home run, he comes out of the dugout and gives a curtain call - tipping his hat to the crowd - seeing rather quaint or courtly - and they only do this in New York, I'm told - but maintaining a gruff though courtly exterior. Equally if they lose or get slaughtered they betray no emotion other than seeming mildly dejected. It results in a certain elegance because the other teams are more volatile and make obnoxious displays at every sign of advancement.

Also the New York team is riddled with problems. If you like problems, you've come to the right place, with the New York team. Each player has a dazzling array of problems. Drug problems, drug rehabilitation, alcohol detox, injuries, marital problems, personality problems, nervous breakdowns, and psychological problems, also confidence problems.

Yet at the same time as they are afflicted with a ceaseless array of problems, it is the national pastime, plain American fun, heartwarming, wholesome, one thing that draws everyone together, the very young and the very old, and has an innocence, a certain basic innocence, good for the children, etc., a chance to go forth with the heroes, a good thing for the boys.

The other thing I like about the New York team is that they are underdogs. I love that. I would never root for the favorite. I like how they are always struggling, getting slaughtered twice in one night in double-headers, being exhausted in rain delays or playing extra innings until two in the morning, losing. Adversity becomes them, as adversity can be becoming if its object has character. There is poignance in their struggle. Plus, then if they suddenly win, it is all the more affecting. The New York team always loses and is stoic, elegant, dejected. But to the stars through adversity.

Then if they suddenly win I am suffused with a sense of well-being, and if they lose I feel doleful and listless. I have a ceaseless need to listen to every single game and keep up with everyone's problems. But my love for baseball is inexplicable - never before did I ever take the slightest interest in sports. Never was there one subject so boring to me as sports.

Now I even listen to the sports talk shows in the middle of the afternoon on the radio hosted by falling New York lunatics who remind me of Mr. Underwood, who sound off in deep Bronx and Queens accents about what burns them up. "I've had it," they passionately avow, referring to sports figures who irritate them or contracts negotiated that are too expensive. Often they slip into dreamy recollections of ball players from the thirties on the Yankees team or Brooklyn Dodgers, distracted by their memories, exhibiting a marked preference for the older teams of the American League, and if someone calls them up to ask a question about upstarts in the National League they say, "I've had it", etc. Sometimes they go berserk on the show and start insulting the callers and have complete breakdowns, ending up screaming out to the caller, "Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!" and then disconnect the phone line in a fury. "You're a schmuck. You're crazy. You're giving me a nervous breakdown. Shut up!" etc. Once I heard a nut call up who was equally as much of a lunatic as the announcer. The nut launched into a rambling unconnected story about a glamour girl who kissed him at a baseball game. Then he started swearing. "Do not take the name of the Lord in vain," said the announcer solemnly to the nut. "That is where I draw the line." It's a funny place to suddenly draw the line, considering that he spends the rest of the time raving like some insane maniac. Then the nut started sounding off about what burned him up in sports and the announcer lost his cool again and started screaming. "You need a brain transplant. You're driving me crazy. Shut up!" etc. etc. And these nuts got at it forty-eight hours a day. They spend forty-eight hours a day analyzing these subjects on the radio. Sports, baseball, contracts, they analyze it for forty-eight hours a day. I turn on the radio at two in the morning and there they are, talking in strange voices like they're mentally unbalanced, analyzing everything. "New York did not play Philadelphia tonight," the announcer will be saying in a ghostly strangled voice. "Tidewater played Philadelphia tonight. A minor-league team played Philadelphia tonight. Schmucks!" he screams in his New York parlance. This analysis had to do with one night when a lot of people on the New York team had injuries and they had to call up a lot of rookies from their farm team. I know about these things now. Suddenly I'm a sports fanatic, listening to sports talk shows twenty-four hours a day.

"Cincinnati is not going to make it. Cincinnati is through. Finished. It's over for Cincinnati!" Screaming. Long silences. Tortured strangled voices. Here they were referring to the pennant race, and who would be in the World Series.

In New York they had a romance with failure - uncharacteristic of the North. It began in the old days, at the Polo Grounds, with a series of eccentrics as managers, and a ball club that could never win.

Everyone was in tortures over it. That's what kills me about baseball, how everyone is in tortures over it as if it were the most serious thing that could ever be. Like the nuts who call up the sports channel on the radio all day to analyze everything. In the articles in the Tribune the Commissioner of Baseball would always have all these tortured quotes about integrity and self-delusions in long, tortured ponderings, when it is only about baseball. I mean you'd think they were talking about World War II. Like the most grave subject. The Baseball Commissioner agonizing over principles, integrity, abstractions as if he were Aristotle, not the Baseball Commissioner.

What I prefer is the team that had the romance with failure. They used to be "arrogant" and "cocky" and make obnoxious displays at every sign of advancement just like everyone else, and everyone hated them for it because they were so arrogant and cocky. Then the manager told them not to gloat or make such displays so now they all act like laconic Southern gentlemen. I personally like them better that way. But of course it's not a New York type of attitude and the New Yorkers hate them that way. They have articles in the newspapers interviewing the players about how they feel about this and their resultant tortured ponderings - like the Baseball Commissioner agonizing over sporting matters - as they ponder their broken dreams or fond hopes or failures, in sports.

Mr. Underwood had a box at the baseball games with other big cheeses, the Governor, millionaire racetrack owners, retired bandleaders, etc. Actually the retired bandleader in his entourage was a poignant figure, somehow out of place, being Southern. He could care less about baseball. He was used to seedy dives on Bourbon Street. Baseball just wasn't his thing. It was written on his face, in his countenance, everything about him did not say Baseball. Being from Bourbon Street, New Orleans, I can certainly understand why the Southern bandleader did not feel an affinity for baseball, as I never did before either until I realized how it has its dark side, or generally from spending five years in New York. But certainly on Bourbon Street the idea of baseball is but a remote image of a boy in the 1920s with a baseball cap in the sweet afternoon sun or sterling Northern twilight in some halcyon idea of America, from which New Orleans is indescribably remote. But Mr. Underwood loved it all - retired sports figures, troubled prizefighters, washed-up Southern bandleaders - in his box of big cheeses at the game.

Hobby had a more ambivalent attitude, having played in the Major Leagues himself, and there were times when I got the feeling that he had left his heart there. Being thirty-six and out of practice I doubt he could go back. Though I hear of players who are forty-two and forty-three, such as relief pitchers. I guess he did not play long enough or make enough of an impression to come back in a career in baseball as a coach or manager. He listened to the games but did not often speak of his past in it. Also he had been a newspaperman now for too many years to think of much else. But once I saw in his room in Orient the Louisville Slugger that he used in Atlanta, for it was inscribed with the team and had his name burned onto it. He kept it with him, then. Some reminder of an innocence, which baseball surely represents, although it certainly has its dark side, so it seems to me at least. As every time I ask him about one of the players he always launches into a long story about how the fellow was a drug addict, or on trial, or just got out of alcohol detox or jail. I had no idea that baseball had such a dark side, or was so riddled with problems, but, of course, that's what I like about it.

He was telling me about a pitcher who thought it was his day off and took LSD. He happened to hear on the radio that his team was playing that night in Chicago - which he had forgotten. So he hopped on a plane to Chicago tripping on LSD and pitched a no-hitter.

Later he was on trial and told the judge that when you're on LSD in a ball game, it makes the ball look like a grapefruit when it's coming at you so it's easier to hit.

Also Hobby told me that on his team in Atlanta it was one of the first years that they had a sports psychiatrist for the ball club. He went crazy at the end of the season.

The TV announcers discuss these problems during their ceaseless banter at the game even though they are so All-American it seems they wouldn't want to admit it, and were all players themselves before they became announcers. The other night New York was playing Philadelphia and the announcers were discussing the pitcher for Philadelphia before the game. One of the announcers is a kindly old man who seems at times virtually senile and can't seem to keep track of what is going on. You'd think that maybe baseball in his day had less problems to it, at least in terms of psychiatry. But they were talking about the pitcher and he said, "Frank is back on the mound right now but it seems last year he had some psychological problems," looking out at ten million viewers on TV. Then he chuckled fondly, after saying the word "psychological problems," shaking his head in bemusement, but at the same time with concern, and then got a sort of rueful, whimsical smile, looking at the other announcer to elaborate.

"I was talking to him and he explained, 'I was giving myself a nervous breakdown.' Ha ha. He went to Harvard but he just got out of alcohol detox. He's a great pitcher, Bob. The only question is, can he keep out of hootch."

Keep out of the hootch - I'm not sure whether that means stay out of the looney bin - or whether it means stay off the sauce.

Harvard, alcohol detox, baseball, and psychological problems - you have to admit that's a pretty weird mix-up.

There was a rain delay and they called in a sort of sports weatherman. He was a cornball. The announcers are always sentimental and enthusiastic.

"What about the weather, Jim? Do you think we'll play?"

"I know we will, Bob. In about forty-five minutes, you'll see this storm clear up and they will start the ball game."

"How can you be so sure?"

"This is my life, Bob. I'm obsessed with the weather. I love it. It's my life."

Then the announcers chuckle and shake their heads fondly in bemusement.

On certain Fridays since this April Hobby had been taking me to the baseball games, when he could get away from the office.

Friday night we went to a double-header. The stadium announcer keeps droning on throughout the game on a loudspeaker in a cheerful voice, "Alcoholic beverages ... Anti-social behavior ... People drinking ... Taking drugs ..." admonishing potential abusers of these vices. There are a lot of police. Sometimes horrifying brawls break out in the stands. "Here comes trouble," said a fan when a weirdo with a menacing expression came up to take his seat and the weirdo heard him and got mad. "Shut up! Who are you calling trouble, schmuck, shut up. Shut up!" etc. As everyone knows, the attitude of the New York fans is "What have you done for me lately?" Meaning if the team is losing the fans are filled with loathing and disgust - this is why they call the radio talk shows at two in the morning to ceaselessly analyze all the problems and complain about how disgusted they are and go berserk etc. The New York stadium is like a latent catastrophe waiting to happen. But it never really does, in baseball. An innocence is inexorably attached to the game no matter how many people go crazy or how many drug problems or etc. arise.

Saturday night:

It's microdermabrasion night!

It's also laundry night!

It's also Dolly Parton's Greatest Hits night!

It's also Post Captain by Patrick O'Brien night!

How much joy and cleanliness and nautical adventure can one woman take in a single evening?

"You couldn’t confuse him with anyone you’d ever seen."

Dick Cavett has a not-to-be-missed opinion piece in The New York Times about Bobby Fischer. It's too good to excerpt - but to me, it has all of the elements I love about good opinion writing. Cavett shares his experiences interviewing Bobby Fischer, at the height of his fame, on his show. It's lovely memoir-writing. I love his observations. But it also asks deep questions: what is it to be a genius? What is it LIKE for these people? And then comes stunning passages such as this:

Our mental health advisers, shrinks and friends advise us to avoid guilt at all costs. But they don’t tell you how. There seems to be an unlimited number of guilts available to us. When someone we know — or are related to — comes apart and deteriorates physically and mentally and commits suicide, don’t most of us think, “Maybe I’d have been the one who could have made the difference; done or said this or that and saved the poor soul?” How much of such thinking is charitable and how much egotistical? For a time I was pained by that thought that I might have been Bobby’s salvation. But then we comfort ourselves, concluding that of course it would have been too late. And then, alas, comes, But would it have been?

It's magnificent writing. And what I love the most - is how Cavett struggles with how to end the piece. He puts the struggle into his writing. Yes, yes, yes. It is this kind of thing that I want to do ... it is this kind of written expression that my heart most yearns for, and responds to. Thanks for showing me how it's done, Mr. Cavett.

Fascinating clip from Fischer on Cavett's show is also included in the piece. Not to be missed. It's amazing to see how it's a real conversation - something that is very absent today in late-night talk shows - where it's all about people plugging projects and that's pretty much it. But Cavett, Carson - and actually David Letterman on occasion - are great conversationalists. Watch how it flows. How beautiful it is, sometimes, to just sit back and watch other people talk.

Fearless

Damn this girl can write.

Alphabet: A History

I love this series on Wendy's: autobiography through the alphabet.

A: Allison

B: Bike

(Reminds of the book I recently read The ABCs of Love.)

Wendy has such a way with details. I love her writing.

Call Julia Allison!

You know you wanna! Her number's on the cover of Time Out New York!

Click below to hear some of the calls.

I had nothing to do with #11 "imnotcreepylady". I swear.

Neither did Special Ops. But Special Ops knows who was involved.

Regards....

Diary Friday

Another excerpt from the autobiography I wrote when I was 13. I am now going to embarrass my friend Mere. Good times! Here I describe the beginning of junior high - which was uniformly terrible.

SHEILA'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY

After sixth grade, we were all looking forward to going into the Junior High together. I don't know why, because it was such a bad year. I wasn't in classes with ANY of my friends, I hardly ever saw them, and somehow I became the class scapegoat. People laughed at me as I walked by, left mean notes in my locker, gave me crank calls, and snickered. Don't ask me why. I didn't even know half the people, I didn't talk to them, I never did anything to them. See, in grade school, having clean nice hair, good clothes, and a boyfriend, wasn't crucial, and suddenly these things were the most important things in life. So I kept wearing what I wanted and everyone made fun of me so much that I was scared to walk up and get an ice cream at lunch. I still plodded along, but my life became worse and worse. I started to get Cs and I was mean to my Mom. I hated everyone. I dreaded school. School, instead of being my usual slice of paradise, became a chore! I would fake sickness to stay home. I'd cough and retch so much that my mother would let me stay home. But things weren't that better there. I would fight with my mother, and storm off to my room to write useless stories. I'm very vague, because I already have a depressing diary of those days. But since I had no friends I saw in school, I became friends with Laura, which was good at the time. She was more unpopular than I was! The thing is, though, that the popular kids in our school were the nice ones. I talked to them, and they didn't laugh at me. It was the losers who made fun of me. Now I know that the only reason they made fun of me is that they know they're losers and they have to find a scapegoat to make themselves feel better. Now I can laugh in their faces. But then - it stripped away my confidence. I hated myself with a passion. I looked at my face in the mirror and despised it. I really resent those kids. But you know what? SOMEDAY I will be a great actress or a rich archaeologist, or a famous journalist, and I will look at those gutter scums and smirk. I CAN'T WAIT. [Now that is a worthy goal. Many people have become famous for just such this reason.]

Anyway, Laura turned out to be a jerk. She clung to me. Maybe for support or something. But she was jealous of any other friendships I had. I was friends with another girl named Debby (another mistake) and Laura - whenever she saw me with Debby, she would come over and laugh about a secret of ours to make Debby jealous. It got worse and worse, until we were all in Science, and we sat at the same table and I was between them. It was TERRIBLE. It got so bad that I hated both of them. Each pulling me in different directions. So I changed my seat and gloated at their hurt faces. [hahahahaha I love that] I really started to hate them!

Most of this is recorded in my other Diary. But it wasn't THAT bad. [Uhm ... it wasn't? You're gonna say it wasn't "that bad" NOW??] It was just that I had to start brand new making friends.

But I made acquaintances that year (Kate, Beth, Meredith) that now are my best friends. They were so chummy with each other - I envied them. I sort of know Beth and Kate because of church and Sunday School, but I had never met Mere before. And I thought she was the best thing to ever hit this earth. She was tall and thin and pretty and always wore jeans and they always looked good on her. ["Clothes look good on her."] She was so - "breezy". I don't know. And I admired her. On '50s day, at the end of school, she wore this puffy pink skirt with a big blue flower in the "poodle spot" and when we went out to play softball it was all sunny and warm and we were out in the outfield and (I better stop this run-on). So anyway, we started to Charleston and I still remember what she looked like with her skirt swirling around her.

And one little odd tidbit I remember, is on 50s day, we were all in Ecology and I glanced over at Mere beside Beth. She was sitting in her chair with her legs stretched out, ankles crossed, and her pink skirt was flounced out around her. I admired her so much then, with the bobby socks and penny loafers. And she and Beth were laughing about something. She looked so easy and free. They both did! I was always so tense, and I wanted to be like Meredith!

It is so strange because now she is my BEST friend and I don't idolize her anymore! Sorry, Mere!

7th grade was a bummer. Eighth grade was better because I was in classes with J., and Betsy and Mere and Beth. Mere and I sat beside each other in math and we had the best time making fun of the teacher. He loved being macho. [hahahahahaha] When he wrote on the board, he clenched and unclenched his fist. He wore tight pants - polyester - and he had a bright orange shirt. On one of his shirt backs was a stain that looked like a semi-colon and it remained there the entire year. [I am howling!] He also wore shiny black shoes with buckles, so we called him "Mr. Pilgrim" and "Mr. Turkey". We wrote notes back and forth the entire period (honestly, literally - I still have some of them and they are a scream.) Sometimes I would laugh so hard during class I felt trapped and suffocated and tears would course down my cheeks. Math suddenly became the highlight of my day.

I remember that on the last few days of school, our teacher would take us out to play softball (he was very into baseball). He would play, and loved "showing off" to us. Actually, Mere and I would be roaring about him the whole time. [God. We were so mean to him!! But man, how many hours of fun did he provide us, Mere ... we just thought he was so hysterical] Mere looked so cute standing out in the field in her jeans with her baseball glove. [I swear, Mere, I wasn't a creepy stalker - even though I appeared to keep notes on your outfits on a daily basis!!] She was so funny. I remember one fatal day when we started to laugh so hard during a "silent time" that my stomach ached from trying to hold it in. It was during a fire drill and we were all standing outside in the sunshine in silent lines. The sun was so bright. We were all standing there silently. And suddenly I noticed Mr. Mellor, a bald math teacher, standing on the pavement. The sun actually caused his head to glow. I turned to Mere and whispered to her, "Look at Mr. Mellor. His head ..." and then I went completely out of control and Mere started to laugh, too, and it was so hard to stop! From trying to repress our laughter, we made much more noise than otherwise. We laughed hysterically, silently, and shaking, until our breath ran out, and we had to take huge deep breaths before collapsing again. I tried to hold back the laughter but then I would burst out with a loud guffaw.

Oh, another highlight of that year was when our math class was out playing softball and I was out bopping around in the outfield with my glove and our teacher was up to bat (oh, what a man) and he, in his tight blue pants that clung, went tearing around the bases and suddenly he froze and sort of sidled back to home, and picked up his glove to put it over his rear. All of us were staring at him like he was bonkers. Some of the kids back at home plate started roaring with laughter, but none of us outfielders could see what had happened. Then he started running towards the school, still holding the glove in place over his butt. As he went past me, he hissed, "I split my pants."

Everyone heard, though. I stood stock still. I could hardly believe it! Then suddenly, Michele L., the pitcher, shrieked with laughter and fell down onto the ground - and then mass hysteria followed. None of us could believe that our macho teacher had split his pants!!!

Culture snapshots

-- I am not at all in love with the new season of Rock of Love. It cannot come close to the brilliance of the first season - and I can't believe I am saying this, but I miss Lacey! As heinous as that bitch was, she MADE that show. All the girls on the show now seem to be strippers with enormous collagen lips. Nobody seems normal. They all seem like ragged whores on the edge of oblivion. Not that there's anything wrong with that, if they're happy ... but the first season was so good because there were a handful of relatively normal girls (albeit clinically insane) - who were vying for Bret Michaels' attention. But now it doesn't seem to have that OOMPH. Because yes. I do want Bret Michaels to find someone to "continue to rock his world". I yearn for his happiness. I lose sleep over it. But to see those girls whip around the roller rink with baby carriages ... in some sort of maternal roller-derby situation ... My God. Television has never been so awesome. But where is Lacey? And Heather? I love those girls!

-- I am reading a biography of James Monroe right now (making my way through Schlesinger's awesome American Presidents series). I didn't know much about James Monroe - except that he was part of that Virginia dynasty of men ... but other than that, I didn't know much about him. It's fascinating. Gary Hart wrote the book - he has done a great job. I'm loving it. I love the whole series, in general. They haven't published all of them yet - but I have all of the ones in the series so far. They aren't going in order, either - so the George H.W. Bush volume is published - but the one on Abraham Lincoln hasn't come out yet (and freakin' EL Doctorow has written that one - I am dying to read it!) Great series. Having a lot of fun with it.

-- Watched Fort Apache last night, and was struck, for the 5000th time, with John Wayne's effectiveness as an actor and movie star. He has one moment where he shouts, "HOLD YOUR FIRE, MEN" and then says to himself, "Hold your fire." A possibly cheesy moment. But John Wayne doesn't have a cheesy bone in his body. You cannot force that man to ham. To overplay. The movie is interesting because it places Henry Fonda in the position of being the true alpha-dog ... and usually it's John Wayne who's the alpha, in his films. To see Fonda be above him, and watching Wayne have to deal with that - is fascinating. They both have their points - and in Wayne's moving monologue at the end, we can see that he has conceded to Fonda's position ... that Fonda's hard-ness had made the regiment better. He was willing to be "the bad guy" to his men - in order to make them better. And Shirley Temple is adorable in the movie. Surprise surprise. I love John Ford's movies because it's like an old-time regional theatre, where the same people keep showing up, in project after project. Like: Ward Bond (GOD WHO IS BETTER THAN HIM??) and Victor Maclagen (LOVE HIM) ... John Ford standbys. Always good. His movies would not work without that rock-solid ensemble of players. Love the movie.

At Swim-Two-Birds

When I first started blogging, on blog-spot, atswimtwobirds was the URL I chose, in honor of the great and the weird Flann O'Brien (aka Myles na gCopleen, aka Brian O'Nolan). Flann O'Brien's most well-known novel is probably At Swim-Two-Birds - which I read in college - and recently re-read. In the O'Malley family At Swim-Two-Birds was ubiquitous around the house - and I have written before (well, you'd have to buy The Sewanee Review, their Irish issue from 2006 to read it - and whatever, not to brag - oh what the hell, I'll brag - they're promoting me on the main page of their website right now.) about the allowance ritual in my family - where my father assigned each of us Irish authors, and we had to memorize their book titles - in order to get, oh, 75 cents. Siobhan was assigned Flann O'Brien, so to hear her, at 4 years old, rattle off "At Swim-Two-Birds" - is a potent family memory. It's a crazy book. It truly does defy description. It's a romp. It's an intellectual smorgasbord. And it prefigures books like Catcher in the Rye, or even later than that ... Dave Eggers, for example, is definitely in the Flann O'Brien continuum. It's a book that admits it's a book. There's a "meta" feeling to the whole thing. It's laugh out loud funny, doesn't take itself too seriously - and yet somehow it seems to encapsulate all of the insanity of Irish history, with its Finn McCool trajectory, its Cuchalain myths and legends ... and yet it's also about an aimless Irish youth, lying in his room, smoking cigarettes, and pondering the great novel he wants to write. It's one of the weirdest books I've ever read, and frankly, one of the most enjoyable.

