Seasonal Affective Disorder is the name hypochondriacs have bestowed upon their reflexive dislike of the end of November. It is apparently the result of overproduction of melatonin, a sleep-related hormone that the brain secretes from the pineal gland when it's dark out. If the brain could be convinced to output even more melatonin, we might all hibernate through the winter. Hibernation would make us all happier, especially as we would then be obligated to devour potato chips and milkshakes all autumn.
Winter depression was elevated to Disorder status in the early 1980s by National Institute of Mental Health researcher Norman Rosenthal. I bet Norm and his colleagues were pretty thrilled by their acronym, SAD. I wonder how many other catchy names they tried. I'm guessing they started with Pinealic Enhanced Sleepy Sadness Induced by Melatonin In Snowy Months (PESSIMISM) and moved on from there.
You'd think that I would love the winter. My ancestors are all from chilly parts of Europe, many from isolated bits of Russia where they wear fur and drink vodka and slap each other on the back making hearty "brrrr" noises. The cold should unearth happy ancestral memories from out of my DNA, make me smile a great polar bear grin and go romping naked in the white snow under the gray skies before I come back to my senses.
Instead I lock myself up in a room with glaring artificial lights and play games of hearts on the computer. You can shoot the moon, over and over again, for an entire game of computer hearts. During November I sometimes wish I could shoot the moon, just to wipe the knowing smirk off its glowing face. "Yeah," I'd gloat, as it oozed blue cheese through the stratosphere and onto the sidewalk, "If I could float above the clouds, far out of the reach of the knife-cold wind, I'd radiate too." And then, glaring at it, I'd suddenly notice how pockmarked its face was, once your eyes adjust to the glow. The moonshine is just a cover, a furtive bathtub gin that can make even the stoutest Russian forget a lifetime of punishing abuse. Goodnight moon.
See, Seasonal Affective Disorder will drop you like that. You're on top of the world, taking out satellites, and next thing you know you're huddled in a dirty booth in a greasy diner, eating potato chips and chugging milkshakes.
Wednesday, November 30, 2005
McClintic Goes to a Cubicle
"Oh, but let me tell you, I just love quiet at night. There's this comic I saw of this woman sitting in this wine-dark chair -- my chair is in fact the color of red wine -- and over her head is a sign that says 'coffee' and there's a cat by her feet and she's reading a book. That's exactly me at night. My husband, we have that Lehrer guy on at night, we just have it going, but it's just chatter, talk talk talk, and after a while I can't stand it. I just want quiet. My husband can't believe that I just finished a book and am started on another one. He tells me to take a break, but what am I gonna do?"
"Do you drink coffee at night?"
"Sometimes I drink coffee, or tea, although I drink an awful lot of diet lemon-lime soda. And I have to admit, I just love playing games on the computer. Bridge, solitaire, there's this game that you play with yourself, I don't remember what it's called, but it just makes the most wonderful sound, it has this wonderful sound of falling water."
"I like Pac-man."
"Now I find pac-man too fast. Those guys are so little on the computer and I can't keep up. But at the arcade that was the only game I played. At Detroit Metro Airport they used to have pac-man and I used to play while waiting for my flights. I just loved it. I love watching them run around and the sounds the game makes."
Outside, there's snow on the cars. There's work to do, data to enter, diseases to take care of, people to talk to, forms to be processed. Outside, it's cold. There's winter on the windows, gray sky-screen, green coniferous. Inside, computers hum. It's like being around family. The bright beautiful constancy. When I turn it off, it sighs sadly. It seems that, outside, everything is outrageously peaceful, and, true, I almost envy the stillness. Not really wanting to go anywhere because right here's just fine thanks because things tend to come along of their own sweet accord.
"Do you drink coffee at night?"
"Sometimes I drink coffee, or tea, although I drink an awful lot of diet lemon-lime soda. And I have to admit, I just love playing games on the computer. Bridge, solitaire, there's this game that you play with yourself, I don't remember what it's called, but it just makes the most wonderful sound, it has this wonderful sound of falling water."
"I like Pac-man."
"Now I find pac-man too fast. Those guys are so little on the computer and I can't keep up. But at the arcade that was the only game I played. At Detroit Metro Airport they used to have pac-man and I used to play while waiting for my flights. I just loved it. I love watching them run around and the sounds the game makes."
Outside, there's snow on the cars. There's work to do, data to enter, diseases to take care of, people to talk to, forms to be processed. Outside, it's cold. There's winter on the windows, gray sky-screen, green coniferous. Inside, computers hum. It's like being around family. The bright beautiful constancy. When I turn it off, it sighs sadly. It seems that, outside, everything is outrageously peaceful, and, true, I almost envy the stillness. Not really wanting to go anywhere because right here's just fine thanks because things tend to come along of their own sweet accord.
Tuesday, November 29, 2005
The Cosmos
Odd characterization of McClinctic Sphere, named after Thelonious Sphere Monk, legendary and "iconoclastic" (according to a practice SAT test I took in high school) piano player who pioneered a style called, curiously, BEBOP. Oddly, Thelonious sounds like he can't play, but he sounds clumsily good. Because turns out he really can play and his pretending not to able to is his way of asserting his dominance, as if to say, "I could play like a virtuoso for you if I wanted. Instead I'm going to try and make music." So McClintic, on taking his practice SAT test so as to get into a good college so as to acquire universal admiration manifested in a collective pat-on-the-back that knocks him over, so as to, indeed, so, when he reads this practice question he doesn't answer anything else, for he realizes his birthright, his namesake, so to speak, which is to be musically legendary and iconoclastic. That's when he starts playing his saxophone ad nauseam. He goes away into a sort of hiding, stops bathing and dressing for the most part, and toots away in the woodshed that is his bedroom, skipping school, first learning from the past masters but then going his own funny way --- not funny as in ha-ha, but funny as in peculiar --- until he sounds like a perverse mix of Ornette Coleman and a cricket. Indeed, according to him, and to the other few visionaries in the world, this IS music, and he makes it without joy or despair, as if he is making a dinner of rice and beans. And to those that spurn him, he says, "Fuckin' A!"
