Redheaded Ramblings: Sheila A-stray

2003-06-26T10:47:00.000-04:00

THIS SITE HAS MOVED

Go here.

This site will continue to stay up ... but it will no longer update.

2003-06-24T07:46:00.000-04:00

I'M STILL HERE

It will take me a couple of days to get up to speed over at www.sheilaomalley.com. There are a couple of things I need to learn how to do ... which I WILL, dammit ... so eventually, obviously, I will make the switch-over completely. That will be by the end of this week.

I'm reading Mortals, the long-awaited second book by Norman Rush, author of one of my favorite books, Mating. I am having a very hard time getting through it. As a matter of fact, I have stopped reading it completely, and have moved onto Robert Evans' The Kid Stays in the Picture. Mating is a special book. Mortals is not. By page 100 I was sick of the two main characters. Norman Rush obviously finds them both very fascinating, and endearing. So every single tangent in the minds of the characters needs to be drawn out for sometimes THIRTY PAGES ... If I had a marriage like those two do, I might have to slit my wrists. Just to escape and get some peace and quiet, for God's sake.

It is so self-conscious. So pleased with itself. So obsessively analytical. Do these two people ever just sit on the damn couch and NOT talk to each other?? That is my ideal relationship. One that is filled with an inordinate amount of comfortable shared silence.

Another thing Rush does is continuously assure us of how funny Iris (one of the boring main characters) is. He fetishizes her humor. He gives us glimpses of it (or tries to). But mostly he just repeatedly states it, as though it is an indisputable fact. "She was such a funny woman." "He loved her humor." "He was going to be losing a funny woman."

The problem with this goes back to one of the first rules of writing: SHOW. Don't TELL.

I don't think Iris is funny. She never made me laugh. And you can't keep just re-assuring me: "No no no, wait, she is a DAMN funny woman! You have to see her when she's had a couple of glasses of wine! She is a riot!" That doesn't work in a book. It doesn't work in life either. Either something IS, and you know that it IS because it can be SEEN and ACKNOWLEDGED by more than one person, or it ISN'T. Iris ISN'T funny, in my book. Just saying it is so, Mr. Rush, does not make it so.

He gives us examples of her humor, but ... to my mind, it's all just coy stupid little puns. Now I know some truly funny people, people who you describe as "Oh my God, he is so funny" -- "Funny" is one of the top five adjectives you would naturally use to describe some people. Humor is undeniable. It's not like being sensitive, or being kind, or intelligent. You cannot fake humor. Some people THINK they are hilarious, but no one is laughing.

I think I have made my point here.

The good parts of the book are when it goes into the life of a CIA agent ... how they live, their relationship to "the agency" -- what it meant for the CIA when communism fell apart. What that event did to the psychology of the agency, etc. What it is like to have a job which is, for the most part, invisible. You will never be acknowledged publicly for your work. You cannot talk about it with your wife. All of that, so far, has been very interesting.

There's also a long sequence where Ray, the main character, is being held prisoner in this warehouse in northwest Botswana. The Boers are involved. He is being held hostage with this other man, an African, who is a psychiatrist, and very anti-Christian. His name is Morel. Morel has lived in England for years and has returned to Botswana on a mission to rescue Africa from the yoke of Christianity. He thinks organized religion is designed to keep people passive, to keep people in a state of waiting, etc. Morel is an African. Morel believes that what Africa needs is common sense, industry, and people willing to invest in THIS life. It's an interesting question. That's also brought out to interminable degrees in Mortals, but I actually have learned a lot, and it made me think.

Ray is obsessed with Milton. Which is understandable. I am relatively obsessed with Milton myself. But what I am picking up on, somehow, in the writing of this book, is that it is RUSH who is obsessed with Milton, and has tried to wrestle Milton into this story, in order to express how he, Rush, feels about Milton. And because of that, it doesn't really work. It feels very self-indulgent.

Another good writing lesson.

An interesting contrast: June 16 was Bloomsday. So I spent an entire day hanging out with James Joyce, which, basically, was how I spent my entire last summer. Joyce Joyce Joyce. Now you kind of cannot find a more subjective writer, a person more fascinated with his own obsessions, a person who can go off on a tangent for thirty pages just because the subject matter interests him. June 16 came smack in the middle of my struggling with Mortals, and there are some vague similarities between the books. And yet Ulysses captivated me, challenged me. One author goes off on tangents, and I find myself looking stuff up on the Internet, calling my dad for information, trying to understand what exactly he is getting at ... what is REALLY going on in the book. The other author goes off on tangents, obsessed with his own obsessions, and I get increasingly annoyed, thinking to myself: "Shut UP! You're not the first freakin' person to discover Milton ... Get OVER it...Shut UP!"

So here's the difference, the undeniable difference:

James Joyce is a genius.

You should not attempt such a book unless you are CERTAIN that you yourself are a genius.

Here's where I stopped reading Mortals, and I will eventually finish it, because I still feel a certain amount of obligation toward the writer who brought Mating into my life. Now Mating, with all of its serious themes, is a truly funny book. Laugh out loud funny at times. Rush just set up the scenes, and then let the narrator describe her response to certain things, and her verbiage was FUNNY, her way of dealing with stuff was FUNNY.

Okay: So Ray (the CIA agent) and Morel (the African crusader) are being held in this warehouse. And being pulled out separately by these Boer thugs to be tortured, on occasion. It is a bad situation. The two of them are enemies, for a very boring reason. It is a plot device, rather than a reality. So they are forced to deal with each other. There is a bucket in the room for them to use as a toilet, and there are two pages, two pages which took two years off my life, years I can never get back, where Morel goes to the bathroom, and he is constipated, so it is difficult for him, and Ray, to relax Morel and also to distract himself from the shitting going on across the room, recites Milton outloud.

I read those two pages. And then I put the damn book down and have not picked it up since.

When I pick the book up again, I am going to have to skip the Milton-recital-during-Morel's-"evacuation" (a word Rush actually used, and which, quite frankly, grossed me OUT.) and pick up from after that episode.

Now, when we first meet Leopold Bloom in Ulysses, he is eating breakfast with his wife Molly, kind of anxiously, thinking he is a cuckold, and about to leave for the day. But before he leaves, he goes into the bathroom and shits. It was hugely shocking at the time ... you don't usually follow characters into the bathroom like that, but Joyce did. I read the whole sequence, and laughed out loud at the audacity of it ... the reality of it ... he is bringing us all down to the human level. It may be pedantic to say to ourselves, as a way of reassurance, "Everybody has a crack in their ass." Or: "Yes, he may be Secretary of State, but he goes to the bathroom like everybody else." It is the human condition.

That's what I got when Joyce followed Bloom into the bathroom like that. I became overwhelmed by humanity. It's tragic, and it's comic.

In Mortals I just got grossed out and now I cannot get the image of Morel squatting over the bucket out of my mind. I wish I could. I need that brain space for other things.

Now I'm reading The Kid Stays in the Picture, by legendary producer and head of Paramount at one time, Robert Evans. It's awesome. A lot of fun. And he writes it completely how he talks. Which is hilarious. If you've ever heard an interview with Evans: he's very articulate, very very intelligent, but his vocabulary is like a film-noir hero.

"Lemme tell ya somethin', pal, you don't get to be where I am without steppin' on a few heads. That's the biz."

He calls women "broads", "dames".

I am enjoying it very much. Great stories. The story of his life is an inspiration, and a cautionary tale. It's FUN. It is nice to take a break from boring old Ray the CIA agent and his un-funny wife Iris, and the African Morel going to the bathroom in the corner, while Areopagitica is being recited. Jesus. Spare me.

Gimme Robert Evans.

2003-06-23T16:39:00.000-04:00

REDHEADED PSA

Edit your bookmarks, take note of my new URL, and come and visit me on my brand new blog ... Not much going on over there yet, and this old blog will always remain available (should you be overwhelmed with the desire to read about Azerbaijan and oil or Vaclav Havel's speech in 1990) ... but I am leaving.

Join me over here!

It's rather Amish-looking at the moment, but I will spruce it up once I familiarize myself with Movable Type.

I must send a shout-out to Mr. Dean Esmay, who has been ushering all of us onward, to bigger and better heights. Thank you, Dean!

2003-06-22T10:22:00.000-04:00

Out of the last 40 days, it has rained on 32 of them. It poured yesterday and it is pouring today. There is flooding in Hoboken, which means that on every block there's about 2 feet of street-space where you do not drown when you try to cross. People line up at the bottleneck, avoiding the raging white water which begins at the corner, with the sewer grates overflowing, and spreads down the street.

Last night there was a respite. The rain stopped, leaving a cool night, with a huge wind. I went and saw a show at The New York Comedy Club. There were four fabulous comics, funny funny funny, and one who was not so good. He's very successful, but there was something ... too angry about his delivery. Now, granted, comics in general are an angry bunch. That's where the comedic impulse comes from. Rejection, pain, wanting to get back at everyone who ever called them a jackass. Nathan Lane put it perfectly in an interview. He was asked, "Were you an angry child?" Lane answered, "I was a small round angry person. Nobody ever thought I would do anything, and I remember being about 5 saying to myself--" (in a tough-guy Clint Eastwood way) "Oh yeah?"

His success is his revenge.

But this guy last night wasn't all that funny ... and therein lies the rub. Some jag-off in the back started heckling him, and the guy, instead of turning it to his advantage, and either joining together the entire club in hostility against the heckler, which can work, or making some smart-ass remark which would shut the heckler up for good, which can also work, this guy started getting into it with the heckler, throwing insults back, and it was suddenly like a locker-room in junior high school. It was not good.

He also looked out at one point (the club is very small, they are right on top of us), looked right at me, and said, "Pretty girls like you are a pain in the ass." Everyone laughed, more out of the surprise of it, than the humor, and he went on on his angry 13-year-old diatribe. "You're gorgeous, woman. I would never ever trust you. I could never leave you alone at the bar for two minutes because I'd come back and you'd be surrounded by men. Pretty girls are a huge pain in the ass."

Uh ... not exactly the soul of wit, is he?

But the other ones were fabulous. So funny. Comics are some of my favorite people on the earth. Talk about your pains in the asses! In general, they are all royal pains in the asses (I have dated quite a few of them, having spent some formative years in Chicago, Comedy Central), but one of my favorite human impulses is the pro-active impulse to make another human being laugh. To me, it is the meaning of generosity.

I love being around that energy.

Walked home from the Path station through the freezing big wind. A beautiful night.

This morning? Torrential rain on my windows.

2003-06-20T14:00:00.000-04:00

It is the 4th or 5th straight day of rain. I am in heaven. Everybody else appears to very annoyed.

At midnight tonight, the next Harry Potter book is being released. I know a couple of people who are going to random Barnes and Nobles' to get in line at circa 9 pm. Good on ya!

I love mania like that. Member people wrestling over the one remaining Cabbage-Patch doll?

2003-06-20T10:21:00.000-04:00

DIARY FRIDAY

Here is another entry from the devastatingly embarrassing journal I kept during my time in Ireland as a 14 year old girl. I enjoy torturing myself by making this all public. I was laughing so hard on the bus this morning reading over some of this stuff I had to put the thing away.

April 20, 1982
We left bright and early for Cork. I was so exhausted I slept the whole way.

Today is sort of grey but not bad. We are staying in the St. Kilda's B&B, a huge brick house in town. Cork - oh, I have been waiting to be in a really big city for a long time. The bustle -- the drive -- I love it. Our rooms are really large and I have a double bed all to myself. To be truthful, though, the view from the window stinks. An alley with clothes hanging out on lines. Oh, well. I love the city.

After we settled down and I relaxed, we walked into town to find a coffee shop. I watched all the kids in uniforms come flooding out of the schools for lunch. It took us a while to find a place but we spotted a cafe in this huge internal mall that sold sugar doughnuts. The stools were really high. The doughnuts were all right, to say the most. Since it was lunch hour, 1000s of kids were in every coffee shop we passed and sitting out on steps and benches. They practically take over Cork for an hour.

After a while, we got up and started to look around the mall. They had a great bookstore and a great poster store with posters of Humphrey Bogart, Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, and ... drumroll ... HARRISON FORD!!! Oh, I wanted it so much, and I still can't figure out why I didn't ask Mum. Probably because she would have said, "Well, we don't have to get that in Ireland." But that's why it would have been so special.

We went outside and while Mum and Jean went to the Tourist Office, me, Dad, Bren, and Siobhan sat down beside the river (very polluted). It was so so sunny and bright. Everything glared and we had to squint. The park was quiet, in great contrast to the mad rush of millions of kids a quarter of an hour ago. Siobhan got big thrills by throwing rocks in the water and all that sun on my back was starting to make me drowsy. I put my head down and dozed off until Mum and Jean came back. They had a few pamphlets on tourist things in Cork. Dad wanted to go back to some bookstores and Jean and Siobhan were dying to go on a double-decker bus.