Flann O'Brien has been on my mind because of this great essay on him by John Updike. I've seen it linked to everywhere, in the blogs I read - and I highly recommend it. Even if you know nothing about Flann O'Brien (or should I say, sorry, Myles? Or Brian?) - even if you haven't read his books ... well then so much the better. Perhaps Updike's piece will inspire you to give him a go. He's a major player in Irish literature, and that is obviously very difficult to achieve - since Irish literature is so full of goddamned great writers. Also, O'Brien was a contemporary of James Joyce, Sam Beckett. They cast a huge shadow. They do to this day - but imagine trying to publish novels in the 30s and 40s, post Ulysses. Flann O'Brien openly wrestled with his contemporaries - and put all of that into his books. In At Swim-Two-Birds, the young writer lies in bed, and he's sick so he's taken drugs - and the characters he is dreaming up for his book (we see his outlines, his notes) kind of take over. Old Irish kings and fairies enter the narrative. The novelist has lost control of his own book. He tries to control his characters, wrestling with them, essentially - like: "No! I am in charge here - not you!" But once let loose, it's very hard to get control again.

Updike has this to say about O'Brien's third novel An Béal Bocht, written in Gaelic:

O’Brien, who spoke Irish Gaelic in his childhood home, wrote his next extended fiction, “An Béal Bocht,” in Gaelic, in 1941; in 1973, it was translated, by Patrick C. Power, into a spirited imitation of O’Brien’s English as “The Poor Mouth: A Bad Story About the Hard Life.” Less than a hundred pages long, the tale has the advantage of a relatively clear, if extravagant, story line and a distinct satiric point—i.e., that the Irish Republic’s official cherishing of the nearly extinct Gaelic language ignores the miserable poverty of its surviving speakers, the rain-battered peasantry of the countryside. In one episode, government orators at a Gaelic feis parrot and praise the venerable language while in their audience “many Gaels collapsed from hunger and from the strain of listening.” In another, a folklorist from Dublin, visiting O’Brien’s fictional Gaeltacht area of Corkadoragha, and frustrated by the drunken taciturnity of an assembly of local males, records the muttering of a pig under the impression that it is Gaelic: “He understood that good Gaelic is difficult but that the best Gaelic of all is well-nigh unintelligible.” Parodying sentimental novels and memoirs in modern Gaelic by such authors as Tomás Ó Criomhthainn and Séamas Ó Grianna, O’Brien protests on behalf of a depressed Irish population: “In one way or another, life was passing us by and we were suffering misery, sometimes having a potato and at other times having nothing in our mouths but sweet words of Gaelic.”

Updike writes:

The man was ingenious and learned like Jim Joyce and like Sam Beckett gave the reader a sweet dose of hopelessness but unlike either of these worthies did not arrive at what we might call artistic resolution. His novels begin with a swoop and a song but end in an uncomfortable murk and with an air of impatience.

It has made me want to re-visit some of Flann O'Brien's stuff again, as challenging and bizarre as it is. He's like a jazz musician, going off on riffs as his creativity demands ... hoping the audience will follow ... or perhaps not even. Perhaps he doesn't care whether or not we follow. He can be a challenge, because sometimes you want to shout at him, "GET BACK TO THE POINT, FLANN!" - but for him, the riff IS the point. He's an important writer because of that.

Also a helluva lot of fun. At Swim-Two-Birds made me laugh out loud repeatedly, and there were times when he knocked my socks off - with his inventiveness, and what he had to say about the process of writing itself. It is the most myopic of books - and yet, as with most Irish writers, the past presses in - everywhere. The kings and priests and fairies of Celtic golden ages gone by ... they are not just influences on Flann O'Brien - they are so huge that they insert themselves into the novel, and demand to be taken seriously. He, the writer, tries to make them behave. They will not. What a great metaphor.

Check him out, if you haven't.

Here's the full article by Updike.

The Books: "Lives of the Saints" - excerpt 2 (Nancy Lemann)

Next book on my adult fiction shelves:

Lives of the Saints by Nancy Lemann

I can't just do one excerpt of this book (first one here) - even though it's not even 150 pages long. I just love every page. I love every word. It's funny, whimsical, nostalgic, heartfelt, silly ... It's like a silly sweet Southern girl. You can't get enough. Nancy Lemann does not hold back when it comes to nostalgia - a theme that is intense for her. All of her books have to do with yearning - sometimes the yearning is vague (there's a great line in The Fiery Pantheon - her third book: "She had a nostalgia for a life she had never lived.") - sometimes the yearning is specific and is about one specific person ... but that yearning is what drives her on as an artist, obviously. Nostalgia. Sometimes you can wallow in nostalgia. Lemann does. Louise, the lead of Lives of the Saints has been away from her home, New Orleans, for 4 years while she went to college in the north. But now she is back. Having gone away, her appreciation of her home town is even more acute. She loves it so much that it almost hurts her - you can tell in how Lemann writes about New Orleans. But there's a deeper level to this nostalgia thing. It's almost like Lemann writes from the point of view that life is short, so so so short - even as we speak, right now, it's slipping away ... and if you are conscious of that, then how on earth do you bear it? Not the pain of it ... but the beauty of it? How can you live like that? 100% aware of the beauty of life? Can anyone manage it? Louise is in love with Claude Collier, a kind of dissipated goofball she has known for years. They are friends. Their romance doesn't begin until halfway through the book - but you can tell (from the first excerpt) her regard for him, despite all of his problems. The way Lemann writes about Claude Collier - he is just one of those indelible fictional characters. I remember him. He is a "type" - he LIVES.

The following excerpt comes early on, after the debached bacchanalian wedding that opens the book. It is the next morning. Everyone in the town appears to have to recover from the drinking binge the night before. Claude Collier comes over to Louise's apartment for breakfast.

They have known one another for years, since they were kids. But now they are adults (albeit young adults) - and Louise is the type of person who notices everything. Nothing skips past her.

I just think Lemann is SUCH a funny writer. I love writers who can make me cry - but writers who can make me laugh capture my heart forever. And watch how Lemann does both here ... we get the goofiness of Claude Collier, and it's so so specific - but then we also get the yearning, the nostalgia, of Louise, her regard for him, her love for him, will never fulfill her ... because life is like that. Especially if you are the kind of person who notices everything. Life becomes acutely clear, almost unbearable.

Wonderful stuff. Oh, and for me - the section below about "dark magic" is the most profound of the book. It seriously helped me put my life in Chicago into perspective - when everything had changed, upheaval abounded - and I had met M., who was distinctly insane in many ways - and yet somehow we were drawn to each other. Repeatedly. For many many years. What was that? How could it be? M. was not an appropriate mate for me.... like, we wouldn't become respectable or anything like that, he wouldn't be my boyfriend ... but at that time, in that place, he had the world's dark magic for me. Dark magic is not necessarily bad or malevolent. In my particular case, it was the opposite. It was healing. M. was a lunatic, a bartender, a brilliant comedian, a mess in many ways - how could hanging out with him be healing? Well, it was ... and since I had read Lives of the Saints, I thought: It's that world's dark magic Lemann was talking about. M. has the world's dark magic.

EXCERPT FROM Lives of the Saints by Nancy Lemann

The day after the wedding Claude came to my apartment. I was fixing breakfast - Carnation Instant Breakfast. He had on khaki pants several sizes too large and an overstarched blue-and-white striped shirt, the kind that looks like it came from one's father, or brothers in the dim, more endearing past. But his gentle fading blue eyes had the look of someone who is not afraid - and with his posture straighter than an arrow, Claude had that slightly stern bearing he got from his father.

He politely watched me while I read the newspaper, which he'd brought. He did not speak. He had an air of observant logic, just watching me read.

"My eyes are killing me," I said. "I read like a fiend."

"Well, read like an angel," he said mildly, not taking his eyes off my face. "You're too interested in glamour," he said suddenly. "You socialize too much. You go out too much. You stay out too late. You drink too much. You should just be a simple, regular person. You should go to bed at eleven every night. You should just come home from work and cook, do the dishes, and just be a regular person. You shouldn't eat Carnation Instant Breakfast."

I received these stunning recommendations in silence. Then I said, "You're the one who needs that advice."

"No, no, I'm just a regular, normal guy. Who leads a regular life."

"Oh, God."

"It's youth - it's just youth," he said, looking at me, mild and unintelligible.

"What is?"

"Your behavior."

"What behavior?"

"You're so young!" he raved. "You're so innocent," he said. "How have you really been? I haven't really known, these past few years, when you were away at school. I heard you had a breakdown," he added in a kind voice, solicitous but cheerful, as though it interested him especially. "Breakdowns?" he said. "Tell me about your breakdowns. That's what we're all about down here," he said. "Breakdowns."

He had dazzling blue eyes, which looked at me with that benevolence, or seemed to look down through many years, as though he had the wisdom of the old.

Breakdowns. That was Claude's theme.

"No, no, I haven't had a breakdown," I said. "But what about you?" I said. "I thought I heard you had to go to the hospital. I heard you stopped drinking there, a year ago. I mean, speaking of breakdowns. And what's this about you moving to New York?" I said.

"How's that?"

"You know, when Mr. Legendre said. When he said he heard you were planning to move to New York."

"Planning to move to New York. Not quite, dear. My brother needs me here. I have to look after him. I have to look after you. I have to look after things here. Maybe some time," Claude said.

"What was going on between you and Mary Grace at the wedding?" I said.

"How's that?"

"Before they left, when she said those things when she was drunk. You know."

But it was useless to think that he would tell me her secrets if they were not meant for me.

"What is it about Mary Grace?" I said. "I mean, what is she really, really like?"

"What is she really, really like?" Claude said. "Well, let me see now. What is she really, really like. That's a hard one." He shook his head. He gestured with his hand, as though trying to find the word. "Mary Grace --" He stopped again. "She was the wildest thing that existed," he concluded, and in the way he shook his head and gestured with his hand, I could tell that he had loved her once.

***

Claude reached into his pocket absently and handed me a pack of gum. It was a hot day. I got up and started scrambling eggs. He was standing a few feet away from me, tall and stark, looking at me through narrowed eyes, with a kind of stern, inscrutable affection.

"Are you by any chance scrambling eggs?"

"Yes. What of it?"

"You mean, you're just standing there scrambling eggs?"

"Yes. What is it, some kind of miracle?"

"What are you going to do next?" he asked as though it were intriguing.

"Take them out and put them on a plate. Do you want some?"

"Oh, no - but I mean, you, just scrambling eggs in the middle of the day, and here we are at your apartment, and everything is just normal, right?"

"Of course. It's normal. What do you mean?"

"I mean, you, just standing at the stove scrambling eggs, compared to what you will be doing two minutes from now, and what you feel like and what does it all mean."

He was shaking his head, bemused, at my scrambling-eggs capacity. Then he got up to go out on the gallery - except he tripped over a chair and tore his khaki pants from the ankle to the knee. Then his glass of gin and tonic slipped out of his hand and fell over the balcony and down to the bricks.

I just stood there at the stove, watching his catastrophes. These were Claude's normal catastrophes. Claude was accident-prone. He always had catastrophes. He also gave new meaning to the word absent-minded. Whenever he left on trips on airplanes, he would go off with other people's house keys and car keys in his pocket, causing huge Comedies of Error.

***

He was twenty-seven years old and currently was not working and was living off income from the invention, from betting at the racetrack, and from some investments he inherited, and everyone was always asking him what he was doing, to which he would answer, smiling brilliantly, "Oh, not too much," and start chewing a straw or tearing napkins into shreds.

***

I don't respect idleness in a man, of course. I don't just look up to someone who can get by without working. I respect a man who has accomplishments, and must therefore have worked hard to get them. A man should have a profession.

Claude was just Going Through A Phase. He just had not Found Himself yet.

St. Augustine had spent his youth in vice and dissipation, and look how he turned out.

But the idler's lot is a sad one, and this I do not deny.

***

There's a famous line in a story where there is a married couple and it is observed about them that she had none of the world's dark magic for him, but he couldn't live without her for six consecutive hours. My feeling for Claude was like the reverse: I could live without his presence - as I had just done, when I was away at college - for a whole duration of years between the ages of seventeen and twenty-two. But he had the world's dark magic.

I don't expect him to be near, I mean. He can probably live without me for six consecutive hours. It would not matter to me if I only saw him three times in five years - and it would still be with the understanding that if there are people like that in the world, then there is honor, for here was a fellow whom you could depend on to be kind as a steadfast, incorruptible rule.

***

I only went to the racetrack with Claude once. We drove by the Quarter on Esplanade, everything green and curious in its tropical way, lush in the humidity, with steam rising up from the pavement in mists because of the heat. It did not seem like a normal American district; it never does, passing the Fifth African Baptist Church with the Gospel Soul Children practicing, the Crescent City Plantation Steak House with neon and white tile and green curtains in the private rooms, the Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club,, Majestic Mortuary with neon lights and jazz, Seafood City where the employees came to work in tuxedos, and then the racetrack bar, Comeaux's, Grits Comeaux, Prop., who had a dead mummy hanging from the ceiling.

We only saw three races, and it was so boring and decadent that I fell asleep from psychological pressure. It rained on and off. Claude won eighty dollars on a three-dollar bet in the Exacta. He stood in the stands in his trench coat, chewing a pencil, squinting, making notes on the forms. But he looked like such an old-fashioned character, in his trench coat - tall and dark-haired - like a husband.

I tried to ask him about what he was doing. But he would not talk about himself. He was always reluctant to talk about himself. He did not have one ounce of vanity - the worst of the vices, worse than any of his, in my opinion.

The Burt-A-Thon

Not sure if you're aware but the always-excellent Larry will be doing a Burt Reynolds blog-a-thon all month - and seriously, you do not want to miss it. Larry's awesome. He's got a great eye. Wonderful critic. Larry makes it clear in his first post that it's not going to be a "love-a-thon". There is much to criticize, and much that might fall short. But it is a celebration nonetheless, of a real workhorse, a guy who gives the impression that he has ALWAYS been there.

Overview - click through to see all the full posts:

The Burt Reynolds-a-Thon: first post. Love it. Read the whole thing. Excerpt:

Some 30 years after his peak of stardom, you never have to ask: Burt Who?

His post on Deliverance. Excerpt from post:

It beggars belief that "Deliverance" was not nominated for the Academy Award for Best Sound. There are very few movies (maybe only Malick's movies) that make me feel as if I have plunged into the natural world depicted on screen. "Deliverance" drops you into the wild. It's as if you're shooting along an untamed river, full of fear and wonder and adrenaline. You see it — and hear it.

His post on Sharky's Machine. Excerpt from post:

It's a film that deserves a serious reappraisal from critics.

I seriously agree with that.

His post on Burt singing. Excerpt:

Maybe he's a little embarrassed at exposing himself so nakedly? A little tentative about it? Can you imagine any of today's stars giving you a glimpse of their feelings like Reynolds does here?

His post on Boogie Nights. Excerpt from post:

It doesn't seem like he's doing much more than being Burt Reynolds (the on-screen construct), but that is acting, let's remember.

His post on The Longest Yard. Excerpt:

Still, movies that end well earn a lot of forgiveness, and “The Longest Yard” ends with a slam-bang football game between the guards and the inmates that is as exciting as you could want it to be.

I love this post. Burt Reynolds on Angie Dickinson. Ha!!

His post on Semi-Tough. Excerpt from post:

All I could remember was that it was a football movie. But watching it again, I was thrilled to discover one of the overlooked '70s movies, and one of the overlooked Burt Reynolds performances, a film ripe for consideration among the era's classics.

Great stuff, Larry - I look forward to more. Burt Reynolds and Cary Grant were very good friends, in the last decade and a half of Cary's life. Somehow that does not surprise me at all.

"Thank you for flying Church of England, cake or death?"

February 13th. We're going to see Izzard!!!!! 3rd row! I can't WAIT!

We are beside ourselves.

"I AM your wife."

"What is it, Sebastien? I'm arranging matches."

"Did I leave the gas on? Of course not! I'm a fucking squirrel!"

Izzard as Hitler the painter: "I can't get the trees right ... I must kill everyone in the world!"

"We claim India!"
"You can't do that! A billion people live here, you bastards!"
"Yes, but ... do you have a flag?"

"England isn't going to the moon! We couldn't put a guy in a track suit up a ladder!"

"I am more of an executive transvestite."

"Je suis le Presidente de Burundi."

"She was doing splashy-splashy."

"She was China in the United Nations Security Council of my virginity."

"All of Europe - you must do this! Well, we're not gonna ...."

"And if you don't speak French, well all of that was fucking funny."

I CAN'T WAIT.

"Singing makes me crazy" ...

writes Alex - in a post about her father that has made me cry.

The Books: "Lives of the Saints" (Nancy Lemann)

Next book on my adult fiction shelves:

Lives of the Saints by Nancy Lemann

I almost get nervous when I come to a book on my shelf that I love beyond measure. I call them my "heart's books". There are only a couple - and each time they come up next on the shelf, I feel a bit of anxiety as to how to talk about it, how to even BEGIN. I experienced that with Possession, with Cat's Eye - with the Emily books ... and I definitely feel it now. Nancy Lemann has written four novels, and I have read them all - more times than I can count. Lives of the Saints is her first novel. I remember where I bought it - at a little bookshop over the Golden Gate Bridge from San Fran ... it's such a light-hearted comedic novel - at times it makes me laugh out loud ... and the time when I bought it was one of the darkest in my whole life. It's a slim novel, not even 150 pages long - and I read it, and it was one of those moments - when a book helps you leap-frog to the next stage in your life. I was gloomy, depressed, and hopeless. I was 23 years old. I moved to Chicago, and almost immediately began to have a wacky time of it. Beating men off with a stick, taking none of it seriously, meeting M. - a man whom I referred to, in my journal, as "Claude Collier" - the main love interest of Lives of the Saints, a character I absolutely ADORE. He's one of those fictional characters I would LOVE to meet. Lemann's language is very singular, very much her own - she writes in an old-school way, capitalizing certain words - like Society, or Chaos, or Gaffe ... And the cumulative effect of such a style is so so funny. You HEAR the voice of the narrator, Louise - a young disenchanted kind of aimless paralegal, who spends her nights cavorting with Claude Collier. It's a funny funny book. I made Mitchell read it, when he came to live in Chicago. I remember lying in bed (Mitchell and I shared a single bed - A SINGLE BED - for 8 months. What??) - and Mitchell was sitting on the couch, reading Lives of the Saints. First of all, I remember him bursting into laughter at certain points, and then reading the passage out to me. I loved re-living the book through him. And then, halfway through the book, something happens - something horrible. Nothing has prepared you for it. The tone of the book is light and lunatic, and suddenly: life intervenes in the worst way. I still don't think Mitchell has forgiven me for not warning him. I remember he called me at work, totally upset - and berated me. "How could you not tell me??" The book is wonderful. It's poetic - Lemann's writing has a stamp all her own ... my only complaint about her is that she doesn't write enough. But I love love love the books she has done so far. She uses repetition - she comes back to the same themes and words over and over again, so the books almost become incantatory. I love how she does that.

Lives of the Saints takes place in New Orleans - a town that Lemann obviously loves dearly. She is damn near rhapsodic about New Orleans. Louise Brown grew up in New Orleans, and went to college at Brown. She had an odd experience being among the Yankees - "not one of whom ever apologized to me about the war". After college - where she studied English literature - she returns home. She has no prospects. She gets a job in a local law firm (and the staff of lawyers are seriously some of the funniest characters I have ever encountered in literature) - she hates her job - and at a big society wedding, she runs into an old friend - Claude Collier. She obviously loves him. They begin to hang out. Claude Collier is a wreck. A dissipated wreck. But with an old-world type of elegance. He wears seersucker suits. He drinks too much. He is jolly. Everyone loves him. He is always getting into scrapes. He has an INSANE family (his mother is also one of the funniest characters I have ever met - harassed, convinced that her life is worse than everyone else's). Louise and Claude have a romance, yes. But Claude is in trouble. He has gotten involved with winos and race-track habitues. Louise watches as everything goes to shit. Nothing really happens - this is not a book about its plot. It's a book about mood, and atmosphere. Late nights in jazz clubs, and the funny conversations you have with your friends. This book works on me like a charm. It's "magic".

When I write, I have to be careful to not imitate her. Her style has had such an impact on me that I find myself appropriating stuff without really realizing it. I have to go back and edit, sometimes ... slashing out the "Lemann-speak". But it's become a part of who I am.

I'm going to do a couple of excerpts, because I just can't help myself. I am going to start with the opening of the book, a section I know almost by heart.

I love this woman's writing. Check her out, if you haven't already. She's totally a delight.

This is how the book starts.

EXCERPT FROM Lives of the Saints by Nancy Lemann

All in all, Henry Laines' wedding was one of the worst events in my experience, tragic in society. Everyone that I have ever known was there, plus a party of out-of-towners whose broad Memphis and Charleston accents shocked me, although we were the same, Americans far from the hub of the universe along the East Coast.

Everyone had breakdowns at this wedding. Including the bride and groom. Especially the bride and groom. Crowded parties like at the Stewarts' often can be known to Bring On Breakdowns. Especially if the Stewarts are the hosts.

I went into this wedding armed with a philosophical acquiescence I had learned from the poets, but I found in society their principles did not hold weight. Everyone was too drunk. Everyone was unglued.

It used to mean so much that the poets were a friend to man in other woe than ours, afar from the sphere of our sorrow - but my quotations are confused. I don't know them anymore. Henry Laines would remember them. He knew all about it. Henry Laines was much admired by some, a kind of local hero. By profession, he was a starving artist, and by temperament, a bachelor. By that I mean that his icebox always held just one item at a time, something rancid, like an old head of broccoli residing in the freezer, so that he could try to save it.