Sunday, November 13, 2005
MCCLINTIC ATTENDS HIS COUSIN'S DAUGHTER'S 3RD BIRTHDAY PARTY
I arrive in a bad mood, and decide to sit on the couch, not talk to anyone, and stare at the football game on the big screen TV. I'm quite happy to do this.
Charu, an attractive married family friend with one daughter, comes into the living room munching on pistachios and tells my father and me a joke. I reluctantly listen, largely because she's attractive (I used to flirt with her back before I was convinced that she wouldn't leave the box). She tells about half of it in English, and half in Punjabi, but I get the gist, which is that there is this man who is making a cross-country bus trip and is squirming in his seat the whole way. When someone asks him why he's squirming, he looks in his pants and finds an ant. Very angry, he broods on how he will punish it. Killing it instantly would be too easy. He wants to make it suffer. Charu's punchline is bipartite, which to me seems to be her first mistake. She delivers it in awkward rapid-fire: first he tells the ant to walk back across the country, then he changes his mind and makes it live in Detroit. She erupts in high-pitched machine-gun laughter, and my father in low-pitched. They look to me for my reaction. I find the joke unfunny. Nonetheless I force out something that resembles a laugh, but also a cough, gag, grunt, or snort. I think I need to recalibrate.
My father has one of his own. "What do rednecks do for Halloween?"
No one knows a thing.
"Pump kin."
This I like immensely. Everyone except Charu laughs.
Then my cousin's husband, Arun, father of birthday girl Anushka, sits next to me, slaps my thigh, and says, "So McClintic, tell me about hepatitis A. How is it spread?" Arun has a bushy mustache and wears glasses. He's on his way to India tomorrow, and stacked with pathogen prophylaxis.
I savor the explanation. "The transmission is fecal-oral."
I leave it out there in the open air, trusting that someone will riff on it in some way. Unsurprisingly, it's my father, who tells Arun that what this means is that you do not buy samosas from the samosa vendor who goes to the bathroom, doesn't wash his hands, then rolls samosa dough on his thigh. Everyone laughs again. I realize that I enjoy scatology. "Don't eat samosas that are made in the bathroom," I add, probably unnecessarily.
The gauche talk ceases when the kids -- there are six of them, ranging from 2 years to 10 years old -- come into the living room in a dense group to play "Put the Round Pink Circle on the Clown's Nose." It's a variation of "Pin the Tail on the Donkey," I guess. The kids take turns blindfolding themselves and finding the clown poster. One of them, a short 2 year old with a small head and huge eyes who looks like an amalgamation of Chauncey Billups, Carlos Arroyo, and my dad's colleague manages to place the circle directly on the clown's crotch. The birthday girl, a good Hindu, puts it on his forehead. Aseem, a tall 10 year-old, places it on his head. In the end, no one gets it perfectly, so they all get candy.
I enjoy watching the kids go for the elusive nose. The game seems simple and pleasureable, so much so that I almost want to participate. The whole thing is a welcome diversion from the adult talk that has sprung up in all corners of the house. Some dude I don't know, who probably thinks I don't know anyone and am lonely, introduces himself forcefully. For a moment I think he's going to stab me, and I flinch. We exchange names, then neither of us says another word. The kids are pretty and having fun. I spend the next twenty minutes being amused by them.
Then I smell dinner. I fill my plate. I take an almost religious pleasure in the food. Chick peas, mattar paneer, roti, chicken, rice, other stuff. Most likely all really bad for you, but incredibly good. I stare at it longingly and lovingly. With everyone else engaged in similarly devoted forms of eating, the place takes on a silent, meditative quality.
But, quickly, sadly, it's over. Full, I get sleepy and doze off. When I wake up, I hear people talking about how nice some wife is to some husband, how she fixes his outfits for the week and how they have such a good relationship, how they're good friends, how they care about each other, etc., and I feel the doom-and-gloom descending again like a bold gray cloud. I take a pillow and lie down on the floor. I glance at the TV. I glance at the clown poster. Someone has placed the circle perfectly on his nose. It seems way too late to me, and the rest of the night becomes a dazed series of agreeable expressions.
The only thing I remember is when Anushka sits in front of her cake with a big "3" on it and we sing to her and then she spits on the candle and cuts the cake and scoops up a little icing with her finger and sucks it clean. She has a round face with fat cheeks. She's wearing a pink flowerly dress and a pink tiara. We clap and we kiss her, take pictures of her, and she looks out of the corner of her eye at us a little bit shyly and then lowers her head into her chest. Then she giggles, jumps up and down, and looks delighted.
"Anushka, tell everyone how old you are," someone says.
She looks at her mother. "Tee," she says sheepishly.
Tee! Tee! Everyone repeats it at least once. Then cake! Cake! Everyone eat cake! The portions (big cubes), plates, forks, ice cream (mango kulfi), are parceled out quickly, and quickly, and quietly again, we go for the fat.
Charu, an attractive married family friend with one daughter, comes into the living room munching on pistachios and tells my father and me a joke. I reluctantly listen, largely because she's attractive (I used to flirt with her back before I was convinced that she wouldn't leave the box). She tells about half of it in English, and half in Punjabi, but I get the gist, which is that there is this man who is making a cross-country bus trip and is squirming in his seat the whole way. When someone asks him why he's squirming, he looks in his pants and finds an ant. Very angry, he broods on how he will punish it. Killing it instantly would be too easy. He wants to make it suffer. Charu's punchline is bipartite, which to me seems to be her first mistake. She delivers it in awkward rapid-fire: first he tells the ant to walk back across the country, then he changes his mind and makes it live in Detroit. She erupts in high-pitched machine-gun laughter, and my father in low-pitched. They look to me for my reaction. I find the joke unfunny. Nonetheless I force out something that resembles a laugh, but also a cough, gag, grunt, or snort. I think I need to recalibrate.
