I usually try to post a little background on my fiction, but last week’s post was done in a few hours before I went to work, and I was still making small edits two days later. Suffice it to say that it started with a wish to pay tribute to Salt Lake City and a seed planted in my mind when I was last there about the nexus of the physical and spiritual in that particular place. I also wanted to write about a type of character I hadn’t really explored before (who was decidedly unspiritual), so I came up with the wedding guest. I’ve known people like him before, but he isn’t based on any one person.
I have actually taken the train into Salt Lake City twice (and it does indeed arrive around 11 p.m., though I believe it sometimes runs late). The experience that gave me the idea for “Salt,” though, was really the overnight visit I made about two years ago. It would be hard to get any idea of the character of the place just by passing through on the train and not wandering around at length. I drove into Salt Lake City one summer evening on the way to somewhere else, walked around, and saw some of the same sights the wedding guest saw—though, alas, no angels. I could imagine seeing them, though, and that was the germ of the story.
If you’re wondering where the salt came from and why it’s in the character’s pocket, you probably read very little mythology and fantasy. It’s a trope that you bring back a souvenir of some kind from an experience like this, and in this case, in particular, I had the sense that without tangible evidence, this boy might later talk himself out of believing that he’d had a very unusual time of it in Salt Lake City. If he’d been to the stars, it might have been stardust; if he’d been to fairyland, it might have been a gem from the fairy king’s mine.
Well, Watson, you know (or should know) my methods by now and should realize that I don’t write this blog for literal-minded readers. Anyone would think some of you had never been to school the way you carry on. Personally, I don’t like to have everything spelled out to me as if I cannot appreciate a story for myself, so I’ll say no more, just in case someone out there actually liked it and resists the notion of having everything explained to death. It’s good sometimes to sit with something and ponder it, but don’t expect it to suddenly reveal an underlying “this equals that” equation. If you do, you’ll never find what you’re looking for, at least not in this blog.
Sunday, March 24, 2019
Sunday, March 17, 2019
Salt
(A Short Story)
It is an ancient Mariner,
And he stoppeth one of three.
“The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”—Samuel Taylor Coleridge
It hadn’t been a bad wedding, which meant, of course, that there’d been plenty of beer at the reception. So much so that he now had a headache and was fuzzy on some aspects of the latter part of the night before. Now that he’d been accepted to law school, he was going to have to cut down on his partying. Sometimes, when your future was at stake, you just had to step up to the plate and take one for the team. He’d heard that once you made partner, you could pretty much do as you pleased, and since he was planning to be the youngest partner ever at a major East Coast law firm, he thought he could sacrifice present comfort for later bounty.
Right now, though, he felt like he’d been scoured dry from the inside out and that something was trying to crawl out from behind his eyes. Being on a train didn’t help . . . That rocking motion was enough to upset your tenuous hold on an already delicate stomach if it didn’t split your head in two first.
He was holding said head up with one hand, elbow propped on the tiny tray that popped up from a hidden slot somewhere beside his seat. He’d trapped his hand in the crevice trying to pull the damn thing up earlier and had had to call the porter, an irritating Colored man who had looked at him with disfavor before removing his imprisoned hand, with much more force than was strictly necessary, and setting the tray in place with a crisp, judgmental snap. He was considering having his father write to the president of Amtrak with a complaint against the fellow, especially since his hand was now an unbecoming shade of purple and black due—he was certain—to the mistreatment he’d received. His father had been college roommates with the Amtrak president, which was the whole reason he was riding for free. He was now weighing whether the satisfaction he’d derive from getting the porter into trouble was worth possibly jeopardizing future free rides. Perhaps it wasn’t worth all the questions that were bound to be asked. People were always trying to make mountains out of molehills.
Now, as the train pulled into Salt Lake City with a juddering sound that morphed into a drawn-out screech and then an ugly shudder that shook the whole train, our wedding guest, shocked out of his reverie by this latest unwelcome development, looked out the window. He was unable to see beyond the unaccountably bright lights of the station, but a few minutes later, there was a rap at the door of his compartment, followed in a moment by the appearance of the irritating porter, who informed him of a mechanical problem that would necessitate a delay of some hours. Indeed, he went on to say, it would likely be mid-morning before the train would be on its way again, and the passenger might want to consider a hotel for the remainder of the evening. Amtrak had arrangements with a hotel in the vicinity of downtown that was within walking distance—or perhaps a cab would be better?
The wedding guest waved away the porter, who seemed to be hovering. What did he want now, a tip? The nerve of some people knew no bounds. He stumbled to his feet, bumbling down the corridor of the train car in the porter’s wake. The distance from the top step to the station platform looked, to the wedding guest, to be a half mile at least, and he was wondering how he could possibly be expected to negotiate such a distance when he felt, or thought he felt, a firm hand on his arm, guiding him and propelling him forward and down, so that he found himself standing, alone, next to the train car, now silent except for a low-pitched hum and a ticking sound. The air seemed to be full of fog, but he discerned the outline of the station and headed inside, noticing, even in his compromised state, the gleam of marble and brass and the golden warmth of the light, though the place seemed to be deserted. He wondered briefly where the other passengers might have gone and concluded that perhaps he had been the last one to be notified and the last one to disembark. Typical, wasn’t it? The black hands of the station clock read ten minutes past eleven.
He was nearly out the door when a sound behind him made him turn. He saw that the lobby wasn’t deserted after all, but it was only a gray-haired cleaning woman, broom in hand, tidying up near the station’s coffee shop. She seemed to wearing some type of bulky coat that bunched up around her shoulders and hung awkwardly to near her ankles, an odd fashion choice even to the eyes of a heavily hungover college student. She paid no attention to him, going on about her task, but when he glanced back over his shoulder before pushing through the door, he saw the bunched material rise and unfold into what appeared to be a pair of wings. Oh hell, no way, man!
Trying to process what he had just seen, the young man had no sooner stepped outside when something flew at his head, flapping furiously. Backing into the wall, holding his wrecked head in his hands, he looked up, trying to see what had attacked him. It was a large seagull, sailing off down the street. Nervously, the student set off in the opposite direction, hoping the gull was not planning a return attack and unsure of how he would defend himself if that should occur. He realized that he had now forgotten the name of the hotel the porter had mentioned but thought that if he just kept walking he might see it and recognize it. He did not want to go back to the station for fear of encountering either the gull or the strange cleaning woman or both.