I couldn't talk to him anymore. I could only listen. Then he would look at me as though I had just fallen out of a tree. All those people, all those catastrophes, not to mention breakdowns, at the wedding, made me lose the words of the poets. It was a Very Long Party.

The orchestra was playing old-time jazz, scratchy and remote, with people screaming in the background, and screams of laughter. The party of out-of-towners from Charleston was collected in a corner of the dance floor, which otherwise was not crowded, as most people were out in the garden and in other anterooms inside, in separate, tired, exhausted groups.

Brows were being mopped with white handkerchiefs, among white summer suits and seersucker suits, against a profusion of green in the Stewarts' garden. Everything was green and sumptuous and still, with green-and-white striped tents set up and the principals wearing white tie and tails. There were deck chairs set up in the garden, with people reeling around among them. It was stiflingly hot. Elderly gentlemen in advanced stages of disrepair were sitting in a row of deck chairs at the far side of the garden, all in their white summer suits.

The wedding was at three, and the reception started shortly after, but showed no signs of abating, though it was almost ten.

Henry Laines was screaming my name at the top of his lungs on the dance floor, not unlike the way he used to scream for Mary Grace, his bride, in the garden of his house at night. No one thought it was unusual that Henry Laines should be screaming my name instead of hers at his wedding reception on the dance floor, because everyone was too drunk to care. That is what it is like at parties where everyone is too drunk.

It was like slow motion when Henry Laines began to scream my name; a certain hush came over the dance floor, and a few people, particularly Claude Collier, gave Henry Laines a funny, somewhat pitying look from across the room. I noticed that. Claude Collier stood with his hands in his pockets, calmly contemplating the scene. His brow was furrowed, and he was squinting slightly. He was chewing a straw.

The rest of the dance floor was populated by the party of out-of-towners from Charleston, who threw some inquiring looks in Henry's direction and then lapsed back into their oblivion.

"I think Henry is falling apart," Claude Collier said to me.

Henry Laines had already had two breakdowns since the ceremony.

"It's been a long day. He's tired. He's falling apart," said Claude mildly in a calm tone, slightly deadpan. Then Claude Collier looked at me intently. Claude Collier made the world seem kind.

"Put us in that fog, Tom."

One of my favorite moments in Master and Commander is probably 2 seconds long. And it involves James D'Arcy who gives one of my favorite performances in the film, as 1st Lieutenant Tom Pullings. It's my favorite kind of acting: understated, powerful, specific - NOT the lead - and absolutely the success of the film depends on guys like James D'Arcy (even more so than Russell Crowe) playing his part and playing it well. The old Hollywood studio system was buoyed up by character actors - who made the stars (who were already awesome) look even better. D'Arcy, as Pullings, puts Crowe's power as an actor into sharp relief. Nobody acts alone. You need your cast members to step up to the plate as well. Master and Commander is not a soliloquy. Everyone in the film is magnificent - but James D'Arcy, with his not so flashy part, is my favorite. And it's not just because the dude is smokin' hot.

In the first battle scene of the film, when they encounter The Acheron - and Aubrey realizes they will have to outrun the ship in order to have a fighting chance - the two men stand on the deck, looking out at the man o' war bearing down on them. Pullings waits for his orders. Will they stay and fight? What is next?

Aubrey turns, with a mischievous grin, and says, "Put us in that fog, Tom" and stalks away.

Pullings stares out at the Acheron for a second, turns - and watches Aubrey walk off, the realization dawning on him of the brilliance of the plan. And his face transforms. From a sort of harassed type of war-moment focus, to a relaxed excited grin.

I remember when I first saw the film. I remember how the moment landed with me. Yes, the film was exciting up to that point. I love Peter Weir, in particular ... but it was that one moment - the "Put us in that fog, Tom" command - and James D'Arcy's subtle transformation of expression - when the movie really GOT me. It still does. Power in acting does not have to be grandiose, loud, or full of gestures. It can be as simple as a face changing from anxiety to excitement.

Kudos to Mr. D'Arcy.

From Tennessee Williams to Irene Selznick

It's 1950 and Tennessee Williams, now famous, is struggling to complete his next play - The Rose Tattoo (excerpt here). He has gone to Rome to finish it, but finds himself anxious, and in the middle of a heat wave. Elia Kazan, his preferred director, had another commitment (to direct Viva Zapata) - and had also expressed doubts about the play itself, which sent Tennessee into a tizzy. As a matter of fact everyone - Audrey Wood, his agent - Cheryl Crawford - a potential producer - and Irene Selznick - had all expressed doubts about the play. He continued to work. He accepted their comments, and he agreed in the most part - he was struggling so much to complete the play that he felt the struggle had to show in his writing. He felt he had lost the ease of his youth - with becoming famous, etc. He took the comments, he worked, he rewrote, he restructured ... and meanwhile, the production began to approach. They found a new director (once Tennessee let the Kazan - or "Gadg" as he was called - thing go) - and they courted Anna Magnani for the part, but she said no (she ended up doing a film version of it). They cast an unknown actress - Maureen Stapleton as the lead. It would make her a star. But before then - was the long struggle to just work on the play, against what felt to Tennessee to be insurmountable odds. Nobody seemed to have belief in it. Nobody was saying, "Yes! This is great! Keep going!"

In the middle of this, he writes a letter to Irene Selznick - who had produced Streetcar, if I'm not mistaken - and had told him her reserves about The Rose Tattoo. I post the letter in full below.

It's one of the most extraordinary documents from an artist I have ever read.

First of all, he is unfailingly polite to all of these people - they are colleagues, they have had great successes together in the past - he trusts their opinions. He's never a snot. He is a true old-school gentleman with elegant manners. But the following letter absolutely blows me away. I suppose it's something I need to hear right now - and I just read it last night ... it spoke to me, the truest part of me, the deepest most personal part - where I am most wounded, where rejection hurts the most ... and yet where I will not give up hope or self-belief.

This made me think of all of the writers on strike right now. The writers - so often misunderstood, sneered at, looked down upon ... and yet to sit down, and still write - in the midst of such an atmosphere - is true courage. That's art.

You must take the criticism. Yes. If it is worthy, and meant to help - not harm. But there also comes a moment when you must OWN your own artistry, whether or not anyone buys it, gives a shit, or even likes it. It's a tough concept because naturally artists do need to make money, and value themselves in the context of the market and how the market values them. But there's a deeper level. There always is. What happens when people DON'T buy? What happens when you hear "No"? And not just once, twice, but thousands of times? Do you crumble? Or do you keep going? Do you let that external "No" become internal?

It's a question of character, yes. And in this case, character = artist.

It's an inspiring letter.

April 1950

Dearest Irene:

It was indeed quite a letter, and yesterday afternoon, when I got it, was very black, the bottom of a long, descending arc that began with the play's completion last month, broken only by the lift given by a brilliantly understanding (though highly critical) letter received from Gadg and a similar one from Molly [Kazan - Gadg's wife] and the enthusiasm of [Paul] Bigelow when I read it aloud which had to be partly discounted as a friend's indulgence - a decline which continued by fairly gentle degrees until yesterday afternoon when your letter knocked the goddam bottom out of it and almost the top off me! For that afternoon, and the night that followed, I believed that you were right, that I had passed into madness and that power of communication was gone. Under the circumstances there [was] hardly any other conclusion to draw. Either you were "dead wrong" or I was crazy. Or that thing had happened which eventually happens to most lyric talents, the candle is burned or blown out and there's no more matches! - Then, of course, came the morning, consistent with its habit. I woke early, recognized Frank [Merlo] and Grandfather and even myself in the mirror - and had my coffee and sat down quietly and rationally to read over the script. Then the amazing thing came about. For the first time since this draft was completed, I liked what I had done and felt that I had done just exactly what I had meant to do in all but a few short passages, that in the play, as a whole, I had said precisely what I had wanted to say as well as it could be said, and the play existed.

Not a ballet, not a libretto, but a play with living characters and a theme of poetic truth, handled with more precision and stringency than ever before in my writing, and in a style, a medium (yes, highly plastic and visual but with those elements an integral, active and very articulate instrument of the play's total expression - not just "effects" for the sake of "effects" or symbols for the sake of being artily symbolic - but a way of saying more clearly, strongly and beautifully those things which could not have been said so well in language if they could have been said at all in language - a progress which I think very marked in the true use of theatre (as distinguished from forms of verbal expression) - a medium worked out with tremendous difficulty in exact, or nearly exact, accord with the very clear and strong conception that it sprang from?

For the first time in my life I knew that I must take a solitary position of self-belief, as an artist, and that I could take it proudly because I had earned it. I had not skimped or scanted or hedged or cheated anytime, anywhere, during the year and four months in which I had struggled with the adversaries of doubt and disappointment and fatigue, the many mornings that were brick walls and the few that came open, the exhausting see-saw of exhilaration and despair, the continual, unsparing drain of all I had in me to give it. That was the history of it, and this was the culmination. I had to believe. I believed.

I hope you will forgive me now for indulging myself in argument with some of your points of objection. It will do me good. You say the emotion is "felt by the characters but not shared by the reader". I wonder if emotions in a play are usually, or even ever, shared by the reader? If they were, would there be any point in the production of a play, in translating it from the cold page to the warm and living instruments of the stage? Would there be any real need for great actors and brilliant directors and for designers and technicians? I don't think a play is so different from a sheet of music, and there are not many people who can read a sheet of music and hear the music in a way that would obviate an orchestra or singer. The parallel is particularly fitting to this particular play which consists, so much, as you have observed, of signals, notations, as though to various instruments whose playing together will create the expression. Then you say: "Were I to see rather than read the play, I fear I would be at a loss to understand the sources of sustained crisis under which Pepina labors". I venture to guess that with the collaboration of someone like [Anna] Magnani and someone like Gadge you would find these "sources" far easier to understand, for then the play would come out of the notes and signals and would live before you. "Sustained crisis" is true. But throughout the play (which is about a "sustained crisis") that condition is fully documented and justified. It opens, for instance, with a highly emotional woman telling her passionately loved husband that she is to bear him a child. A crisis. The death of the husband is, of course, another crisis. But how is either of these difficult to understand? In the following acts of the play - the visual and violent "knife-scene" with the daughter, the devastating revelation of the husband's betrayal, first the struggle against it and finally, gradually, the acceptance of it - this, too, is sustained crisis, but I can't for the life of me see how it would seem not motivated, not comprehendible to any of us who have loved or suffered any great loss or disillusionment in our lives, I don't expect this sustained crisis, which is the play, to be felt in reading but I cannot doubt that in performance, with skill and power, an audience could be made to feel it deeply and to enjoy its katharsis. I was well-aware, while writing the play, that the high pitch of emotion in the characters, in keeping with their race, temperament and most of all with their situation, (the crises in which they're involved) might make exhausting demands on everybody concerned. For this reason many of the scenes are deliberately low-keyed, particularly in the writing, the speeches, and the intensities are given quiet, almost submerged, forms of expression and the burden transferred as much as possible from the actor to the visual, plastic elements which you condemn as "effects". Scenes are cut-off and under-stated but always with at least some (muted) expression of the essential things, and the contrapuntal use of the children is like a modulated counter-theme or "cushion" to these intensities - (this will come out much more clearly in the final draft, for the separate play of the children developed very late in the play's composition). The great advance I have made in this play - technically, as a theatre-craftsman - is what you call its "penalizing minimum" of dialogue and the effects which you seem to think are extraneous ornamentation.

No, I feel no resentment about your letter and I do feel gratitude for your writing me what I hope was exactly what you felt, although I suspect you could have eliminated the pacifying reference to "ballet or libretto" and said, more bluntly, more kindly cruelly - I dislike it intensely! You're not the only one who does. I think Audrey and Bill are probably just as disappointed in it as you are. Who knows, at this point, who is right? But I would like to see it tried, produced, and I shall make an effort to see it.

Thanks and all the love as ever,

Tenn.

Staying intact

A post by Ms. Baroque that has really hit me hard. Especially the one quote from a letter Ted Hughes wrote about his horrifying-beyond-belief years of 1963, 1969:

I have an idea of those two episodes as steel doors shutting down over great parts of myself, leaving me that much less, just what was left, to live on.

Just what was left to live on.

That is my fear. Not that it WILL happen, but that it already has. And yes. I hope when I am old that I - Sheila - am still in there.

The Books: "Mystic River" (Dennis Lehane)

Next book on my adult fiction shelves:

Mystic River by Dennis Lehane

There are many good books - there are many (although fewer) GREAT books - and there are only a handful of what I call "perfect" books. I can think of many GREAT books that are not "perfect". Doesn't take away from their greatness - as a matter of fact their blatant imperfections are part of their greatness, as far as I'm concerned. But a perfect book is rare, indeed. Mystic River is, in my estimation, a PERFECT book. It's not just the plot, and the way it flows, and moves on inevitably to its horrible conclusion - it's not just the characters, who are uniformly well-drawn, these people are alive - it's not the larger themes of redemption, suffering, and ambition - although those are rock-solid ... it's also the WRITING itself. My God, is Lehane good. He's a hugely popular writer - my dad loves him, and while Lehane has obviously had a fine writing career, Mystic River feels different. He's made a leap in his talent and the way it expresses itself. He's gone to another level. Read his other books, they're fine, read Mystic River, and it's like night and day.

Because the plot is really what people talk about when they talk about Mystic River, the elegance of his prose might go unnoticed.

Here is the first paragraph of the book. This is what I mean by "perfect":

When Sean Devine and Jimmy Marcus were kids, their fathers worked together at the Coleman Candy plant and carried the stench of warm chocolate back home with them. It became a permanent character of their clothes, the beds they slept in, the vinyl backs of their car seats. Sean's kitchen smelled like a Fudgsicle, his bathroom like a Coleman Chew-Chew bar. By the time they were eleven, Sean and Jimmy had developed a hatred of sweets so total that they took their coffee black for the rest of their lives and never ate dessert.

That is MY kind of writing. Spare somehow, but also detailed and evocative. The men they will become already haunts the two young boys, it's in the writing. It's also noticeable that Dave Boyle is NOT included in the first paragraph, which I am sure is deliberate. And perfect. It has such detail - sensory detail ... I just think Lehane is a commanding writer, and a paragraph like that commands your attention. It is not a description - it feels like it's a whole WORLD being shown to you.

The whole book is full of writing like that.

And it is also is one of a handful of books that made me dissolve in tears at the very last paragraph. What a last paragraph. Terrible. But not bleak. The hope that peace will come in the next life. Not this life, certainly, it's far too late for that, but in the next.

I'm not going to post any of the more obvious excerpts (although the bit about the boys looking in the back of the car, and noticing it's dirty is magnificent) - but post an excerpt having to do with Annabeth, the wife of Jimmy, the ex-con. Too bad Laura Linney played her in the film. That wasn't right at ALL. You know who would have been spectacular? And I'm not just saying that cause she's my cousin. But Kerry O'Malley would be so so awesome as Annabeth. She would have knocked that part out of the park.

A woman who is not silly or warm in any way - and yet not uptight or prissy. She's all about family and tribe - but she's not innately hostile to outsiders. She also is the kind of women that men love. She's probably a tiger in the sack. She exudes sexual confidence, yet it is contained, fiercely, in monogamy and marriage. But she also inspires fear in men. Maybe they want to dissemble when they're around her, hide a bit ... they desperately need her approval, they wish she would be more WARM. Nope. Annabeth don't play that game. She respects strength. But she's not ever a ball-breaker. She makes men want to be honest. She thinks dishonesty and smallness is unforgivable. Or no - not unforgivable. It's just that she would grow bored with someone who was consistently small and petty, who refused to be honest not only with her but with himself. She wouldn't give a person like that the time of day. You gonna throw polite bullshit at me when I ask you a direct open question? You bore me. Next. You wouldn't get a second chance with Annabeth. She sizes you up, makes her assessment, and that'll be that. And she'll be right. So don't try to lie to her.

People could find that off-putting, scary. Watch how she deals with Sean in this scene! Watch how she talks to him, and how she sees. Not everybody can look at a near-stranger and see what is really going on with that person, and also want to talk about that subtext. Small talk is not in Annabeth's DNA.

And then, of course, there's Annabeth's Lady Macbeth moment at the end of the book (which completely did not work in the film, didn't work at all) but in the book it all makes sense. A terrible kind of sense.)

Listen to this dialogue here. It's damn good.

Sean, the cop, sits on the porch with Annabeth - wife of Jimmy, his childhood friend. He has moved away from the old' hood - so he doesn't really know Annabeth that well. He sits there, and this is his first real un-official encounter with her. She is formidable - but in a very specific Boston-type way - hard to explain. But she is a Boston woman, through and through. Yup. Lehane gets it so right.

If you haven't read Mystic River, I cannot recommend it highly enough.

EXCERPT FROM Mystic River by Dennis Lehane

Sean sat on the back porch with Annabeth Marcus as she took tiny sips from a glass of white wine and smoked her cigarettes no more than halfway before she'd extinguish them, her face lit by the exposed bulb above them. It was a strong face, never pretty probably, but always striking. She was not unused to being stared at, Sean guessed, and yet she was probably oblivious as to way she was worth the trouble. She reminded Sean a bit of Jimmy's mother but without the air of resignation and defeat, and she reminded Sean of his own mother in her complete and effortless self-possession, reminded him of Jimmy, actually, in that way, as well. He could see Annabeth Marcus as being a fun woman, but never a frivolous one.

"So," she said to Sean as he lit a cigarette for her, "what are you doing with your evening after you're released from comforting me."

"I'm not-"

She waved it away. "I appreicate it. So what're you doing?"

"Going to see my mother."

"Really?"

He nodded. "It's her birthday. Go celebrate it with her and the old man."

"Uh-huh," she said. "And how long have you been divorced?"

"It shows?"

"You wear it like a suit."

"Ah. Separated, actually, for a bit over a year."

"She live here?"

"Not anymore. She travels."

"You said that with acid. 'Travels'."

"Did I?" He shrugged.

She held up a hand. "I hate to keep doing this to you - getting my mind off Katie at your expense. So you don't have to answer any of my questions. I'm just nosy, and you're an interesting guy."

He smiled. "No, I'm not. I'm actually very boring, Mrs. Marcus. You take away my job, and I disappear."

"Annabeth," she said. "Call me that, would you?"

"Sure."

"I find it hard to believe, Trooper Devine, that you're boring. You know what's odd, though?"

"What's that?"

She turned in her chair and looked at him. "You don't strike me as the kind of guy who'd give someone phantom tickets."

"Why's that?"

"It seems childish," she said. "You don't seem like a childish man."

Sean shrugged. In his experience, everyone was childish at one time or another. It's what you reverted to, particularly when the shit piled up.

In more than a year, he'd never spoken to anyone about Lauren - not his parents, his few stray friends, not even the police psychologist the commander had made a brief and pointed mention of once Lauren's moving out had become common knowledge around the barracks. But here was Annabeth, a stranger who'd suffered a loss, and he could feel her probing for his loss, needing to see it or share it or something along those lines, needing to know, Sean figured, that she wasn't being singled out.

"My wife's a stage manager," he said quietly. "For road shows, you know? Lord of the Dance toured the country last year - my wife stage-managed. That sort of thing. She's doing one now - Annie Get Your Gun, maybe. I'm not sure, to tell you the truth. Whatever they're recycling this year. We were a weird couple. I mean, our jobs, right, how further apart can you get?"

"But you loved her," Annabeth said.

He nodded. "Yeah. Still do." He took a breath, leaning back in his chair and sucking it down. "So the guy I gave the tickets to, he was ..." Sean's mouth went dry and he shook his head, had the sudden urge to just get the hell off this porch and out of this house.

"He was a rival?" Annabeth said, her voice delicate.

Sean took a cigarette from the pack and lit one, nodding. "That's a nice word for it. Yeah, we'll say that. A rival. And my wife and I, we were going through some shit for a while. Neither of us was around much, and so on. And this, uh, rival - he moved in on her."

"And you reacted badly," Annabeth said. A statement, not a question.

Sean rolled his eyes in her direction. "You know anyone who reacts well?"

Annabeth gave him a hard look, one that seemed to suggest that sarcasm was below him, or maybe just something she wasn't a fan of in general.

"You still love her, though."

"Sure. Hell, I think she still loves me." He stubbed out his cigarette. "She calls me all the time. Calls me and doesn't talk."

"Wait, she --"

"I know," he said.

"-- calls you up and doesn't say a word?"

"Yup. Been going on for about eight months now."

Annabeth laughed. "No offense, but that's the weirdest thing I've heard in a while."

"No argument." He watched a fly dart in and away from the bare lightbulb. "One of these days, I figure, she's gotta talk. That's what I'm holding out for."

He heard his half-assed chuckle die in the night and the echo of it embarrassed him. So they sat in silence for a bit, smoking, listening to the buzz of the fly as it made its crazy darts toward the light.

"What's her name?" Annabeth asked. "This whole time, you've never once said her name."

"Lauren," he said. "Her name's Lauren."

Her name hungi n the air for a bit like the loose strand of a cobweb.

"And you loved her since you were kids?"

"Freshman year of college," he said. "Yeah, I guess we were kids."

He could remember a November rainstorm, the two of them kissing for the first time in a doorway, the feel of goose bumps on her flesh, both of them shaking.

"Maybe that's the problem," Annabeth said.

Sean looked at her. "That we're not kids anymore?"

"One of you, at least," she said.

Sean didn't ask which one.

"Jimmy told me you said Katie was planning to elope with Brendan Harris."

Sean nodded.

"Well, that's just it, isn't it?"

He turned in his chair. "What?"

She blew a stream of smoke up at the empty clotheslines. "These silly dreams you have when you're young. I mean, what, Katie and Brendan Harris were going to make a life in Las Vegas? How long would that little Eden have lasted? Maybe they'd be on their second trailer park, second kid, but it would hit them sooner or later - life isn't happily ever after and golden sunsets and shit like that. It's work. The person you love is rarely worthy of how big your love is. Because no one is worthy of that and maybe no one deserves the burden of it, either. You'll be let down. You'll be disappointed and have your trust broken and have a lot of real sucky days. You lose more than you win. You hate the person you love as much as you love him. But, shit, you roll up your sleeves and work - at everything - because that's what growing older is."

"Annabeth," Sean said, "anyone ever tell you that you're a hard woman?"