My father has one of his own. "What do rednecks do for Halloween?"
No one knows a thing.
"Pump kin."
This I like immensely. Everyone except Charu laughs.
Then my cousin's husband, Arun, father of birthday girl Anushka, sits next to me, slaps my thigh, and says, "So McClintic, tell me about hepatitis A. How is it spread?" Arun has a bushy mustache and wears glasses. He's on his way to India tomorrow, and stacked with pathogen prophylaxis.
I savor the explanation. "The transmission is fecal-oral."
I leave it out there in the open air, trusting that someone will riff on it in some way. Unsurprisingly, it's my father, who tells Arun that what this means is that you do not buy samosas from the samosa vendor who goes to the bathroom, doesn't wash his hands, then rolls samosa dough on his thigh. Everyone laughs again. I realize that I enjoy scatology. "Don't eat samosas that are made in the bathroom," I add, probably unnecessarily.
The gauche talk ceases when the kids -- there are six of them, ranging from 2 years to 10 years old -- come into the living room in a dense group to play "Put the Round Pink Circle on the Clown's Nose." It's a variation of "Pin the Tail on the Donkey," I guess. The kids take turns blindfolding themselves and finding the clown poster. One of them, a short 2 year old with a small head and huge eyes who looks like an amalgamation of Chauncey Billups, Carlos Arroyo, and my dad's colleague manages to place the circle directly on the clown's crotch. The birthday girl, a good Hindu, puts it on his forehead. Aseem, a tall 10 year-old, places it on his head. In the end, no one gets it perfectly, so they all get candy.
I enjoy watching the kids go for the elusive nose. The game seems simple and pleasureable, so much so that I almost want to participate. The whole thing is a welcome diversion from the adult talk that has sprung up in all corners of the house. Some dude I don't know, who probably thinks I don't know anyone and am lonely, introduces himself forcefully. For a moment I think he's going to stab me, and I flinch. We exchange names, then neither of us says another word. The kids are pretty and having fun. I spend the next twenty minutes being amused by them.
Then I smell dinner. I fill my plate. I take an almost religious pleasure in the food. Chick peas, mattar paneer, roti, chicken, rice, other stuff. Most likely all really bad for you, but incredibly good. I stare at it longingly and lovingly. With everyone else engaged in similarly devoted forms of eating, the place takes on a silent, meditative quality.
But, quickly, sadly, it's over. Full, I get sleepy and doze off. When I wake up, I hear people talking about how nice some wife is to some husband, how she fixes his outfits for the week and how they have such a good relationship, how they're good friends, how they care about each other, etc., and I feel the doom-and-gloom descending again like a bold gray cloud. I take a pillow and lie down on the floor. I glance at the TV. I glance at the clown poster. Someone has placed the circle perfectly on his nose. It seems way too late to me, and the rest of the night becomes a dazed series of agreeable expressions.
The only thing I remember is when Anushka sits in front of her cake with a big "3" on it and we sing to her and then she spits on the candle and cuts the cake and scoops up a little icing with her finger and sucks it clean. She has a round face with fat cheeks. She's wearing a pink flowerly dress and a pink tiara. We clap and we kiss her, take pictures of her, and she looks out of the corner of her eye at us a little bit shyly and then lowers her head into her chest. Then she giggles, jumps up and down, and looks delighted.
"Anushka, tell everyone how old you are," someone says.
She looks at her mother. "Tee," she says sheepishly.
Tee! Tee! Everyone repeats it at least once. Then cake! Cake! Everyone eat cake! The portions (big cubes), plates, forks, ice cream (mango kulfi), are parceled out quickly, and quickly, and quietly again, we go for the fat.
Tuesday, November 08, 2005
Monday, November 07, 2005
Larissa MacFarquhar on John Ashbery / Nonstop service to Atlanta
"It's late already, five or five-thirty. John Ashbery is sitting at his typewriter but not typing. He picks up his cup of tea and takes two small sips because it's still quite hot. He puts it down. He's supposed to write some poetry today."
The young couple occupying 13E and 13F barely sit down before they whip out identical manila folders. Each contains the other's resume. I think they're resumes, rather than CVs, because I imagine CVs are less bullet-pointed, more narrative. I'm not sure though, since the only job I've ever applied for, namely bussing dishes at a crap country-club in the Allentown suburbs, required neither.
"He woke up pretty late this morning and has been futzing around ever since. He had some coffee. He read the newspaper. He dipped into a couple of books: a Proust biography that he bought five years ago but just started reading because it suddenly occurred to him to do so, a novel by Jean Rhys that he recently came across in a secondhand bookstore--he's not a systematic reader."
Her name is Christin, which bothers me. She wears a ring that supports a monstrous diamond. I'm not sure what his name is, but he wears a longsleeve green shirt and has no earlobes.
"He flipped on the television and watched half of something dumb. He didn't feel up to leaving the apartment--it was muggy and putrid out, even for New York in the summer. He was aware of a low-level but continuous feeling of anxiety connected with the fact that he hadn't started writing yet and didn't have an idea."
During the twenty minutes before we start taxiing from the gate, the five minutes when we taxi back up to the gate after the captain notices we've left some luggage behind on the tarmac, and the first forty-seven minutes of the flight, Christin and her husband intensely edit their resumes. They both work for Ford, she as a Marketing and Communications Specialist, he as a Product Marketing and Cross-Vehicle Planning/Strategy Manager. I suspect that he has fabricated his job title.
"His mind flitted about. He thought about a Jean Helion painting that he'd seen recently at a show. He considered whether he should order in dinner again from a newish Indian restaurant on Ninth Avenue that he likes. (He won't go out. He's seventy-eight. He doesn't often go out these days.)"