After midnight in Salt Lake City on a summer night, the streets were quiet but by no means, as he soon discovered, empty. He was vaguely surprised: wasn’t this place full of strictly religious people? Mormons or something? Shouldn’t they be at home, slumbering peacefully, or praying? And yet here and there he saw forms: walking, huddling in small groups, lounging. He’d say one thing for these Mormons, or whatever they were, they were quiet, even when they were out late. He heard not a whisper from any of them, which probably indicated, now that he thought of it, some kind of religious restriction. Maybe it was a vow of silence. After walking a short distance he realized that, unlike him, they were not coatless in the summer night but appeared to be wearing the same type of cape he’d seen on the cleaning woman in the station. Which could only mean—wait . . .
But he was right, wasn’t he? On looking as closely as his bloodshot eyes would allow, he realized that everyone he saw was endowed not with a cape but with a large pair of truly magnificent wings. Struggling to process this latest revelation, he was suddenly struck by a happy thought. It was obviously some kind of a celebration, like Mardi Gras. That was it! Shaking his head at the fright he had suffered a moment ago, he started to relax. If it was a party, he was all for it, and though a little while ago, he’d been considering total abstinence until the day he made partner, he now thought that perhaps just one more might have a beneficial effect on his splitting head and settle his stomach into the bargain. The hair of the dog, as it were.
His wobbling footsteps newly revitalized with purpose, he set off down the street, looking for an open bar. From time to time (for they were by no means boisterous), he saw people in angel costumes, taking selfies, riding the escalator in the town center mall, playing in the fountain, talking on cell phones, strolling hand-in-hand in the grounds of the great temple. There were angels in cars, angels on bicycles, angels in the crosswalks. No one spoke to him, but he was okay with that, he really was. Now that he knew just where he was, he was willing to get into the spirit of it. He’d heard that Mormons were a little stand-offish, anyway. No worries, man—let them party in their way, and he’d party in his.
In the event, though, he never located the party. After wandering for a couple of hours without finding much of anything open, only those infernal angels gliding around, he sat on a bench against a wall and fell asleep. He woke up with a gleam of sun striking his face, and when he squinted toward the source, the gleam disappeared behind a cloud. It was a foggy morning. He’d heard there were mountains around Salt Lake City, but he was inclined to think he’d heard wrong, because all he could see was mist. Thoroughly stiff now, he managed to haul himself upright. If only he could remember the direction of the station.
After nearly an hour of walking, during which he encountered not a soul, he realized that he was back on the street on which he had been surprised by the seagull, and yes, there was the station, half a mile ahead and on his left. He moved toward it nervously, scanning the air for any lurking seagulls, without, however, encountering any. Entering the station lobby, he saw that the time was not quite 7 a.m. He saw no one, passing through to the waiting room for his platform, likewise deserted. Relieved to find that the train was just where he’d left it, resting outside on its track, he sat down to wait, dozing off now and then. He woke for a final time when a bustle of activity revealed a returning coterie of fellow passengers, some of whom looked at him curiously, all presumably better off than he was for a few hours sleep in the hotel he had never found, damn them. They could keep their stupid looks to themselves.
Climbing back onto the train, with a mouth that felt like the desert floor and a hollow feeling in his head, he was greeted by the porter, who looked as crisp in his uniform as if he’d spent the night on a bed of down and silken sheets. He thought he detected a humorous gleam in the fellow’s eye, though his demeanor otherwise was solemnly professional. Damn the man, he’d report him for two cents just for his insolence. But the porter merely handed him a bottle of water and politely ushered him into his compartment. Once he was gone, the student slumped into his rather stale-smelling seat, wondering how he would get through the rest of the day and how long it would now take them to get home.
As he leaned against the window, something hard bit into his hip. Reaching into his pants pocket, he felt something cool and smooth, with jagged points and a bit of crumbly material adhered to it. He tried to pull it out, but it was stuck fast, as if it had been glued on; staring at it blankly, he wondered what it was and how it had come to be there. It looked like a crystal of some kind. On impulse, he put a finger to his mouth to taste what he had touched: salt.
It is an ancient Mariner,
And he stoppeth one of three.
“The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”—Samuel Taylor Coleridge
It hadn’t been a bad wedding, which meant, of course, that there’d been plenty of beer at the reception. So much so that he now had a headache and was fuzzy on some aspects of the latter part of the night before. Now that he’d been accepted to law school, he was going to have to cut down on his partying. Sometimes, when your future was at stake, you just had to step up to the plate and take one for the team. He’d heard that once you made partner, you could pretty much do as you pleased, and since he was planning to be the youngest partner ever at a major East Coast law firm, he thought he could sacrifice present comfort for later bounty.
Right now, though, he felt like he’d been scoured dry from the inside out and that something was trying to crawl out from behind his eyes. Being on a train didn’t help . . . That rocking motion was enough to upset your tenuous hold on an already delicate stomach if it didn’t split your head in two first.
He was holding said head up with one hand, elbow propped on the tiny tray that popped up from a hidden slot somewhere beside his seat. He’d trapped his hand in the crevice trying to pull the damn thing up earlier and had had to call the porter, an irritating Colored man who had looked at him with disfavor before removing his imprisoned hand, with much more force than was strictly necessary, and setting the tray in place with a crisp, judgmental snap. He was considering having his father write to the president of Amtrak with a complaint against the fellow, especially since his hand was now an unbecoming shade of purple and black due—he was certain—to the mistreatment he’d received. His father had been college roommates with the Amtrak president, which was the whole reason he was riding for free. He was now weighing whether the satisfaction he’d derive from getting the porter into trouble was worth possibly jeopardizing future free rides. Perhaps it wasn’t worth all the questions that were bound to be asked. People were always trying to make mountains out of molehills.
Now, as the train pulled into Salt Lake City with a juddering sound that morphed into a drawn-out screech and then an ugly shudder that shook the whole train, our wedding guest, shocked out of his reverie by this latest unwelcome development, looked out the window. He was unable to see beyond the unaccountably bright lights of the station, but a few minutes later, there was a rap at the door of his compartment, followed in a moment by the appearance of the irritating porter, who informed him of a mechanical problem that would necessitate a delay of some hours. Indeed, he went on to say, it would likely be mid-morning before the train would be on its way again, and the passenger might want to consider a hotel for the remainder of the evening. Amtrak had arrangements with a hotel in the vicinity of downtown that was within walking distance—or perhaps a cab would be better?