She turned her head to him, her eyes closed, a dreamy smile on her face. "All the time."

Yup

"Things" by Fleur Adcock

There are worse things than having behaved foolishly in public.
There are worse things than these miniature betrayals,
committed or endured or suspected; there are worse things
than not being able to sleep for thinking about them.
It is 5 a.m. All the worse things come stalking in
and stand icily about the bed looking worse and worse
and worse.

Storyboards

Fascinating post about the storyboards for Taxi Driver. Amazing! Comparing Scorsese's original storyboards to the sequence in the film itself.

Dolly Parton and Keith Haring

Brill.

"My custom is to undress and sit on the rocks, reading Herodotus..."

Oh, is it, Percy? Is that your custom, hon? I mean, HONESTLY. Love it. His letters are incredible!!

...and the nights are for ever serene, and we see a star in the east at sunset--I think it is Jupiter--almost as fine as Venus was last summer; but it wants a certain silver and aerial radiance, and soft yet piercing splendour, which belongs, I suppose, to the latter planet by virtue of its at once divine and female nature.

Also, his words on Frankenstein:

yet it proves that it is read in some considerable degree, and it would be difficult for them, with any appearance of fairness, to deny it merit altogether.

Here's another one of his extraordinary letters.

This cathedral is a most astonishing work of art. It is built of white marble, and cut into pinnacles of immense height, and the utmost delicacy of workmanship, and loaded with sculpture. The effect of it, piercing the solid blue with those groups of dazzling spires, relieved by the serene depth of this Italian heaven, or by moonlight when the stars seem gathered among those clustered shapes, is beyond anything I had imagined architeture capable of producing.

Some quotes I've put on my blog about Shelley:

"Shelley was a volatile creature ..."

"Tell my honestly, Cal ..."

"We will each write a ghost story," said Lord Byron...

His life is very interesting...

"Happiness is more a choice than a condition ..."

A beautiful post. And goes right in line with a conversation I had last night. Funny how sometimes you get confirmation of things when you least expect it. Beautiful photo, beautiful thoughts.

The Books: "The Historian" (Elizabeth Kostova)

Next book on my adult fiction shelves:

The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova

The story of the publishing of this book is almost as interesting as the book itself. It's a first novel. It's 5,000 pages long. It's a sweeping historian's look at Dracula - wrapped up in a personal story about a father and daughter. It's a murder-mystery. But it's also a grand tour through the old stomping grounds of the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian Empires in the dying days of the Cold War. It's almost like Elizabeth Kostova (the author) followed in the footsteps of the great Rebecca West, in her journey - going to Hungary, Romania, all those places - but not now, not after the breakup of Yugoslavia - but while they were still Communist countries, suffering behind a wall of misinformation. That's the main reason I read the book - because, as I've said many times, I'm not into popular fiction - it takes a lot for me to pick up a current bestseller - there has to be some "hook" for me, and that, for me, was the hook. Elizabeth Kostova got an eye-popping advance for this book - she was still a graduate student at the University of Michigan when all of this happened. It's the kind of thing that writers dream about. It's like what happened to Matt Damon and Ben Affleck's script Good Will Hunting which is a good script - it's fine - but for various and sundry reasons - a bidding war commenced over the script, and the price went higher and higher - and Gus van Sant got involved - and then Robin Williams signed on - and suddenly it was the most high-profile project in Hollywood. That almost NEVER happens, and it was a series of events that brought it into that situation - not just one thing, but a convergence. You seriously cannot plan for something like that. If it happens to you? Just count your blessings and take FULL ADVANTAGE of the moment because it probably will not come again. Matt Damon and Ben Affleck are, as far as I'm concerned, two of the smartest people in Hollywood - because of how they spun that situation, and used it to their advantage. They totally could have been a one-shot success. That could have been IT for them. And no, they did not go on to write more scripts - it was a means to an end for them ... but they USED that shining moment when everything went their way, and have obviously gone on to even greater success. That's what happened to Elizabeth Kostova - and whether or not she parlays that first extraordinary success (I mean, advance word of the book had reached my ears almost a year before it was even published - because the advance she got was so attention-getting) into a career as a writer has yet to be seen. It might be hard to top that first success. Who knows. The book is massive, exquisitely researched, and also a damn gripping melodrama about Count Dracula. I highly recommend it, if you're into that sort of thing. I posted about it here. I had a lot of fun reading the book - mainly because that whole era - from the breakup of the Ottoman empire after World War I to the crackup of Yugoslavia = is an ongoing fascination for me. The Balkans, all of that. Here's another post I wrote about The Historian - where I was able to utilize my extensive library to get a history of what she was talking about. The book was a lot of fun - if that kind of thing is "fun" for you.

I will say this: it's not as deep as I am normally used to. The main narrator remains a total nonentity to me. She is not a character, she does not LIVE - none of the people actually LIVE, as far as I'm concerned. It's a book about its story - more than the people in the story. And I know that's a type of writing, many books are written that way - it just isn't my thing, and normally books like that do not keep my interest. Once I stopped looking for a character, in the normal definition of the word, and succumbed to the PLOT, I enjoyed The Historian much more. And by the end, I actually found it quite moving. Because yeah, we all know about vampires, and Dracula - we all have the image in our head of such things. But to contemplate such a situation for real - and what agony it must be ... you go beyond the pale, you must live in darkness and silence, you are no longer human ... that's what this book ends up doing. And because it's about relationships - father/daughter, etc. - it's quite sad, by the end - because it's really all about loss. And walking away, and letting go.

The book peels itself back like an onion. Because the lead narrator is trying to put together a mystery - she is "the historian". The one going back into the past, looking for clues .. about Vlad Dracula ... it takes her on a journey through Europe and Turkey ... and there are times when it is QUITE terrifying. You seriously want to look over your shoulder as you are reading the book to make sure that a vampire is not standing there, waiting for you. Kostova's a very good writer.

Again, it's not really my TASTE - but her eye for details (you really feel like you are in those dusty Communist-era cafes in Budapest, etc.) is quite good. I can see why a bidding war would happen over this book.

Here's an excerpt. (The book is made up of long letters from the father to the daughter - the letters sometimes go on for entire chapters - and sometimes the father shares letters HE receives - so you lose track of the present, you just go deeper and deeper into this investigation. So this excerpt is from one of the letters that the father received.)

EXCERPT FROM The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova

My dear friend,

Georgescu hunted around the table, apparently for another piece of bread. "Well, it's moore complicated than that, actually - Roumanian history always is. Dracula's older brother Mircea had been murthered years before by their political enemies in Targoviste. When Dracula came to power he had his brother's coffin doog up and found that the pooor man had been buried alive. That was when he sent out his Easter invitation, and the results gave him revenge for his brother as well as cheap labour to build his castle in the mountains. He had brick kilns built up near the original fortress, and anyone who'd survived the journey was forced to work night and day, carrying bricks and building the walls and towers. The auld songs from this region say that the boyars' fine clothes fell off them in rags before they were down." Georgescu scraped at his bowl. "I've noticed Dracula was often as practical a fellow as he was a nasty one."

Yours truly,
Bartholomew

Wyoming Beauty

God, I love this photo.

Pretty pretty

Feeding all the pretty horses.

Joining the Winehouse train

As always, I'm the last to figure it out. I don't listen to the radio, and I have to admit: I am not up on the "latest" thing, and usually it comes to me by accident: I'll hear a song playing in a store and be compelled to run out and buy the whole thing. So all I know about Amy Winehouse is what the tabloids tell me. She seems to enjoy strolling around the streets of London at 3 a.m. in her underwear. She also enjoys buying junk food. She prefers filthy ballet flats and appears to have lost 5 teeth in a 3 month period. She is a trainwreck. I've seen the pictures. But never heard her album. Siobhan loved it - hell, everybody loves it - but I had no idea. I didn't even know what KIND of music it was. So last weekend, we all were hanging out in the tattoo parlor, with Beans, et al ... and a song came on, and it pierced right through me. I wondered who it was. It sounded vaguely Billie Holliday-esque. With maybe some Dinah Washington thrown in. Could it be Eartha Kitt, whom I love? WHO THE HELL IS THAT SINGING BECAUSE SHE IS AWESOME? I asked Beans, and he said, "Amy Winehouse." So, okay. Yeah. I'm the dummie. I went out and bought her album, and since then - it has been on eternal repeat. This chick is unbelievable. The voice, the sound - it's almost like a Dirty Dancing sound - that type of girl-rock in the 1960s, but more guttural, more grounded. Damn, it's some good stuff. I can't stop listening to it.

Again, I realize I'm the last to figure it out.

Better late than never.

Book tag ... new friends

I tagged Jonathan in the last book meme I did - he's mainly a film blogger, but I figured what the hell. And he took it on. Jonathan is a new blog friend - and I really appreciate not just his blog, but his comments on my site as well as on other blogs. He's smart, polite, funny, and really seems to get into the "spirit" of things (something I am admittedly sensitive about - as I wrote about here.)

Anyway - I loved reading Jonathan's answers. It's one of the best ways to get to know someone, isn't it? Hearing their thoughts on books and stuff like that?

The Books: "Darkness at Noon" (Arthur Koestler)

Next book on my adult fiction shelves:

Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler

Darkness at Noon is one of the most important books of the 20th century. I came to it late - and it was basically Emily who BEGGED me to read it. I don't know how I missed it, but that's neither here nor there. The book is, as the New Statesman aptly described it: "One of the few books written in this epoch which will survive it." Read it alongside Master and Margarita (post here). Follow it up with 1984. And keep The Gulag Archipelago (post here) and The Great Terror (post here) nearby, to cross-reference. That's its status, its importance. I would even argue that it would be difficult to understand the convulsions of the 20th century without reading this book. You want to understand a totalitarian society? You want to understand how the "show trials" in the USSR under Stalin's reign really worked? Well, you need to read Gulag Archipelago, you need to read The Great Terror - but you also need to read Darkness at Noon. It's an extraordinary document, a record not just of WHAT they did, but even more importantly, how. One of the reasons the West was so summarily duped in the 1930s by the show trials of big-wigs like Zinoviev and Kamenev, is that it is difficult to understand how such a thing could come to be. Why would these guys confess? If they were "innocent"? It makes no sense. And the parade of confessors in the block, excoriating themselves relentlessly for "incorrect" thinking and "sabotage" - it was quite convincing. In this case, of course, what you saw is NOT what you got. It was a performance. The verdicts drawn up beforehand - then it was just a matter of getting these people to confess. Now by the 30s, of course - there really weren't any more real enemies of the state. Stalin had taken care of that. So the people in the block were not "victims" - they were the stars of the revolution, the big-wigs who had made it all happen. It must have been fantastic! I don't mean that word like "great", I mean it like: beyond belief. The stories of those show trials (detailed step by step in Robert Conquest's great The Great Terror) are unreal. UNREAL. Darkness at Noon is about one of those show trials. Rubashov is an old revolutionary - maybe like a Bukharin type. He devoted his life to the party. And now the party is turning in on its own. He is jailed. The book details the series of interrogations he goes through, psychological torture and pressure ... and how disorienting that kind of thing is. You begin to doubt yourself. What is true? Am I guilty? Did I sabotage? Even just in my thoughts?? And this is how "the party' gets you, in the end. By getting inside your head. There IS no innocence inside your head. If you ever had even the slightest thought that things weren't going well, that maybe things should change ... then that constitutes guilt in such a society. Correctness must go down into your bone marrow. It is the party's way or no way. ("He loved Big Brother.") Bulgakov is so so brilliant about this in Master and Margarita (excerpt here). It's hard to picture HOW that happens if you have never been pressured to such a degree, or if you live in a society that is free - where all different sides can be heard. The disorientation of living in a one-party state doesn't just limit what men and women can DO, it has as its goal a limit on what you are allowed to THINK. And to a huge degree, it succeeded. It's thought control they are after. George Orwell really goes after that, with the whole "newspeak" thing ... how language is distorted, blunted. When you control what can be said, you can control what people think. It's that fucking simple.

Arthur Koestler was a really interesting guy. Born in Hungary, emigrated to England, was a devoted Communist - as were many folks in those days. At the time, the Communists were on the front-lines against Fascism (never mind that their results ended up being the same - that's another conversation - I'm talking about the early 30s - you have to get in the perspective of that time, and not do your "we know the end" judgment of this, because that's stupid, frankly.) Koestler, though, began to see the "great terror" happening in Russia - and it caused him to, famously, break with the Communist Party. Darkness at Noon is his book, basically, about WHY. It is a brave book. It was an unpopular statement at that time, where most intellectuals were apologists for Stalin, because they still believed in the Socialist dream. The roll-call of names of authors who saw what was really going on and then wrote about it - and were, consequently, pilloried - is long. And illustrious. Orwell. Robert Conquest. These people were not fooled by the show trials. They 'saw' - even though there was no information at the time. The full archives of the Politburo were not available until the early 1990s. Conquest realized, when he got to take a look at the archives finally, that he had underestimated the extent of the terror. Of course. Here's some interesting biographical information on Koestler. Fascinating guy. Here's the post I wrote after I finished the book. I read it in 2 days. Could not put it down. It's terrible. Terrible. One of the most enraging books I have ever read. And the scary thing is: it works on the reader in the same way that it works on Rubashov, our hero. You begin to doubt ... that what you know is true. You start to ask yourself: could I withstand that pressure? Could I tie myself in knots to justify my actions intellectually (which was what "the party" was all about)? What is true? How can we really know?

Here's an excerpt. Rubashov is being interrogated by Ivanov. The interrogation goes on for the entire book; it has different stages - but, essentially it's the same conversation. The point is to grind Rubashov down to powder. That is what totalitarian societies do. It is, in the end, their main goal. Oh, and Stalin is never named, although he is omnipresent. He is referred to as "No. 1".

Darkness at Noon is a must-read. In it lies the entire 20th century.

EXCERPT FROM Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler

Ivanov paused and poured himself another glass of brandy. Rubashov walked up and down in front of the window. After a while he said:

"Why did you execute Bogrov?"

"Why? Because of the submarine question," said Ivanov. "It concerned the problem of tonnage - an old quarrel, the beginnings of which must be familiar to you.

"Bogrov advocated the construction of submarines of large tonnage and a long range of action. The Party is in favour of small submarines with a short range. You can build three times as many small submarines for your money as big ones. Both parties had valid technical arguments. The experts made a big display of technical sketches and algebraic formulae; but the actual problem lay in quite a different sphere. Big submarines mean: a policy of aggression, to further world revolution. Small submarines mean: coastal defense - that is, self-defense and postponement of world revolution. The latter is the point of view of No. 1, and the Party.

"Bogrov had a strong following in the Admiralty and amongst the officers of the old guard. It would not have been enough to put him out of the way; he also had to be discredited. A trial was projected to unmask the partisans of big tonnage as saboteurs and traitors. We had already brought several little engineers to the point of being willing to confess publicly to whatever we liked. But Bogrov wouldn't play the game. He declaimed up to the very end of big tonnage and world revolution. He was two decades behind the times. He would not understand that the times are against us, that Europe is passing a wave and must wait until we are lifted by the next. In a public trial he would only have created confusion amongst the people. There was no other way possible than to liquidate him administratively. Would not you have done the same thing in our position?"

Rubashov did not answer. He stopped walking, and again remained leaning against the wall of No. 406, next to the bucket. A cloud of sickening stench rose from it. He took off his pince-nez and looked at Ivanov out of red-rimmed hunted eyes.

"You did not hear him whimpering," he said.

Ivanov lit a new cigarette on the stump of the old one; he too found the stench of the bucket rather overpowering.

"No," he said. "I did not hear it. But I have heard and seen similar things. What of it?"

Rubashov was silent. It was no use to try and explain it. The whimpering and the muffled drumming again penetrated his ears, like an echo. One could not express that. Nor the curve of Arlova's breast with its warm, steep point. One could express nothing. "Die in silence," had been written on the message given him by the barber.

"What of it?" repeated Ivanov. He stretched out his leg and waited. As no answer came, he went on speaking:

"If I had a spark of pity for you," he said, "I would now leave you alone. But I have not a spark of pity. I drink; for a time, as you know, I drugged myself; but the vice of pity I have up till now managed to avoid. The smallest dose of it, and you are lost. Weeping over humanity and bewailing oneself - you know our race's pathological leaning to it. Our greatest poets destroyed themselves by this poison. Up to forty, fifty, they were revolutionaries - then they became consumed by pity and the world pronounced them holy. You appear to have the same ambition, and to believe it to be an individual process, personal to you, something unprecedented ..." He spoke rather louder and puffed out a cloud of smoke. "Beware of these ecstasies," he said: "Every bottle of spirits contains a measurable amount of ecstasy. Unfortunately, only few people, particularly amongst our fellow countrymen, ever realize that the ecstasies of humility and suffering are as cheap as those induced chemically. The time when I woke from the anesthetic, and found that my body stopped at the left knee, I also experienced a kind of absolute ecstasy of unhappiness. Do you remember the lectures you gave me at the time?" He poured out another glass and emptied it.

"My point is this," he said; "one may not regard the world as a sort of metaphysical brothel for emotions. That is the first commandment for us. Sympathy, conscience, disgust, despair, repentance, and atonement are for us repellent debauchery. To sit down and let oneself be hypnotized by one's own navel, to turn up one's eyes and humbly offer the back of one's neck to Gletkin's revolver - that is an easy solution. The greatest temptation for the like of us is: to renounce violence, to repent, to make peace with oneself. Most great revolutionaries fell before this temptation, from Spartacus to Danton to Dostoevsky; they are the classical form of betrayal of the cause. The temptations of God were always more dangerous for mankind than those of Satan. As long as chaos dominates the world, God is an anachronism; and every compromise with one's own conscience is perfidy. When the accursed inner voice speaks to you, hold your hands over your ears ..."

He felt for the bottle behind him and poured out another glass. Rubashov noticed that the bottle was already half empty. You also could do with a little solace, he thought.

"The greatest criminals in history," Ivanov went on, "are not of the type Nero and Fouche, but of the type Gandhi and Tolstoy. Gandhi's inner voice has done more to prevent the liberation of India than the British guns. To sell oneself for thirty pieces of silver is an honest transaction; but to sell oneself to one's own conscience is to abandon mankind. History is a priori amoral; it has no conscience. To want to conduct history according to the maxims of the Sunday school means to leave everything as it is. You know that as well as I do. You know the stakes in this game, and here you come talking about Bogrov's whimpering ..."

He emptied his glass and added:

"Or with conscience pricks because of your fat Arlova."

Rubashov knew from before that Ivanov could hold a lot; one did not notice any change in his behaviour, beyond a slightly more emphatic way of speaking than usual. You do need consolation, thought Rubashov again, perhaps more than I do. He sat down on the narrow stool opposite Ivanov and listened. All this was not new to him; he had defended the same point of view for years, with the same or similar words. The difference was that at that time he had known those inner processes of which Ivanov spoke so contemptuously, merely as an abstraction; but since then he had experienced the "grammatical fiction" as a physical reality in his own body. But had these irrational processes become more admissible merely because he had a personal acquaintance with them now? Was it any the less necessary to fight the "mystical intoxication" merely because one had oneself become intoxicated by it? When a year ago he had sent Arlova to her death, he had not had enough imagination to picture the details of an execution. Would he now behave differently merely because he now knew some of its aspects? Either it was right - or it was wrong to sacrifice Richard, Arlova and Little Loewy. But what had Richard's stutter, the shape of Arlova's breast or Bogrov's whimpering to do with the objective rightness or wrongness of the measure itself?

Rubashov began again to walk up and down his cell. He felt that everything he had experienced since his imprisonment had been only a prelude; that his cogitations had led him to a dead end - on to the threshold of what Ivanov called the "metaphysical brothel" - and that he must begin again from the beginning. But how much time was there left? He stopped, took the glass out of Ivanov's hand and drained it. Ivanov watched him.

"That's better," he said with a fleeting smile. "Monologues in the form of a dialogue are a useful institution. I hope I reproduced the voice of the tempter effectively. A pity that the opposite party is not represented. But that is part of its tricks, that it never lets itself be drawn into a rational discussion. It always attacks a man in defenseless moments, when he is alone an din some effective mise en scene: from burning thorn-bushes or cloud-covered mountain tops - and with a special preference for a sleeping victim. The methods of the great moralist are pretty unfair and theatrical ..."

Rubashov was no longer listening. Walking up and down, he was wondering whether to-day, if Arlova was still alive he would sacrifice her again. This problem fascinated him; it seemed to contain the answer to all other questions ... He stopped in front of Ivanov and asked him:

"Do you remember 'Raskolnikov'?"

Ivanov smiled at him with irony. "It was to be expected that you would sooner or later come to that. Crime and Punishment ... You are really becoming childish or senile ..."

"Wait a bit. Wait a bit," said Rubashov, walking up and down agitatedly. "All this is just talk, but now we are getting nearer the point. As far as I remember, the problem is, whether the student Raskolnikov has the right to kill the old woman? He is young and talented; he has as it were an unredeemed pledge on life in his pocket; she is old and utterly useless to the world. But the equation does not stand. In the first place, circumstances oblige him to murder a second person; that is the unforeseeable and illogical consequence of an apparently simple and logical action. Secondly, the equation collapses in any case, because Raskolnikov discovers that twice two are not four when the mathematical units are human beings ..."

"Really," said Ivanov. "If you want to hear my opinion, every copy of the book should be burnt. Consider a moment what this humanitarian fog-philosophy would lead to, if we were to take it literally; if we were to stick to the precept that the individual is sacrosanct, and that we must not treat human lives according to the rules of arithmetic. That would mean that a battalion commander may not sacrifice a patrolling party to save the regiment. That we may not sacrifice fools like Bogrov, and must risk our coastal towns being shot to pieces in a couple of years ..."

Rubashov shook his head:

"Your examples are all drawn from war - that is, from abnormal circumstances."

"Since the invention of the steam engine," replied Ivanov, "the world has been permanently in an abnormal state; the wars and revolutions are just the visible expressions of this state. Your Raskolnikov is, however, a fool and a criminal; not because he behaves logically in killing the old woman, but because he is doing it in his personal interest. The principle that the end justifies the means is and remains only the rule of political ethics; anything else is just vague chatter and melts away between one's fingers... If Raskolnikov had bumped off the old woman at the command of the Party - for example, to increase strike funds or to instal an illegal Press - then the equation would stand, and the novel with its misleading problem would never have been written, and so much the better for humanity."