And so we went back to the Tourist Office, a cool soft place with no blaring lights to find out where to get on the bus. So we went back out. Oh, I love the city. There was a big fountain and everything on the go. Stripes is playing at the cinema. Bill Murray's face makes me laugh. We found the bus stop and just in time. A big shiny green double-decker was waiting. We ran on, went up the stairway, and sat down up front. I wasn't really sweating in the thrill of it all, but it was neat to be so high.

But we had to get off two bus-stops later, right after the conductor collected our fare.

We came back up to our rooms and I studied English for a while, so I could watch Trapper John, M.D., with gorgeous Gregory Harrison. I really got a lot done, so I drew for a while while Mum and Dad went out to supper. When it was 7:55 (TV shows are always on at the strangest times here), we all trooped down the stairs to the lounge, a nice comfy room with a big heater. A girl, Paula (13) was there doing her homework. I liked the look of her at first, but then when Gregory came on and I said, "Oh, I like him", she snorted and covered her mouth. And through the whole show, she kept groaning and flipping through all her school books, wanting us to think, "Oh, my, what a lot of hard work she has. Irish kids have so much homework." We didn't say a word.

Dad found a bookstore with all these second-hand Enid Blyton's for only 35p each. So he's going to let me buy them all!! YAY!

2003-06-19T12:03:00.000-04:00

DATE UPDATE

I had a second date with the man from Massachusetts who shall remain nameless. (Description of first date here) I'm just keeping him nameless because I respect at least that little bit of his privacy. He doesn't even know what a "blog" is, though, so I could shout his social security number to the moon and he would never know.

We met up last Friday. It was a date. We met first at Willie McBride's, the pub where we met. We met there for a drink. I said when I sat down next to him, "I think you and I are in a rut." He looked very nice, once again. Was in a suit ... a very cool suit. No tie. I, however, was wearing a black biker's jacket, blue jeans, and big black boots. My hair down and wild. I took one look at him and said, "Once again, you look very nice, and I look like I have come off the back of a Harley." He glanced sideways over at me, and commented flatly, "You're hot."

"Hot." It struck me as a funny word. Juvenile. "Hot."

The man has never had Thai food in his life (how the hell is that possible?) so we went for Thai food. He's a math geek. And I wish I was a math geek. So it works out well. He explained the relevance of John Nash's theories (because I asked him to: "Basically, what is the big deal with game theory? Why did he win the Nobel?") ... so we have interesting conversations.

I am always intrigued by men with INFORMATION. I like men who KNOW things. Who are not, perhaps, openly emotional, but can answer questions, and who can TELL ME THINGS. I like information better than emotion.

After Thai food, we walked through the light drizzle to a nearby pub, for a drink. It was a beautiful night. Blue, dark, rainy. I was on a date. On a Friday night. I'm never on a date on Friday night. It was 10 pm or so. We took about 3 sips of our beers, and then he said, "You want to go to Atlantic City?" I said, thinking he meant "someday" or "this summer", and said, "Sure!" There was a long frozen pause, where neither of us said a word, or moved, and then I said, "You mean right now?" He said, "Yeah. Right now."

This is where my age shows. It was 10 pm. In an hour or so, it would be about time for me to hit the sack. It's a two and a half hour drive to Atlantic City. So if I said yes, that meant that I had to accept the fact that I would not get to bed until, oh, three, four, five o'clock in the morning. I am a fascist when it comes to my sleep. Do not try to mess up my REM cycles. I hesitated for about a second, and then decided, Oh, what the hell. Life's short. "Sure. Let's go to Atlantic City."

We left our unfinished beers there, and walked to his car through the drizzle which was actually no longer drizzle, but a torrential downpour, with thunder and lightning booming through the sky. We drove to Atlantic City through a literal monsoon.

I called it a "monsoon" and he kindly informed me that "monsoons" only happen in the Pacific. See what I mean? INFORMATION.

We drove for 2 and a half hours. We basically had a road-trip on our second date. We talked about fractals. And schizophrenia. I told him I had briefly dated a schizophrenic, and his response was: "And how were they?" We talked about mathematicians. And music. We listened to music. We were going to Atlantic City. I don't even KNOW this person.

By the time we arrived at the sinful neon city on the sea, it was 12:30 at night, and I was positively exhausted. I actually got a bit alarmed. How the hell am I going to last through this? I need to go to bed. My eyeballs are drying up. This is an hour past my bed-time. Mr. Nameless Man was on a mission to find me Visine. I was losing it. "I can't see! My lenses! I have to go to bed!" We went to Caesar's, which is over-the-top cheese-ball. I was laughing out loud looking at the faux Roman decor. It must be the oxygen they pump into the air of the casinos, because within 20 minutes, I perked up.

Not only did I perk up, but I sat down at a slot machine, and won 50 dollars in 10 minutes. I only put in two bucks ... and suddenly, 50 dollars came pouring into my cup. I was exhilarated. Like a little kid. "I'm gonna buy sandals! Maybe a CD or two!"

Mr. Nameless Man is not a slots kind of person. He sat at a blackjack table, and ended up walking away with 400 dollars. I don't know how much he gambled. To be perfectly honest, I don't like gambling. It makes me nervous. Money is not something to risk, to toss around, to play with. Money is to be SPENT. Or to hold onto, to save up for. So it's not really my thing. However, I loved winning 50 dollars. I'll tell ya that.

By now it was two o'clock in the morning. We cashed out. I wanted to go see the beach, and the boardwalk, but the monsoon continued to rage, so it was not condusive. I love knowing the ocean is close, though. I love love love it.

And then, we hauled ass back to Hoboken. I slept for most of the way home. He dropped me off at 4:45 in the morning.

It's good, occasionally, to say Yes to things which, at first, may seem anathematic to you ... I'm very rigid with my sleep, and with my time. But ... being too rigid is no good.

And we HAD a date for tonight ... he invited me to the dinner cruise his company was throwing ... I was kind of panicking about what to wear. Then last night, he called me twice. I was deeply deeply involved in the VH1 "Greatest Moments in Rock" and didn't feel like talking, so I didn't pick up. I also didn't listen to the messages, assuming he was just seeing what I was up to, if I wanted to get together. But: please don't call me twice, was (and still is) my attitude. He called me once at about 7:30, and then later at 11:15. I wasn't too wacky about that. Don't stalk me. It's too early for stalking.

But it turns out, his grandmother died and he was calling me to let me know he couldn't take me to the cruise thing-y.

Damn. I felt kind of like a jerk, truth be told. Thank the Lord I didn't pick up on that second call and say to him, in true Sagittarian-style, "Listen: please don't call me twice in one night. If you don't hear from me right away, it means I'm busy. I'll get back to you when I get back to you."

Phew. That would have been real bad.

Redheaded Sheila is still watching the news, still involved, still keeping herself informed ... but I am not feeling like writing about it at the moment. It's exhausting. I'll get back to it. But I've got other writing projects going on now, too: fiction, essays, etc. A lot of time, new muscles being used. It's all good stuff.

2003-06-18T07:22:00.000-04:00

It's a rainy rainy morning.

I've been a wee bit ill. Last night, my roommate and I had a wonderful and funny night watching VH1's 100 Greatest Songs in the Past 25 Years. Great program. We sang along. We had bouts of nostalgia and love for songs we hadn't thought of in years.

Hungry like the wolf.
I can't go for that (no can do) - GREAT SONG
Enter sandman
Tainted love
You gotta fight --- for your right -- to paaaaaaarty

One of my favorite parts about the program were the mini-interviews with other artists about each song in question. The generosity of artists towards one another. Big stars talking about how such and such a song had such a huge influnce on them, how lives can be changed by hearing a SONG. So true.

Also, dammit, the lead guy from the Goo Goo Dolls is a fox. I could barely deal with him at all. He is ... kind of scary gorgeous, actually. A freak of nature.

Jen and I sang at the tops of our lungs.

"Do you really want to hurt me?
Do you really want to make me cry?"

Lyrics returning to our consciousness 20 years later. Hilarious how that happens. Some things never go away.

2003-06-17T07:25:00.000-04:00

ULYSSES

Friend Aedin called me yesterday, late in the afternoon, in the middle of my own James Joyce mania, and invited me downtown (wayyyy downtown) to the opening of a new bar called Ulysses, where a Bloomsday celebration was in full swing. Twas fortuitous.

So I found my way there, which was a bit arduous. I had to get to Hanover Square, a teeny little park squashed down between towering Wall Street buildings. Closer to the East River than the Hudson. As a matter of fact, Hanover Square was so far east that to my left, as I walked there, I could see the gleaming river a block away, and the buildings in Brooklyn on the other side. It felt a bit like Chicago: being in a large city, but always being aware of the nearness of a large body of water just blocks away. It changes the feeling of a city. Opens it up, lets in possibility, excitement. It was significantly chillier downtown, because of the wind tunnels created by all those tall buildings crowded in upon one another. The night was beautiful, perfection. It was only six o'clock, so the sun still was up, but again, because it's all very tall buildings down there (as opposed to Chelsea or the Village) it felt like night-time.

Because I didn't know exactly where I was going, and because I wasn't clear on the A to B route on how to get there (and neither was Aedin, all she said was, "It's really far down"), I took the C train to Chambers.

New Yorkers will hear me say "I took the C train to Chambers" and will know what that means. It's the World Trade Center site. It's the train I used to take for my Monday night classes at the World Trade Center. It's the train I would take to go see my sister Siobhan play at a bar called The Orange Bear, a block away from the World Trade. I never have a reason to go that far downtown anymore, so any time I do, like last night, what the f*** has happened hits me in the face all over again.

The Chambers Street subway stop is huge. The platforms in between the trains are enormous, to handle the once-massive throngs of commuters pouring into the WTC on a daily basis. Also, subway platforms usually have concrete floors, stained, damp in spots, kind of gross, whatever, it's a subway. But not at Chambers. Not for the white-collar commuters and tourists. It's a tile floor down there. Shiny, immaculate. So the whole place looks different. For the most part, before September 11, the only time I was in that subway station was at around 6:30 pm, racing down to the WTC for my class, just as everybody else was pouring OUT of WTC to go home. I had to literally beat my way through the crowds. The words "sea of people" would be appropriate. Making my way thru the turnstile to get OUT of the subway station was like going into battle. I would have to negotiate with the 50 people lined up to come through the same turnstile going INTO the subway station. It was absolutely insane. I never got used to it. Even as a New Yorker. That many people. At rush hour.

Now, of course, the Chambers Street station is very different. People still work downtown, obviously, but not at all to the degree when the WTC was still standing.

The second you step out of that train, you feel the difference.

You feel what has happened. You feel the impact, all over again.This is not an intellectual thing, this "feeling" does not come from your brain, or your memories of September 11, or from cerebral consciousnss, or anything like that. It has nothing to do with anything that is WITHIN you. It is in the air down there. It is external. It is like how people describe what it feels like to visit Auschwitz, or Dachau. You are in the presence of something horrific. Something beyond belief. It is haunted. I am not speaking metaphorically, or new age-y. I am speaking of reality. It is a place filled with ghosts. It has not recovered. The space, the air, the ground itself has not recovered from what occurred there.

First of all, it was 6:15, 6:30, when I got out of the train. My normal time to be down there, from the old days when I was at the WTC once a week. But the tiled clean subway station was nearly empty. Maybe 10 people got off the train with me. Nobody. The place echoes with only a couple of footfalls. I am not used to the emptiness. I will never be used to the emptiness. I still thought to myself, "Wait a second...where is everybody?" And in the next second comes the impact. All over again.

It is a collective experience. I am not an individual when I go down to that area of town, the few times I have been down there since. You are no longer yourself, your individual self. You join some kind of wider human family. That feeling which pulsed insistently through New York City in the weeks after September 11, before dissipating into normalcy (or: an aftermath which masqueraded as normalcy: rude cab drivers, people bitching each other out on the street, etc.), is still alive downtown. The feeling of collective pain, of the importance of memory, the necessity of loving one another, of being kind and helpful to one another because we are all in this HELL together ... All of that is felt, palpably, the second you get off the train. People speak in lowered respectful voices. You are in church.

Or, if not church, then a more generalized holy space. You hear people talk about the World Trade Center site as hallowed ground, and again, this is not an intellectual concept. It is reality. It is FELT, and palpably, in the air you breathe.

It is devastatingly sad. Too sad for tears. No response but silence is appropriate..

Everything is different.

Nobody has recovered. Recovery? What a friggin' JOKE.

You emerge from the subway, and you are on the corner across the street from the big hole in the ground. St. Paul's Church is right there, right beside you as you climb the stairs. The iron gates, wreathed with memorabilia, notes, flowers, flags, patches from firehouses all across the country, and the world. A firehouse from New Zealand, from Germany. The church is a miracle, as everybody knows. The story is well-known. It is wreathed in significance. It's not a holy place because it is a church. It's holy ground, holy air.

The hole across the street still shocks with its enormity.

The iron cross found in the rubble stands alone, behind the fence. People mill around. Tourists. But there is a pall over everything. You can feel it. It draped over you like a blanket. You can kind of forget about all of this uptown. But not down here. Never down here.

Later, Aedin said, "The souls are still here. I saw the bodies fall. The souls fall. And they're still here."