Christin edits with a ferocity that startles the men on both sides of her. "I don't think you need to butcher that section like you're trying to," her husband complains. I read the New Yorker. "Do you happen to know what the American sales volume was?" she asks (her husband, not me). "It's in dealer profits, right?" Then, sulkier: "Your first bullet point was a run-on sentence."
"On a trip to the bathroom he noticed that he needed a haircut. He talked on the phone to a poet friend who was sick."
"That's a key accomplishment!" Mr. No-Earlobes protests. He has a B.A. from M.S.U.. He flips Christin's resume face-down on his tray-table angrily, hissing, "I think we should take a break from this and try again later." She disagrees. "You can write down whatever you want," he says, turning to stare fixedly out the window. She does, finally ceasing her crossing-out and re-bulleting to turn her attention to a paperback copy of "Diary of a Mad Bride." One of the diary entries read, "Antonio the architect. I forgot how good he looks wet." Her husband reads the SkyMall catalog. Forwards, then backwards, then forwards again.
"By five o'clock, though, there was no avoiding the fact that he had only an hour or so left before the working day would be over, so he put a CD in the stereo and sat down at his desk. He sees that there's a tiny spot on the wall that he's never noticed before. It's only going to take him half an hour or forty minutes to whip out something short once he gets going, but getting going, that's the hard part."
The young couple occupying 13E and 13F barely sit down before they whip out identical manila folders. Each contains the other's resume. I think they're resumes, rather than CVs, because I imagine CVs are less bullet-pointed, more narrative. I'm not sure though, since the only job I've ever applied for, namely bussing dishes at a crap country-club in the Allentown suburbs, required neither.
"He woke up pretty late this morning and has been futzing around ever since. He had some coffee. He read the newspaper. He dipped into a couple of books: a Proust biography that he bought five years ago but just started reading because it suddenly occurred to him to do so, a novel by Jean Rhys that he recently came across in a secondhand bookstore--he's not a systematic reader."
Her name is Christin, which bothers me. She wears a ring that supports a monstrous diamond. I'm not sure what his name is, but he wears a longsleeve green shirt and has no earlobes.
"He flipped on the television and watched half of something dumb. He didn't feel up to leaving the apartment--it was muggy and putrid out, even for New York in the summer. He was aware of a low-level but continuous feeling of anxiety connected with the fact that he hadn't started writing yet and didn't have an idea."
During the twenty minutes before we start taxiing from the gate, the five minutes when we taxi back up to the gate after the captain notices we've left some luggage behind on the tarmac, and the first forty-seven minutes of the flight, Christin and her husband intensely edit their resumes. They both work for Ford, she as a Marketing and Communications Specialist, he as a Product Marketing and Cross-Vehicle Planning/Strategy Manager. I suspect that he has fabricated his job title.
"His mind flitted about. He thought about a Jean Helion painting that he'd seen recently at a show. He considered whether he should order in dinner again from a newish Indian restaurant on Ninth Avenue that he likes. (He won't go out. He's seventy-eight. He doesn't often go out these days.)"
Christin edits with a ferocity that startles the men on both sides of her. "I don't think you need to butcher that section like you're trying to," her husband complains. I read the New Yorker. "Do you happen to know what the American sales volume was?" she asks (her husband, not me). "It's in dealer profits, right?" Then, sulkier: "Your first bullet point was a run-on sentence."
"On a trip to the bathroom he noticed that he needed a haircut. He talked on the phone to a poet friend who was sick."
"That's a key accomplishment!" Mr. No-Earlobes protests. He has a B.A. from M.S.U.. He flips Christin's resume face-down on his tray-table angrily, hissing, "I think we should take a break from this and try again later." She disagrees. "You can write down whatever you want," he says, turning to stare fixedly out the window. She does, finally ceasing her crossing-out and re-bulleting to turn her attention to a paperback copy of "Diary of a Mad Bride." One of the diary entries read, "Antonio the architect. I forgot how good he looks wet." Her husband reads the SkyMall catalog. Forwards, then backwards, then forwards again.
"By five o'clock, though, there was no avoiding the fact that he had only an hour or so left before the working day would be over, so he put a CD in the stereo and sat down at his desk. He sees that there's a tiny spot on the wall that he's never noticed before. It's only going to take him half an hour or forty minutes to whip out something short once he gets going, but getting going, that's the hard part."
Sunday, November 06, 2005
Thursday, November 03, 2005
Swordplay
This is to announce that, the day after the Pistons demolished the Sixers in their spirited home-opener, looking more lithe and fluid and relaxed under Flip, and still "playing the right way," McClintic and Benny P will square off in a duel of sorts, modeled after the early 1800s duel of Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr. At stake will be not only the supremacy of a basketball city, which seems to be already decided, but also wealth, power, and general monstrosity. The only thing that may save us now is a dancing robot, of sorts. And, the plural possessive, which conveys, however crudely, that this stuff is all of ours together.
Wednesday, November 02, 2005
Classically Speaking
One of the defining moments of my teen years was when I was on PalaceVision. RPB, SV4, D, Jeff, and I -- aka the Classic Friends -- brought a sign to the Pistons' game that read "PISTON PRIDE." Alliterative, terse, not sentimental or cute, it was a success, and we were on the big screen not once, but a few times. Seeing myself up there was a young dream, and then when I did, I remember being surprised at how little, and a bit silly, and gleeful, I looked. We held the sign across our chests, and could barely keep it stable. We jumped up and down, clambered over each other, quickly exhausted our relative fame. None of us really had the poise to find the camera shooting us and look directly into its face, wave, point, or look cool. We were eager and star-eyed. The game had its honesty. The pleasure was simple.
After they won, we danced around the corridors of the stadium with our sign, making up little chants. "We got Piston Pride, Ho! We got Piston Pride, Hey!" .... "It's time for the Pride-a-lator...", etc
This past Sunday, we (minus Jeff) reunited for SV4's birthday and the Lions game. Now it's Fall. Sweaters are out. The clocks are back to losing time. Before heading to SV4's, I go for a run during which I stop to linger under a motherly tree with salmon-colored leaves.