Rubashov did not answer. He was still fascinated by the problem as to whether to-day, after the experiences of the last few months and days, he would again send Arlova to her death. He did not know. Logically, Ivanov was right in everything he said; the invisible opponent was silent, and only indicated its existence by a dull feeling of uneasiness. And in that, too, Ivanov was right, that this behaviour of the "invisible opponent", in never exposing itself to argument and only attacking people in defenceless moments, showed it in a very dubious light ...

"I don't approve of mixing ideologies," Ivanov continued. "There are only two conceptions of human ethics, and they are at opposite poles. One of them is Christian and humane, declares the individual to be sacrosanct, and asserts that the rules of arithmetic are not to be applied to human units. The other starts from the basic principle that a collective aim justifies all means, and not only allows, but demands, that the individual should in every way be subordinated and sacrificed to the community - which may dispose of it as an experimentation rabbit or a sacrificial lamb. The first conception could be called anti-vivisection morality, the second, vivisection morality. Humbugs and dilettantes have always tried to mix the two conceptions in practice, it is impossible. Whoever is burdened with power and responsibility finds out on the first occasion that he has to choose; and he is fatally driven to the second alternative. Do you know, since the establishment of Christianity as a state religion, a single example of a state which really followed a Christian policy? You can't point out one. In times of need - and politics are chronically in a time of need - the rulers were always able to evoke 'exceptional circumstances', which demanded exceptional measures of defence. Since the existence of nations and classes, they live in a permanent state of mutual self-defence, which forces them to defer to another time the putting into practice of humanism ..."

Rubashov looked through the window. The melted snow had again frozen and sparkled, an irregular surface of yellow-white crystals. The sentinel on the wall marched up and down with shouldered rifle. The sky was clear but moonless; above the machine-gun turret shimmered the Milky Way.

Rubashov shrugged his shoulders. "Admit," he said, "that humanism and politics, respect for the individual and social progress, are incompatible. Admit that Gandhi is a catastrophe for India; that chasteness in the choice of means leads to political impotence. In negatives we agree. But look where the other alternative has led us ..."

"Well," asked Ivanov. "Where?"

Rubashov rubbed his pince-nez on his sleeve, and looked at him shortsightedly. "What a mess," he said, "what a mess we have made of our golden age."

Last week.

Freezing cold dawn in my neighborhood.

Quantum Leap: Season 1, Ep. 3: "The Right Hand of God"

Okay. I am determined to keep this going. Tommy, I'm sorry I dropped the ball on our project! The past autumn was seriously a rough time for me. Couldn't do shit. But I really want to keep going with our Quantum Leap re-caps!

LEAP INTO: October 24, 1974

Al: Who does she remind you of?
Sam: Ingrid Bergman.
Al: No. You and me both - back in the old days when we were trying to raise money for the imaging chamber. We were poring over the blueprints. That was our dream, our chapel. Remember?

Sam Beckett leaps out of the lecherous professor Dr. Gerald Bryant, having (perhaps) saved the love of his life Donna from future misery. He hopes. And of course, because Quantum Leap glories in plopping poor Sam Beckett down into the middle of the action, as opposed to, you know, him waking up in the morning, having some toast, whatever, having time to figure it out ... Sam Beckett finds himself in the middle of a boxing ring, staring at a huge fist coming at his face. Pow. And down he goes.

EPISODE 3: THE RIGHT HAND OF GOD

Episode 3 pulls out every boxing cliche in the book. It's an homage to every boxing film you can think of (how much fun the producers and art directors must have had, putting together these episodes - where not one repeats itself, the period changes, the costumes, even the FEEL of each episode changes.) So we open on a boxing ring, cigar smoke in the air - it's kind of seedy. This is not Madison Square Garden. It's a direct reference to the first scene of Rocky - even the LOOK of it. Fun! Poor Sam has been knocked out. He has no idea who he is, where he is, WHEN he is - and he's in the middle of a boxing match. A guy is shouting at him from the crowd - "GET UP GET UP" ... so ... yeah ... that must be my coach? Why is he yelling at me?? Sam also gets a glimpse of a big fat-cat sitting there, looking displeased and grumpy. This character (Jake Edwards) will be important later in the episode. He's also important because he's Guy Stockwell, Dean's older brother. But for now, Sam is confused, hurt, and has no idea what is going on. Remember, it's only his third leap! It takes him a while to get the hang of things. It's always a bit of a start, to find yourself in the middle of a murder taking place, or something frightening - but Sam isn't as "swiss-cheesed" as the series progresses. He knows: Okay. Calm down. Keep your eyes peeled for clues.

Later, in the locker room, things start to become clear for Sam. He's a boxer. Obviously. His name is "Kid Cody". He gets a glimpse of himself in the mirror, and it's that classic old-school barrel-chested boxer body - not the six-pack-ab bodies of today. You can just tell the guy is down on his luck (a la Rocky Balboa). More clues come. His coach Gomez (played by Alex Colon) thinks maybe Kid has a concussion or something, he seems so out of it. He says to him, "You almost lost our last fight together, kid." Okay, so that's important information. This was their last fight together as a team. There's a kind of Burgess Meredith in Rocky thing going on here. You know, the crusty guy who believes in you more than you believe in yourself. The one who won't let you get away with second best - who tells you the truth, etc. Kid Cody (Sam) had actually gone on to win the fight, with a wildly thrown punch that landed his opponent onto the floor. Won by a knockout. The fat-cat comes into the locker room, and you immediately get a bad sense from him, the swagger, the proprietary way he talks to Sam. And let me just say, for the 100th time. how great and specific the art direction of this series was. Every "set" built is so detailed, it feels so right - whether it's a soda-pop fountain in the 50s or a grimy locker room. To me, nothing ever felt kitschy on this show, the way other "period" shows can feel - where the clothes always look like costumes, etc. Quantum Leap leaps around in time, but I always felt that each episode (even the silly ones) were grounded in some sense of reality. It wasn't a sickening nostalgia-fest. Where girls wear poodle skirts, but you just know she's got a belly-ring on underneath, and is openly psyched to play 'dress up'. You know the kind of acting I'm talking about. Quantum Leap had very little of that. It didn't condescend to other eras.

Then - what the hell - a flock of nuns come running into the locker room, all excited that he won his fight, congratulating him, and raving about the "knockout". They're in full habit. Sam, with his natural modesty (I love that about him - he's this big huge hunk with a body to DIE for - but he's quite shy about it) - tries to cover himself up, baffled, and just striving to keep up with the conversation. Who are they?? It becomes clear that Kid Cody's boxing contract had been left to the church of St. Mary's, as part of some kind of estate ... so the nuns have a vested interest in his success, since much of his winning proceeds will go to building a special chapel that will do outreach in the community. This comes out later. For the time being, Sam is being polite to the nuns, trying to figure out his situation - and more than that: why he is here. There's a Mother Superior type, and then a younger nun - whose name is Sister Angela (played beautifully by Michelle Joyner). She is overflowing with enthusiasm and excitement about boxing. You love her.

It's a lot to process. But naturally, Sam has no time to process anything. The next scene shows him outside with Sister Angela in what looks like a vacant lot in a dingy part of town. They're in Sacramento. Sister Angela, a lovely plucky person (but - as we see later, not at all a cliche - she comes from somewhere, her faith in God comes from a deep personal place, she's got a past, the stakes are REALLY high for here too) - is marking out in the dirt where the chapel will go. It has always been her dream to build a chapel, that will be open 24 hours a day, so that if someone should need help, or guidance, or prayer - in the middle of the night - it will be there for them. Sam, in dreadful plaid pants that make him look HYSTERICAL, tries to tamp down her enthusiasm, once he realizes that the chapel will only come to fruition if he wins his next fight. He's not a boxer. He won't win! He says to her, "Just don't count on me too much." She looks at him with incomprehension. She doesn't judge, she's not snotty, and her faith is not a blind smiley-face kind of faith. It's stronger and deeper than that, and much of it has to do with faith in the goodness of her fellow man. So when he talks down about himself, she really does not understand him. She says simply, "But we're all counting on you. All the sisters at St. Mary's are." To quote Sam, oh boy.

This isn't the first time that the series directly brings God into the picture. "He", or "the big guy", or "fate, or time or the universe" (they call him all different things) enters the conversation pretty early on in the series - and it is a great credit to the writers and producers and directors of the show that they rarely played it on the nose - because that way leads to Touched By An Angel malarkey, and we can't have THAT. The show always had a healthy dose of cynicism in it, which is appealing and is where much of its humor comes from - and also: there's a mystery at the heart of it. (The very last episode of the series brings it home like gangbusters - because, after all that, you STILL can't really say: So HE is in control. It's still unknown. Great stuff.) But that's part of why the show works. It's not about do-gooders leaping through time, setting right what was wrong. I mean, yes, they DO do good ... but their main purpose at first was scientific, to time-travel. Then they realize very early on (the first episode) that ... something went "ka ka" - and what could it be? And why can't they pull Sam out of it and correct the error? Maybe it's becomes someone ELSE is in charge. You know. Like God. So ... okay. Sam's journey then becomes (again, without becoming preachy) trying to figure out what God wants. Or "time or fate or whatever". Why is he here? It is the most existential of television series. Because it's quite practical, that question: Am I here to win the next fight? Am I here to help Sister Angela regain her faith? Those questions, yes. But there's always a deeper level - the REAL meaning of the question: Why am I here? In the case of Sam Beckett, and how the series ends up going - and if you remember how it all ends - it turns out that he is not "here" for little do-gooding tasks through the 20th century, helping all of humanity get a bit closer to happiness. He's here for something that could not be more personal. And when he realizes it ... when the realization falls over his face in that last episode (sorry, leaping ahead!) - it is one of the most moving moments I can think of in a network television series. It's KILLER. He knows. A gear shifts into place. THE gear. Finally. THAT is why I'm here. And his sacrifice will be tremendous. The ultimate sacrifice. But it is the right thing to do. So here, in "The Right Hand of God", being surrounded by hopeful nuns who believe in him, that faith in himself is tested overtly. They don't expect him to be a believer. They do not try to convert him. What they need from him is to win his next fight.

No pressure or anything.

While Sister Angela and Sam are talking, Al Calavicci shows up. He is wearing the most ridiculous metallic jacket and metallic shoes known to man. I love this character. He's such a dandy. But ... his style is his own, man. The shoes kill me. Stockwell laughs at the fact that the character's wardrobe was never addressed, nobody ever found out why he dressed like that - it was never mentioned, or questioned ... which is just so brilliant, if you think about it. He shows up in the most bizarre get-ups and it is just accepted that this is how Al Calavicci dresses. He listens to Sister Angela talking, with his customary expression of cynicism, patience, humor, and kindness. I don't know how Stockwell gets all of that onto his face at the same time, but he does - constantly!! He also does his "gesture". The gesture that has been with him since he was a 6 year old.

Exhibit A and Exhibit B, C

He cups his hand on his cheek, hooking his finger up over his nose. It's the most adorable gesture, it's compulsive for him - it shows up everywhere. His thoughtful gesture. I saw him do it repeatedly in Taos, and nearly had a heart attack.

Sister Angela finally leaves, and the two are now free to talk. So Sam, in his plaid-panted glory, begins to freak out that he will have to box, and not just box - but win. No way, this is never gonna happen. Meanwhile Al is kind of not paying attention to the issues at hand (one of his greatest charms). First of all, he is apologetic - because Ziggy thought that Sam would be closer to home by now - "Ziggy messed up the calculations ..." Big time. But also, Al has some personal problems (what else is new). A new guy has moved in next door and he works on his car all night, vrooming at a deafening roar all thru the wee hours. Al has not had a good night's sleep in a week, and he is beside himself. He is cranky, distracted - and kind of couldn't care less about Kid Cody and the chapel and Sister Angela. As a matter of fact, as Sam is telling him the situation, Al blatantly lies down on the ground, and tries to fall asleep. Hahahaha Imagine that your own hope for getting "back home" was behaving in this manner! The dynamic between the two men is the best thing about this show. I personally think it could have gone on. The strength of their dynamic just got stronger and better as the series went on.

The next scene we see Sam climbing a rickety staircase - he's obviously going home. I always wonder about that: how does he know where to go? Does he look at the dude's license? As he climbs the stairs, a shiny car pulls up - and Sam (Kid Cody) is called to come and talk to "Mr. Edwards", the gangster from before. Sam is reluctant. Not sure what he's getting into. But he obeys. And now we move into On the Waterfront references (Sam even tries to make a joke about it, it's that obvious - the joke does not go over well). Kid Cody is in the hands of some pretty shady characters, who want him to throw his next fight. They don't just want him to, they expect him to. He is on their payroll. The 10 fights Kid Cody had won up to that point had been set-ups, apparently - Mr. Edwards tells him that in his next fight: "I'll tell you the round later ..." meaning, the round he will go down. So the fight today - that Kid Cody won - threw a loop in Mr. Edwards' plans. He needs to put the pressure onto this kid. He will do as he is told. Oh, and as they are talking - talks of other fights going on come up, and putting money down on this or that person - and the Foreman/Ali fight is mentioned - which, of course, was coming up the next week - October 30, 1974 - in Zaire. But of course it hadn't happened yet. It was expected that Ali would lose. Naturally, we know now he won - but it was all uncertain then. Sam has insider information from the future. But he doesn't use it yet. Mr. Edwards tells Kid Cody that he will bet MORE on his fight than on the Ali/Foreman fight. This will become important later. Sam feels the pressure. The sisters expect him to win - he's already emotionally involved there, he can't help it - that's the kind of person Sam Beckett is. But these guys mean business. They're mad, they have guns, they threaten to shoot him in the kneecaps if he doesn't cooperate.

Oh, and another detail: in order to save money on expenses, the sisters of St. Mary's have asked him to move out of his apartment and into the church basement - where he can train in peace, and not have to pay rent, etc. We don't know Kid Cody's situation. Sam doesn't know it. He walks into his apartment - which is above a bar (and must mention again, and sorry - but it won't be the last time - the beauty of the set decoration and art direction of this series). You can almost SMELL that apartment. You know how when you go into Rocky's shitty apartment, it's like you can get a whiff of the stale cooking smells, the nasty bathroom smells, the roach motels, the mold, the dust - all of it ... it emanates off the screen. Kid Cody's apartment is spare, cheap, but there are signs of a female presence there - you can see them if you look closely, although it's not apparent at first that he has a girlfriend. There's a boxing bag hanging from the ceiling. Things look random, you know like furniture dragged off the street. It's not a dump, it's clean - as clean as it can be - but you know that Kid Cody is living on the edge of some pretty serious hard times.

And suddenly - he is confronted by what must be his girlfriend - coming at him to kiss him and babble at him about her job, and tell him she's cooking his favorite meal. She is wearing a pink silk bathrobe. And she is absolutely stunning. I wonder if this actress got any work as a Marilyn Monroe impersonator - because it's truly uncanny, the likeness. I'll talk about her a bit later - her name is Teri Copley - and it looks like she doesn't work anymore. I hope she's happy with whatever she is doing. I LOVE her. She's got a little breathy baby voice, the platinum hair, the Marilyn Monroe look in her eyes - but somehow, she manages to create a real woman here. Not a caricature, not a stereotype. You just love her. She's a type of woman that I have met before: the girl who, for various reasons, works in a strip club - but has serious plans for the future. She puts money away. And she's a one-man woman. Monogamous to an almost pathological level. She makes her money dancing naked for the drooling masses, but at heart, she's a traditional girl. Old-fashioned. I know girls like that. That's who Dixie is. She establishes her character within 2 seconds - we know just who she is from how she greets "Kid Cody" - totally supportive, excited, and then - dismayed because he is going to move into the church. She doesn't like that. They have a "nest egg" of money - which they keep in a pocket in one of her pillows - and they are saving up to buy a donut shop. That is their dream, as a couple. Sam is just playing catch-up here through this scene, trying to get information, and not "let on" that he's basically a messenger from the future, NOT her boyfriend. He's also shy about sex (as we learn time and time again) - so to have this beautiful half-dressed woman kissing him passionately throws him for a loop. He kisses her back, but still. In later episodes the sex thing becomes a moral issue for Sam. He doesn't think you should sleep with someone unless you love that person. So ... how does he justify sleeping with these women, if he happens to be their husband - or boyfriend? Al, naturally, has a different take on such "problems". He's like: Who CARES if you love her?? A beautiful woman is ALREADY in your bed and you are ALREADY married to her - so what's the problem?? This is the first time, though, that we see Sam in something like that situation - a man who is part of a couple. How do you handle it? Sam Beckett is old-fashioned. He knows Dixie loves him (Kid Cody) - but still: he's NOT Kid Cody. I love him for having those dilemmas. And I love Al for NOT having those dilemmas. It gives the series a real spark. Great stuff.

A dude shows up at the door - and you get the hint that they know him and that Dixie doesn't like him. He must be a bookie - and he's collecting money from them? Can't remember. Anyway, Dixie is NOT having any of it. "Roscoe," she says to him, "you come between us and the jelly-glazed with sprinkles on top one more time, and I'll bust your nose."

Next scene we see Sam moving himself into the church basement. There's a gym over to the side, some stained glass windows, a single bed ... and you can hear someone singing "Amazing Grace" in the building. It's a bit much, as far as I'm concerned. Too obvious, too on the nose. Also, I don't know - I have nuns in my family, I grew up around nuns - "Amazing Grace" isn't a real convent-type song, although now, of course, some Catholic nitpicker will show up and give me the history of the song, and inform me that it was composed in 1425 by a roving band of Benedictine nuns, or something. I have been going to Catholic Church for my whole life, never heard "Amazing Grace" during mass. Not once. So maybe it's Sister Angela singing it by herself, just as a ruminative type thing. I still think it's a bit too much. The scene would have been better without it.

Sam lies down on the narrow cot, listening to the singing ... and suddenly realizes that someone is snoring - and loudly - beside him. He glances off the bed and sees poor sleep-deprived Al Calavicci, curled up on the floor, snoring. That's another question I have. In later episodes, we actually see the imaging chamber - and what it's like - what the process is like for those back in the present. It's not like you can just zap into the imaging chamber from anywhere - you have to be at the headquarters, and be buzzed in, and blah blah blah ... so maybe Al has a room in the back of the office where he tries to catch some sleep - and so that's how he is able to roll into the imaging chamber in his pajamas, on occasion? I never heard anything about Al having a PRIVATE imaging chamber in his house so that he could "visit" Sam whenever ... it all seemed a bit more formal than that, like it happens during the working hours, etc. Anyway, just a question I have. So Al steps into the imaging chamber, and maybe as he waits to get quantum-leaped to Sam, he falls asleep? So when he is transported, he is in a sleeping state when he arrives? This is where my mind goes. Of course it's also just a funny bit - that the guy who is in CHARGE of your project, who is in charge of getting you HOME eventually - shows up in a deep snoring REM state. You know, what a vote of confidence there, Al! Also, just to add to the ba-dum-ching nature of the moment, Al is talking in his sleep - and he's obviously embroiled in some adulterous brou-haha, he's cheating on Tina, his girlfriend - and imploring some other woman to hide in the closet. Sam is rather judgmental about all of this (he always has been, he rolls his eyes at Al's lecherous-ness, and his apparent lack of morals) - Al finally wakes up and Sam scolds him about monogamy. Al couldn't care less. He is a desperate man - because Muffler Man next door has still been tormenting him. It is ruining his life. He can't sleep! He is at his wit's end!! Sam tries to get Al to FOCUS. Not on his romantic life, but on the issues in this particular "leap". How on earth is he going to learn how to box? This won't work! It's amazing that this particular quality of the show did not get tedious - because it so could have! Sam has to learn how to split the atom! Be a ballerina! Have a baby! Build a nuclear warhead! How will he figure it out??? Instead of being tedious, it is usually quite funny - and Sam has to be very resourceful, and really commit to this other person's life - rather than his own. He doesn't WANT to train to be a fighter ... he wants to go HOME ... but ... oh well, this is the nature of quantum leaping, so here goes! Sam Beckett is a wonderful character. Al reveals that he was a boxing champion when he was a kid (of course he was! That's one of the running jokes of the show - as Al reveals more and more about his life - he was in the circus! He was a POW! He was an actor! He can speak Italian - you realize: who the hell is this guy? And it's not really realistic, but it works anyway. Stockwell makes it work. He keeps Al's cards close to his chest. Al isn't a guy who lets people in easily, even though it seems like he's an open book. The guy has depth. Secrets. Hidden pain. Al says HE will train Sam - but of course that won't work, because when sparring, Sam would punch right through the hologram that is Al. Sam decides okay, he needs to take this seriously - he'll talk to his coach, and see if he will train him - even though they are no longer working together, strictly.

There's an interesting moment at the end of this scene. Sam goes back to his bed, and Al is left in the shadowy gym, lights off - and he dances around by himself, throwing punches - then it's like he remembers his age. He stops, kind of sucks his belly in a bit - and pats his paunch - there's a bit of regret there, in the gesture - it's simple, beautifully played - then he says to himself, "I was good, too."

And that, folks, is an actor. It says it all. It's quiet, private, simple - not overdone ... but his whole life is in that moment. And we're only in the third episode of the series! But he's all there already. Stockwell didn't need time to build that character. He didn't need to develop him over the course of the series. He was THERE, from the beginning. Bakula said that at the audition, Stockwell came in "complete". Al Calavicci was alive, already.

The next scene has Sam and Gomez sitting in a bar. Gomez says he doesn't want to get into the training racket again. "I'm tired of training fighters who take a dive," says Gomez. There's a very Rocky-esque feel to this scene: the trainer with failed dreams himself, who once was a fighter himself, of great promise. And Kid Cody is a good fighter. But he's in with the wrong crowd - the gangsters - he doesn't really want to win - he is willing to take a dive if the price is right. But the scene ends with Gomez saying what the hell, let's go to it. He agrees to train Cody.

First day of training, Kid Cody gets into the ring at the church with Father Muldooney, the priest at the church who also has done some boxing himself. The ring is surrounded by cheering nuns, holding towels, throwing punches. It's hysterical. Sister Angela is beside herself with excitement and has to be told to get out of the ring, please. In the first couple of seconds of the fight, Father Muldooney knocks Sam out. Everyone crowds around, scared. A bucket of water is thrown on Sam's face. The nuns all look disappointed. Nervous. It looks like their guy is a loser.