The wedding guest waved away the porter, who seemed to be hovering. What did he want now, a tip? The nerve of some people knew no bounds. He stumbled to his feet, bumbling down the corridor of the train car in the porter’s wake. The distance from the top step to the station platform looked, to the wedding guest, to be a half mile at least, and he was wondering how he could possibly be expected to negotiate such a distance when he felt, or thought he felt, a firm hand on his arm, guiding him and propelling him forward and down, so that he found himself standing, alone, next to the train car, now silent except for a low-pitched hum and a ticking sound. The air seemed to be full of fog, but he discerned the outline of the station and headed inside, noticing, even in his compromised state, the gleam of marble and brass and the golden warmth of the light, though the place seemed to be deserted. He wondered briefly where the other passengers might have gone and concluded that perhaps he had been the last one to be notified and the last one to disembark. Typical, wasn’t it? The black hands of the station clock read ten minutes past eleven.
He was nearly out the door when a sound behind him made him turn. He saw that the lobby wasn’t deserted after all, but it was only a gray-haired cleaning woman, broom in hand, tidying up near the station’s coffee shop. She seemed to wearing some type of bulky coat that bunched up around her shoulders and hung awkwardly to near her ankles, an odd fashion choice even to the eyes of a heavily hungover college student. She paid no attention to him, going on about her task, but when he glanced back over his shoulder before pushing through the door, he saw the bunched material rise and unfold into what appeared to be a pair of wings. Oh hell, no way, man!
Trying to process what he had just seen, the young man had no sooner stepped outside when something flew at his head, flapping furiously. Backing into the wall, holding his wrecked head in his hands, he looked up, trying to see what had attacked him. It was a large seagull, sailing off down the street. Nervously, the student set off in the opposite direction, hoping the gull was not planning a return attack and unsure of how he would defend himself if that should occur. He realized that he had now forgotten the name of the hotel the porter had mentioned but thought that if he just kept walking he might see it and recognize it. He did not want to go back to the station for fear of encountering either the gull or the strange cleaning woman or both.
After midnight in Salt Lake City on a summer night, the streets were quiet but by no means, as he soon discovered, empty. He was vaguely surprised: wasn’t this place full of strictly religious people? Mormons or something? Shouldn’t they be at home, slumbering peacefully, or praying? And yet here and there he saw forms: walking, huddling in small groups, lounging. He’d say one thing for these Mormons, or whatever they were, they were quiet, even when they were out late. He heard not a whisper from any of them, which probably indicated, now that he thought of it, some kind of religious restriction. Maybe it was a vow of silence. After walking a short distance he realized that, unlike him, they were not coatless in the summer night but appeared to be wearing the same type of cape he’d seen on the cleaning woman in the station. Which could only mean—wait . . .
But he was right, wasn’t he? On looking as closely as his bloodshot eyes would allow, he realized that everyone he saw was endowed not with a cape but with a large pair of truly magnificent wings. Struggling to process this latest revelation, he was suddenly struck by a happy thought. It was obviously some kind of a celebration, like Mardi Gras. That was it! Shaking his head at the fright he had suffered a moment ago, he started to relax. If it was a party, he was all for it, and though a little while ago, he’d been considering total abstinence until the day he made partner, he now thought that perhaps just one more might have a beneficial effect on his splitting head and settle his stomach into the bargain. The hair of the dog, as it were.
His wobbling footsteps newly revitalized with purpose, he set off down the street, looking for an open bar. From time to time (for they were by no means boisterous), he saw people in angel costumes, taking selfies, riding the escalator in the town center mall, playing in the fountain, talking on cell phones, strolling hand-in-hand in the grounds of the great temple. There were angels in cars, angels on bicycles, angels in the crosswalks. No one spoke to him, but he was okay with that, he really was. Now that he knew just where he was, he was willing to get into the spirit of it. He’d heard that Mormons were a little stand-offish, anyway. No worries, man—let them party in their way, and he’d party in his.
In the event, though, he never located the party. After wandering for a couple of hours without finding much of anything open, only those infernal angels gliding around, he sat on a bench against a wall and fell asleep. He woke up with a gleam of sun striking his face, and when he squinted toward the source, the gleam disappeared behind a cloud. It was a foggy morning. He’d heard there were mountains around Salt Lake City, but he was inclined to think he’d heard wrong, because all he could see was mist. Thoroughly stiff now, he managed to haul himself upright. If only he could remember the direction of the station.
After nearly an hour of walking, during which he encountered not a soul, he realized that he was back on the street on which he had been surprised by the seagull, and yes, there was the station, half a mile ahead and on his left. He moved toward it nervously, scanning the air for any lurking seagulls, without, however, encountering any. Entering the station lobby, he saw that the time was not quite 7 a.m. He saw no one, passing through to the waiting room for his platform, likewise deserted. Relieved to find that the train was just where he’d left it, resting outside on its track, he sat down to wait, dozing off now and then. He woke for a final time when a bustle of activity revealed a returning coterie of fellow passengers, some of whom looked at him curiously, all presumably better off than he was for a few hours sleep in the hotel he had never found, damn them. They could keep their stupid looks to themselves.
Climbing back onto the train, with a mouth that felt like the desert floor and a hollow feeling in his head, he was greeted by the porter, who looked as crisp in his uniform as if he’d spent the night on a bed of down and silken sheets. He thought he detected a humorous gleam in the fellow’s eye, though his demeanor otherwise was solemnly professional. Damn the man, he’d report him for two cents just for his insolence. But the porter merely handed him a bottle of water and politely ushered him into his compartment. Once he was gone, the student slumped into his rather stale-smelling seat, wondering how he would get through the rest of the day and how long it would now take them to get home.
As he leaned against the window, something hard bit into his hip. Reaching into his pants pocket, he felt something cool and smooth, with jagged points and a bit of crumbly material adhered to it. He tried to pull it out, but it was stuck fast, as if it had been glued on; staring at it blankly, he wondered what it was and how it had come to be there. It looked like a crystal of some kind. On impulse, he put a finger to his mouth to taste what he had touched: salt.