We are all intact and healthy. RPB pimps scarf and blazer. D is Brazilian Lebron. SV4 wears a woolen sweater. He brings along the new Dabrye. The scheme is black, red, and blue. On the cover a fat toke hangs from Tadd's mouth. We listen to a song on the new Idol Tryouts about a fit black man and a fat white woman. I wonder, Could it be love?
This drive to Detroit, we've done it now hundreds, maybe thousands of times. In fact, RPB lived in the city for a while, I believe. You could describe this drive in so many ways. Today it's like watching a tragedy unfold on speedy time-reel. The city reveals itself to you from above, for the highways are partly underground. Floating ethereally above are the houses, burned-out and half-demolished, the Church's Chickens, Wonder Bread sign, graffiti streaks, steeple and skyscraper momentarily aligned. The rest, the street level, is invisible, as if it does not exist.
We talk about "The Real World" coming to Royal Oak (though they'll most likely call it Detroit), and how D is going to get himself on the show by effortlessly playing one of its women. We talk about MTV's new "Laguna Beach" and how much of a pleasure it is to watch young beautiful people be petty. (cf Matthews, "You have to learn not to apologize, a form of vanity.") We talk about the done-up woman outside The Fox who's wearing a Burberry shawl, and RPB comments on the likelihood that she is in her mid 30s, is single, and is a hairdresser. We discuss booze poos, and how a night after drinking your poo smells just a little bit different as you read that crinkled Car and Driver for the seventh time. Such are our young-blood preoccupations. We have good minds.
We don't have a sign, don't dance, and don't get on TV. We eat sandwiches, chicken fingers (which give me the poos later that night), munchies, and cake. The Lions lose again this time in a disheartening way, an overtime interception return for a touchdown. But our expectations weren't necessarily high, and our disappointment is sweetened by the company.
Because now we're dudes. Not boys. Dudes. Maybe boys in dude-outfits, or boys with dude interpretations, or dudes with boy perceptions. I guess we're somewhere in the middle.
SV4's Mom gives us all elaborate flashlights as parting gifts. In the past she's given us several other flashlights, as well as essentially my entire cabinet of socks. This flashlight is an upgrade. It's also a nightlight, as well as a psychedelic light show. When we drop off RBP and D, RBP lights up his gear in the night and does a little illuminated dance as we drive away. He's getting smaller, the light dimmer.
"Another story to add to our lore," I say.
"Our lore?" SV4 says.
"Our folk-lore."
Next time it'll be in The Real World jacuzzi.
After they won, we danced around the corridors of the stadium with our sign, making up little chants. "We got Piston Pride, Ho! We got Piston Pride, Hey!" .... "It's time for the Pride-a-lator...", etc
This past Sunday, we (minus Jeff) reunited for SV4's birthday and the Lions game. Now it's Fall. Sweaters are out. The clocks are back to losing time. Before heading to SV4's, I go for a run during which I stop to linger under a motherly tree with salmon-colored leaves.
We are all intact and healthy. RPB pimps scarf and blazer. D is Brazilian Lebron. SV4 wears a woolen sweater. He brings along the new Dabrye. The scheme is black, red, and blue. On the cover a fat toke hangs from Tadd's mouth. We listen to a song on the new Idol Tryouts about a fit black man and a fat white woman. I wonder, Could it be love?
This drive to Detroit, we've done it now hundreds, maybe thousands of times. In fact, RPB lived in the city for a while, I believe. You could describe this drive in so many ways. Today it's like watching a tragedy unfold on speedy time-reel. The city reveals itself to you from above, for the highways are partly underground. Floating ethereally above are the houses, burned-out and half-demolished, the Church's Chickens, Wonder Bread sign, graffiti streaks, steeple and skyscraper momentarily aligned. The rest, the street level, is invisible, as if it does not exist.
We talk about "The Real World" coming to Royal Oak (though they'll most likely call it Detroit), and how D is going to get himself on the show by effortlessly playing one of its women. We talk about MTV's new "Laguna Beach" and how much of a pleasure it is to watch young beautiful people be petty. (cf Matthews, "You have to learn not to apologize, a form of vanity.") We talk about the done-up woman outside The Fox who's wearing a Burberry shawl, and RPB comments on the likelihood that she is in her mid 30s, is single, and is a hairdresser. We discuss booze poos, and how a night after drinking your poo smells just a little bit different as you read that crinkled Car and Driver for the seventh time. Such are our young-blood preoccupations. We have good minds.
We don't have a sign, don't dance, and don't get on TV. We eat sandwiches, chicken fingers (which give me the poos later that night), munchies, and cake. The Lions lose again this time in a disheartening way, an overtime interception return for a touchdown. But our expectations weren't necessarily high, and our disappointment is sweetened by the company.
Because now we're dudes. Not boys. Dudes. Maybe boys in dude-outfits, or boys with dude interpretations, or dudes with boy perceptions. I guess we're somewhere in the middle.
SV4's Mom gives us all elaborate flashlights as parting gifts. In the past she's given us several other flashlights, as well as essentially my entire cabinet of socks. This flashlight is an upgrade. It's also a nightlight, as well as a psychedelic light show. When we drop off RBP and D, RBP lights up his gear in the night and does a little illuminated dance as we drive away. He's getting smaller, the light dimmer.
"Another story to add to our lore," I say.
"Our lore?" SV4 says.
"Our folk-lore."
Next time it'll be in The Real World jacuzzi.
Thursday, October 27, 2005
Daily Themes
They are staring into their tupperware bowls. I don't have tupperware, but aluminum foil, and I'm looking at it and admiring the fact that it is both metal and flexible. Out the window, a flock of gray geese swoop down in sync, as if tethered together to a string in the sky. They land on the lake. "I thought the geese go South in the winter," I say.