And now we have the Rocky montage, complete with music (not exactly the Rocky theme, but close enough). The montage at first shows Sam not doing well, really struggling - unable to punch the punching bag in that flowing way that professional boxers have ... struggling with pullups, drenched in sweat, Sister Angela hovering nearby, supportive. Then comes my favorite scene in the episode. Sister Angela rides her bike, and Sam runs along beside her holding two bricks in his hands (a la Rocky Balboa). Sister Angela means business, she is a tough taskmaster. She pushes Sam to keep going - they're going up a hill, and Sam is DYING. He begs for a rest. Just a couple minutes! She relents. As they stand there, he asks her why the chapel is so important to her. She tells her story. It's not a happy one. A little all-night chapel was there for her when she needed it most - she had been living on the streets, she was an orphan ... and it saved her life. God saved her life. She wants to create a place like that for others. Now - it's a cliched story, and I certainly could have watched it being utterly unmoved. Seen it all before. But the way she plays it is just lovely. The emotion that comes up in her feels organic, as though the story (even though well-known to her, since she lived it) still has the capability of taking her by surprise. She does not weep and wail, she does not go for the drama - she just turns her back on Sam, to get some privacy, and quietly tells him what happened to her. It is the LEAST condescending type of acting imaginable - and the supporting actors on this show that come in for guest spots like this are universally excellent in that regard. I love her performance. It could have been over-the-top cheesy. It is not at all.

It is essential we understand the stakes for her, and how specific they are. It's not just a generalized "I love God, I want to share that love with others" thing. When, later in the episode, we see that her faith has been shaken - we really GET what that means for her. This is a girl who has had a tough life. She feels betrayed all over again. Life is a wilderness without God. God came into her life and saved her. And now ... she can't believe anymore. Without that quiet scene where she tells her story to Sam, the impact wouldn't be as great. We really get what all of this means for HER (another reason why the show works so well: EVERYONE has high stakes. On all different levels. We all want something. We all have needs. These needs conflict. That makes for interesting drama, if it's done well. Sister Angela's journey with her faith is part of the whole - it's NOT just about Kid Cody winning the fight. We're all connected, everything is interwoven with everything else. None of us are an island.)

Then we get a second montage. Sam has been training hard now - so he's doing better. This is the SECOND Rocky montage, when Rocky makes it up the steps of the museum, and leaps around in triumph at the top. Sam is in the zone now. Doing situps, pullups, punching ... there's a hysterical moment where we see Sam punching the little punching bag, and he's going so fast it's a blur - and the music is pounding - and as the camera pulls around, we see Al standing there right next to him, in a blazing white suit, smoking a cigar, and kind of dancing (hard to explain - but it makes me laugh out loud every time I see it) to the beat of the punches on the bag. He's "cool" about it, he's not gyrating around - just watching Sam's fist fly, and kind of twitching his body back and forth, in time. hahahaha Well, it's really a visual joke - so if you have the DVD or plan on getting it, keep an eye out for it.

Sam and Al have a conversation in the ring. Sam has been so involved in training that his focus has been elsewhere - and it's interesting, you can see that Al feels a little bit left out. There's a strange distance between the two friends now, and Al ... hm. Well, I think Al - even with his crusty hard-nosed personality - needs to feel needed. That is his whole THING. And he doesn't feel needed here. None of this is spoken. It's not in the script. It's all in Stockwell's acting. He's kind of cranky. Probably because of the sleep-deprivation problem, but also ... because Sam seems more focused on the training than on HIM. He needs Sam to step out of that for a moment and listen to him! He tells Sam that in the real history, Kid Cody was knocked out in the first round of the fight coming up - on October 29, 1974. He lost. And so Sister Angela never got her chapel. There is not a chapel in Sacramento in the present-day like the one Sister Angela dreamt of. You can see Sam's dismay at hearing this. How can that be? Now that he has gotten to know Sister Angela a bit, and been welcomed by all the nuns - you can see that their dream has now become, in part, his. He is not BLASE about them. "Oh well. They didn't get their chapel. What am I supposed to do about it?" No. Sam is into it now. He's turned the corner.

The fight approaches. Gomez and Sam sit in the same bar from before - and they're watching the news. We can see a report going on on the upcoming fight of Foreman/Ali in Zaire. Mr. Edwards comes up to Sam in a menacing way and says, "Nick says you're training for real." This is not part of the deal. Kid Cody is supposed to LOSE, not win. Why is he training? Mr. Edwards has it all planned: he needs to be knocked out in the first round. Sam, feeling stronger now, more able, stands up to Mr. Edwards and refuses. There's a standoff. Inspired by the news report on TV, Sam challenges Mr. Edwards to a bet: 20 to 1 on what round the Ali/Foreman fight will be over.

Sam has to then break the news to Dixie about the bet - they might lose everything - and she flips. Of course Sam knows that this is a GOOD bet, since he knows how it will turn out ... but she can't see that. The jelly glazed dream is even more unattainable now! She's already upset, because he's hanging out with Sister Angela all the time. It seems like the nuns have more say in his life than she, his girlfriend, does. I like this one exchange - it makes me like Sam Beckett even more. She refers to herself as a "tramp" - and he gently takes hold of her arms, stares down at her, and says, "Dixie, you're not a tramp. You're a stripper. That's a profession." I just love him for that.

After the confrontation with Dixie, Sam goes back to the church and finds Sister Angela praying by herself, near a bank of candles. He tries to talk to her, and he can tell immediately that something is dreadfully wrong. She is near tears, yes - but there's something else. A coldness, a hardness. He is alarmed. She was his greatest champion. What's going on? He tries to talk with her. She can't even look at him. She tells him that "a Mr. Edwards" stopped by, and left a message for him: "He thought it over. He wants to call the rounds, not you. Take a dive in the first." She is devastated. Sam isn't too happy either. He has a plan (which he hasn't revealed yet) to get around Mr. Edwards ... but it has to be a secret. Sister Angela believes the worst of him. He can't defend himself. And she, being who she is, with her struggles, her life story behind her, does not take such things casually. Life has not been kind to Sister Angela. There's a fragility there. She says, "I thought God sent me a champion, but he sent me a cheat." She says, "I don't think I can believe in anything anymore." (Now this actress says that potentially cheesy line with utter reality. I've said stuff like that before, and I've meant it. I said it the other night, come to think of it. And I haven't moaned it like Oedipus on a massive Greek stage. I've said it simply, and meant every word. That's how she says it.) And Sam, sensing this in her, her faith being shaken ... is torn up. He needs her belief. It's selfish, yes - but her belief in him helped him get through this training period. To be believed in like that makes all the difference. They are left unresolved. She is crushed. He is scared. Scared that he had hurt her, that he cannot defend himself, and also scared about the upcoming fight. How will he get through it without Sister Angela cheering like a maniac? He knows the stakes are high: the chapel did NOT happen ... he is here to MAKE it happen, to change history.

Now comes the fight. Sister Angela, knowing of the treachery of Kid Cody, is suspicious, waiting for something bad to happen. If he takes a dive in the first round, then she will know he is a cheat. She waits. Sam keeps glancing over at her, worried ... the fact that she's not "in his corner" emotionally is just wrong, for him. He misses her. He's also looking for Al. Where the hell is Al? Because of that strange distance between the two men in the last scene ... we wonder at the slight cooling-off between them. Sam had asked Al, "You coming?" And Al had been kind of diffident, shrugging his shoulders. So that's another issue for Sam. He's all alone out there.

And we have shots of Mr. Edwards, sitting in the stands - with a transistor radio to his ear. I put it together later - he's listening to the Foreman/Ali fight at the same time. It's a big day for Mr. Edwards. Sitting near Mr. Edwards is Dixie, all dressed up and dizzyingly excited for her baby up there in that ring. (If you see the episode a couple times, you might notice some of the things I missed: that there's a fragment of a news program shown in one of the scenes where the "streaking fad" is being discussed. Then, during the argument with Dixie - we come into the middle of it, and she says something like "I bet you wouldn't ask Sister Angela to streak!" But I didn't really put it together - I'm slow like that. Obviously, Sam has a plan - a way that he think he can get around his "promise" to Mr. Edwards that he would take a dive in the first round.) Anyway, Dixie sits out there - in a green trench coat, and seriously - LOOK at the woman. Is there a more supportive face on the planet? Don't you love her? You can see Mr. Edwards in the background, hovering over his transistor radio.

Then comes the dreaded moment: Sam gets knocked out in the first round. Sister Angela, already beside herself, just sits there, shaking her head to herself. So. It was true. Kid Cody was a cheat. He lies on the floor, face crushed into the ring ... disoriented ... all he can see is Sister Angela's disappointed sad face. He can't take it - and starts to struggle up to his feet. Mr. Edwards is distracted by the radio broadcast, but he is aware that something is going up there in the ring ... Sam gets to his feet, not steadily, but he's there - then he looks over at Dixie, and gives her a nod. She stands up, drops the trenchcoat, and streaks naked through the stands, causing an enormous commotion. Mr. Edwards is totally distracted, watching her go by - turning all the way around to see her naked little booty running off - and in that moment, Sam punches his opponent in the nose - and down he goes. POW! It is at this auspicious moment that Al decides to show up. He is wearing bright red trousers, red suspenders, and a little red hat. He looks like a lunatic. He chomps on a cigar, relishing in the moment. Obviously he has gotten a good night's sleep finally! No more cranky Al! He loves the fights. He's here to have a good time, and to help Sam win. Tiger Joe (Sam's opponent) staggers up to his feet, and you can tell by the rage on his face that Sam is not out of the woods yet. Tiger Joe is PISSED. The fight that follows is intense. Sam has to pull all of his training (yeah, from his ONE WEEK of intensive training) out in order to just survive the assault. And Al the hologram helps too - shoving his hand through Tiger Joe - telling Sam where to place his punches, etc. It's a team sport, apparently! It takes two!

And finally .. finally ... Sam lands the punch that knocks Tiger Joe out for good. I love how Al stands there, right beside the action, watching him fall, with a huge grin on his face. The win is very exciting. There's a funny shot of Sam hugging Al - only we see it from the nun's perspective - so it looks like Sam is embracing nothing, throwing his arms around AIR. But it's a big moment, lots of celebration. Nuns screaming, clapping, jumping up and down, everyone going nuts, Al dancing around in his ridiculous outfit, it's a huge triumph.

Back in the locker room, Dixie - now covered up - runs in, all excited - to tell him that Ali won! They had put everything they owned, their whole nest egg, on Ali knocking out Foreman in the 8th round. And Ali just did it. And so they are owed a ton of money (20 to 1 type money) from Mr. Edwards. Enough to buy an entire chain of donut shops. She's going to run off and get their money - and just before she reaches the door - Sam says, impulsively - "Dixie!" She stops. Turns.

And look at her. God. LOOK at this woman.

She loves him so much. And it's a great little moment because I think Sam has fallen in love with her a little bit, too (I mean, who wouldn't? She streaked through a rowdy boxing crowd for HIM) - but it's a great moment because I think Sam knows it's over, he's going to leap any moment. Obviously he won the match, the sisters are going to get their chapel, and everything has worked out. His time "here" is limited, now - maybe he has a minute or so ... so he probably won't see her again. This is it. So he can't just let her fly out of the room without one last moment between them. But he doesn't even have anything to say to her. Not really. All he can manage is, "Hurry back." And Dixie, with eyes full of love, and that Marilyn Monroe glamour girl smile - nods happily and click-clacks off. Leaving Sam alone.

Sister Angela comes in. She is overwhelmed. She is filled with shame that she had doubted him. And that she had doubted God, too. How could that have happened? She thanks him, Kid Cody, for winning ... for getting them their chapel ... but most of all, for giving her her faith in God again.

They shake hands - and as they do so - you can see Sam start to grin, ruefully - to himself. The leap is here. He shivers into blue lightning ... and vanishes ...

Only to find himself ... wearing muddy overalls and galoshes - wrestling with a filthy screaming pig in a paddock ....

Quantum Leap recaps Overview
Season 1, Ep. 1: Genesis - part 1 of re-cap
Season 1, Ep. 1: Genesis - part 2 of re-cap
Season 1, Ep. 1: Genesis - part 3 of re-cap
Season 1, Ep. 2: Star-Crossed - part 1 of re-cap
Season 1, Ep. 2: Star-Crossed - part 2 of re-cap

Tommy's posts:
Quantum Leap: an overview

Episode 1: Genesis

Episode 2: Star-crossed

Experimenting with the macro setting ...

A tour of my bulletin board.

A tour of my bulletin board

An opening-night card from Ted. It's an image of a Joseph Cornell box - one of his scariest, I think.

A tour of my bulletin board

Note from Michael. He actually pinned it up there himself, the last time he visited - but I just haven't taken it down. It's nice to have the words "Love you" looking at you every time you walk in the kitchen.

A tour of my bulletin board

I found this recently, in the back of one of my old old notebooks. I am probably 9 years old. I wrote an author-bio for one of my stories (that, of course, I never finished).

A tour of my bulletin board

Mitchell and me.

A tour of my bulletin board

because the light.

I have no idea what it means - I cut it out of a magazine years ago. I just like it.

A tour of my bulletin board

Wrigley Field, Chicago. I took that picture. I was out with M. that night, I remember. We were in his car.

A tour of my bulletin board

A luscious little sexpot. I just think she's adorable.

A tour of my bulletin board

Marilyn Monroe lifting weights.

A tour of my bulletin board

Face I will never forget. 1996 peace protest, Belfast.

A tour of my bulletin board

My visitor pass to the World Trade Center. I took classes there. Expiration date 8/19/2001.

A tour of my bulletin board

The "swann's are beautiful and mean" note from Wade.

A tour of my bulletin board

A horoscope I have saved for 10 years now.

A tour of my bulletin board

Celtic Art, from Trinity College.

A tour of my bulletin board

Random. Eminem. Broken Journey postcard.

A tour of my bulletin board

The paper fan that was given out as a party favor at Dean Stockwell's party in Taos.

A tour of my bulletin board

The Pat Pass. I can't even begin to explain what this is.

A tour of my bulletin board

Photo taken by me - on a 3rd grade field trip to New York City. I was standing on the deck of the boat, by the way, with Keith M. We both remember ut, standing together, looking up at the Statue of Liberty, having a flirty conversation of the 9-year-old variety.

A tour of my bulletin board

... sometimes that's all it takes.

The Books: "The Stand" (Stephen King)

Next book on my adult fiction shelves:

The Stand by Stephen King

I'll never forget my first experience with this book. I read it when it first came out (and that's the only time I read it - so the "uncut" version is still un-read by me - and frankly, I don't think you need an uncut version. The 'cut' version was plenty awesome, in my book.) Unforgettable experience reading that book. Another great American novel. I thought of it when I recently say I Am Legend, with its terrifying vision of an empty New York. A New York that still has cars in the streets, because the panic of the plague was so great, people were racing to get out, and they died en route. It's been years since I've read it - so a ton of the details are lost - but suffice it to say - it's about a plague, that "gets loose" - and kills the majority of the people on the planet. Quickly. A handful of people are left. They are all scattered, though - they do not know about each other. We get to know them, as the book progresses - we switch points of view repeatedly. Every story is a horror story. The Stand taps into the primal terror of biological warfare, of something "unbeatable" being loosed upon the land. We are, after all, just animals. Human animals. Our survival on this planet, as a species, is not at all a done deal. The Stand recognizes that. I recently read The Road, by Cormac McCarthy - and that bleak book has a similar outlook. Since I was a kid I have been drawn to and horrified by these kinds of books. Remember, I'm old. So I grew up being afraid of Russia, the bogey-man across the world ... and the possibility of nuclear warfare was far more vivid then than it is now (not that it is not still a threat - but anyone who remembers the Cold War will recognize the difference). I remember begging my parents to let me watch The Day After when it was on - and then lying in bed afterwards, praying to God, desperately, to save us from mutually assured destruction. It scared me SO much. War Games tapped into those fears as well. The Stand is, in its way, even more frightening - because it's NOT nuclear apocalypse (which The Road is) - it's a disease, morphed out of all recognition from its original state - now a monster on the loose, airborne - and it will wipe out EVERYONE. Disease does not discriminate, in the same way a nuclear blast does not discriminate. The thought of just living my life, and being "in the way" of something so destructive - was a real fear of mine growing up. Books like The Stand, and The Road really call up in me an anxious imaginative response, meaning: I am unable to separate myself from it, and I am constantly imagining myself into the action, asking nervous questions like, "How would I fare here? How would I handle that? Would I just crumple in fear? Or would I be up to the task at hand?" It really makes you ask: what are you MADE of? Could I figure out the food situation? The building a fire situation? Could I manage my fear to such a degree that I would be able to make it through the day? You wonder: who am I? How strong am I? How smart am I REALLY? I have never been tested like THAT. How would I do?

There's a higher level to the book - and that is reflected in its perfect title. It's not just a "stand" between the disease and remaining humanity. It's a "stand" between good and evil. Because naturally, since the disease does not discriminate and just kill "bad" people ... humanity will be tested, almost immediately - with what kind of new world they will want to build. And all of the scattered characters - making it thru a maze of horror to get out of their respective areas ... slowly converge (they don't know why) in the desert. Something draws them there. They do not know what it is. But it is obvious that something else might be propelling them, or pulling them through that maze. God and the devil. Life and the Grim Reaper. Time to battle it out, once and for all.

It's a fantastic book, another masterpiece. King is awe-inspiring.

I knew immediately the excerpt I wanted to do today. It's a scene that I will never forget (and I have actually forgotten much of the book - I should read it again). It has personal meaning for me, because I go through the Lincoln Tunnel on a daily basis and I would say that, oh, probably once a week - as my bus careens through the tunnel - I think of The Stand and the following scene ... and I wonder ... my God. How would I ever EVER get through it? I am sure I would ... but it is still horrifying to contemplate. It's my favorite "scene" in the whole book. King pulls out all the stops. His imagination is unbelievable.

EXCERPT FROM The Stand by Stephen King

By four o'clock dark clouds had begun to build over Manhattan and the sound of thunder rolled back and forth between the city's cliffs. Lightning forked down at the buildings. It was as if God were trying to frighten the few remaining people out of hiding. The light had become yellow and strange, and Larry didn't like it. His belly was cramped and when he lit a cigarette it trembled in his hand the way the coffee cup had trembled in Rita's this morning.

He was sitting at the street end of the access ramp, leaning his back against the lowest bar of the railing. His pack was on his lap, and the .30-.30 was leaning against the railing beside him. He had thought she would get scared and come back before long, but she hadn't. Fifteen minutes ago he had given up calling her name. The echoes freaked him out.

Thunder rolled again, close this time. A chilly breeze ran its hand over the back of his shirt, which was pasted to his skin with sweat. He was going to have to get inside somewhere or else stop shitting around and go through the tunnel. If he couldn't work up the guts to go through, he'd have to spend another night in the city and go over the George Washington Bridge in the morning, and that was 140 blocks north.

He tried to think rationally about the tunnel. There was nothing in there that was going to bite him. He'd forgotten to pick up a good big flashlight - Christ, you never remembered everything - but he did have his butanic Bic, and there was a guardrail between the catwalk and the road. Anything else ... thinking about all those dead people in their cars, for instance ... that was just panic talking, comic-book stuff about as sensible as worrying about the boogeyman in the closet. If that's all youc an think about, Larry [he lectured himself], then you're not going to get along in this brave new world. Not at all. You're -

A stroke of lightning split the sky almost directly overhead, making him wince. It was followed by a heavy caisson of thunder. He thought randomly, July 1, this is the day you're supposed to take your sweetie to Coney Island and eat hotdogs by the score. Knock down the three wooden milk-bottles with one ball and win the Kewpie doll. The fireworks at night -

A cold splash of rain struck the side of his face and then another hit the back of his neck and trickled inside the collar of his shirt. Dime-sized drops began to hit around him. He stood up, slung the pack over his shoulders, and hoisted the rifle. He was still not sure which way to go - back to Thirty-ninth or into the Lincoln Tunnel. But he had to get undercover somewhere because it was starting to pour.

Thunder broke overhead with a gigantic roar, making him squeal in terror - a sound no different than those made by Cro-Magnon men two million years before.

"You fucking coward," he said, and trotted down the ramp toward the maw of the tunnel, his head bent forward as the rain began to come harder. It dripped from his hair. He passed the woman with her nose against the El Dorado's passenger window, trying not to look but catching her out of the tail of his eye just the same. The rain drummed on the car roofs like jazz percussion. It was coming down so hard it bounced back up again, causing a light mist-haze.

Larry stopped for a moment just outside the tunnel, undecided and frightened again. Then it began to hail, and that decided him. The hailstones were big, stinging. Thunder bellowed again.

Okay, he thought. Okay, okay, okay, I'm convinced. He stepped into the Lincoln Tunnel.

__________

It was much blacker inside than he had imagined it would be. At first the opening behind him cast dim white light ahead and he could see yet more cars, jammed in bumper to bumper (it must have been bad, dying in here, he thought, as claustrophobia wrapped its stealthy banana fingers lovingly around his head and began to first caress and then to squeeze his temples, it must have been really bad, it must have been fucking horrible), and the greenish-white tiles that dressed the upward-curving walls. He could see the pedestrian railing to his right, stretching dimly ahead. On his left, at thirty- or forty-foot intervals, were big support pillars. A sign adviSed him DO NOT CHANGE LANES. There were dark flourescents embedded in the tunnel's roof, and the blank glass eyes of closed-circuit TV camera. And as he negotiated the first slow, banked curve, bearing gently to the right, the light grew dimmer until all he could see were muted flashes of chrome. After that the light simply ceased to exist, at all.

He fumbled out his Bic, held it up, and spun the wheel. The light it provided was pitifully small, feeding his unease rather than assuaging it. Even with the flame turned up all the way it only gave him a circle of visibility about six feet in diameter.

He put it back in his pocket, and kept walking, trailing his hand lightly along the railing. There was an echo in here, too, one he liked even less than the one outside. The echo made it sound like someone was behind him ... stalking him. He stopped several times, head cocked, eyes wide (but blind), listening until the echoes had died off. After a bit he began to shuffle along, not lifting his heels from the concrete, so the echo wouldn't recur.