That is what is in the air. Not just memories of that day, but the actual souls of those who were lost.

There is nothing casual down there. I started south, looking for Hanover Square, but my thought-process was no longer of the normal going-to-meet-someone variety (as in "Okay, so it's 6:15 ... I think Hanover Square is off Liberty Street ... Should I call Aedin and let her know I'm close?") None of that. There was no thought-process at all. Just solemn awareness of the hallowed ground I was walking on.

The other thing I notice when I'm down there is: that the buildings surrounding, the ones that survived ... it's hard to really see them for what they are, just buildings, black glass, concrete, windows ... because laid over them is an afterimage of what they looked like for weeks following the attack. Everything down there was covered in dust. The air was white with dust. You scuffed through it on the street. It covered your clothes, got in your throat. The buildings were veiled in white, blasted by the dust from the rubble. They looked completely different than the normal workaday buildings I saw before me. It is hard to put together the two images. It is hard to realize they are the same buildings.

It seems absolutely inconceivable that they are the same buildings.

I cannot imagine what it must be like for the people who still work down there, who deal with walking by that hole every day. I suppose anything can become relatively normal, with enough time. You get used to only having one leg, although you always miss having two.

By the time I found the bar "Ulysses" (which was hopping, it was the day of its opening) I was far enough away from the hole, I couldn't see it anymore, that I was able to leave it behind. Momentarily.

The Bloomsday celebration was in full swing.

I sat on a barstool, with Aedin, and her friends, all Irish, (no hyphens for them) and listened to people read excerpts from Ulysses, poems by Joyce, his broadsides. There were a couple of singers there. An incredible Irish soprano, who sang "Danny Boy" with such a full and open throat that everybody was in tears. Another singer sang "The Lass of Aughrim", and we all sang along. There were duets. An Irish woman read from "The Citizen" in Ulysses, the section where two pages of names are rattled off. She plowed through, with her thick brogue, chewing up the names, spitting them out. As the list went on and on and on, and she never faltered and never paused, it got funnier and funnier and funnier. When she finished the list with a "take THAT" nod of her head, the place erupted into cheers. Aedin read a bawdy poem with gusto.

Frank McCourt was there. And other illustrious Irish citizens of New York. Actors, musicians, writers. Every single person, including myself, had their copy of Ulysses. The table was strewn with Xerox-ed pages from Ulysses, certain parts highlighted, written on, sections crossed out.

I felt like everybody was absolutely insane, and I felt like I was in the perfect company.

All day long I had felt lonely for Ireland, lonely for people who were Irish, and then lo and behold, there I was, surrounded by more Irish-ness than I thought I could stand, singing "Danny Boy" at the top of my lungs with 30 other people, everybody wiping away tears.

Afterwards, I walked across lower Manhattan, through the wind tunnels, to take the ferry home. The way I used to do after my Monday night classes. One of my favorite rituals. Sitting on the roof deck of the ferry boat, watching Manhattan pull away from me. This is another thing I have not done since September 11. Then, what had been most spectacular and overwhelming about the receding skyline, was obviously the World Trade. Impossibly high. Impossibly high and lit-up. Dwarfing everything else. If the roof-deck was empty, I would lie on my back, and watch the towers move, float away, dizzying myself.

I was the only one up on the roof, last night. I was feeling very Irish, the sounds of the brogues resonating through my head. Something in me had been completely satisfied.

But the floodlights from Ground Zero were sobering ... You never forget. You never forget.

And now, when the boat pulled away, all I saw was empty dark sky above me. It didn't make me dizzy at all.

I'm not used to it. I'm used to getting dizzy when that ferry first pulls away.

What comes to mind is a poem by Auden - "The More Loving One". I know he's not Irish, but that's no matter. I can feel the poem's ultimate truth ... but it's such a difficult truth. One of the hardest. Oh, I fight with this poem. I fight tooth and nail. It was the last stanza which came to my mind as the ferry pulled away, and the sky seemed so empty.

Looking up at the stars, I know quite well
That, for all they care, I can go to hell,
But on earth indifference is the least
We have to dread from man or beast.

How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.

Admirer as I think I am
Of stars that do not give a damn,
I cannot, now I see them, say
I missed one terribly all day.

Were all stars to disappear or die,
I should learn to look at an empty sky
And feel its total dark sublime,
Though this might take me a little time.

God bless Ireland. God bless New York City. And happy Bloomsday.

2003-06-17T06:57:00.000-04:00

ANNOUNCEMENT:

All of the Joycean quotations below are in honor of Bloomsday, in case you just arrived here and wondered what the hell was going on.

This is the meaning of Bloomsday.

2003-06-16T17:02:00.000-04:00

Interviewer to Joyce: Whom do you consider the greatest writers in English today?

Joyce: Aside from myself, I don't know.

2003-06-16T16:57:00.000-04:00

Joyce hated monuments of any kind. Joyce and Valery Larbaud were driving in a taxi past the Arc de Triomphe, with its eternal burning flame.

Larbaud: How long do you think it will burn?

Joyce: Until the Unknown Soldier gets up in disgust and blows it out.

2003-06-16T16:55:00.000-04:00

"I respect Mr. Joyce's integrity as an author in that he has not taken the easy part. I never had any respect for his common sense or for his intelligence, apart from his gifts as a writer."

-- Ezra Pound

2003-06-16T16:54:00.000-04:00

"With me, the thought is always simple."

-- James Joyce

2003-06-16T16:53:00.000-04:00

"I confess that it is an extremely tiresom book but it is the only book which I am able to write at present."

-- James Joyce

2003-06-16T16:52:00.000-04:00

"A writer should never write about the extraordinary. That is for the journalist."

-- James Joyce

2003-06-16T16:50:00.000-04:00

"A German lady called to see me today. She is a writer and wanted me to give an opinion on her work, but she told me she had already shown it to the porter of the hotel where she stays. So I said to her, 'What did your hotel porter think of your work?' She said, 'He objected to a scene in my novel where my hero goes out into the forest, finds a locket of the girl he loves, picks it up and kisses it passionately.' 'But,' I said, 'that seems to me to be a very pleasing and touching incident. What did your hotel porter find wrong with it?' And then she tells me he said, 'It's all right for the hero to find the locket and to pick it up and kiss it, but before he kissed it you should have made him wipe the dirt off it with his coat sleeve.' And I told this [German lady], and I meant it too, to go back to that hotel porter and always to take his advice. 'That man,' I said, 'is a critical genius. There is nothing I can tell you that he can't tell you.' "

-- James Joyce

2003-06-16T16:45:00.000-04:00

"To me, an Irish safety pin is more important than an English epic."

-- James Joyce

2003-06-16T16:44:00.000-04:00

Quote from Ellmann's biography of Joyce:

...Joyce plunged back into work on Ulysses.

The early chapters had been brought to the point where they could be published. He entered into correspondence with Miss Weaver and [Ezra] Pound about the possibility of printing the book first in serial form ... Miss Weaver was more than willing, and offered 50 pounds for the rights. In December and January Joyce sent the three opening chapters to Pound, who was delighted with them. After reading the first, he complimented Joyce on December 18 with the dreary humor of his pseudo-American lingo, 'Wall, Mr Joice, I recon your a damn fine writer, that's what I recon'. An' I recon' this here work o' yourn is some concarn'd literature. you can take it from me, an' I'm a jedge.' Pound was then in the course of shifting his primary American allegiance from Harriet Monroe's Poetry to the Little Review of Margaret Anderson and Jane heap, which was more avant-garde in its interests ... The two women were interested in Joyce but were not allowed to communicate directly with him; Pound, acting as intermediary, discouraged such an approach and, as they later complained, treated Joyce like a private possession.

They were none the less delighted when Pound sent them the Telemachiad in February. No sooner did Margaret Anderson read the opening words of the Proteus episode, "Ineluctable modality of the visible; at least that if no more, thought through my eyes. Signatures of all things I am here to read, seaspawn and seawrack, the nearing tide ...' than she cried, 'This is the most beautiful thing we'll ever have. We'll print it if it's the last effort of our lives.'

2003-06-16T16:36:00.000-04:00

When Portrait of the Artist came out, Joyce sent a copy to Ezra Pound, one of his loudest champions. Joyce had signed it with a limerick:

There once was a lounger named Stephen
Whose youth was most odd and uneven.
He throve on the smell
Of a horrible hell
That a Hottentot wouldn't believe in.

2003-06-16T16:33:00.000-04:00

Joyce tutored two young women in English, while living in Zurich. He read to them from Ulysses, of all things. He did this to demonstrate to the girls that English was also inadequate at times.

The girls asked him: Aren't there enough words for in English?

Joyce replied: "Yes, there are enough, but they aren't the right ones."

2003-06-16T16:31:00.000-04:00

"I'd like a language which is above all languages, a language to which all will do service. I cannot express myself in English without enclosing myself in a tradition."

-- James Joyce

2003-06-16T16:10:00.000-04:00

"If I knew Ireland as well as R[udyard] K[ipling] seems to know India, I fancy I could write something good."

-- James Joyce, 1907

2003-06-16T16:08:00.000-04:00

"It is not my fault that the odour of ashpits and old weeds and offal hangs round my stories. I seriously believe that you will retard the course of civilization in Ireland by preventing the Irish people from having one good look at themselves in my nicely polished looking-glass."

-- James Joyce, responding to a potential publishers objections to material in The Dubliners

2003-06-16T16:04:00.000-04:00

"Ireland remains the brain of the United Kingdom. The British, judiciously practical and ponderous, furnish the over-stuffed stomach of humanity with a perfect gadget -- the water closet. The Irish, condemned to express themselves in a language not their own, have stamped on it the mark of their own genius and compete for glory with the civilized nations. This is then called English literature."

-- James Joyce

2003-06-16T16:03:00.000-04:00

"Dubliners, strictly speaking, are my fellow-countrymen, but I don't care to speak of our 'dear dirty Dublin' as they do. Dubliners are the most hopeless, useless and inconsistent race of charlatans I have ever come across, on the island or the continent. This is why the English Parliament is full of the greatest windbags in the world. The Dubliner passes his time gabbing and making the rounds in bars or taverns or cathouses, without ever getting 'fed up' with the double doses of whiskey and Home Rule, and at night, when he can hold no more and is swollen up with poison like a toda, he staggers from the side-door and, guided by an instinctive desire for stability along the straight line of the houses, he goes slithering his backside against all walls and corners. He goes 'arsing along' as we say in English. There's the Dubliner for you." -- James Joyce

2003-06-16T15:57:00.000-04:00

"What is wrong with all these Irish writers -- what the blazes are they always snivelling about?" -- James Joyce

2003-06-16T15:55:00.000-04:00

JOYCE TO NORA

Joyce wrote the following letter to Nora, on September 16, 1904, shortly before he and she fled Ireland together (without getting married).

When I was waiting for you last night I was even more restless. It seemed to me that I was fighting a battle with every religious and social force in Ireland for you and that I had nothing to rely on but myself. There is no life here -- no naturalness or honesty. People live together in the same houses all their lives and at the end they are as far apart as ever ... The fact that you can choose to stand beside me in this way in my hazartdous life fills me with great pride and joy ... Allow me, dearest Nora, to tell you how much I desire that you should share any happiness that may be mine and to assure you of my great respect for that love of yours which it is my wish to deserve and to answer.

2003-06-16T15:50:00.000-04:00

FROM JOYCE

James Joyce wrote this to Stanislaus, his brother, as he was working on Dubliners, beginning to find his own form:

Don't you think there is a certain resemblance betwen the mystery of the Mass and what I am trying to do? I mean that I am trying ... to give people some kind of intellectual pleasure or spiritual enjoyment by converting the bread of everyday life into something that has a permanent artistic life of its own ... for their mental, moral, and spiritual uplift.

Also, to Stanislaus:

Do you see that man who has just skipped out of the way of the tram? Consider, if he had been run over, how significant every act of his would at once become. I don't mean for the police inspector. I mean for anybody who knew him. And his thoughts, for anybody that could know them. It is my idea of the significance of trivial things that I want to give the two or three unfortunate wretches who may eventually read me.

2003-06-16T15:46:00.000-04:00

FROM NORA

"You can't imagine what it was like for me to be thrown into the life of this man." -- Nora Joyce

2003-06-16T15:45:00.000-04:00

HA HA

"Paris amuses me very much but I quite understand why there is no poetry in French literature; for to create poetry out of French life is impossible. I have no sympathy with the 'gallant' French. I am glad the Germans beat them and hope they will beat them again. But heaven forbid the French should perish and the world lose such cooks and dancing masters." -- James Joyce, in a letter to Lady Gregory

2003-06-16T14:41:00.000-04:00

Oh, by the way, most of any understanding I have about Ulysses came from my dad. I read it last summer, and my dad coached me through the experience. I could definitely get the startling genius of the language, but any sense of the underlying pattern (which is where the REAL genius of the book lies) was given to me by him.