Kris, a skinny British woman who talks often of tea time and her love of overcast weather, says, "Not all of them. And they're just an atrocious nuisance in the winter."
I ask her to elaborate, and she explains that their droppings harden and then melt with a brief thaw just like the snow. There's doo doo slush everywhere, all over the grass and the walkways.
Everyone but Lillian is looking out the window now. Lillian is my close colleague, and I like her. She's seventy-one, and I wonder if she's in the early stages of senile dementia. She tends to enter long periods of impenetrable silence, during which times she stares blankly at the wall. Today she's sitting across from me, which means I'm constantly wondering if she's staring at me. Sometimes I think, "Who knows?" Maybe she still has her full mind and just likes to brood on facts.
"Oh, look at those colors," Kathy says. Kathy is the clinic nurse. She's skinny, but not British, and is kind of kind and a super worker. She's 42, married, with three teenage boys who are active in sports. Every weeknight it seems she's off to some Detroit suburb to watch high schoolers run hard/jump on top of each other/bounce balls/fight.
Someone mentions how brilliant the colors must be up North. Kris promptly shuts this idea down, saying how it seems silly to drive six hours, glance at trees, then turn around and come back. The way she puts it, I tend to agree.
On the table is a box of donuts from Meijer that Kathy brought in to celebrate Gillian's recent engagement. Thinking that a Meijer donut couldn't be good, I take a bite of a glazed and am pleased by the familiar fatty sweetness. It leaves no film in the mouth. I eat the whole thing.
Gillian is a tech. She's a little bit husky and has a round face and pinchable cheeks. She blushes easily. She's been blushing all day today. We all take turns gazing at her ring, which sparkles enough that it makes my eyes hurt. Pat, a secretary, says, while looking directly at me, "See, you have to make sure that it sparkles." Pat is from Florida but has a New Jersey accent. For some reason, I'm not irritated by her comment. I laugh.
Pat starts talking about the Monday night lineup on NBC. She names all the shows. The only one I remember now is "King of Queens." Pat loves them. "I like to laugh on Mondays," she says. (cf Fellini, "There is nothing sadder than laughter...")
Suddenly, Kathy starts talking about horror movies. She's constantly filled with enormous energy and rattles through a series of scary films her sons like. "They loved 'The Ring Two,' she says. They thought it was scarier than 'The Ring One.'" And on she goes. Nightmare on Elm, Halloween, the entire Stephen King oeuvre, we get the entire list, and everyone except Lillian, who still is gazing at the wall, affirms their scariness. And then finally Lillian speaks up, "Those kinds of films never scare me. I have a way of detaching myself."
It's the only thing she's said all of lunch. A long silence follows, during which Kathy stares at her huge bottle of ranch dressing. I look at it too. I wonder if the bottle is actually white with black specks in it or if it's transparent and it's the dressing that gives it that color. I try to figure out what Kathy is looking at, and decide it's the label, which has "99% fat free" written on it as well as a cartoon depiction of rolling hills surrounded by fall trees. Realizing that that's the exact scene outside the window, I avert my gaze that way. And then Kathy joins my line of vision. Lillian is back to examining the wall.
I guess it's all a matter of vantage. I think these people are becoming my friends.
Kris, a skinny British woman who talks often of tea time and her love of overcast weather, says, "Not all of them. And they're just an atrocious nuisance in the winter."
I ask her to elaborate, and she explains that their droppings harden and then melt with a brief thaw just like the snow. There's doo doo slush everywhere, all over the grass and the walkways.
Everyone but Lillian is looking out the window now. Lillian is my close colleague, and I like her. She's seventy-one, and I wonder if she's in the early stages of senile dementia. She tends to enter long periods of impenetrable silence, during which times she stares blankly at the wall. Today she's sitting across from me, which means I'm constantly wondering if she's staring at me. Sometimes I think, "Who knows?" Maybe she still has her full mind and just likes to brood on facts.
"Oh, look at those colors," Kathy says. Kathy is the clinic nurse. She's skinny, but not British, and is kind of kind and a super worker. She's 42, married, with three teenage boys who are active in sports. Every weeknight it seems she's off to some Detroit suburb to watch high schoolers run hard/jump on top of each other/bounce balls/fight.
Someone mentions how brilliant the colors must be up North. Kris promptly shuts this idea down, saying how it seems silly to drive six hours, glance at trees, then turn around and come back. The way she puts it, I tend to agree.
On the table is a box of donuts from Meijer that Kathy brought in to celebrate Gillian's recent engagement. Thinking that a Meijer donut couldn't be good, I take a bite of a glazed and am pleased by the familiar fatty sweetness. It leaves no film in the mouth. I eat the whole thing.
Gillian is a tech. She's a little bit husky and has a round face and pinchable cheeks. She blushes easily. She's been blushing all day today. We all take turns gazing at her ring, which sparkles enough that it makes my eyes hurt. Pat, a secretary, says, while looking directly at me, "See, you have to make sure that it sparkles." Pat is from Florida but has a New Jersey accent. For some reason, I'm not irritated by her comment. I laugh.
Pat starts talking about the Monday night lineup on NBC. She names all the shows. The only one I remember now is "King of Queens." Pat loves them. "I like to laugh on Mondays," she says. (cf Fellini, "There is nothing sadder than laughter...")
Suddenly, Kathy starts talking about horror movies. She's constantly filled with enormous energy and rattles through a series of scary films her sons like. "They loved 'The Ring Two,' she says. They thought it was scarier than 'The Ring One.'" And on she goes. Nightmare on Elm, Halloween, the entire Stephen King oeuvre, we get the entire list, and everyone except Lillian, who still is gazing at the wall, affirms their scariness. And then finally Lillian speaks up, "Those kinds of films never scare me. I have a way of detaching myself."