Sometimes after that he stopped again and flicked the lighter close to his wristwatch. It was four-twenty, but he wasn't sure what to make of that. In this blackness time seemed to have no objective meaning. Neither did distance, for that matter; how long was the Lincoln Tunnel, anyway? A mile? Two? Surely it couldn't be two miles under the Hudson River. Let's say a mile. But if a mile was all it was, he should have been at the other end already. If the average man walks four miles an hour, he can walk one mile in fifteen minutes and he'd already been in this stinking hole five minutes longer than that.

"I'm walking a lot slower," he said, and jumped at the sound of his own voice. The lighter dropped from his hand and clicked onto the catwalk. The echo spoke bac, changed into the dangerously jocular voice of an approaching lunatic.

" ... lot slower ... lower ... lower ..."

"Jesus," Larry muttered, and the echo whispered back: "zuss ... zuss ... zuss ..."

He wiped a hand across his face, fighting panic and the urge to give up thought and just run blindly forward. Instead he knelt (his knees popped like pistol shots, frightening him again) and walked his fingers over the miniature topography of the pedestrian catwalk - the chipped valleys in the cement, the ridge of an old cigarette butt, the hill of a tiny tinfoil ball - until at last he happened on his Bic. With an inner sigh he squeezed it tightly in his hand, stood up, and walked on.

Larry was beginning to get himself under control again when his foot struck something stiff and barely yielding. He uttered an inhalatory sort of scream and took two staggering steps backward. He made himself hold steady as he pulled the Bic lighter from his pocket and flicked it. The flame wavered crazily in his trembling grasp.

He had stepped on a soldier's hand. He was sitting with his back against the tunnel wall, his legs splayed across the walkway, a horrible sentinel left here to bar passage. His glazed eyes stared up at Larry. His lips had fallen away from his teeth and he seemed to be grinning. A switchblade knife jutted jauntily from his throat.

The lighter was growing warm in his hand. Larry let it go out. Licking his lips, holding the railing in a deathgrip, he forced himself forward until the toe of his shoe struck the soldier's hand again. Then he stepped over, making a comically large stride, and a kind of nightmarish certainty came over him. He would hear the scrape of the soldier's boots as he shifted, and then the soldier would reach out and clasp his leg in a loose cold grip.

In a shuffling sort of run, Larry went another ten paces and then made himself stop, knowing that if he didn't stop, the panic would win and he would bolt blindly, chased by a terrible regiment of echoes.

When he felt he had himself under some sort of control, he began to walk again. But now it was worse; his toes shrank inside his shoes, afraid that at any second they might come in contact with another body sprawled on the catwalk ... and soon enough, it happened.

He groaned and fumbled the lighter out again. This time it was much worse. The body his foot had struck was that of an old man in a blue suit. A black silk skullcap had fallen from his balding head into his lap. There was a six-pointed star of beaten silver in his lapel. Beyond him were another half a dozen corpses: two women, a man of middle age, a woman who might have been in her late seventies, two teenage boys.

The lighter was growing too hot to hold any longer. He snapped it off and slipped it back into his pants pocket, where it glowed like a warm coal against his leg. Captain Trips hadn't taken this group off any more than it had taken the soldier back there. He had seen the blood, the torn clothes, the chipped tiles, the bullet holes. They had been gunned down. Larry remembered the rumors that soldiers had blocked off the points of exit from Island Manhattan. He hadn't known whether to believe them or not; he had heard so many rumors last week as things were breaking down.

The situation here was easy enough to reconstruct. They had been caught in the tunnel, but they hadn't been too sick to walk. They got out of their car and began to make their way toward the Jersey side, using the catwalk just as he was doing. There had been a command post, machine-gun emplacement, something.

Had been? Or was now?

Larry stood sweating, trying to make up his mind. The solid darkness provided the perfect theater screen on which the mind could play out its fantasies. He saw: grim-eyed soldiers in germproof suits crouched behind a machine gun equipped with an infrared peeper-scope, their job to cut down any stragglers who tried to come through the tunnel; one single soldier left behind, a suicide volunteer, wearing infrared goggles and creeping toward him with a knife in his teeth; two soldiers quietly loading a mortar with a single poison gas canister.

Yet he couldn't bring himself to go back. He was quite sure that these imaginings were only vapors, and the thought of retracing his steps was insupportable. Surely the soldiers were now gone. The dead one he'd stepped over seemed to support that. But ...

But what was really troubling him, he supposed, were the bodies directly ahead. They were sprawled all over each other for eight or nine feet. He couldn't just step over them as he had stepped over the soldier. And if he went off the catwalk to go around them, he risked breaking his leg or his ankle. If he was to go on, he would have to ... well ... he would have to walk over them.

Behind him, in the darkness, something moved.

Larry wheeled around, instantly engulfed with fear at that single gritting sound ... a footstep.

"Who's there?" he shouted, unslinging his rifle.

No answer but the echo. When it faded he heard - or thought he did - the quiet sound of breathing. He stood bug-eyed in the dark, the hairs along the nape of his neck turning into hackles. He held his breath. There was no sound. He was beginning to dismiss it as imagination when the sound came again ... a sliding, quiet footstep.

He fumbled madly for his lighter. The thought that it would make him a target never occurred to him. As he pulled it from his pocket the striker wheel caught on the lining momentarily and the lighter tumbled from his hand. He heard a clink as it struck the railing, and then there was a soft bonk as it struck the hood or trunk of a car below.

The sliding footstep came again, a little closer now, impossible to tell how close. Someone coming to kill him and his terror-locked mind gave him a picture of the soldier with the switchbalde in his neck, moving slowly toward him in the dark -

The soft, gritting step again.

Larry remembered the rifle. He threw the butt against his shoulder, and began to fire. The explosions were shatteringly loud in the closed space; he screamed at the sound of them but the scream was lost in the roar. Flashbulb images of tile and frozen lanes of traffic exploded one after another like a string of black and white snapshots as fire licked from the muzzle of the .30-.30. Ricochets whined like banshees. The gun whacked his shoulder again and again until it was numb, until he knew that the force of the recoils had turned him on his feet and he was shooting out over the roadway instead of back along the catwalk. He was still unable to stop. His finger had taken over the function of the brain, and it spasmed mindlessly until the hammer began to fall with a dry and impotent clicking sound.

The echoes rolled back. Bright afterimages hung before his eyes in triple exposures. He was faintly aware of the stench of cordite and of the whining sound he was making deep in his chest.

Still clutching the gun he whirled around again, and now it was not the soldiers in their sterile Andromeda Strain suits that he saw on the screen of his interior theater but the Morlocks from the Classic Comics version of H.G. Wells's The Time Machine, humped and blind creatures coming out of their holes in the ground where engines ran on and on in the bowels of the earth.

He began to struggle across the soft yet stiff barricade of bodies, stumbling, almost falling, clutching the railing, going on. His foot punched through into some dreadful sliminess and there was a gassy, putrid smell that he barely noticed. He went on, gasping.

Then, from behind him, a scream rose in the darkness, freezing him on the spot. It was a desperate, wretched sound close to the limits of sanity: "Larry! Oh, Larry, for God's sake -"

It was Rita Blakemoor.

He turned around. There was sobbing now, wild sobbing that filled the place with fresh echoes. For one wild moment he decided to go on anyway, to leave her. She would find her way out eventually, why burden himself with her again? Then he got hold of himself and shouted, "Rita! Stay where you are! Do you hear me?"

The sobbing continued.

He stumbled back across the bodies, trying not to breathe, his face twisted in an expression of grimacing disgust. Then he ran toward her, not sure how far he had to go because of the distorting quality of the echo. In the end he almost fell over her.

"Larry -" She threw herself against him and clutched his neck with a strangler's force. He could feel her heart skidding along at a breakneck pace under her shirt. "Larry Larry don't leave me alone here don't leave me alone in the dark -"

"No." He held her tightly. "Did I hurt you? Are .. are you shot?"

"No ... I felt the wind ... one of them went by so close I felt the wind of it ... and chips ... tile-chips, I think ... on my face ... cut my face ..."

"Oh Jesus, Rita, I didn't know. I was freaking out in here. The dark. And I lost my lighter ... you should have called. I could have killed you." The truth of it came home to him. "I could have killed you," he repeated in stunned revelation.

"I wasn't sure it was you. I went into an apartment house when you went down the ramp. And you came back and called and I almost ... but I couldn't ... and then two men came after the rain started ... I think they were looking for us ... or for me. So I stayed where I was and when they were gone I thought, maybe they're not gone, maybe they're hiding and looking for me and I didn't dare go out until I started to think you'd get to the other side, and I'd never see you again ... so I ... I ... Larry, you won't leave me, will you? You won't go away?"

"No," he said.

"I was wrong, what I said, that was wrong, you were right, I should have told you about the sandals, I mean the shoes, I'll eat when you tell me to ... I ... I ... oooohhhowww-"

"Shh," he said, holding her. "It's all right now. All right." But in his mind he saw himself firing at her in a blind panic, and thought how easily one of those slugs could have smashed her arm or blown out her stomach. Suddenly he had to go to the bathroom very badly and his teeth wanted to chatter. "We'll go when you feel like you can walk. Take your time."

"There was a man ... I think it was a man ... I stepped on him, Larry." She swallowed and her throat clicked. "Oh, I almost screamed then, but I didn't because I thought it might be one of those men up ahead instead of you. And when you called out ... the echo ... I couldn't tell if it was you ... or ... or ..."

"There are more dead people up ahead. Can you stand that?"

"If you're with me. Please ... if you're with me."

"I will be."

"Let's go, then. I want to get out of her." She shuddered convulsively against him. "I never wanted anything so badly in my life."

He felt for her face and kissed her, first her nose, then each eye, then her mouth.

"Thank you," he said humbly, having not the slightest idea what he meant. "Thank you. Thank you."

"Thank you," she repeated. "Oh dear Larry. You won't leave me, will you?"

"No," he said. "I won't leave you. Just tell me when you feel like you can, Rita, and we'll go together."

When she felt she could, they did.

________

They got over the bodies, their arms slung about each other's necks like drunken chums coming home from a neighborhood tavern. Beyond that they came to a blockage of some sort. It was impossible to see, but after running her hands over it, Rita said it might be a bed standing on end. Together they managed to tip it over the catwalk railing. It crashed onto a car below with a loud, echoing bang that made them both jump and clutch each other. Behind where it had been there were more sprawled bodies, three of them, and Larry guessed that these were the soldiers that had shot down the Jewish family. They got over them and went on, holding hands.

A short time latter Rita stopped short.

"What's the matter?" Larry asked. "Is there something in the way?"

"No. I can see, Larry! It's the end of the tunnel!"

He blinked and realized that he could see, too. The glow was dim and it had come so gradually that he hadn't been aware of it until Rita had spoken. He could make out a faint shine on the tiles, and the pale blur of Rita's face closer by. Looking over to the left he could see the dead river of automobiles.

"Come on," he said, jubilant.

Sixty paces farther along there were more bodies sprawled on the walkway, all soldiers. They stepped over them.

"Why would they only close off New York?" she asked. "Unless maybe ... Larry, maybe it only happened in New York!"

"I don't think so," he said, but felt a touch of irrational hope anyway.

They walked faster. The mouth of the tunnel was ahead of them now. It was blocked by two huge army convoy trucks parked nose to nose. The trucks blotted out much of the daylight; if they hadn't been there, Larry and Rita would have had some light much farther back in the tunnel. There was another sprawl of bodies where the catwalk descended to join the ramp leading outside. They squeezed between the convoy trucks, scrambling over the locked bumpers. Rita didn't look inside, but Larry did. There was a half-assembled tripod machine gun, boxes of ammunition, and canisters of stuff that looked like teargas. Also, three dead men.

As they came outside, a rain-dampened breeze pressed against them, and its wonderfully fresh smell seemed to make it all worthwhile. He said so to Rita, and she nodded and put her head against his shoulder for a moment.

"I wouldn't go through there again for a million dollars, though," she said.

"In a few years you'll be using money for toilet paper," he said. "Please don't squeeze the greenbacks."

"But are you sure --"

"That it wasn't just New York?" He pointed. "Look."

The tollbooths were empty. The middle one stood in a heap of broken glass. Beyond them, the westbound lanes were empty for as far as they could see, but the eastbound lanes, the ones which fed into the tunnel and the city they had just left, were crowded with silent traffic. There was an untidy pile of bodies in the breakdown lane, and a number of seagulls stood watch over it.

"Oh dear God," she said weakly.

"There were as many people trying to get into New York as there were trying to get out of it. I don't know why they bothered blockading the tunnel on the Jersey end. Probably they didn't know why, either. Just somebody's bright idea, busywork -"

But she had sat down on the road and was crying.

"Don't," he said, kneeling beside her. The experience in the tunnel was still too fresh for him to feel angry with her. "It's all right, Rita."

"What is?" she sobbed. "What is? Just tell me one thing."

"We're out, anyway. That's something. And there's fresh air. In fact, New Jersey never smelled so good."

That earned him a wan smile. Larry looked at the scratches on her cheek and temple where the shards of tile had cut her.

"We ought to get you to a drugstore and put some peroxide on those cuts," he said. "Do you feel up to walking?"

"Yes." She was looking at him with a dumb gratitude that made him feel uneasy. "And I'll get some new shoes. Some sneakers. I'll do just what you tell me, Larry. I want to."

"I shouted at you because I was upset," he said quietly. He brushed her hair back and kissed one of the scratches over her right eye. "I'm not such a bad guy," he added quietly.

"Just don't leave me."

He helped her to her feet and slipped an arm around her waist. Then they walked slowly toward the tollbooths and slipped through them, New York behind them and across the river.

Diary Friday

When I was 12 years old, I wrote my autobiography. It is one of the most complete obsessive documents in my entire history. I remember almost NONE of it - although there are certain things that have made it thru the mists of time ... things I've written about on the blog from time to time ... but the thing that is so funny about this document (and it's gotta be about 80 pages long) is that I am writing about "childhood" from a much closer vantage point than I would now ... I actually still AM a child, although, of course, to a 12 year old, her 4 year old self seems like ancient history. So the games we played, the playground shenanigans - all of that stuff which diminishes with time - is laid out here, clear as day. It's kind of a creepy document, truth be told - and I feel like it can't have been ME that wrote it!! But it was.

Here I am, as an 8th grader, recounting the long-ago days of 6th grade. Naturally - to long-time readers, folks like Keith and Andrew will be familiar. (Keith post - Andrew post) Oh, and the whole Artful Dodger thing appears to have its roots back in the 6th grade.

SHEILA'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY

Now sixth grade. I begin a new paragraph because sixth grade was the - it was the best year of my life. It still is. Sixth grade was heaven. Pure and simple. My teacher Mrs. Dickison was funny and "cool". I had all the best guys in my class - Keith, Andrew ... we had a crazy time. We cut down on Mrs. Dickison and we taped little pieces of paper on our desks and counted all of her jokes - we made fun of her about it and she loved it. She was great. We had a substitute - Miss Mullaney. I honestly can't complain much about her, because she loved me and always complimented me and called me a "real character". But other than that, she was only nice to the boys who always teased her - but she was terrible to this one girl - Jennifer M. She (Miss Mullaney) would look at Jennifer's spelling notebook and say to the class, 'Everyone look! I hope you all work so your spelling book does not look like this."

I started the year badly, because I was so mad that neither J. or Betsy was in my class. But we met at recess to sing. [hahahahahaha] That year, we began to outgrow orphans [hahahaha Shorthand: any make-believe game we played always involved us being orphans. We LOVED orphans] but we did have this trend where 4 girls would get together after school and act out Little Women. I HAD to be Jo. Looking back, I really was very bossy! [Ah yes, looking back ... way back ... to the year before last!!] But, that year - a new girl came to school - Brooke S., and I was terrified that I was going to lose Betsy. [Well. Last weekend showed us how needless my fears were way back then!] All of a sudden, she was really into boys. I mean, she and Brooke went on a date with two guys! [What?? No memory of any of this.] I didn't spend as much time with Betsy. I don't think I was jealous. [Ya don't???] I was just afraid of losing her.

Betsy fainted that year. This was a big event. She just toppled over in Art. Then, she became a heroine, and everyone would drag her over to the sandbox and say, "Faint again, Betsy!"

EVERYONE joined chorus that year. It was marvelous. ["Marvelous"?? What are you, Joan Crawford??] Chorus was always the highpoint of my week. It was so fun skimming down the hall to the Caf to sing for an hour. And we sang all "Oliver" songs which was great. Betsy, J. and I loved it so much we squealed whenever Mrs. Shay announced the song. And when she announced that the play that year was to be Oliver, I remember leaping out of my seat, arms in the air. We were all SO excited. And we auditioned. Betsy almost knew she was going to be Nancy because she heard Mrs. Shay say so, and I wanted so passionately to be the Artful Dodger that I convinced myself I was perfect for the role, and J. didn't know who she wanted to be.

Then, the day came. We all raced (literally) down the hall and slid into our seats. I remember my heart pounding as I sank low in my seat, suddenly boweled over [I think you mean "bowled over" Sheila. You weren't toppled by a bunch of hurtling bowel movements.] by the fact that I might not get it. I almost burst into tears right then. [And that feeling persists to this day. I have never ever grown out of that kind of passionate WANTING thing that happens] I closed my eyes the whole time she was reading the cast list. Then she said, "Sheila O'Malley ... Artful Dodger" and I screamed and clapped my hand over my mouth. "Betsy ... Nancy ... and J. - Fagin!" I whirled around to gape at J. and J.'s eyes bugged out and she seemed like a rag doll because she slumped in her seat. It was perfect! Three best friends with three leading roles! When we were dismissed row by row, Betsy was out first, then me. Then J. came hurtling out of the room, arms open wide. We all screamed (I mean, really) and threw our arms around each other to dance and cavort around in a circle. What a day.

I could relate to you every single Oliver rehearsal, they are so clear. We got away with murder, but those rehearsals were so much fun. I went through school in a trance of happiness. And it was great, up there performing with all your friends. Of course, we weren't in all the scenes. What did we do, when left alone? Oh, God. The school was always empty and dark. So we explored to our heart's content. Mostly J. and I because Betsy didn't come in until much later scenes and the scenes were split at a certain point. Mrs. Shay did not keep tabs on us at all. We zoomed around. This is not in chronological order. This play happened in June. Anyway, it was positively boiling. I could feel the sweat drip down my back and my chin had sweat dripping off it. It was unbearable. So three of us - me, J. and Jennifer snuck into the kitchen and snooped for so long! We pushed this button and all of a sudden, out of this thing - water was spraying full blast. Such a commotion followed to turn it off. Whenever J. walked by, she'd switch it on and say in this Steve Martin-eyebrows-raised voice, "Hey - wanna take a shower?" We peeked in the refrigerator and lo and behold there was a bucket full of huge chunks of ice. Freezing refreshing ice! We all stared at each other and fearlessly took huge bits. Mmmm, it was good. We took it back into the shadowy caf where rehearsal was going on, and it immediately melted. We snuck into the Nurse's office and gave each other wild rides up and down the school halls in wheelchairs. [I am howling with laughter.] I remember standing up on stage singing and I glanced out the cafeteria door and saw J. zoom by in a wheelchair, legs up, arms out, head back, hair flying. Poor me! I tried so hard to keep from laughing.

J. and I would sneak around backstage. And we discovered this door and we opened it to peer in. Apparently, it was where the janitor unwound. It was a miniscule little place with one armchair, and shelves of magazines. We dashed for them, hoping to find some dirty ones. We squeezed with GREAT difficulty into the chair with a pile of magazines on our laps that we started to go through. We had the BEST time, even though there were no dirty magazines.

And one time, J. was rehearsing one of her songs. She was onstage alone, pacing up and down. And Steve W. (Bill Sikes) was backstage shooting spitballs at her. Now I WISH that I had been in the audience to see this. J., so involved in her song, glanced backstage, saw a spitball flying at her, screamed and "hit the deck". Poor Mrs. Shay. Watching this scene when suddenly her actress throws herself on the floor. Betsy and I were falling all over with laughter backstage.

The performances themselves are too vivid to go into detail with now, because it is past midnight. And one day J. and I didn't have anything to do, and neither did Natasha, so we sat down on some mats and Natasha started telling us about periods. She already had hers, so she was our worldly informer. ["worldly informer" - hahahahahaha] And Natasha kept going, "Well, they have this cardboard applicator that sticks into you" and J. and me were gaping at her and holding our stomachs. I felt so disgusted! So after that J. and I snuck away and ran down to the bathroom where we vowed to tell the other when "it" happened. It was so dumb. The vow went something like this, "We vow to tell each other when 'bleep' (that's what we called it) happens and what it is like. Signing off from CBS News, this is J. and Sheila." We were so dumb!!

The play was finally put on. It was good, but it had pages of fiascoes. First of all, the curtain broke, so two people had to hide behind it and pull it closed. It was really ruining the dramatic ending, because the curtain closed really jerkily and you could see two pairs of feet underneath it, and when it was closed, this finger was sticking out, holding it together. A repercussion of the broken curtain was that this rope dangled down in the center of the stage from somewhere up in the flies. We just had to work around it, but it looked bizarre. Well, of course, something had to happen. Sally G. played a messenger and she ran on stage, faced 'Oliver' and 'Mr Brownlow', said her line, and ran off. Sally decided to take matters into her own hands, and casually grabbed the rope and took it off with her. She made it seem like a totally normal thing for her to be doing. But, alas, alas, when she got offstage it swung out of her hands, flew back onstage, and knocked poor Oliver Twist right in the eye.

And, when Mr Bumble was meandering through the audience singing his long sad song, we were all backstage, trying to move off the orphanage scene quietly. Well, someone tried to carry off this huge stack of bowls and of course they fell. The noise was earth-shattering with bowls rolling and bumping. They weren't breakable, but the whole audience laughed.

Oh, and another thing about rehearsals, there was this really sad ending, and I desperately wanted to be onstage for it. But the ending only involved J. walking sadly off, leaving Bill and Nancy dead behind her. Well, I was pretty headstrong, and I, during rehearsals, stayed onstage anyway, and it was all dark and blue and gloomy with a street lamp, and J. hissed to me, "Mrs. Shay doesn't want you here!" [I am SHAKING with laughter. Sheila: GET OFF THE STAGE. YOU ARE NOT IN THE SCENE.] And since she was wearing a hooded sweatshirt, I said, "I'll hide in your hood." Well, that sent us off into hysterics. We both had this vision of J. (Fagin) slowly trudging offstage with me bouncing along in her hood.