2003-06-16T13:54:00.000-04:00

QUOTES FROM ULYSSES

PART I: TELEMACHIA - Ulysses' departure - This section of Joyce's book has 3 parts, Telemachus, Nestor, and Proteus -- Of course, NONE of them are labeled in the book ... You have to get a guide book to figure out what the hell Joyce is up to. It also helps to read the Odyssey again, or in conjunction with Ulysses.

TELEMACHUS episode- which has to do with theology, as far as I can tell, not knowing all of Joyce's "code words"
1.

He mounted to the parapet again and gazed out over Dublin bay, his fair oakpale hair stirring slightly.

-- God, he said quietly. Isn't the sea what Algy calls it: a grey sweet mother? The snotgreen sea. The scrotumtightening sea. Epi oinopa ponton. Ah, Dedalus, the Greeks. I must teach you. You must read them in the original. Thalatta! Thalatta! She is our great sweet mother. Come and look.

Stephen bent forward and peered at the mirror held out to him, cleft by a crooked crack, hair on end. As he and others see me. Who chose this face for me? This dogsbody to rid of vermin. It asks me too.

-- I pinched it out of the skivvy's room, Buck Mulligan said. It does her all right. The aunt always keeps plain-looking servants for Malachi. lead him not into temptation. And her name is Ursula.

Laughing again, he brought the mirror away from Stephen's peering eyes.

-- The rage of Caliban at not seeing his face in a mirror, he said. If Wilde were only alive to see you.

Drawing back and pointing, Stephen said with bitterness:

-- It is a symbol of Irish art. The cracked lookingglass of a servant.

The nickel shaving-bowl shone, forgotten, on the parapet. Why should I bring it down? Or leave it there all day, forgotten friendship?

He went over to it, held it in his hands awhile, feeling its coolness, smelling the clammy slaver of the lather in which the brush was stuck. So I carried the boat of incense then at Clongowes. I am another now and yet the same. A servant too. A server of a servant.

The doorway was darkened by an entering form.

-- The milk, sir.

-- Come in, ma'am, Mulligan said. Kinch, get the jug.

An old woman came forward and stood by Stephen's elbow.

-- That's a lovely morning, sir, she said. Glory be to God.

-- To whom? Mulligan said, glancing at her. Ah, to be sure.

Stephen reached back and took the milkjug from the locker.

-- The islanders, Mulligan said to Haines casually, speak frequently of the collector of prepuces.

-- How much, sir? asked the old woman.

-- A quart, Stephen said.

He watched her pour into the measure and thence into the jug rich white milk, not hers. Old shrunken paps. She poured again a measureful and a tilly. Old and secret she had entered from a morning world, maybe a messenger. She praised the goodness of the milk, pouring it out. Crouching by a patient cow at daybreak in the lush field, a witch on her toadstool, her wrinkled fingers quick at the squirting dugs. They lowed about her whom they knew, dewsilky cattle. Silk of the kine and poor old woman, names given her in old times. A wandering crone, lowly form of an immortal serving her conqueror and her gay betrayer, their common cuckquean, a messenger from the secret morning. To serve or to upbraid, whether he could not tell: but scorned to beg her favour.

-- It is indeed, ma'am, Buck Mulligan said, pouring milk into their cups.

-- Taste it, sir, she said.

He drank at her bidding.

-- If we could only live on good food like that, he said to her somewhat loudly, we wouldn't have the country full of rotten teeth and rotten guts. Living in a bogswamp, eating cheap food and the streets paved with dust, horsedung and consumptives' spits.

-- Are you a medical student, sir? the old woman asked.

-- I am, ma'am, Buck Mulligan answered.

Stephen listened in scornful silence. She bows her old head to a voice that speaks to her loudly, her bonesetter, her medicineman; me she slights. To the voice that will shrive and oil for the grave all there is of her but her woman's unclean loins, of man's flesh made not in God's likeness, the serpent's prey. And to the loud voice that now bids her be silent with wondering unsteady eyes.

-- Do you understand what he says? Stephen asked her.

-- Is it French you are talking, sir? the old woman said to Haines.

Haines spoke to her again a longer speech, confidently.

-- Irish, Buck Mulligan said. Is there Gaelic on you?

-- I thought it was Irish, she said, by the sound of it. Are you from west, sir?

-- I am an Englishman, Haines answered.

-- He's English, Buck Mulligan said, and he thinks we ought to speak Irish in Ireland.

-- Sure we ought to, the old woman said, and I'm ashamed I don't speak the language myself. I'm told it's a great language by them that knows.

-- Grand is no name for it, said Buck Mulligan. Wonderful entirely.

NESTOR episode - which has to do with history, catechism
1.

-- Where do you begin in this? Stephen asked, opening another book.

-- Weep no more, Comyn said,

-- Go on then, Talbot.

-- And the history, sir?

-- After, Stephen said. Go on, Talbot.

A swarthy boy opened a book and propped it nimbly under the breastwork of his satchel. He recited jerks of verse with odd glances at the text:

-- Weep no more, woful shepherd, weep no more
For Lycidas, your sorrow, is not dead,
Sunk though he be beneath the watery floor. . .

It must be movement then, an actuality of the possible as possible. Aristotle's phrase formed itself within the gabbled verses and floated out into the studious silence of the library of Saint Genevieve where he had read, sheltered from the sin of Paris, night by night. By his elbow a delicate Siamese conned a handbook of strategy. Fed and feeding brains about me: under glowlamps, impaled, with faintly beating feelers: and in my mind's darkness a sloth of the underworld, reluctant, shy of brightness, shifting her dragon scaly folds. Thought is the thought of thought. Tranquil brightness. The soul is in a manner all that is: the soul is the form of forms. Tranquility sudden, vast, candescent: form of forms.

Talbot repeated:

-- Through the dear might of Him that walked the waves,
Thorough the dear might . . .

-- Turn over, Stephen said quietly. I don't see anything.

-- What, sir? Talbot asked simply, bending forward.

His hand turned the page over. He leaned back and went on again having just remembered. Of him that walked the waves. Here also over these craven hearts his shadow lies and on the scoffer's heart and lips and on mine. It lies upon their eager faces who offered him a coin of the tribute. To Caesar what is Caesar's to God what is God's. A long look from dark eyes, a riddling sentence to be woven on the church's looms. Ay.

Ugly and futile: lean neck and tangled hair and a stain of ink, a snail's bed. Yet someone had loved him, borne him in her arms and in her heart. But for her the race of the world would have trampled him under foot, a squashed boneless snail. She had loved his weak watery blood drained from her own.

Mr Deasy stared sternly for some moments over the mantelpiece at the shapely bulk of a man in tartan fillibegs: Albert Edward Prince of Wales.

-- You think me an old fogey and an old tory, his thoughtful voice said. I saw three generations since O'Connell's time. I remember the famine. Do you know that the orange lodges agitated for repeal of the union twenty years before O'Connell did or before the prelates of your communion denounced him as a demagogue? You fenians forget some things.

Glorious, pious and immortal memory. The lodge of Diamond in Armagh the splendid behung with corpses of papishes. Hoarse, masked and armed, the planeters' covenant. The black north and true blue bible. Croppies lie down.

Stephen sketched a brief gesture.

-- I have rebel blood in me too, Mr Deasy said. On the spindle side. But I am descended from sir John Blackwood who voted for the union. We are all Irish, all kings' sons.

-- Alas, Stephen said.

-- History, Stephen said, is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.

PROTEUS episode - which is an inner monologue ... it has to do with philology ... It is also very interesting because it is from the point of view of Stephen, who, Joyce tells us ONCE in the 800 page book, has broken his glasses ... So from inside Stephen's world, everything is very blurry and introspective, because he cannot see clearly. But God forbid that Joyce would remind us of this and say, "What with having a pair of broken glasses, Stephen squints down the shoreline" -- You are just left in this blurry subjective world. The first paragraph of the Proteus section is rightfully famous. I will lead off with it below.

1.

Ineluctable modality of the visible: at least that if no more, thought through my eyes. Signatures of all things I am here to read, seaspawn and seawrack, the nearing tide, that rusty boot, Snotgreen, bluesilver, rust: colored signs. Limits of the diaphane. But he adds: in bodies. Then he was aware of them bodies before of them coloured. How? By knocking his sconce against them, sure. Go easy. Bald he was and a millionaire, maestro di color che sanno. Limit of the diaphane in. Why in? Diaphane, adiaphane. If you can put your five fingers through it, it is a gate, if not a door. Shut your eyes and see.

Now I realize I am biased (OBVIOUSLY), but the genius of that kind of takes my breath away, I must admit. Read the sentence below, and see what Joyce is doing. He never states the obvious: "I have lost my glasses, I can't see".

2.

The dog's bark ran towards him, stopped, ran back.

I am blind as a bat myself, and that is a perfect description of the experience of sound, when I am sans glasses or lenses.

3.

His shadow lay over the rocks as he bent, ending. Why not endless till the fartheset star? darkly they are there behind this light, darkness shining in the brightness, delta of Cassiopeia, worlds. Me sitst there with his augur's rod of ash, in borrowed sandals, by day beside a livid sea, unbeheld, in violet night shadow from me, manshape ineluctable, call it back. Endless, would it be mine, form of my form? Who watches me here? Who ever anywhere will read these written words? Signs on a white field. Somewhere to someone in your flutiest voice. The good bishop of Cloyne took the veil of the temple out of his shovel hat: veil of space with coloured emblems hatched on its field. Hold hard. Coloured on a flat: yes, that's right. Flat I see, then think distance, near, far, flat I see, east, back. Ah, see now. Falls back suddenly, frozen in stereoscope. Click does the trick. You find my words dark. Darkness is in our souls, do you not think? Flutier. Our souls, shame-wounded by our sins, cling to us yet more, a woman to her lover clinging, the more the more.

2003-06-16T12:56:00.000-04:00

SPEAKING OF JOYCE

Here are what other people have to say about James Joyce and Ulysses:

-- "Ulysses towers over the rest of Joyce's writings, and in comparison to its noble originality and unique lucidity of thought and style the unfortunate Finnegans Wake is nothing but a formless and dull mass of phony folklore, a cold pudding of a book, a persistent snore in the next room, most aggravating to the insomniac! I am. Moreover, I always detested regional literature full of quaint old-timers and imitated pronunciation. Finnegans Wake's façade disguises a very conventional and drab tenement house, and only the infrequent snatches of heavenly intonations redeem it from utter insipidity. I know I am going to be excommunicated for this pronouncement." -- Vladimir Nabokov

-- "That James Joyce is indeed a black Irishman, wreaking a vengeance, even wilder than the I.R.A.'s, on the English language from within, invading the territory of its sanitary ego-presumptions with a flood of impure, dark languages flowing from the damned up sources of collective speech, savagely drowning the ego of the traditional speaker and depositing the property of words in everybody, in the total human community of those who speak and have spoken and shall speak." -- Carlos Fuentes

-- "If our society should go to smash tomorrow (which, as Joyce implies, it may) one could find all the pieces, together with the forces that broke them, in Finnegans Wake." -- Joseph Campbell

-- "It's a miserable ritual, a magical procedure. . . a homunculus of the consciousness of the new world -- our world passed away and a new world has arisen." -- Jung, on Ulysses

-- "In respect to the recurrent emergence of the theme of sex in the minds of his characters, it must always be remembered that his locale was Celtic and his season Spring." - -Judge M. Woolsey writing on the "obscenity" in Ulysses, 1933

-- "The first spectre of the new generation has appeared. His name is Joyce. I have suffered from him and I would like you to suffer." -- George Russell to Yeats, in 1902

-- "He had not taste, only genius." --Madame Yasushi Tanaka

-- "He was inclined to be testy, and I believe that just that irritation produced the power for his inner turmoil and productivity. His resentment against Dublin, against England, against particular persons became converted into dynamic energy and actually found release only in literary creation. But he seemed fond of his own asperity; I never saw him laugh or show high spirits. He always made the impression of a compact, somber force and when I saw him on the street, his thin lips pressed tightly together, always walking rapidly as if heading for a definite objective, I sensed the defensive, the inner isolation of his being even more positively than in our talks. It failed to astonish me when I later learned that just this man had written the most solitary, the least affined work -- meteor-like in its introduction to the world of our time." -- Stefan Sweig

-- "Joyce -- pleasing; after the first shell of cantankerous Irishman, I got the impression that the real man is the author of Chamber Music, the sensitive. The rest is the genius; the registration of realities on the temperament, the delicate temperament of the early poems. A concentration and absorption passing Yeats' -- Yeats has never taken on anything requiring the condensation of Ulysses." -- Ezra Pound

-- "James Joyce in his Ulysses has described, with a fidelity so ruthless that the book is hardly bearable, the life that Dublin offers to its young men, or, if you prefer to put it in the other way, that its young men offer to Dublin. No doubt it is much like the life of young men everywhere in modern urban civilization. A certain flippant futile derision and belittlement that confuses the noble and serious wiht the base and ludicrous seems to me peculiar to Dublin." -- George Bernard Shaw

-- "I have read several fragments of Ulysses ... It is a revolting record of a disgusting phase of civilization; but it is a truthful one; and I should like to put a cordon round Dublin; round up every male person in it between the ages of 15 and 30; force them to read it; and ask them whether on reflection they could see anything amusing in all that foul mouthed foul minded derision and obscenity...It is, however, some consolation to find that at last somebody has felt deeply enough about it to face the horror of writing it all down and using his literary genius to force people to face it. In Ireland they try to make a cat cleanly by rubbing its nose in its own filth. Mr. Joyce has tried the same treatment on the human subject." -- GB Shaw

-- "I wish, for my own sake, that I had not read it." -- TS Eliot, on Ulysses

-- "How could anyone write again after achieving the immense prodigy of the last chapter?" -- TS Eliot

-- "He's a queasy undergraduate scratching his pimples." -- Virginia Woolf, who was unimpressed with Ulysses

-- "Joyce is good. He is a good writer. People like him because he is incomprehensible and anybody can understand him. But who came first, Gertrude Stein or James Joyce? Do not forget that my first great book, Three Lives, was published in 1908. That was long before Ulysses. But Joyce has done something. His influence, however, is local. Like Synge, another Irish writer, he has had his day." -- Gertrude Stein, following the uproar of the publication of Ulysses in Paris. Joyce heard about her comment, and said, "I hate intellectual women."