It's the only thing she's said all of lunch. A long silence follows, during which Kathy stares at her huge bottle of ranch dressing. I look at it too. I wonder if the bottle is actually white with black specks in it or if it's transparent and it's the dressing that gives it that color. I try to figure out what Kathy is looking at, and decide it's the label, which has "99% fat free" written on it as well as a cartoon depiction of rolling hills surrounded by fall trees. Realizing that that's the exact scene outside the window, I avert my gaze that way. And then Kathy joins my line of vision. Lillian is back to examining the wall.
I guess it's all a matter of vantage. I think these people are becoming my friends.
Tuesday, October 25, 2005
Is this guy boring you?
UNIVISION PRESENTS:
Una Escritura para Una Telenovela Existencial
SCENE 1
[Static-garbled Spanish pop facilitates the conversion from sleep to
Paco: [Eats too many peculiar donuts and excitedly whispers three-in-the-morning delusions.] Occasionally we abandon our assumptions (gestures towards paisley sofa) to saunter about the dormitory buildings, stumbling drunkenly with early morning inebriation. Campus is quiet but the raccoons are noisy, seven little babies and two large parents as big as Rottweilers but of indeterminate ferocity. We crumple bits of cake into #4 unbleached cone coffee filters and feed the raccoons pastry, which they appear to enjoy. On past evenings we have made offerings of lime-flavored Tostitos, but icing seems more to their liking.
SCENE 2
Paco: [to
[Paco’s Nose appears and grows larger and larger, until the camera is snorted up into the left nostril… hairs hanging from the nostril roof brush against the camera lens like greasy stalactites, leaving little trails of snot. A little further inside the cavernous nostril,
Tijuana
Father: Lo siento, mi nino, pero no hablo Ingles.
Paco: The horror! The horror!
Loud voice: ¿Qué hizo Paco? ¿Hacen cuántos "Avemarías" él tiene que hacer? Averigüe el próximo tiempo... aquí mismo en Univision!
END SCENE
Autumn Meditation
The trees were yellow and red. The leaves on the trees were of a yellow hue dotted with black rot, but the red was initially brilliant and remained so until the papery leaves, the papery, silky, shining, greasy leaves fell as leaves tend to fall to the ground --- that is, reluctantly, bobbing, cradling in the wind as if the real comfort were not in the tree or on the cold, soft ground but rather in that insubstantial middle, that place where words and notes go, dreams possibly go, and all the things invisible but existing, and so somehow meaningful. Surely, the drama is in the chasm. And then that is not the lesson. No, the lesson is in the leaves, the jagged, shimmering, silent, dull leaves hanging like heavy, inutile hands on the end of the bodies of silent, skeletal ghosts, in a world haunted by the dim memories of previous losses, in a world cold and then warm, in a universe endless and incomprehensible in its black, blazing continuity, in its persistent, perfect-fifth hum, its speed. And that incomprehensibility is the lesson. And, surely, then, it is not. No, the lesson is in the bark on the trees that holds the yellow and red leaves, the bark rotten and indigestible and dry and hard and cold, the bark the dry, thin, filmy covering over the rings of the years inside the massive diameter of the unhuggable tree, the years that circle each other in perfect order. But then the distance between each line begins to lessen as each year goes by until the lines have become indistinct and inseparable, have in fact become one continuous line going around and around, forgetting the hops and leaps, the poignant peaks, the memorable trinkets, the things a tree holds onto because there are not many other things to hold onto and so each one can be accounted for and glanced at on occasion and even loved. Painful, profound, the tree digs deep, its roots descending steeply at first and then gradually, because a tall structure needs a wide base. And storm after storm blasts its husky frame. Over and over the needling rains impinge upon its leaves, and the leaves fall and turn downwards and the tree sways and bucks, and the branches snap and splinter and fall on houses, on cars, on the ground, on dogs, on people, and the gray sky looks peaceful despite the water flooding it, the wind pursuing it, the shocks of light speeding through it. And then there are the deep cries after, as if somewhere in that roiling sky there is a sad person, face contorted in a mask of grief, indeed a grief large enough that it can only be manifested in this way, as if the storm, and the tree falling to the ground and destroying the mud and the house on top of the mud, and the floor in the house, and the beds and pianos and sofas and tables on the floor, as if the storm that crawls over our landscape is all of the pain of the world come together. All of it. Every tear and moan. Seeing it in this light, it is not at all unsurprising that the next day everything is on the ground, that the leaves, rot red and yellow, flattened and two-dimensional, are on the ground, next to everything big and small. And now everything is still and quiet, indeed almost comfortable, as if this is where it all belonged, as if this is the way things were supposed to be, as you look out over the miles and miles of disorder, as you pick up something small, like a pendant, or a wedding ring, or a music box, or a record or book, or a picture of, say, lovers, or a family, or a dead son, and look, yay, stare, yay, glare, at everything that could have come of it if not for all this pain --- this hulking, huffing-and-puffing, obese and snorting pain --- and everything that still could, despite all this death, despite the night that is coming although the sun has just risen.
Sunday, October 23, 2005
Oh? Oh.
That man is not an astronaut...
He thinks the falling stars, are falling to the ground.
He prefers the seedy bars, there's no beer in space.
He's been around the world and he, he, he, he can't find his baby.
He's kind of short and smug, he's got real greasy hair.
He's way too commonplace, his jacuzzi is lukewarm.
He was born on a farm, he wants to milk the cows, to till the fields, to hack the oats, to gather the corn, kill the cows, play in the hay.
It's not as dark in the bar, as it is in space.
His feet stay on the ground, his steps are very small (allusion to giant steps on the moon).
He's not hip to the Buzz, nor aware of Neil.
In 1969, he was taking a crap.
He thinks the falling stars, are falling to the ground.
He prefers the seedy bars, there's no beer in space.
He's been around the world and he, he, he, he can't find his baby.
He's kind of short and smug, he's got real greasy hair.
He's way too commonplace, his jacuzzi is lukewarm.