Sunday, March 10, 2019
Lark Metaphysics
I don’t know if this happens to you, but I sometimes get a lift without knowing why. That is, I sort of know why, in the sense of being able to describe the circumstance and its effect on me, though I may not know exactly why that particular thing affects me as it does. Last night, after dinner (and a good dinner, too, not consisting of a sandwich or fast food), I was driving to Starbucks. We’d had heavy rain earlier, the pavements were wet, and scraps of gray clouds were racing across a stormy sky. There was a kind of pearly light, for all that the weather was gloomy, which probably came from the reflections off all those wet surfaces. The sky looked manic and wild, as it often does here after a spring rain, and that was the key, I guess: I was suddenly looking at a spring sky rather than a winter sky. There was a feeling of cleanness, as if the rain had washed away not only the remnants of snow, but something more.
It had snowed just the day before, and the roads were so slippery then that I was afraid of an accident on the way to work. Now, suddenly, it was the moment that happens every year—though never in the same way or on the same day—when you suddenly feel things poised to change. The scurrying clouds, the tension in the air that comes with a thunderstorm, the difference in the light—all contributed to a feeling of movement and rebounding life. I could feel my spirits rising simply in response to that sky. I learned the importance of appreciating beauty where you find it a long time ago, but over the last year, I’ve become even more grateful for transcendent moments like this.
When you live in your car, you appreciate sitting under a solid roof and looking out at the rain from a dry place, as I did later in the evening at Starbucks. There were many times last summer when I had to sit up in the car until midnight before it was cool enough to go to sleep, but I was still enchanted by the sight of falling stars—and remembered to make a wish, you’d better believe it—during a meteor shower (for about two seconds, I imagined I was camping, but I couldn’t sustain it). I enjoyed the “nightlife” on whatever street I happened to be parked on: one night, it could be coyotes, the next night, it might be a prowling cat or a pair of opossums. I enjoyed looking at sunrises and the golden-leafed roof created by the autumn trees on one street. Most of the time, car camping is pretty miserable, so those fleeting moments of beauty stand out all the more. When you get a chance to try it, you’ll see what I mean.
This morning, the feeling of well-being persisted. I’m not normally a churchgoer, but I was stopped at a light and noticed a small red-brick church on the corner that I’d passed many times. In the mild sunshine (seemingly brighter and purer than it had been the day before), that little church looked so emblematic of Sunday morning that I wanted to write a story about it. It’s been a while since I had that Sunday morning feeling that’s an amalgam of peacefulness, restfulness, and a sensation of things having been freshly washed, but it was quite pleasant. You don’t have to be religious to appreciate that feeling.
There is a song from the musical Carousel that was sung at high school graduations when I was in school and may be still, for all I know. Rodgers’ and Hammerstein’s “You’ll Never Walk Alone” has the lines: “At the end of a storm is a golden sky / And the sweet silver song of a lark.” I often think of the lark’s song when the sky clears after a storm, though I’ve never heard it. Last night, I could almost hear it. It was like that moment in The Polar Express when the hero boy rings the Christmas bell and senses he’s about to hear it for the first time. I’m not saying that there is any relation at all between this feeling and anything that’s about to happen: I’m only stating that I felt it and was glad I felt it.
Hey, Rodgers and Hammerstein? Songs of a lark? Hero boys and Christmas bells? I get it that it’s not hip and if you happen to be, say, a millennial, this is all hopelessly maudlin. (Maudlin itself being another old-fashioned word.) But if you ever find yourself suddenly on the edge of a dark wood after an extended sojourn within, you may remember reading this and have a different outlook. I’m not saying it’s certain, mind you. But it could happen.
I’m gonna have to say I think the good dinner had something to do with it, too, all those greens and that tilapia starting to course through my system. And then there was the vegan coconut pie . . . But that’s a different story entirely.
It had snowed just the day before, and the roads were so slippery then that I was afraid of an accident on the way to work. Now, suddenly, it was the moment that happens every year—though never in the same way or on the same day—when you suddenly feel things poised to change. The scurrying clouds, the tension in the air that comes with a thunderstorm, the difference in the light—all contributed to a feeling of movement and rebounding life. I could feel my spirits rising simply in response to that sky. I learned the importance of appreciating beauty where you find it a long time ago, but over the last year, I’ve become even more grateful for transcendent moments like this.
When you live in your car, you appreciate sitting under a solid roof and looking out at the rain from a dry place, as I did later in the evening at Starbucks. There were many times last summer when I had to sit up in the car until midnight before it was cool enough to go to sleep, but I was still enchanted by the sight of falling stars—and remembered to make a wish, you’d better believe it—during a meteor shower (for about two seconds, I imagined I was camping, but I couldn’t sustain it). I enjoyed the “nightlife” on whatever street I happened to be parked on: one night, it could be coyotes, the next night, it might be a prowling cat or a pair of opossums. I enjoyed looking at sunrises and the golden-leafed roof created by the autumn trees on one street. Most of the time, car camping is pretty miserable, so those fleeting moments of beauty stand out all the more. When you get a chance to try it, you’ll see what I mean.
This morning, the feeling of well-being persisted. I’m not normally a churchgoer, but I was stopped at a light and noticed a small red-brick church on the corner that I’d passed many times. In the mild sunshine (seemingly brighter and purer than it had been the day before), that little church looked so emblematic of Sunday morning that I wanted to write a story about it. It’s been a while since I had that Sunday morning feeling that’s an amalgam of peacefulness, restfulness, and a sensation of things having been freshly washed, but it was quite pleasant. You don’t have to be religious to appreciate that feeling.
There is a song from the musical Carousel that was sung at high school graduations when I was in school and may be still, for all I know. Rodgers’ and Hammerstein’s “You’ll Never Walk Alone” has the lines: “At the end of a storm is a golden sky / And the sweet silver song of a lark.” I often think of the lark’s song when the sky clears after a storm, though I’ve never heard it. Last night, I could almost hear it. It was like that moment in The Polar Express when the hero boy rings the Christmas bell and senses he’s about to hear it for the first time. I’m not saying that there is any relation at all between this feeling and anything that’s about to happen: I’m only stating that I felt it and was glad I felt it.