-- "Joyce has a most goddamn wonderful book. It'll probably reach you in time. Meantime the report is that he and all his family are starving but you can find the whole celtic crew of them every night in Michaud's where Binney and I can only afford to go about once a week...The damned Irish, they have to moan about something or other..." -- Ernest Hemingway in a letter to Sherwood Anderson

-- "Ulysses is hopeless; it is absurd to imagine that any good end can be served by trying to record every single thought and sensation of any human being. That's not art, it's like trying to copy the London Directory." -- George Moore

-- Here are two consecutive quotes from Yeats. He read a chapter or two of Ulysses, which had been serialized in the Little Review from Paris. He commented: "A mad book!" But then later, not much later, he said, "I have made a terrible mistake. It is a work perhaps of genius. I now perceive its coherence ... It is an entirely new thing -- neither what the eye sees nor the ear hears, but what the rambling mind thinks and imagines from moment to moment. He has certainly surpassed in intensity any novelist of our time."

And here's a quote from a letter of Katherine Mansfield:

-- "Joyce was rather ... difficile. I had no idea until then of his view of Ulysses -- no idea how closely it was modelled on the Greek story, how absolutely necessary it was to know the one through and through to be able to discuss the other. I've read the Odyssey and am more or less familiar with it but Murry [Mansfield's husband] and Joyce simply sailed out of my depth. I felt almost stupefied. It's absolutely impossible that other people should understand Ulysses as Joyce understands it. It's almost revolting to hear him discuss its difficulties. It contains code words that must be picked up in each paragraph and so on. The Question and Answer part can be read astronomically or from the geologic standpoint or -- oh, I don't know!" -- Katherine Mansfield. Joyce had a different take on his afternoon spent with the Mansfields, and told a friend: "Mrs. Murry understood the book better than her husband."

-- "I was attracted to [Ulysses] by the fact that I was once a young man in Dublin, and also by Joyce's literary power, which is of classic quality. I do not see why there should be any limit to frankness in sex revelation; but Joyce does not raise that question. The question he does raise is whether there should be any limit to the use in literature of blackguardly language. It depends on what people will stand. If Dickens or Thackeray had been told that a respectable author like myself would use the expletive "bloody" in a play, and that an exceptionally fastidious actress of the first rank, associated exclusively with fine parts, would utter it on the stage without turning a hair, he could not have believed it. Yet I am so old-fashioned and squeamish that I was horrified when I first heard a lady describe a man as a rotter. I could not write the words Mr Joyce uses: my prudish hand would refuse to form the letters; and I can find no interest in his infantile clinical incontinences, or in the flatulations which he thinks worth mentioning...Ulysses is a document, the outcome of a passion for documentation that is as fundamental as the artistic passion -- more so, in fact; for the document is the root and stem of which the artistic fancy works are the flowers. Joyce is driven by his documentary demon to place on record the working of a young man's imagination for a single day in the environment of Dublin. The question is, is the document authentic. I, having read some scraps of it, reply that I am afraid it is, then you may rise up and demand that Dublin be razed to the ground, and its foundations sown with salt. And I may say do so, by all means. But that does not invalidate the document." -- GB Shaw, who clearly was a bit tormented by the book

And one more from Mr. Shaw: "If a man holds up a mirror to your nature and shows you that it needs washing -- not whitewashing -- it is no use breaking the mirror. Go for soap and water."

2003-06-16T12:46:00.000-04:00

O Wonder, Part II

Leopold Bloom's sensuous memories of Molly Bloom amongst the rhododendrons (see post below, entitled "O wonder") are reflected back to him, during Molly Bloom's stream-of-consciousness monologue which ends the book. 40 pages without a period or a comma.

Carl Jung wrote a letter to Joyce about Ulysses, which I will print here in its entirety. It's very cool.

Dear Sir,

Your Ulysses has presented the world such an upsetting psychological problem, that repeatedly I have been called in as a supposed authority on psychological matters.

Ulysses proved to be an exceedingly hard nut and it has forced my mind not only to most unusual efforts, but also to rather extravagant peregrinations (speaking from the standpoint of a scientist). Your book as a whole has given me no end of trouble and I was brooding over it for about three years until I succeeded to put myself into it. But I must tell you that I'm profoundly grateful to yourself as well as to your gigantic opus, because I learned a great deal from it. I shall probably never be quite sure whether I did enjoy it, because it meant too much grinding of nerves and of grey matter. I also don't know whether you will enjoy what I have written about Ulysses because I couldn't help telling the world how much I was bored, how I grumbled, how I cursed and how I admired. The 40 pages of non stop run at the end is a string of veritable psychological peaches. I suppose the devil's grandmother knows so much about the real psychology of a woman, I didn't.

Well I just try to recommend my little essay to you, as an amusing attempt of a perfect stranger that went astray in the labyrinth of your Ulysses and happened to get out of it again by sheer good luck. At all events you may gather from my article what Ulysses has done to a supposedly balanced psychologist.

With the expression of my deepest appreciation, I remain, dear Sir,

Yours faithfully,
C.G. Jung

Joyce was obviously very proud of this letter, of how Jung had cursed him and admired him. He read it out loud to a group of people, Nora included. Nora's comment was typically brief. She turned to someone else and said, in regards to Joyce, "He knows nothing at all about women."

So back we go to Molly and Leopold amongst the rhododendrons on Howth. We have read how the memory had impressed itself into Leopold's memory. And here's how Molly remembers it (follow the train of thought, if you dare):

the sun shines for you he said the day we were lying among the rhododendrons on Howth head in the grey tweed suit and his straw hat the day I got him to propose to me yes first I gave him the bit of seedcake out of my mouth and it was leapyear like now yes 16 years ago my God after that long kiss I near lost my breath yes he said I was a flower of the mountain yes so we are flowers all a womans body yes that was one true thing he said in his life and the sun shines for you today yes that was why I liked him because I saw he understood or felt what a woman is and I knew I could always get round him and I gave him all the pleasure I could leading him on till he asked me to say yes and I wouldnt answer first only looked out over the sea and the sky I was thinking of so many things he didnt know of Mulvey and Mr Stanhope and Hester and father and old captain Groves and the sailors playing all birds fly and I say stoop and washing up dishes they called it on the pier and the sentry in front of the governors house with the thing round his white helmet poor devil half roasted and the Spanish girls laughing in their shawls and their tall combs and the auctions in the morning the Greeks and the jews and the Arabs and the devil knows who else from all the ends of Europe and Duke street and the fowl market all clucking outside Larby Sharons and the poor donkeys slipping half asleep and the vague fellows in the cloaks asleep in the shade on the steps and the big wheels of the carts of the bulls and the old castle thousands of years old yes and those handsome Moors all in white and turbans like kings asking you to sit down in their little bit of a shop and Ronda with the old windows of the posadas glancing eyes a lattice hid for her lover to kiss the iron and the wineshops half open at night and the castanets and the night we missed the boat at Algeciras the watchman going about serene with his lamp and O that awful deepdown torrent O and the sea the sea crimson sometimes like fire and the glorious sunsets and the figtrees in the Alameda gardens yes and all the queer little streets and pink and blue and yellow houses and the rosegardens and the jessamine and geraniums and cactuses and Gibraltar as a girl where I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.

Nora's unsentimental response to all of this was: "I guess the man's a genius, but what a dirty mind he has, hasn't he?"

2003-06-16T12:31:00.000-04:00

"In Ireland Catholicism is black magic." -- Joyce

2003-06-16T12:28:00.000-04:00

Joyce had fixed upon June 16, 1904, as the date of Ulysses because it was the anniversary of his first walk with Nora Barnacle. He was able to obtain, perhaps on his last visit to Dublin, copies of the newspapers of that day. In his book, Bloom's fondest memory is of a moment of affection plighted among the rhododendrons on Howth, and so is Mrs. Bloom's; it is with her recollection of it that the book ends. In this sense Ulysses is an epithalamium; love is its cause of motion. The spirit is liberated from its bonds through a eucharistic occasion, an occasion characterized by the joy that, even as a young man, Joyce had praised as the emotion in comedy which makes it a higher form than tragedy. Though such occasions are as rare as miracles, they are permanently sustaining; and unlike miracles, they require no divine intercession. They arise in quintessential purity from the mottled life of everyday.

-- Richard Ellmann, James Joyce

2003-06-16T12:22:00.000-04:00

I COULDN'T AGREE MORE

"Why all this fuss and bother about the mystery of the unconscious? What about the mystery of the conscious? What do they know about that?" -- James Joyce

2003-06-16T12:17:00.000-04:00

JOYCE ON ULYSSES

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

-- "If Ulysses isn't fit to read, life isn't fit to live."

-- "I have come to the conclusion that I cannot write without offending people."

-- "The demand that I make of my reader is that he should devote his whole life to reading my works."

And here's my favorite quote, it's just so damn IRISH:

-- "The pity is that the public will demand and find a moral in my book, or worse they may take it in some serious way, and on the honour of a gentleman, there is not one single serious word in it."

2003-06-16T12:14:00.000-04:00

Being a Joyce-freak is an obsession which could, conceivably, take over your life.

Look at this. Irish Times from June 16, 1904.The People pore over it, looking for clues. I do not judge this behavior. When I read Ulysses, that was where I needed to go as well.

Joyce said, in regards to the complexity of Ulysses: "I've put in so many enigmas and puzzles that it will keep the professors busy for centuries arguing over what I meant, and that's the only way of insuring one's immortality." Clearly, he was correct.

2003-06-16T12:08:00.000-04:00

DUBLIN

I love this quote from James Joyce:

"I want to give a picture of Dublin so complete that if the city one day suddenly disappeared from the earth it could be reconstructed out of my book."

And he does. He lived in exile, away from Ireland, for most of his life, never returning. And yet he could write about no place else on earth.

Speaking of Dublin, here is a virtual tour of the city, taken from the wanderings of the book of Ulysses.

2003-06-16T12:03:00.000-04:00

LET'S TALK ABOUT NORA

Who was this woman? Who were they to one another?

Here's a picture of her.

I highly recommend the movie based on the two of them (it ends before The Dubliners was published ... so it is the story of June 16, and the couple of years that followed). It is called Nora. Check it out. Fantastic acting. And it seems to me that it really understands the nature of the connection between these two individuals.

Here's Ellmann on Nora:

To any other writer of the time, Nora Barnacle would have seemed ordinary; Joyce, with his need to seek the remarkable in the commonplace, decided she was nothing of the sort. She had only a grammar school education; she had no understanding of literature, and no power of or interest in introspection. But she had considerable wit and spirit, a capacity for terse uteterance as good in its kind as Stephen Dedalus's. Along with a strain of coquetry she wore an air of insulated innocence, and, if her allegiance would always be a little mocking, it would nevertheless thoroughgoing. She could not be an intellectual companion, but Joyce was not inclined to care. Though his compatriots Yeats and Lady Gregory might prate of symbolic marriages of the artist and the peasantry, here was a living union. Purer than he, she could receive his litanies, and better still, his confidences.

2003-06-16T11:45:00.000-04:00

INELUCTABLE MODALITY OF THE VISIBLE

This is Joyce, the summer he met Nora.

2003-06-16T11:39:00.000-04:00

JOYCE ON GENIUS

-- "A man of genius makes no mistakes; his errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery."

-- "I want to work with the top people, because only they have the courage and the confidence and the risk-seeking profile that you need."

-- "Irresponsibility is part of the pleasure of all art; it is the part the schools cannot recognize."

2003-06-16T11:37:00.000-04:00

NORA

After Joyce died, Nora continued to be pestered about Joyce, the man who changed literature forever. A reporter asked her if she was Molly Bloom from Ulysses. Nora replied, "I'm not -- she was much fatter."

Finnegans Wake, Joyce's last book, which he had worked on for 17 years, and which pretty much everybody on the planet found incomprehensible, was ignored. Everyone still could not get over Ulysses. Nobody wanted to talk about Finnegans Wake. Nora complained about this: "What's all this talk about Ulysses? Finnegans Wake is the important book."