He was born on a farm, he wants to milk the cows, to till the fields, to hack the oats, to gather the corn, kill the cows, play in the hay.
It's not as dark in the bar, as it is in space.
His feet stay on the ground, his steps are very small (allusion to giant steps on the moon).
He's not hip to the Buzz, nor aware of Neil.
In 1969, he was taking a crap.
Wednesday, October 12, 2005
Who? Me? What? Ohhhhhh!
That man is not an astronaut. He prefers to catch the stars, in empty pickle jars.
That man is not an astronaut. He doesn't drive a car, his mailbox is too far.
" " There's so much shit on land, he doesn't understand.
" " He's lazier than me, and I'm no astronaut.
He's lazier than me, his leisure gives him glee.
He's lazier than me, he's happy with TV.
He's lazier than me, the choice is wide and never free.
He's got no initiative, sometimes he's downright plaintive.
He's got a lot a girth, he can't get off the Earth.
He's not so into that, he's not a fan o' that.
Though fifty years from now, he'll have his own space cow.
In many ways he is, he doesn't realize it.
If only he would see, all the things that he could be.
His own small vehicle, is plenty powerful.
He doesn't want to be, all the things he wants to be.
He's got a spaceship head, it's keeping him in bed.
That man is not an astronaut. He doesn't drive a car, his mailbox is too far.
" " There's so much shit on land, he doesn't understand.
" " He's lazier than me, and I'm no astronaut.
He's lazier than me, his leisure gives him glee.
He's lazier than me, he's happy with TV.
He's lazier than me, the choice is wide and never free.
He's got no initiative, sometimes he's downright plaintive.
He's got a lot a girth, he can't get off the Earth.
He's not so into that, he's not a fan o' that.
Though fifty years from now, he'll have his own space cow.
In many ways he is, he doesn't realize it.
If only he would see, all the things that he could be.
His own small vehicle, is plenty powerful.
He doesn't want to be, all the things he wants to be.
He's got a spaceship head, it's keeping him in bed.
Monday, October 10, 2005
contributions
Friends,
As it turns out, Mars is currently as close to us as it will ever be during our lifetime. You can see it burning red in the southeastern sky, early in the cold night. Clearly, the juxtaposition of the God of War upon my return to the United States can only be a heavenly portent, a celestial dictum requiring me to write and record the ethereal song "That Man is Not An Astronaut." To do so, your assistance is needed.
As you wander through these gray days, please take some time to think about potential verses for this still-gestating song. Examples will be given below. Submit your suggestions via email or the blog.
Verses are remarkably short, so short that some might question whether they are truly verses. Examples include:
1) "That man is not an astronaut- He's too afraid of heights, he's sick on Ferris wheels"
2) "That man is not an astronaut- He never drinks his Tang, he's got no Velcro shoes"
3) "That man is not an astronaut- He can't do calculus, Spacemen need their calculus"
4) "That man is not an astronaut- He's never been to Mars, I've never seen him there"
Thank you.
As it turns out, Mars is currently as close to us as it will ever be during our lifetime. You can see it burning red in the southeastern sky, early in the cold night. Clearly, the juxtaposition of the God of War upon my return to the United States can only be a heavenly portent, a celestial dictum requiring me to write and record the ethereal song "That Man is Not An Astronaut." To do so, your assistance is needed.
As you wander through these gray days, please take some time to think about potential verses for this still-gestating song. Examples will be given below. Submit your suggestions via email or the blog.
Verses are remarkably short, so short that some might question whether they are truly verses. Examples include:
1) "That man is not an astronaut- He's too afraid of heights, he's sick on Ferris wheels"
2) "That man is not an astronaut- He never drinks his Tang, he's got no Velcro shoes"
3) "That man is not an astronaut- He can't do calculus, Spacemen need their calculus"
4) "That man is not an astronaut- He's never been to Mars, I've never seen him there"
Thank you.
Tuesday, September 27, 2005
Good Food
Lunch with Sam -- friend of sixteen years or so -- and talked about the indefinable nature of relationships and experience, about the warring instincts of wholesomeness and sordidness. Riding in his new Cadillac SUV, we listened to Mobb Deep, hip-hop act of the mid-90s. Crisp production, minor key loops, light voices, light but menacing music. Good groove. You could sit in the groove, you could lie down in the groove, you could dance in the groove, you could contemplate the groove.
I will head down to the jazz festival again tonight and engage in the perilous games of my existence and the minor but significant pains they cause, the feeling behind the eyes. There are canoers out on the river. The river is no longer iridescent and the sun has receded slightly behind some clouds, although this would only be a partly cloudy sky. In fact, this is probably the epitome of a partly cloudy sky. The clouds have a gray film over the bottom, like they just ate a large order of McDonald's fries.
There is an inherent sense of the tragic in all experience because of the unavoidable awareness of time passing. Everything you do could be the last, or second-to-last time.
I will head down to the jazz festival again tonight and engage in the perilous games of my existence and the minor but significant pains they cause, the feeling behind the eyes. There are canoers out on the river. The river is no longer iridescent and the sun has receded slightly behind some clouds, although this would only be a partly cloudy sky. In fact, this is probably the epitome of a partly cloudy sky. The clouds have a gray film over the bottom, like they just ate a large order of McDonald's fries.
There is an inherent sense of the tragic in all experience because of the unavoidable awareness of time passing. Everything you do could be the last, or second-to-last time.
Monday, September 26, 2005
Trickster
I think Bob Dylan is probably some kind of prophet. Never have I heard someone without appreciable musical talent make music that is so affecting. Of course I'm not saying anything new, but it bears repeating. His lyrics are perfect. I'm probably briefly in love with him, and wish I had such jauntiness and bravado. If you'll send some over here, Bob, I'll take it gladly. Actually, I think I've got it already, here in my pocket. Thank you sir. I'll see you at the Hall of Fame.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