Hey, Rodgers and Hammerstein? Songs of a lark? Hero boys and Christmas bells? I get it that it’s not hip and if you happen to be, say, a millennial, this is all hopelessly maudlin. (Maudlin itself being another old-fashioned word.) But if you ever find yourself suddenly on the edge of a dark wood after an extended sojourn within, you may remember reading this and have a different outlook. I’m not saying it’s certain, mind you. But it could happen.
I’m gonna have to say I think the good dinner had something to do with it, too, all those greens and that tilapia starting to course through my system. And then there was the vegan coconut pie . . . But that’s a different story entirely.
Sunday, March 3, 2019
The Return of Wordplay
The way this blog post came about is as follows: I was doing something I’d never done, which was to play with Siri on my iPad. I was asking it things like “Show me a picture of Sam Neill” and “Play me the theme music from The Illusionist.” Then I graduated to facetious searches like “What’s the price of tea in China?” and “What is most Americans’ opinion of the CIA?” The first facetious search brought me an explanation of the derivation and meaning of the expression rather than an actual price (shoot, and there I was hoping to fool Siri into giving me a literal answer). The second facetious question brought back the following article: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/oct/10/the-science-of-spying-how-the-cia-secretly-recruits-academics.
What started as playing around turned into something else as I read this article and thought about some of my experiences in academia, which include attending conferences. It also took me back to my reading of Ian McEwan’s novel Sweet Tooth, an eye-opening look at the methods used by British intelligence to recruit an unsuspecting writer to their ranks. The scariest thing about all of this is the deviousness of the methods used, which included a plant whose job was to subtly (very subtly) encourage the writer to express the type of views the spy agency wanted. His “handler” ended up falling in love with him, which didn’t prevent her from doing her job. Just imagine, you’re tooling along, doing your own thing (you think), when you find out that not only are you being used by the powers that be but that your lover, the closest person to you, is spying on you (while loving you at the same time, or so she says).
It so happens that I was also reading Theodora Goss’s novel, European Travels for the Monstrous Gentlewoman, which got me to thinking about the CIA in the first place. In this novel, a group of young women who have been victimized by the scientific experiments of such men as Drs. Moreau, Rappaccini, and Frankenstein end up banding together to fight the scientific society that has sponsored this research in the past and threatens to do so again. I started to stop reading the novel because I couldn’t tell where the author was going with such characters as Lucinda Van Helsing, who requires blood to feed (well, don’t look so squeamish—it doesn’t have to be human blood) and Count Dracula (and he’s one of the good guys). In this age of coded messages, fake news, and double entendres, one sometimes fears even to blink lest someone across the room mistake it as signal for God knows what. (It really is that bad. I take this opportunity to tell you in no uncertain terms that what I wear or what I eat or the way I walk has nothing to do with you.)
Maybe I’m wrong: maybe all the intelligence agencies, even the FBI, use these same methods. I can’t say that I can distinguish the methods of one agency from another, or even the methods of other countries’ spies from ours. I suspect a lot of them work in much the same way. My point is how horrifying I find all of this stuff. I can see subterfuge probably has its uses when you’re fighting crime, but it has no business intruding on the lives of private citizens. And yet, so much of what I read in this article seemed unsettlingly familiar to me.
How many times have I gone somewhere and had people talk to me as if they already knew me, dropping some small fact that they should have had no way of knowing? How often have I noticed someone sitting near me behaving erratically, with exaggerated movements or unnecessarily loud conversation as if everything depended on their getting my attention? How many years did I live in fear and discomfort due to the strange actions of my neighbors, who rode roughshod over my right to privacy and seemed not to recognize boundaries (up to and including a locked door)? How many times have I come out into a parking lot at night to face bright lights trained directly on my car? How many times have I noticed strangers lurking nearby? How many times have I been in fear of my life? How much has the quality of my life gone down over the last ten years? (Drastically—the normal life I remember from the past is as a distant dream.) How much time have I lost, how many things have I missed doing, how many people have I missed seeing, as a result of the way in which my life seems to have been hijacked with no explanation.
I’ll tell you what I have been doing: working at Home Depot and living in my car. Yes, I suppose I am a bit overqualified, but one thing I like about it is that I am dealing with tangible, verifiable objects. If someone is looking for a cabinet, I can point them in the right direction; I know where the shims are; I can explain the difference between an agitator and an impeller in a washing machine. When people ask me about these things, I answer them. The problem is I often feel that the conversation I’m having with them is not the same one they’re having, or think they’re having, with me. If you’re planning to come to Home Depot, let me save you some time: I sell appliances there, and that is ALL I do. I have no knowledge of any state secrets or any inside information on any crime investigations that may be or may have been ongoing. I have heard some strange rumors about things that may have occurred at my former place of employment, or more accurately, rumors of rumors. I have no actual knowledge and don’t want any; if you have information, take it to the authorities (of which I am not one).
I have not volunteered to work undercover, for any agency. I have not gone underground to write an investigative piece. I am not participating in a sting. I am not a candidate for the witness protection program, having witnessed nothing but a lot of B.S. and unconscionable behavior from people who seem certain they’re doing nothing wrong. I’m not planning on disappearing. I’m not insane (though it’s a miracle I’m not). I’m not getting married. I’m not looking to start a new life under a different name. I’m a writer and quite fond of my own name. I take experiences and use my imagination on them. I would object to having my work used, if I knew that was happening.
I’m looking to hold whoever is responsible for this mess to account and possibly to break their nose as well (the two goals not being mutually exclusive). My advice is not to act as if you know me if you don’t, not to pretend to be acting on my behalf, and not to call yourself my friend if you’re not. I have a long memory, and I don’t forget things.
I did finish Miss Goss’s book, and once I thought I saw where she was going with it, I approved. I believe her point about the need for personal autonomy and the importance of self-determination in one’s own life is a very salient one, though I winced at many points in the novel (a vampire is a vampire, people, no matter how nice his house is). Many of the characters are endearing, “freakish” though they may be. I suppose their state can be taken as a metaphor for many things, including the right to be different. I myself am an INFP, which means I’m used to being misunderstood. I used to think it was a tragedy, but I’m now inclined to think it a great blessing, as are perhaps one or two other of my other personal characteristics. People always think they have you figured out: they never do.