She, of all people, got that book.

An interviewer questioned her about new writers, writers she liked, writers she read. Nora answered, "Sure, if you've been married to the greatest writer in the world, you don't remember all the little fellows."

2003-06-16T11:18:00.000-04:00

JUNE 16...

The story continues, from the Richard Ellmann biography:

It was this beginning that gave June 16 its talismanic importance for Joyce. The experience of love was almost new to him in fact, though he had often considered it in imagination. A transitory interest in his cousin Katsy Murray had been followed by the stronger, but unexpressed and unrequited, interest in Mary Sheehy. He shocked Stanlislaus [Joyce's brother] a little by quoting with approval a remark of a Dublin wit, 'Woman is an animal that micturates once a day, defecates once a week, menstruates once a month and parturiates once a year.' Yet tenderness was as natural to him as coarseness, and secretly he dreamed of falling in love with someone he did not know, a gentle lady, the flower of many generations, to whom he should speak in the ceremonious accents of Chamber Music.

Instead, on June 10, 1904, Joyce was walking down Nassau Street in Dublin when he caught sight of a tall, good-looking young woman, auburn-haired, walking with a proud stride. When he spoke to her she answered pertly enough to allow the conversation to continue. She took him, with his yachting cap, for a sailor, and from his blue eyes thought for a moment he might be Swedish. Joyce found she was employed at Finn's Hotel, a slightly exalted rooming house, and her lilting speech confessed that she was from Galway City. She had been born there, to parents who lived in Sullivan's Lane, on March 21, 1884. Her name was a little comic, Nora Barnacle, but this too might be an omen of felicitous adhesion. (As Joyce's father was to say when he heard much later her last name was Barnacle, 'She'll never leave him.') After some talk it was agreed they should meet in front of Sir William Wilde's house at the turning of Merrion Square on June 14. But Nora Barnacle failed to appear, and Joyce sent her a note in some dejection:

60 Shelbourne Road

I may be blind. I looked for a long time at a head of reddish-brown hair and decided it was not yours. I went home quite dejected. I would like to make an appointment but it might not suit you. I hope you will be kind enough to make one with me -- if you have not forgotten me!

James A. Joyce 15 June 1904
The appointment was made, and for the evening of June 16, when they went walking at Ringsend, and then arranged to meet again. To set Ulysses on this date was Joyce's most eloquent if indirect tribute to Nora, a recognition of the determining effect upon his life of his attachment to her. On June 16, as he would afterwards realize, he entered into relation with the world around him and left behind him the loneliness he had felt since his mother's death. He would tell her later, "You made me a man." June 16 was the sacred day that divided Stephen Dedalus, the insurgent youth, from Leopold Bloom, the complaisant husband.

2003-06-16T11:08:00.000-04:00

O wonder!

A beautiful passage from the "Lestrygonians" section of Ulysses. I read this and can't help but imagine that Joyce is talking about Nora, although conflating art and biography is always a dodgy thing to do. (However, perhaps it is more than appropriate with James Joyce, the most self-obsessed of writers):

Glowing wine on his palate lingered swallowed. Crushing in the winepress grapes of Burgundy. Sun's heat it is. Seems to a secret touch telling me memory. Touched his sense moistened remembered. Hidden under wild ferns on Howth. Below us bay sleeping sky. No sound. The sky. The bay purple by the Lion's head. Green by Drumleck. Yellowgreen towards Sutton. Fields of undersea, the lines faint brown in grass, buried cities. Pillowed on my coat she had her hair, earwigs in the heather scrub my hand under nape, you'll toss me all. O wonder! Coolsoft with ointments her hand touched me, caressed: her eyes upon me did not turn away. Ravished over her I lay, full lips full open, kissed her mouth. Yum. Softly she gave me in my mouth the seedcake warm and chewed. Mawkish pulp her mouth had mumbled sweet and sour with spittle. Joy: I ate it: joy. Young life, her lips that gave me pouting. Soft, warm, sticky gumjelly lips. Flowers her eyes were, take me, willing eyes. Pebbles fell. She lay still. A goat. No-one. High on Ben Howth rhododendrons a nannygoat walking surefooted, dropping currants. Screened under ferns she laughed warmfolded. Wildly I lay on her, kissed her; eyes, her lips, her stretched neck, beating, woman's breasts full in her blouse of nun's veiling, fat nipples upright. Hot I tongued her. She kissed me. I was kissed. All yielding she tossed my hair. Kissed, she kissed me.

Reading a passage like that it becomes obvious why T.S. Eliot said, of James Joyce, "He single-handedly killed the 19th century."

2003-06-16T09:54:00.000-04:00

I shall return. More James Joyce to come...

Read the quote directly to the left. It's one of my favorite things Joyce ever wrote.

It's a beautiful day for Bloomsday.

2003-06-16T09:51:00.000-04:00

THE DAY BEFORE BLOOMSDAY - JUNE 15

Here is an excerpt from the superb Richard Ellmann biography, James Joyce:

Several aspects of Joyce's life converge upon June 16, 1904, the day he afterwards chose for the action of Ulysses. It was on that day, or at least during the month of June, that he began to work out his theory that Shakespeare was not prince Hamlet but Hamlet's father, betrayed by his queen with his brother as Shakespeare was -- Joyce thought -- betrayed by Anne Hathaway with his brother. Joyce was at his search for distinguished victims -- Parnell, Christ, himself. Instead of making the artist Shakespeare an avenging hero, he preferred to think of him as a cuckold. Joyce developed the theory with excitement ...

He was not yet living at the famous Martello tower at Sandycove, as Ulysses would suggest. On June 15 the McKernans, with whom he had his room, encouraged him to leave until he could pay his rent, and he went to his friends James and Gretta Cousins and asked them to take him in. They hospitably turned over the spare room in their tiny house on the sea's edge at Ballsbridge. After dinner on June 15 the Espositos came to call. Michele Esposito was an accomplished teacher of music who had brought his family, including his two attractive daughters Vera and Bianca, to Ireland several years before. Vera noted in her diary later that Joyce was very quiet and scarcely opened his mouth except to sing, to his own piano accompaniment, Henry VIII's 'Pastime with good companee, I love, and shall until I dee,' and the ballad of 'Turpin Hero'. These he followed with two sentimental songs, 'Love, could I only tell thee' and 'It is not mine to sing the stately grace.' The Esposito girls also sang. They and their father were impressed by Joyce and suggested he call on them. But for two reasons this visit never took place. One was that he offended the Esposito girls, the other that he began to fall in love.

2003-06-16T09:43:00.000-04:00

BLOOMSDAY

Today is all about James Joyce.

June 16.

Bloomsday.

What is Bloomsday?

On June 16, 1904, James Joyce first went walking with his future wife, Nora Barnacle. Years later, Ulysses was published. Ulysses, of course, an 800 page book, takes place all in one day. And what day does it take place on? June 16. Clearly, Joyce saw meeting Nora as a seminal event.

MORE:

A boiled-down version of what Bloomsday is all about (I lifted this from a website of Bloomsday resources):

James Joyce's reputation has improved significantly since 1922, when Ulysses was first published.

Now widely regarded as the greatest novel in the English language of the 20th century, Ulysses was initially banned from sale in many countries and regularly seized by United States postal authorities.

Not until 1933 was the novel published in the U.S. after a bloody literary fight waged by its advocates. Joyce, born in Dublin in 1882, put it best, if a little immodestly when he said, "If Ulysses is not worth reading, life is not worth living."

The action of Ulysses all takes place on June 16, 1904, in Dublin, which happens to be the day Joyce first "stepped out'' with his wife, Nora. Bloomsday began more than 75 years ago in Dublin as a citywide celebration of Joyce and of all good things literary.

Following that first celebration, Bloomsday has expanded worldwide and now includes New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Toronto, Melbourne, Tokyo and many other cities. The ever-widening celebrations are a tribute to a great writer, and promote enjoyment of great books. Festivals include readings, performances, lectures and discussions, and plenty of food and drink.

2003-06-13T15:00:00.000-04:00

ROSSI RANT

Rossi rants. And I agree with every word. I'm done, too.

2003-06-13T11:03:00.000-04:00

ENTIRE WORLD IGNORES THE ONTARIO GAY MARRIAGE -- ANDREW SULLIVAN WONDERS WHY

I read Andrew Sullivan every day. Andrew Sullivan is one of the main reasons I got my own blog. I love a lot of his writing.

I believe that gay people should be able to get married. I am with him on that. But I do not think it is a top national priority. I think that, quite frankly, we have other more important things to worry about at this moment in time. He says: "I'm a little stunned by how little coverage there has been of the Ontario decision to grant equal marriage rights immediately."

I know it's rude, but I rolled my eyes when I read that. I may have even groaned out loud. As a matter of fact, I'm sure I did.

Sullivan says, in the post above that one, about the growing demonstrations going on in Teheran: "Why it isn't on the front pages of the papers I don't know."

So ... there's a TON of important stuff that doesn't get onto the front pages. As he well knows. It's challenging enough trying to keep up with suicide bombers, Israeli attacks on Gaza, Iran revolting, Iran getting nukes, clashes between Iraqis and US soldiers, the Congo in complete chaos, Myanmar cracking down ... I mean, come on. A gay couple getting married in Ontario is supposed to compete with all of that?

Something else about Sullivan: Wunderkinder has a thought-provoking post about Sullivan's latest donation drive. The man made $80,000 six months ago and is already holding another pledge week. A lot of people have a lot to say about this. Michele, at a small victory, describes perfectly what, exactly, is so annoying about Pledge Drive # 2. But Wunderkinder points up some inconsistencies which had, up until now, eluded me.

2003-06-13T10:44:00.000-04:00

THAT JOURNAL ENTRY BELOW...

As I posted that journal entry below, I had to hold myself back from making snarky comments about my 14 year old self.

But I finally cannot help myself. Here are things I noticed:

-- White sneakers are "punk", Sheila? "PUNK"? Uh ... Are you sure about that? Sid Vicious is punk, okay? Putting one safety pin through the lapel of the purple coat you bought at Weathervane does not make you punk. Also, "white sneakers" were never punk. Ever.

-- I went to the trouble to buy chewing gum to guard against ear-popping during the plane-landing. And then completely forgot to use the gum until it was too late.

-- I start the entry at "10:00 pm". I write for a while, a couple of paragraphs. Then I write "10:15 pm." It's not like a huge gap, like I wrote the first section at 10:00 am, and the next time I mention the time it's 3:00 pm. Like: a lot can happen in 6 hours that would warrant an update. But I clearly had only been writing for about 15 minutes! What is the purpose of listing that "10:15 pm"? Obviously nothing earth-shattering had gone down since I had written "10:00 pm".

-- I am embarrassed at how mean and annoyed I was by my little brother Brendan. Brendan was so homesick he never really got over the fact that he was in Ireland. To this day, Brendan remembers nothing about our trip. Siobhan, who was 4 years old, probably remembers more. Recently, Brendan said to me, "The only thing I remember was that I accidentally put salt on my corn flakes, and then had to eat the whole thing."

-- The line "I'm really scared, folks" makes me blush with mortification. Folks? Who ya' talkin' to, Sheila?

-- "I listened to my SK Pades tape". Now, I am not even sure what I am referring to here. SK Pades is a variety show, put on by the junior class every year at my high school. It's meant to bond the class together, to face the difficult last year. But it's for the JUNIOR class. I was only a freshman at the time of the trip to Ireland. So ... what I am gathering is that I had snuck a tape recorder into the SK Pades of that year, the class two years ahead of me, taped the whole thing, and then hauled the tape around Ireland with me, listening to it like a lunatic. Please remember, too, that this was pre-Walkman. Or, if there were Walkmans in existence, I sure didn't have one. So when I say "I listened to my SK Pades tape" what that means is that I had a little cassette recorder, playing the damn tape, which also means that saying "I listened to the tape" is not quite correct. What it means is "I made everybody in my room at the B&B listen to the SK Pades tape with me." I was clearly insane, and probably should have been in an institution.

2003-06-13T09:49:00.000-04:00

A CROSSWALK TO NOWHERE

Thanks to Beth Just for this link.

A crosswalk leading nowhere has been implemented, by mistake, in Rhode Island. This is a classic Ocean State story. It warms my heart.

2003-06-13T07:55:00.000-04:00

DIARY FRIDAY

This is the first entry in the journal I kept during the O'Malley trip to Ireland, years and years ago. My parents took us all to Ireland for a month … I was 14, my youngest sister Siobhan was 4, and there are two other siblings in between. We traveled around as a family in the teeny European cars, all staying in two rooms at various B&Bs. It was insane. Anyway, my mother just found the journal I kept. It is mortifyingly embarrassing to read. Because I am 14 years old, in the full bloom of self-obsessed adolescence. But it is also painfully funny. I had to walk away from my cubicle yesterday because I was reading it and making a scene.