But back to the performances - I did have a pretty good costume. A battered jacket with tails, suede shoes, old tweed pants, and about a million vests and a tie. Anyway, during one of my numbers, I had to do a cartwheel. [I love the following anecdote. I love how I was being SO unprofessional - and Betsy called me on it - ONSTAGE. Now that's a friend!!] I had some problems in this area. The first performance I toppled off the stage and into the chorus. Mass pandemonium. And the second one - I had to stroll onstage counting some money [TWO TOIMES TWO equaows FOW-AH ...] and like a dumbie, I unthinkingly put the coins in my pocket. So when the time came for my cartwheel, I suddenly realized what would happen if I turned over so as we all were dancing, I took the coins out and, still singing, I shoved my hand out behind me towards Jen Q., another of my best friends, for her to take them. She didn't understand, and I was so mean. I glared ferociously at her and she looked terrified because she didn't know what I wanted. As I soft-shoed with Betsy, I sulked as I sang. And Betsy hissed, "What the hell is wrong with you?" But just then, my cartwheel came, and I plunged in. Well, the money flew out all over the stage with a shattering noise. I was almost crying, but I kept going. Jen, the dear, immediaetly ad-libbed and pounced on the coins, as though she really was a greedy little thief. [GOOD for Jen!!! Bravo!]

Being in that play was the crowning glory of my 'career' in elementary school. It made me famous. When I go back to visit, all the little kids know who I am.

Mrs. Dickison was the most popular teacher - she was funny and clever and she put on a Christmas play every year, and she was the leader of the annual gong show that I told you about.

That year I had so much trouble with math. I would slip out of class and sit in the hall crying.

That year I also fell in love passionately - so passionately that it has stuck all the years since. I still have a mild crush. It was on Andrew and it was incredibly severe. He was a long-term neighborhood buddy, and all of a sudden I was madly in love with him. I always think of him as my very first love. It was a glorious year for being in love. [hahahahaha I was 11.] I looked forward to every day and it was terrific because we became friends and he knew I liked him, but that didn't stop him from being so nice to me. I was in heaven! A new girl came to school that year - Michele L. - and she was short and pretty and nice but I had my suspicions about her and Andrew. Nothing was really happening but if Andrew (he was really smart) went over to help Michele with her math or something, Mrs. Dickison would call over to them, "Hey, you two! Can you continue your love affair some other time" and the whole class would laugh. And I would be thinking, "Oh, why can't I be Michele?"

But Andrew and I became really close. During the Christmas play, I won the part of Grace, a young orphan [An orphan! My TRUE first love!!] and he got Dicky, my brother. [Dicky? WTF??] I had the best time at reherasals. There was one scene where I had to strut on stage decked out in a coat and hat and I had to prance around yelling "PARADE! PARADE!" and Andrew had to jump up and pick up my train and cavort around with me. I loved that scene so much and I had so much FUN!

And there was one scene where I had to kiss Keith M. - just a little peck on the cheek, but I dreaded it worse than the plague. I did it, and all the little kids in the audience whistled, but I survived. [Yeah, sounds like a real ordeal there ...] Rehearsals were fun though. The whole class would file down into the Multi-purpose room and Mrs. Dickison would be so busy with directing, that the rest of us would sprawl on the gymnastics mats and talk. And I remember that once we were painting scenery and the rest of the class had gone to get paint or something, so Keith and I were left alone in the Auditorium, drawing some backdrops. And I remember that I had loved my appearance that morning. I was wearing a yellow collar shirt and jeans. I didn't realize that my shirt was rather see-through and I was wearing one of those undershirts with the straps, so I guess it looked like a bra. Now, I had nothing up there then. In fact, Andrew often warmly referred to them as mosquito bites. [My language is killing me here. "warmly referred to them as ...."] You see, every other girl in sixth grade had started to develop, but not me. And Andrew would walk by, calling, "Hey, you better put some band-aids on those mosquito bites!" [Ah, young love!] Anyway, Keith said to me that day in the auditorium - and we were totally alone - "So. Are you wearing a bra, Sheila?" Horrified, I stood up and stalked out of the room, embarrassed and mad. Keith was yelling after me, "I'm sorry! I'm sorry! It just looks like that's a bra!" [This is hilarious. I am so sending this post to Keith today. Little 11 year old flirting!!]

I remember that after Oliver, I came back to class and I sat down and Andrew, with his little lopsided grin, asked me, 'What was your name in that play again?" and I, heart pounding, said, "Artful Dodger" and he went, "No, the other one," and I said, "Oh. Jack Dawkins." And then he laughed. I loved how he laughed. For the rest of the year, he called me "Jackie."

The winter was great, with a lot of snow, and a swamp in the woods froze over, so every day after school I'd go home, get my skates, and tramp down there with the rest of the neighborhood friends. Every single day I'd skate from 3:30 to 5:30 or so. We had so much fun. Katy and Jen. Q. - my best friends since I was five - would be there. We all lived on the same street and were called "The Three Muskateers". Non-stop movement for two hours, and then we'd go back to the Quinn's for something warm to eat or drink. Andrew would be there and he is such a great skater. Even now, at the roller rink, he is very light and easy as he goes backwards, and turns. [Andrew was a great athlete, in general]

It got to be a tradition that we would play Chase and the boys would steal the girls' hats and we'd have to try and get them back. Andrew ALWAYS stole MY hat, nobody else's - and no matter how hard I tried I could not get it back. I would zoom after him and suddenly, in a flash, he would twirl around and be skating off the other way. The swamp was a gorgeous place to skate. The little streams through the woods had also frozen, so we could skate along the ice through the fairy-land snowy forest. There was a thin tree rising out of the ice, and we would grab onto it and twirl around it. And there was one triumphant day when I got Andrew's hat. I reached out my arm as he twirled around the tree, and snatched his black and yellow Bruin's hat. I was ecstatic!! I tore off, clutching it to me, but he was right behind me. He was much faster, so he passed me, and twirled around so he was facing me. Then he stopped abruptly, and I smashed into him, and both of us teetered and fell, all tangled up. I was holding the hat under me, so he was tugging at my arms and sitting on me. I started to get cold and so I wriggled away from him and zoomed off. I raced through the ice path, tore around the corner and there was this enormous crowd of boys waiting for me. They pounced on me. I swear, I was on the bottom of this pile of boys. I was laughing so hard. Of course, they got the hat. All of it was good-natured, except one jerk kept kicking me in the arm with his skate. [Yup. There's always one douchebag who ruins any good-natured fun.] It hurt, that sharp blade. After laughing, I started to cry - because that jerk was kicking me and I couldn't get away - I was yelling, "GET OFF ME!" Andrew, my hero, pulled me out from under the crowd - and I skated off to the side. I pulled up my jacket to look at my arm and it was all cut up and purple. I was fuming, because I had been having fun. So the next time the jerk skated by me, I put out my foot and tripped him - watched him topple into the weeds, and laughed out loud and pointed at him. My day improved after that.

Hockey shadow

My good friend Emily has posted a phenomenal photograph on her blog. Hard to believe it's even real. Isn't it beautiful??

“I almost never say no to anything."

A wonderful article about actress Kate Burton - who also (coincidentally) was a "regular" at the Williamstown Theatre Festival during the reign of Nikos Psacharapoulos (the dude I mentioned so much yesterday - and her husband was also the director of the festival. Wonderful actress (you might know her as the mother with Alzheimer's on Grey's Anatomy) - but it's her stage work that I really admire. Her Hedda Gabler is one of those performances I will always be sorry I missed. An actress dreams of getting such reviews. I just like her practicality, her love of what she is doing, and her fearlessness. Great article.

Two run-ins with bigwigs

Caitlin, Patrick and I were walking down the hall. We were the only people on that floor - EXCEPT for a certain big-wig, an actor who is famous, and plays the lead in whatever movie he is in. He has an office on that floor, so we could hear him playing electric guitar through the door, talking to himself, singing - and occasionally we could hear him playing basketball with the little hoop he has on the door. It's his creative process. But there are times when it feels like we are living in a college dorm all over again. Occasionally, big-wig makes an appearance, and he's very nice, silly, laidback - but for the most part, he is holed up in his office, doing whatever he needs to do to write his latest script, or whatever it is he is doing in there.

Yesterday the three of us were walking down the hall. And I cannot explain WHY I behaved the way I did - but it has to do with a running joke we all have: I squatted over, and teetered along on crippled legs, jutting my arms out akimbo - with odd slashing gestures - and I began to recite the multiplication table in a strong ridiculous Cockney accent. The reason WHY we find all of this funny, and it's become a "bit" is far too involved to recount. Basically you need to imagine the Artful Dodger doing his multiplication tables, in order to count up the money he has stolen that day. The accent needs to be huge, overblown, and not at all realistic.

"Two TOIMES TWO equals FOW-AH. FOW-ah TOIMES FOW-AH equa-ows sixteen. Fagan knows Oi brough' in FIFteen so 'dat meens FOIVE TOIMES FOIVE equa-ows twentee-FOIVE ..." etc. Your math doesn't need to make sense - it's all about the accent, the behavior.

We howl with laughter about this. So Caitlin, Patrick and I were walking down the hall - and I was in the process of doing that - and I was totally into it - doing it 100% - and Caitlin and Patrick were HOWLING - and suddenly, from out of the bathroom to our left, comes big-wig - I didn't even see him, so involved was I in my Artful Dodger arithmetic caculations - and big-wig silently and respectfully walked the other way back to his office, presumably to pick up his electric guitar again. Caitlin and Patrick were DYING - because all big-wig knew is that the woman who shares his floor, who has the office next to his - had suddenly, inexplicably, become a staggering Cockney dwarf, robotically babbling out the multiplication tables as she galumphs down the empty hallway. Like: uhm ... what the hell is going on there? Nope. I won't ask. I will just very quietly walk the other way.

20 minutes later, Caitlin and I get in the elevator. And amazingly, Big Wig #2 joined us. I hadn't even known he was on that floor at that time -he's kind of like Willy Wonka. You almost never see him. Any "sightings" of Big Wig #2 are reported to one another, because it's such a rarity. Big Wig #2 is as big as they come. Major famous. Like, millionaire famous, mogul famous. So he and another guy get into the elevator with us. We ride down in silence. I'm kind of "over" the seeing-celebs thing at this point - but it still gave me a start, because he is almost like a ghost on that floor ... does he even exist? Nobody spoke as we rode down. The elevator doors opened. Big Wig #2 and his good-looking friend (who probably was famous as well, but I didn't get a good look at him) hung back to let the ladies off the elevator first. Very nice. Caitlin and I moved past and as we did so - Big Wig #2 started up the conversation that obviously had halted when they were in a public elevator (you have to be very very careful what you talk about ... because you never know who will be listening). And God, i SO wanted to hang back and eavesdrop ... because what he said was, "My issue with the strike is ...."

DAMMIT. What was the rest of his sentence??

I have friends on strike. I have friends who work for Big Wig #2. I so wanted to hear the end of that sentence! But alas, it was not meant to be.

At least Big Wig #2 didn't see me cackling and staggering along in some Rainman-mathematical fugue state, babbling in a Cockney accent. My career might never recover.

Duelling limericks

Ernie and David Yezzi are duelling with limericks. And it's timed. Like chess in Washington Square Park. As I read, each one got funnier to me. The "Exploring their own qeuelquechose" line made me laugh out loud.

The Books: "Misery" (Stephen King)

Next book on my adult fiction shelves:

Misery by Stephen King

I love it when Stephen King writes about writers. It excites me. Sometimes when a writer writes about a writer - it's either self-congratulatory, or boring - the "stuff" of their life is not interesting enough to make a good book, but they cannot write about anything else. It's like a rock star who becomes so huge that eventually all he can do is write songs about being on a tour bus, and the cocaine and fast women fame brings him. I mean, that's fine - The Eagles have written a ton of good songs in that realm - so has Eminem - but you can tell that the scope of their lives has closed down a bit ... there is nothing to write about now but fame, and themselves as famous people. Sometimes books about writers have that feel. But to me, Stephen King never does. Maybe because he has been so successful in a certain "genre" (which will become very important in Misery - because Paul, too, has made his name in a genre of writing - romance novels) - but for whatever reason, his books where writing comes into play are among my favorites. I love it when he gets personal. Because I think King holds the key to a lot of the mystery of writing (something I am very interested in): how does a man produce so much?? How does he write so much? What is his discipline? How does he do it? Does he sit down every day? Does he have a specific writing time? I am amazed by his output and by, generally, how good much of it is. Yes, he could definitely be edited more - but I am not as much interested in the final product as I am interested in his process. Because it is no small thing, what he has accomplished. It is extraordinary. He IS a writer. He lives it. Misery, in that sense, is King's most personal novel.

Because so much of it is a battle not between Paul and Annie Wilkes (his lunatic biggest fan) - but a battle between Paul and the typewriter. Paul and his own imagination. Paul and writer's block. It's just GREAT. Anyone who has ever sat there, staring at a blank page, knowing you have to fill it up - even if you're a real writer and trying to write a novel, a screenplay, a poem ... or if you have to finish a paper in college, or grad school ... that feeling of terror, of having to create something out of nothing ... NO ONE will write it for you. It MUST come from your mind. But ... where does one start? How does one begin? Misery is about the terror Paul feels being trapped by Annie Wilkes, yes. But on a deeper level, it is about the terror of the blank page. I love that. That's why i chose the excerpt I did.

Paul is a famous romance-novel writer. His big success is the "Misery" series - a typical bodice-ripping melodrama, and the heroine, a fiery black-haired goddess, is named Misery. Paul, though, is sick of Misery. He is sick of the whole thing and feels he needs to end the series, and move on with his writing career. Do something new. Misery needs to die. Paul is in a horrible car accident on a snowy road in Maine - and his body is badly mangled up. He is "rescued" by a woman who finds him ... who turns out to be Annie Wilkes, a crazy lady who lives by herself - who is obsessed with the Misery books. And in her mind, Misery MUST NOT DIE. He needs to write another book, and it must be called "Misery's Return". Meanwhile, Paul is an invalid - his legs don't work - he has not been to the hospital at all - so he is in agony, and Annie, to put it mildly, is terrifying. It's the terror of being in the presence of someone who does not know the difference between reality and fiction. Misery is Annie's dearest love. She doesn't just read the books. She lives them. And yes, it's awesome to have fans who believe so deeply ... but it's best if you never meet these people - or if you do meet them, keep it confined to a book signing where you can skip around the crazies if need be. Annie Wilkes orders him to write another book. Meanwhile, it is obvious that Paul needs medical care. But she has set up a booby-trapped house - he can't get to the phone, he can't do anything ... It's one of the most infuriating books I have ever read. Like: Bitch, let me OUT of your house. That horrifying feeling of being helpless, trapped ... But she means business. Now that she has him, she will refuse to let him go.

If you remember the book, you know how bad things get. Annie Wilkes is not just crazy, but she's dangerous. Paul, to placate her, begins to write Misery's Return - but it goes so against his artistic sensibility - like: no, I am DONE with Misery. You can't write a book to-order. You have to move on when the "muse" tells you to move on. But here - Annie Wilkes becomes the muse. The demanding muse. Write THIS. So Paul, struggling with the agony in his legs, and his invalid state ... has to write the book that Annie wants, if he wants to have a shot at surviving. It's not easy. How do you write when you are SO not in the mood? I struggle with that myself. But I learned from Madeleine L'Engle that: if you wait for inspiration, you might never get started. The point is to write every day. That way you are preparing the ground, so to speak, for inspiration to land. It's quite prosaic. You are not in a high-flying state of imaginative creation ... you sit down, and you write. And maybe once in a while you write something that's good. It's like you don't have to be "in the mood" to have great sex. It's awesome if you are "in the mood" - nothing better - but sometimes, once you're THERE, even if you weren't originally "in the mood" - it becomes something even better.

Paul has to show Annie what he has written at the end of each day - and she is a harsh critic. She is every writer's worst nightmare (but - in a strange way, she's also someone you DREAM of attracting - someone who is THAT into what you have created?? It's a compliment, in a weird way). But it's not like she's a passive reader. Oh, no. She has opinions about everything. She runs Paul ragged. How do you write with that nagging voice in your ear at all times? Again, I think King is being very personal here. We all have our "Annie Wilkes'" - even if it's just a voice in our heads. The voice saying, in a neverending refrain, "That's not good enough." "You'll never be good enough." "Who do you think you are?" "You suck."

And it is THAT that artists have to grapple with. To me, the deeper analogy of the book is clear. Annie Wilkes is not a typical movie-monster, although she is terrifying. Madness un-medicated and un-diagnosed. But she is also the demon of self-hatred that stalks many of us - especially when we want to sit down and create something. Or when we want to CHANGE the pattern of our self-expression - as Paul is trying to do. King has obviously been enormously successful - and anything he writes will be published now - he is not so much "trapped" by the genre that made his name - although maybe that's not quite true. Maybe he does feel pigeon-holed unfairly, who knows. But when a writer (or a musician - uhm, Dylan going electric), or an actor - decides to change their persona, their expression - it is often greeted with howls of protest, and not just protest but rage: "Who does that person think he is?" That's what I think King is really expressing in Misery - and that's why I find it to be his most personal book.

Here's an excerpt.

EXCERPT FROM Misery by Stephen King

Paul looked at the typewriter. The typewriter was there. N's! He had never realized how many n's there were in an average line of type.

I thought you were supposed to be good, the typewriter said - his mind had invested it with a sneering and yet callow voice: the voice of a teenage-gunslinger in a Hollywood western, a kid intent on making a fast reputation here in Deadwood. You're not so good. Hell, you can't even please one crazy overweight ex-nurse. Maybe you broke your writing bone in that crash, too ... only that bone isn't healing.

He leaned back as far as the wheelchair would allow and closed his eyes. Her rejection of what he had written would be easier to bear if he could blame it on the pain, but the truth was that the pain had finally begun to subside a little.

The stolen pills were safely tucked away between the mattress and the box spring. He had taken none of them - knowing he had them put aside, a form of Annie-insurance, was enough. She would find them if she took it into her head to turn the mattress, he supposed, but that was a chance he was prepared to take.

There had been no trouble between them since the blowup over the typewriter paper. His medication came regularly, and he took it. He wondered if she knew he was hooked on the stuff.

Hey, come on now, Paul, that's a bit of a dramatization, isn't it?

No, it wasn't. Three nights ago, when he was sure she was upstairs, he had sneaked one of the sample boxes out and had read everything on the label, although he supposed he had read everything he needed when he saw what Norvil's principal ingredient was. Maybe you spelled relief R-O-L-A-I-D-S, but you spelled Norvil C-O-D-E-I-N-E.

The fact is, you're healing up, Paul. Below the knees your legs look like a four-year-old's stick-drawing, but you are healing up. You could get by on aspirin or Empirin now. It's not you that needs the Norvil; you're feeding it to the monkey.

He would have to cut down, have to duck some of the caps. Until he could do that, she would have him on a chain as well as in a wheelchair - a chain of Norvil capsules.

Okay. I'll duck one of the two capsules she gives me every other time she brings them. I'll put it under my tongue when I swallow the other one, then stick it under my mattress with the other pills when she takes the drinking glass out. Only not today. I don't feel ready to start today. I'll start tomorrow.

Now in his mind he heard the voice of the Red Queen lecturing Alice: Down here we get our act clean yesterday, and we plan to start getting our act clean tomorrow, but we never clean up our act today.

Ho-ho, Paulie, you're a real riot, the typewriter said in the tough gunsel's voice he had made up for it.

"Us dirty birdies are never all that funny, but we never stop trying - you have to give us that," he muttered.

Well, you better start thinking about all the dope you are taking, Paul. You better start thinking about it very seriously.

He decided suddenly, on the spur of the moment, that he would start dodging some of the medication as soon as he got a first chapter that Annie liked on paper - a chapter which Annie decided wasn't a cheat.

Part of him - the part that listened to even the best, fairest editorial suggestions with ill-grace - protested that the woman was crazy, that there was no way to tell what she might or might not accept; that anything he tried would be only a crapshoot.

But another part - a far more sensible part - disagreed. He would know the real stuff when he found it. The real stuff would make the crap he had given Annie to read last night, the crap it had taken him three days and false starts without number to write, look like a dog turd sitting next to a silver dollar. Hadn't he known it was all wrong? It wasn't like him to labor so painfully, not to half-fill a wastebasket with random jottings or half-pages which ended with lines like 'Misery turned to him, eyes shining, lips murmuring the magic words Oh you numb shithead THIS ISN'T WORKING AT ALL!!!!" He had chalked it off to the pain and to being in a situation where he was not just writing for his supper but for his life. Those ideas had been nothing but plausible lies. The fact was, things had gone badly because he was cheating and he had known it himself.

Well, she saw through you, shit-for-brains, the typewriter said in its nasty, insolent voice. Didn't she? So what are you going to do now?

He didn't know, but he supposed he would have to something, and in a hurry. He hadn't cared for her mood this morning. He supposed he should count himself lucky that she hadn't re-broken his legs with a baseball bat or given him a battery-acid manicure or something similar to indicate her displeasure with the way he had begun her book - such critical responses were always possible, given Annie's unique view of the world. If he got out of this alive, he thought he might drop Christopher Hale a note. Hale reviewed books for the New York Times. The note would say: "Whenever my editor called me up and told me you were planning to review one of my books in the daily Times, my knees used to knock together - you gave me some good ones, Chris old buddy, but you also torpedoed me more than once, as you well know. Anyway, I just wanted to tell you to go ahead and do your worst - I've discovered a whole new critical mode, my friend. We might call it the Colorado Barbecue and Floor-Bucket school of thought. It makes the stuff you guys do look about as scary as a ride on the Central Park carousel."

This is all very amusing, Paul, writing critics little billet-doux in one's head is always good for a giggle, but you really ought to find yourself a pot and get it boiling, don't you think?

Yes. Yes indeed.

The typewriter sat there, smirking at him.

"I hate you," Paul said morosely, and looked out the window.