What started as playing around turned into something else as I read this article and thought about some of my experiences in academia, which include attending conferences. It also took me back to my reading of Ian McEwan’s novel Sweet Tooth, an eye-opening look at the methods used by British intelligence to recruit an unsuspecting writer to their ranks. The scariest thing about all of this is the deviousness of the methods used, which included a plant whose job was to subtly (very subtly) encourage the writer to express the type of views the spy agency wanted. His “handler” ended up falling in love with him, which didn’t prevent her from doing her job. Just imagine, you’re tooling along, doing your own thing (you think), when you find out that not only are you being used by the powers that be but that your lover, the closest person to you, is spying on you (while loving you at the same time, or so she says).
It so happens that I was also reading Theodora Goss’s novel, European Travels for the Monstrous Gentlewoman, which got me to thinking about the CIA in the first place. In this novel, a group of young women who have been victimized by the scientific experiments of such men as Drs. Moreau, Rappaccini, and Frankenstein end up banding together to fight the scientific society that has sponsored this research in the past and threatens to do so again. I started to stop reading the novel because I couldn’t tell where the author was going with such characters as Lucinda Van Helsing, who requires blood to feed (well, don’t look so squeamish—it doesn’t have to be human blood) and Count Dracula (and he’s one of the good guys). In this age of coded messages, fake news, and double entendres, one sometimes fears even to blink lest someone across the room mistake it as signal for God knows what. (It really is that bad. I take this opportunity to tell you in no uncertain terms that what I wear or what I eat or the way I walk has nothing to do with you.)
Maybe I’m wrong: maybe all the intelligence agencies, even the FBI, use these same methods. I can’t say that I can distinguish the methods of one agency from another, or even the methods of other countries’ spies from ours. I suspect a lot of them work in much the same way. My point is how horrifying I find all of this stuff. I can see subterfuge probably has its uses when you’re fighting crime, but it has no business intruding on the lives of private citizens. And yet, so much of what I read in this article seemed unsettlingly familiar to me.
How many times have I gone somewhere and had people talk to me as if they already knew me, dropping some small fact that they should have had no way of knowing? How often have I noticed someone sitting near me behaving erratically, with exaggerated movements or unnecessarily loud conversation as if everything depended on their getting my attention? How many years did I live in fear and discomfort due to the strange actions of my neighbors, who rode roughshod over my right to privacy and seemed not to recognize boundaries (up to and including a locked door)? How many times have I come out into a parking lot at night to face bright lights trained directly on my car? How many times have I noticed strangers lurking nearby? How many times have I been in fear of my life? How much has the quality of my life gone down over the last ten years? (Drastically—the normal life I remember from the past is as a distant dream.) How much time have I lost, how many things have I missed doing, how many people have I missed seeing, as a result of the way in which my life seems to have been hijacked with no explanation.
I’ll tell you what I have been doing: working at Home Depot and living in my car. Yes, I suppose I am a bit overqualified, but one thing I like about it is that I am dealing with tangible, verifiable objects. If someone is looking for a cabinet, I can point them in the right direction; I know where the shims are; I can explain the difference between an agitator and an impeller in a washing machine. When people ask me about these things, I answer them. The problem is I often feel that the conversation I’m having with them is not the same one they’re having, or think they’re having, with me. If you’re planning to come to Home Depot, let me save you some time: I sell appliances there, and that is ALL I do. I have no knowledge of any state secrets or any inside information on any crime investigations that may be or may have been ongoing. I have heard some strange rumors about things that may have occurred at my former place of employment, or more accurately, rumors of rumors. I have no actual knowledge and don’t want any; if you have information, take it to the authorities (of which I am not one).
I have not volunteered to work undercover, for any agency. I have not gone underground to write an investigative piece. I am not participating in a sting. I am not a candidate for the witness protection program, having witnessed nothing but a lot of B.S. and unconscionable behavior from people who seem certain they’re doing nothing wrong. I’m not planning on disappearing. I’m not insane (though it’s a miracle I’m not). I’m not getting married. I’m not looking to start a new life under a different name. I’m a writer and quite fond of my own name. I take experiences and use my imagination on them. I would object to having my work used, if I knew that was happening.
I’m looking to hold whoever is responsible for this mess to account and possibly to break their nose as well (the two goals not being mutually exclusive). My advice is not to act as if you know me if you don’t, not to pretend to be acting on my behalf, and not to call yourself my friend if you’re not. I have a long memory, and I don’t forget things.
I did finish Miss Goss’s book, and once I thought I saw where she was going with it, I approved. I believe her point about the need for personal autonomy and the importance of self-determination in one’s own life is a very salient one, though I winced at many points in the novel (a vampire is a vampire, people, no matter how nice his house is). Many of the characters are endearing, “freakish” though they may be. I suppose their state can be taken as a metaphor for many things, including the right to be different. I myself am an INFP, which means I’m used to being misunderstood. I used to think it was a tragedy, but I’m now inclined to think it a great blessing, as are perhaps one or two other of my other personal characteristics. People always think they have you figured out: they never do.
Wednesday, April 11, 2018
If My Boyfriend Was a State, He’d Be Texas
I realize I have missed writing my column for the last two weeks. Quite frankly, I have been dealing with the vagaries of not having a home, which involved traveling out of town and trying to figure out why things never seem to go the way I want them to and, in fact, go in the exact opposite direction every time. I’ve been the recipient of kindnesses as well as the receiver of some astoundingly unhelpful bad advice falling under the category of “With friends like these . . .” I got so disgusted with Lexington that I nearly lit out for California, traveled through Native American lands, visited friends in Texas, and decided I just couldn’t risk going through what I went through in California last summer again. I’m here in Lexington for now, may have landed a part-time job, and am hoping to get another one. Now, if you think it’s easy to keep producing a top quality blog week after week under conditions of homelessness and bankruptcy, I’ll be glad to let you try it. Otherwise, you’re getting no more from me. I will give you a freebie, though, before leaving you to your own devices. Your assignment is to read the Bhagavad Gita, if you haven’t done so already, without whining. Then, the next time you see me, I want you to tell me why you think I wanted you to read it. Then I’ll tell you the right answer.