So I will just list the first entry, so you can get an idea of the level of language the entire journal is written in:

April 3, 1982
Logan Airport, 10:00 pm
It is raining like crazy, and it was lightning and thundering. But Anne Ross called Aer Lingus and everything is on schedule. I am psyched but I am pretending that I am cool as a cucumber. I'm going to be very adult on this trip.

As of 10:00 pm I am sitting in a chair after going through that metal zapper machine (without a hitch, I might add) and watching all the punk white sneakers stroll by. I am crazy about white sneakers (Rick Springfield, Rod Stewart, Blackie Parrish and Darryl Hall all wear them), a contributing factor to my fondness for them. I'm pretty punk tonight with my jeans, purple coat and safety pins.

But why am I talking about this??? My family is going to Ireland for a whole month!!! I am going to miss all of my friends incredible. Mere and Betsy and Jhumpa and Beth and Kate. I've never even been on a plane before and I am stocked up with gum.

I went to a Good Works play last night with Mere, Betsy, and Beth. Brian Cerullo was there. OH GOD. I love those three kids so much – Mere, Betsy and Beth. We all hugged and kissed goodbye and this morning I talked to them all on the phone and said, "See ya next month."

10:15
I am now on the plane all buckled in next to Brendan (thrrrills … he's gonna talk the whole way). I have a window seat, nanny nanny boo boo. (Oh, how adult I'm being.)

We have a really nice English stewardess. I like her accent. She's talking to us. Her best friend's name is Siobhan. Imaaaaaaagine that!

A grease bomb just walked by.

I have never been so frightened. We are going a trillion miles an hour. Don't let me die. We are up SO high! I'm really scared, folks.

1:00 am (6:00 Irish time)
We just had dinner.

Guess what movie they're showing – FOUL PLAY. Is that a coincidence or what? (I am madly in love with Chevy Chase.)

April 4, 1982
County Clare
Watching the sunrise out of the plane windows was gorgeous. All the clouds were pink and orange and we couldn't even see the ocean. And flying in over Ireland – oh, it was so pretty! All of the fields divided by hedges – oh, it was so wild. But I forgot to chew gum on the way down and it felt s if someone was pounding on my head with a hammer. I hurt incredibly.

We had to stand in line at the Shannon airport and wait around. We got this tiny gold car that is so cute. We drove around those winding streets lined with tall hedges and after an hour or so we found a place to stay - McMahon's Bed and Breakfast Place. It is in Ennistymon. The beds are so comfortable (featherbeds) and Mrs. McMahon is so nice. So are all the people here. They all wave. We unwound for an hour or so and then we went down the street to the Falls Hotel. There we found a river and beautiful waterfalls. Dad took some pictures and then we took off in the car for the Cliffs of Moher. The roads were thin and high and we could look down over the hills and thatched roofs . It was great!

But the cliffs! They were SO incredible. I felt quite nauseous because they were so high. I only went up to this tiny stone castle but Jean, Brendan and Dad went all the way up to the top. It was SO FAR DOWN. I almost couldn't look.

We took a different ride home and on the way back we stopped in Kilfenora to watch an Irish football game. We stopped and we asked this girl if we had missed the whole thing. And she said in her Irish brogue, "No, we've got another half to go." I like listening to them talk.

We watched the game and it was not at all like our football. The ball was round and they dribbled and pushed and shoved. It was kind of neat.

But I was wiped out and slept the whole way home. I went upstairs and wrote letters to Betsy, Mere, and Beth until supper. We washed up and Mrs. McMahon served us soup and lamb and homemade French fries. It was delicious. Jean loved the soup but I didn't, so I drank some of my broth, then we secretly switched bowls. Brendan started to cry at supper. It was all very embarrassing.

After supper we went upstairs and we took care of Siobhan while Mum and Dad went for a walk.

I listened to my SK Pades tape and then got into my pjs. I was the only one who got into my pajamas.

God, I am so tired. I'm going to bed.

2003-06-12T14:27:00.000-04:00

I hesitate to blog much these days, because in my mind, I am already off of atswimtwobirds.blogspot.com.

But something rather amusing happened last night, which I do feel like re-telling.

I know this will be rather hard to believe, but I had a date last night. An actual date, which involved going out to dinner, which involved the man paying with his credit card and then getting insulted when I went for my wallet ("Come on now, why do you want to go and do that? I'm a traditional Irish boy ... put that away."), which involved a polite exchange of phone numbers at the end of the evening.

Also, Lord help us and save us, he's an Irish-American boy with cousins in "Southie". He's from Massachusetts obviously and is obsessed with the Red Sox. He wears a claddagh ring with the heart turned outwards, like I do. He is an engineer and runs a paper mill. He can speak fluent Latin, which was the main reason why I decided not to completely ignore him. Anyone who can speak fluent Latin is a TYPE of person, they may be pompous, they might NOT be pompous, but they have done something which I find so admirable, so fascinating ... He is a pudgy pasty Irish boy. With freckles. This is my type.

I will not divulge his name.

The whole way this happened is rather amusing, and adds to the mounting evidence that my life is not actually a life, but a literary conceit.

I met him, he struck up a conversation with me, and then half an hour later he said, "What are you doing for dinner? Will you have dinner with me right now?"

"Uh ... sure."

I haven't been on a date-date in so long that I didn't know how to behave, and made some mistakes. I said the word "friggin" with alarming frequency. As in: "It's just so friggin' stupid, don't you think?" I said inflammatory things about Howell Raines at the New York Times, not once considering that that might not be an appropriate getting-to-know-you topic. He said at the end of the night, "So ... have you enjoyed yourself?" And I said breezily, "It beats the hell out of Will and Grace reruns!" There was a pause and he said, "Wow. That was so insulting."

I am out of practice.

I feel like I do not have a romantic bone left in my body. But ... that didn't seem to bother him.

We talked about our trips to Ireland. We talked about Latin. I grilled him on Latin phrases I needed translated. We talked about Rush Limbaugh. He explained Bush's tax plan and why it is such a mess. He explained it very well. He provided context for me. We talked about the downfall of the New York Times. We talked about Salvador Dali and the Torment of St. Augustine. We talked about his cat, Floyd, who ate 3 birds in a 10-minute period, right in front of him. We talked about recycling (after all, he runs a paper mill). We talked about the band Oasis. We talked about my writing, what I'm working on now, what my goals are. We talked about God. He said, "The problem with church is that it wants to get between you and God." He goes to St. Mary's. Where I go. In Hoboken. He went to U Mass, Amherst. I can't tell how old he is. He's either 26 or 32, I'm guessing. Hard to tell.

I felt, at times, like an awkward prickly weirdo. I'm too old for this dating game!

We met at Willie McBride's. I was there to watch the Red Sox game and to work a bit on The Enchantment of Things, which I am submitting to a new literary magazine, one called At Length. The magazine's thrust is LONG pieces ... they have a minimum of 10,000 words and no maximum. The Enchantment of Things is over 25,000 words. So I had to make a couple of changes I kept saying I wanted to make and then send it off to the editor. I find Willie McBride's relaxing when nobody is in there. Anyway. The man sitting next to me immediately struck up a conversation with me, and 45 minutes later we were sitting at Portofino's, drinking scotch and eating shrimp cocktail.

He had come right from work at the paper mill, and was filthy, which I did not notice at all until he made a self-deprecatory comment about his appearance, which I found relatively endearing. He invited me out to dinner and then said something that kind of went over my head ... It turns out, he said, "Give me 15 minutes to hose off." But ... I didn't really hear it. I thought he was running to A&P to get money, or something. I didn't hear the 15 minutes part. So I waited, and waited, and waited for him to return. I was confused. Finally, my sanity returned, and I thought: I will NOT sit here for half an hour, hoping he will come back.

So I wrote a note on a scrap of paper that said: "What happened? Where'd you go, dude??" Then I left my cell phone number. I slipped the note into his cigarette pack, which he had left behind him, and I walked out. As I crossed the street to head home, I saw him hurrying towards me ... he obviously had RACED home, showered like a MADMAN, re-dressed himself, and was RACING back to meet me. And here I was, totally walking away. He called out, "Where the hell are you going? I told you to give me 15 minutes!" (He lives right around the corner, as do I.) I said, "Oh ... Jesus ... sorry ... I didn't know what you were saying ..." I also was mortified because he suddenly looked amazing, immaculate, in very very cool clothes ... he cleaned up real good ... and I felt like a scrub.

I said, "I left you a note inside. I just didn't want to sit there waiting - if you weren't gonna come back." (I can be a very suspicious person. And extremely self-protective. Before anyone has a chance to reject me I have already walked out the door. I am GONE, nowhere to be found.) However, I jumped the gun in this case.

He went in, got his cigarettes, came back out, and read the note in my presence.

He absolutely thought it was hysterical. "This note is a keeper. A total keeper." He kept muttering to himself, "Where'd you go, dude?" He kept repeating it: "Dude. You called me DUDE."

But ... the point of this post, is to say that I had a "friggin'" date last night, and I actually enjoyed myself. Despite the bitchy "Will and Grace reruns" comment, which, in retrospect, I can't believe came out of my mouth. Terrible! I'm a nightmare. But I'm also rather comedic. You just have to have the right attitude.

2003-06-12T10:06:00.000-04:00

THE BLOGSPOT EXODUS

It's happening every which way. Everybody is moving, transforming. It's awesome. I will be over there myself, shortly!

Dean Esmay has made it his mission to help people, out of the goodness of his heart, to make the transfer, which can be quite daunting, when faced alone.

Some of my favorite bloggers have made the move, so go check out their new sites: (I've updated my blogroll to reflect all the new non-Blog URLs):

Benjamin Kepple

Allison Kaplan Sommer at An Unsealed Room

Tim Blair

Damien Penny

Kimberly Swygert's Number 2 Pencil

Sgt. Hook

The Volokh Conspiracy

2003-06-10T15:10:00.000-04:00

60

There was an O'Malley extravaganza in Manhattan this weekend for my father's 60th birthday. Aunts, uncles, cousins ... My mom organized the whole thing and kept it a surprise (sort of. My dad is uncanny at guessing things like that.)

So funny how the two tables at the restaurant just naturally broke down into the "adults table" and the "kids table". All of the "kids" are 15 and over. We're talking about 40 year old men sitting at the kids table, because we are COUSINS, and of THIS generation, not the generation before. I loved hearing the ROARS of laughing coming from the "adults table". My father seemed very happy. Family is the most important thing. Having his family all together around him is the most important thing in the world.

Good job, Mum! Planning such an event! It all was beautiful.

Then we went to see Urinetown: The Musical, which was, as my friend Mitchell refers to things which are so much fun you want to roll around the floor with glee, "sheer liquid joy". I was crying with laughter. Jennifer Laura Thompson reminds me of Madeleine Kahn. She has THAT command of comedic possibility. She had a line in the middle of the love scene, "I didn't either!", where she is supposed to be surprised at something she has in common with her new love, and somehow, miraculously, the woman got a huge laugh out of it. She was wonderful.

And it's just a little bit of a miracle that a musical which ends with the entire cast screaming, "HAIL, MALTHUS" is a huge hit on Broadway. Malthus on Broadway?? Who ARE these people? I am in love with all of them.

So it was a very good day. A family day.

Unfortunately, our family day also coincided with the Puerto Rican Day parade, my absolutely least favorite ethnic holiday in New York City.

I have two words, two words only: FASHION POLICE. The Fashion Police are desperately needed every year to patrol the Puerto Rican Day parade and make numerous arrests. The parade takes over the entire city. Lateral movement becomes impossible. You cannot get from A to B without going through G. Our family good-byes were swept away in a tumult of Puerto Rican pride, we had to shout our good-byes throughout the throng of terribly dressed people. I normally avoid Manhattan like the plague on the day of this parade, but alas, this year I could not. I had to descend right into the belly of the Puerto Rican beast.

I mean, God bless America, let's all celebrate our heritage, but I don't have to celebrate yours WITH you. I prefer to stay home and chill the hell out.

But I digress.

Happy late birthday, Dad ... It was a wonderful Sunday for all of us!

2003-06-10T13:57:00.000-04:00

THE TIME HAS COME, THE WALRUS SAID...

Well, let's just say, "The time has almost come for me to abandon Blogspot for good."

BUH-BYE.

Blogspot: Thanks for getting me started, thanks for being the equivalent to scratching a drawing into a cave wall ... the beginnings of something. A good way to start. But now it is time for me to move on. It is time for me to move from cave painting onto the Renaissance, okay? Progress, baby, progress.

As I said, not quite yet. I will announce it here when I move myself over.

Mr. Dean Esmay has been, obviously, not just a huge support, but a driving force, as well as a facilitator. I saw the opportunity he presented to me and to many others and I have leapt upon it. I am so grateful. He's made it easy, simple. I'm very excited!

I feel very little nostalgia for Blogspot, although, again, it is a great way to start out blogging.

But I sure won't miss disappearing archives. I won't miss my permalinks NEVER working (which means other bloggers hesitate to link to me). I won't miss the template not matching what you actually see on the page. I won't miss having to republish my archives every 5 seconds. It's ridiculous.

More information to follow, a new URL and all that, when everything is set up and complete.