By the way, the above title is not an indicator of any plan to move to Texas but merely an assertion based on my general impressions of that great state, the spirit of which even politicians and greedy bastards have not been able to kill. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, this part of the conversation is not for you.
By the way, the above title is not an indicator of any plan to move to Texas but merely an assertion based on my general impressions of that great state, the spirit of which even politicians and greedy bastards have not been able to kill. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, this part of the conversation is not for you.
Tuesday, March 27, 2018
Get Your Butt Out of the Bardo and Come on Down
While driving around Lexington and environs lately, I’ve been fascinated by glimpses of streets and neighborhoods I don’t know well. I’ve been charmed by the number of small businesses and cafes popping up on North Limestone (NoLi, in the new local parlance, and aren’t we fancy these days?) and by views of numerous old houses with good bones that dot the city in offbeat locales. I admit to viewing any purportedly positive developments here with suspicion since I’m not a fan of the local government and have found life here challenging, to say the least, in recent years. Places, things, and people that used to seem simple no longer do, but still, I somehow manage to enjoy my old pastime of driving around neighborhoods and imagining if I could live in them. Since I moved from my old Nicholasville Road address, I’m constantly seeing Lexington from new angles.
I often ask myself: Do I see myself here? Or here? Or there? What about that street? I have a lingering fondness for the Arboretum (how can you not love such a beautiful place), but I balk at the idea of resettling in the neighborhood. I sometimes feel that I shouldn’t even be in Kentucky at all, having been cheated of my plan to live in California. When I see something about Los Angeles in the news or on TV, I feel something tugging at me. I like Kentucky, but it’s not what it used to be (was it ever?). I had hoped that a new job and a chance to experience another city, an idea long cherished before being acted on, would either cure me of the desire for change or show me that I was right all along. How anticlimactic to end up back in Lexington last August! (Though it was no doubt the wisest thing to do under the circumstances.)
I don’t believe all the people who keep talking to me about the changing workforce and economic conditions that have forced many people away from their intended careers. I always was an employer’s dream and still am. I deplore many of the current economic trends but do not think that accounts for what has happened to me. I was asked recently about my plans, and I was taken aback, since few of the plans that I have made recently, no matter how well thought out and prepared for, went the way they should have. But since I’m on the topic, I’ll just say this: If I could do whatever I want to do, I would be back in California with a plan to stay for at least a few years. I could always come back to Kentucky (or go somewhere else) if it didn’t take, and maybe by that time the bad influences here would have cleared out sufficiently to make life enjoyable again. Or perhaps I’d never want to come back here to live. I never got a chance to find out, but the question is still active.
There’s a good chance I wouldn’t even be working as a librarian if I could do whatever I wanted. I’ll always be a writer first and foremost, and it’s a shame I haven’t been able to make a living out of it since I left the newspaper years ago—though perhaps that will change. Here’s how I see myself in my ideal scenario: I’m continuing to write, but I’m making actual money from it. I’m teaching literature and writing, and I’m talking to people about my academic interests: mythology, culture, the written word, books, and information literacy. I’d love to travel like I used to. I’d like to study film and perhaps Irish and Welsh mythology (maybe now is the time to specialize). If I had the money, I’d like to live in California for most of the year, maybe coming back to Kentucky to teach a class in the summer, since summers are my favorite season here. I’d spend May traveling in Europe, doing research and eating pastries and chocolate. In September, I’d go back to California to work, write, and study. If I did come back to Kentucky in the summer, I might teach at U of L instead of UK. (Sorry, Lexington, but sometimes a change of pace is good; I’ve met my share of obnoxious undergraduates and law students here [and actually, people of all ages] so why on earth would I want to rinse and repeat if I didn’t have to?)
This is all pie in the sky right now. I’m staying with a friend in circumstances far from ideal and trying to figure out how to keep from losing my furniture, currently but-not-for-long safely in storage, and my bank account, currently empty. The thought of bringing everything back here, even if I could, roils my stomach. Since someone asked me, I thought I’d outline what I’d REALLY be doing if I weren’t stuck in the bardo. And it could still happen . . . you just never know, do you? Things can change in the blink of an eye, and I’ve seen it myself.
Rest assured that any changes in circumstance will be reported faithfully in this column, but right now, I don’t know when that will be. People are talking to me about moving into Section 8 housing like I’m supposed to be excited about it (sorry, I’m not, no more than I was a year ago). In the meantime, I try to maintain a positive attitude, and even though it’s not always easy, it’s perhaps not as difficult as it ought to be. You have no idea how hard it is to rattle me these days.
I often ask myself: Do I see myself here? Or here? Or there? What about that street? I have a lingering fondness for the Arboretum (how can you not love such a beautiful place), but I balk at the idea of resettling in the neighborhood. I sometimes feel that I shouldn’t even be in Kentucky at all, having been cheated of my plan to live in California. When I see something about Los Angeles in the news or on TV, I feel something tugging at me. I like Kentucky, but it’s not what it used to be (was it ever?). I had hoped that a new job and a chance to experience another city, an idea long cherished before being acted on, would either cure me of the desire for change or show me that I was right all along. How anticlimactic to end up back in Lexington last August! (Though it was no doubt the wisest thing to do under the circumstances.)
I don’t believe all the people who keep talking to me about the changing workforce and economic conditions that have forced many people away from their intended careers. I always was an employer’s dream and still am. I deplore many of the current economic trends but do not think that accounts for what has happened to me. I was asked recently about my plans, and I was taken aback, since few of the plans that I have made recently, no matter how well thought out and prepared for, went the way they should have. But since I’m on the topic, I’ll just say this: If I could do whatever I want to do, I would be back in California with a plan to stay for at least a few years. I could always come back to Kentucky (or go somewhere else) if it didn’t take, and maybe by that time the bad influences here would have cleared out sufficiently to make life enjoyable again. Or perhaps I’d never want to come back here to live. I never got a chance to find out, but the question is still active.
There’s a good chance I wouldn’t even be working as a librarian if I could do whatever I wanted. I’ll always be a writer first and foremost, and it’s a shame I haven’t been able to make a living out of it since I left the newspaper years ago—though perhaps that will change. Here’s how I see myself in my ideal scenario: I’m continuing to write, but I’m making actual money from it. I’m teaching literature and writing, and I’m talking to people about my academic interests: mythology, culture, the written word, books, and information literacy. I’d love to travel like I used to. I’d like to study film and perhaps Irish and Welsh mythology (maybe now is the time to specialize). If I had the money, I’d like to live in California for most of the year, maybe coming back to Kentucky to teach a class in the summer, since summers are my favorite season here. I’d spend May traveling in Europe, doing research and eating pastries and chocolate. In September, I’d go back to California to work, write, and study. If I did come back to Kentucky in the summer, I might teach at U of L instead of UK. (Sorry, Lexington, but sometimes a change of pace is good; I’ve met my share of obnoxious undergraduates and law students here [and actually, people of all ages] so why on earth would I want to rinse and repeat if I didn’t have to?)
This is all pie in the sky right now. I’m staying with a friend in circumstances far from ideal and trying to figure out how to keep from losing my furniture, currently but-not-for-long safely in storage, and my bank account, currently empty. The thought of bringing everything back here, even if I could, roils my stomach. Since someone asked me, I thought I’d outline what I’d REALLY be doing if I weren’t stuck in the bardo. And it could still happen . . . you just never know, do you? Things can change in the blink of an eye, and I’ve seen it myself.
Rest assured that any changes in circumstance will be reported faithfully in this column, but right now, I don’t know when that will be. People are talking to me about moving into Section 8 housing like I’m supposed to be excited about it (sorry, I’m not, no more than I was a year ago). In the meantime, I try to maintain a positive attitude, and even though it’s not always easy, it’s perhaps not as difficult as it ought to be. You have no idea how hard it is to rattle me these days.
Tuesday, March 20, 2018
Reader’s Guide to a Headlong Flight
After years of studying the writings of others, I now have the experience of sending my own out into the ether. I know now that some of the questions I was used to asking about other writers’ influences and inspirations are, in my case, relatively easy to answer, while others are not. The question of what I might have been thinking about when I wrote last week’s blog post, “The Illustrated St. Agnes Eve,” goes back as far as my first reading in the early 1980s of John Keats’s famous poem on that same subject, although the entire answer isn’t that simple. I think it was a dream I had several years ago—recounted in a 2014 post called “Madeline’s Casement”—that first gave me the idea of writing a modern version of the Keats romance, loosely based on the superstitions surrounding St. Agnes Eve. But there is more to it than that.
I know I came up with the idea of setting my version in a modern urban skyscraper instead of a medieval castle sometime after having the dream, and I’ve been thinking about it for at least a couple of years. My original conception included the dinner party and the nightmarish escape of two people down the stairwell and out into the snowstorm; at some point, the little boy in the lobby appeared and wouldn’t let go of me, even though there is no character like him in Keats’s poem. I played around with the idea of both main characters arriving as guests at the same time, but I eventually decided that my first instinct to make the female character, at least, a long-term inhabitant (or guest) was necessary to the story. She has been trapped in the place for some time, which creates a pent-up energy to escape that wouldn’t be there for someone newly arrived. Ralph is a catalyst to the action but doesn’t “belong” to the scene in the same way Estelle does; he instantly recognizes the danger, though, and joins forces with her.
There’s a certain vagueness in the way the tower is presented that’s not accidental: it seems at the same time to be an office tower and a place in which people live. It encompasses the lives of many people and not just a single family. Estelle knows that she has a long history with the place but that it has fallen under an evil influence that baffles and troubles her; it is as if, she, too, is under a spell whose power is partly broken by the arrival of Ralph, an outsider. The other inhabitants of the tower are either unaware of or untroubled by the peculiar miasma that enshrouds the building but is almost invisible.
In my story, Estelle dreams not of her future husband, as per tradition, but of her fellow dinner guests, a dream that encapsulates her feelings about the surreal atmosphere of the proceedings. I was inspired to put animal heads on the dinner guests by an exhibit of animal portraits I happened to catch from a bus window while visiting San Francisco some years ago. I still don’t fully understand why that exhibit affected me so strongly, although part of it must be the peculiar intelligence with which the artist had imbued his subjects. There was something almost human in their gazes, at least to my mind. I got the horses’ heads from an actual dream of my own in which statues of horses came to life, and I must have been thinking of Egyptian mythology when I put dogs’ heads on the rest of the guests.
My story is not a traditional romance in the way of Madeline and Porphyro, who run away to be together, but more of an instant attraction that becomes the vehicle for an escape from danger. Perhaps it will blossom later, but the immediate need is to get the hell out of Dodge. Estelle has the knowledge and the will (and a flashlight, modeled on one that I actually own); Ralph has the clear view of someone newly arrived on the scene and is more certain of the way out. He is a sort of “Virgil” to Estelle’s “Dante,” and the extended vertical escape is in some ways more reminiscent of The Inferno than of Keats’s romance. I have long been captivated by the Dantean geography that begins in a dark wood and ends in a climb out of hell to a view of the familiar night sky: “E quindi uscimmo a riveder le stelle” (“and so we emerged, to see—once more—the stars”) [Mandelbaum translation, Inf. 34.139]. It was from this line that I derived Estelle’s name, after considering several others with celestial connotations. Ralph’s name is a derivative that is probably a bit more obscure but may be a story for another time.
Estelle’s “suite” is loosely based on my memory of the rooms in my “Madeline’s Casement” dream, although none of the other particulars of that dream have made their way into this story. It was more the feeling and the tone of the dream, rather than its details, that survive here. When I started typing, my caps lock feature came on accidentally, which gave me the idea of playing a bit with the typeface in a manner reminiscent of John Barth in “Lost in the Funhouse.” I also had Franz Kafka’s “The Hunter Gracchus” in mind both for its existentialism and its brevity. The main rule I had in mind while writing the story was to keep things simple and not over-complicate matters.
So if this isn’t a romance, what is it? That seems like a good question to leave up to readers. To me, it’s a short story of epic proportions, but that’s probably just because it has so much personal resonance, deriving in part from dreams and in part from other poems that have loomed so large in my imagination—and maybe in no small part from the time in which we live. The illustration is from the Tarot of Marseille, which bears no real relation to superstitions surrounding the Eve of St. Agnes but that came to my mind as representing the urgency of an escape (or a fall) from a high place. It is probably both. These Tarot images are not only in the public domain but have the advantage of carrying an archetypal energy that suits the movement of the story.
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