2003-06-06T11:12:00.000-04:00

IN MEMORIUM

June 6, 1944:

This

This

This

This

This

Front page of the New York Times, June 6, 1944

2003-06-06T10:28:00.000-04:00

TEXTBOOKS, LANGUAGE POLICE

Read this post by Michele, at a small victory. I agree with every single word.

It seems to me to be quite an urgent problem. Like: something has GOT to be done about this, and SOON.

2003-06-06T08:33:00.000-04:00

DIARY FRIDAY

Here is a long entry from the summer of 1990. I was living in Philadelphia with Tonio, my first boyfriend. Everything else is pretty self-explanatory.

July 4, 1990

Sitting on the beach with Tonio. Long Beach Island is an amazing place. You drive down the main strip and look to your left: Ocean. To the right: Ocean. No matter where you are. The whole place is a beach. It is a hot blue sunny day. I have gotten some major sun. Freckles coming out. We walked on the beach. The sand is white. It is TRUE Atlantic Ocean. Crashing, relentless, spectacular. Strong scary undertow, weird shoreline. Tonio kept comparing it to Narragansett.

Had a dream about Kelly Byrne. For some reason, Kelly Byrne is someone I will always remember. She is kind of a symbol to me about what was so shitty about high school, and human relationships in general. Let me explain: her beauty so intimidated me (and so intimidated everyone) that I never talked to her. In fact, I resented her. We all did. We attributed bitchy qualities to her (unfounded) and because she looked like a Barbie doll we assumed she was one, etc.

Now, in looking back, how silly of us. She was just as lonely and as fucked up as we all were – maybe even more so. She was so pretty that no one ever really gave her a chance. From Day One. At least that's how I see it now. It all started a couple of years ago, Mere and I were watching the SK Pades tape, and there was Kelly, and Mere suddenly said, "Y'know what? Look at Kelly. She was having JUST as bad a time as we did." That was all that Mere said but it really struck me, and I remember how it made me feel to this day. I had never thought of that before, but the more I think about it, the more I know it's true. Someone like Cris D'Agostino seemed to truly DIG high school. It was obvious. But Kelly never did. Cris had her one boyfriend, a date for all the dances, but who did Kelly ever go out with? I am sure she intimidated guys.

Oh, who knows what was really going on and why should I care? I don't know why, but I do. And the couple of times I have seen Kelly around, at DelMor's, the Coast Guard House, Bess Eaton, URI, we have stopped to talk and they have been really nice talks. I honestly can't remember ONE conversation we had in our whole 4 SK years. Now that is just silly. And a shame, too. We always called her a snob, but we were snobs, too. Because I think we could have been friends.

And last night, in my dream, we were. We were the best of friends.

Still sitting on the beach with Tonz. Long, endless, wide, relatively uncrowded beach. We have discovered a goldmine. An escape. We have been swimming and sunning and reading and drinking beers surreptitiously.

And tomorrow is our two year anniversary.

Oh yeah, after our last weekend jaunt to Long Beach Island, it was about 7 pm, we decided to go to Atlantic City. We each had $10 to spend. Gorgeous sunset. We had clothes to change into, but we couldn't find a place to change, no public bathrooms or beach pavilions. We were parked at this quaint little bay, tiny parking lot, looking out to the misty mainland behind which the sun was setting. We sipped cold beers. The water was like glass. Much calmer than on the other side of the island. Idyllic, tranquil. Soft muted colors. We changed in the car. It was very difficult. It involved draping towels over windows, opening doors, standing guard … A lot also had to do with attitude. If you just nonchalantly do it, people won't take as much notice than if you secretively do it.

But finally we were both changed and we hung out for a second, enjoying the scene: hair damp, skin with that tight clean after-beach feeling. Then, off we went too see the seedier side of life.

I wanted to see the Taj Mahal so that's where we went. Trump's Taj Mahal.

Atlantic City is incredible. It was a cool dark night. We zoomed along the dark highways, up over the hill, and there it was. On the horizon. Miles away, but we knew what it was. Red neon, towering buildings all clumped together. The thing that really struck me, and probably strikes everyone, is the absolute poverty surrounding all of these lush out-of-hand casinos. It was the grossest poorest city you can imagine. I couldn't believe people lived in the burned-out war-torn this-property-is-condemned buildings I saw. And in total view, wherever you are, are these towering glittering castles with flashing lights and laser beams. There was a 3-D laser show in the air. I found the whole thing very depressing. It was all very interesting, and filled with great people-watching opportunities, but it was too much.

As we strolled through the Taj Mahal in all its mirrored tacky splendor, I was conscious, almost the entire time, of the blackened bombed-out dead town surrounding.

What a drag.

But besides that: quel spectacle!

There was so much to look at. Too much. We played $6 worth of nickel slot machines, and won nothing. Not a cent.

Every employee was dressed to the hilt in Taj Mahal garb. The cocktail waitresses walking around … the first one I saw, it was as though it was a slap in the face. So this is what we have become. After all this evolution. Look at what we have become. Look at what men want women to be. The waitresses were dressed up as circus horses. Feathers on heads. Feathers on heads. Prance in a circle, girls. Show your legs. Ruffle your feathers for us.

One day, Tonz and I were walking down near Independence Mall and we passed a horse and buggy, sitting at the curb, waiting for a tourist to come along for a ride. And the horse had blinders on – heavily strapped in—just standing there – patiently – just standing – How that horse wanted to be free of the harness, and straps, and not have to clod along on pavement, but to be in a field, mane flowing, running as fast as he wanted to run. The horse, just standing there, had a little American flag on his head. A little sad drooping flag. God, it just made me want to cry. It was the flag that killed me. the taking away of this horse's dignity.

'That horse doesn't want to have a flag on his head." I said.

Tonio looked, saw, saw what I saw, felt what I felt, and took my hand. We walked a little more.

Tonio said, "Stuff like that makes me want to cry."

We looked at each other, both our eyes filled with tears.

Two years. Pretty good.

So anyway, at first, when I saw my first Taj Mahal cocktail waitress, that was how I felt. Look at her. Look at what they have made her into. In a supposedly civilized world.

But then I thought:

She's not passive. Or unaware. Or stupid, like the horse. And someday I may find myself in the same kind of costume. If not as a waitress, then as a Hat Box Girl in Guys and Dolls … and I'm sure I won't feel exploited. Or used. Or like evolution has failed. And I am the symbol of the objectification of women. I will still be me. I have power. I make choices. Everybody makes choices. Those cocktail waitresses aren't idiots. No one makes me into something I don't want to be.

And by the end of the night, watching them stroll about … Yeah, it sucks, that there is this image of women … but these women looked damn tough. They looked in control. Not passive, like the horse with the drooping flag on his head. They strutted about proudly, tough women. They were just wearing costumes, like actresses.

Okay, I have just discovered the difference, and here it is:

In Boston, Tonio and I hung out on our roof all the time. From our roof we had a view of The Holiday Inn at the bottom of the hill. And on the top floor was a bar, all glass windows, with pink neon, and then late at night, whirling lights. And we used to laugh about that bar. It just looked so cheesy. Tonio said it probably had a name like "Raspberries" or something. Then when we got our telescope, we inspected "Raspberries" up close. So close that we could see the suspenders on the bartender, and the pink neon glinting off his bald head. We could also see what those pink swirly letters spelled out as the name of the bar. Not Raspberries. But Reflections. In spite of this, we still called it Raspberries. We couldn't help it. It just seemed to fit.

On our last night in Boston, we took a traipse to all our old haunts, even though it was raining. We had a big dinner, took a walk, and decided on a whim to go up and check out Raspberries. I was wearing hightops and chemical pants, going up to this sleazy hotel pick-up bar. It was sleazy in a very slick disco-tech way. Swirling flashing lights, trying to create an atmosphere of excitement and possibility, chrome, cushioned seats, round tables, a little round dance floor.

We did have an amazing view from up there. The entire city of Boston lost in mist.

We sat down to order some drinks. Our waitress came over. She was like a beautiful soap opera star. Beautiful, but in such an empty way. Platinum hair, big round blue eyes with nothing behind them, a little rosebud mouth, hair DONE, makeup DONE. Somehow she didn't look human. So we ordered, back the drinks came, something like $4.50 a drink – Then I noticed her clothes. I hadn't before. She had on a classy white silk shirt, and what looked like a classy tight black skirt. Then I noticed that the skirt was slit all the way up to her waist, on the side, and she had a red lace garter around her thigh.

Why did this infuriate me so much? I'm not sure. But I got so pissed that we left soon after. Raspberries was making me sick.

And here's the difference between Raspberries waitress and Taj Mahal circus horses: Raspberries woman looked passive. Like a victim of something. There somehow was not a conscious choice behind her ridiculous outfit. This girl, who happened to be pretty, was put into a skirt with a slit up to her neck by the management of RASPBERRIES, they put a garter on her, and there you have it. In fucking REFLECTIONS, a hotel bar. A stupid bar at the Holiday Inn.

Totally unnecessary. Why did the waitresses there have to be dressed like that?

The Taj Mahal women were wearing circus horse costumes and harem-girl costumes. Everyone fit into the grand picture somehow. But … at REFLECTIONS? Red lace garters? Gimme a break. Somehow it seemed so much more exploitative and sad. Also, because the woman at Reflections wasn't wearing her costume like armor, like the casino waitresses did. She seemed to just have on what her employer wanted her to wear.

But Atlantic City was fun in a garish way. Like a freak show might be fun. I saw SO FEW healthy-looking people. Some looked like they had crawled out from under a rock five minutes ago. Many fat white pasty people. There were no robust healthy folks, working there or gambling. So that made it kind of depressing. Even the women dressed to the nines looked kind of sickly. With leathery tans, hard little breasts, too much makeup. I was completely out of place, with my long red curls and my freckles.

It is nice to work at the University where mostly everybody looks healthy, active, outdoorsy.

So Atlantic City gave me a very peculiar feeling inside.

From the poverty-struck dumps outside to the feathers on the waitress' heads, to the weirdo performer singing old time rock 'n roll in a glittery shirt … I just felt weird.

We sat in this bar called The Oasis, and had a harem-girl wait on us. She was wearing see-thru ballooning pants. She served us killer strawberry daiquiris. Very very strong. There was a real and juicy strawberry perched on the edge of the glass.

As we sipped away, sitting on low cushioned couches, with a glass table in front of us, the glass resting on four elephant statues, we grinned gleefully at each other. Tonio kept saying, "We're having fancy strawberry drinks in the Oasis at the Taj Mahal!"

In a tone that said, "How the hell did this happen?"

2003-06-04T10:50:00.000-04:00

NORMAN RUSH AND ME

Me being me, I have to back up a couple of days to tell the story fully. Actually, this is already inaccurate. I have to back up many years. The journey begins in 1992 when I first read the novel Mating, by Norman Rush. It is one of the most pivotal books I have ever read. I posted an excerpt from it here, a while back.

Today, that book is dog-eared from use. The cover is taped on. The pages filled with underlinings. And in the back, on the couple of blank pages, I have crammed up that blank space with as many dictionary definitions of words found in this book as I could. The vocabulary in the book is, as my friend Allison called it, "daunting". I agree, and I have a pretty good vocabulary.

ressentiment: rancor expressed covertly against benefactors
proleptic: the anticipating/answering of objective/argument before it's put forward
omphalog: the naval/a center
copula: a verb that identifies the predicate of sentence with subject -- usually a form of 'to be'. "The girls are beautiful"
syncretist: attempt/tendency to combine or reconcile differing beliefs (philosophy or religion)
bolus: a small round mass. Greek: lump/clod

WHAT? Expanding my vocabulary was part of the fascination of the book.

But the hold Mating had, and still has on me, goes way deeper than that.

The characters in the book (mainly the two leads: Nelson Denoon and the unnamed female narrator) live on in my mind, the way characters like Holden Caulfield do. Or Captain Ahab. Or Anna Karenina. Their life, their potential life, does not stop with the words "The End". You cannot tell me that Holden does not live. It seems an insult to Salinger's creation. There must be an alternate plane out in the ether, with fictional characters wandering about. Not every fictional character, because not every author manages to create a living, breathing, human personality. Actually, "human" is too limiting as well. Because, to my mind, Charlotte the spider lives on. She exists on that alternate plane. It's sort of like the plot of The Velveteen Rabbit. Once the rabbit is loved, and loved deeply, it becomes real. I love these fictional characters in that way.

Mating is the story of a love affair. And much much more. But the main theme is something the author calls "intellectual love". Rush locates and describes a very specific kind of love, and because he did so, the concept became real to me. He articulated one of my deepest longings in a way I had never before encountered. It was like his words illuminated my own needs. Very interesting. Some quotes from the book in this vein:

My utopia is equal love, equal love between people of equal value, although value is an approximation for the word I want. Why is it so difficult? Assortative mating shows there has to be some drive in nature to bring equals together in the toils of love, so why even in the most enlightened and beautifully launched unions are we afraid we hear the master-slave relationship moving its slow thighs somewhere in the vicinity? It has to be cultural. In fact the closest thing to a religion I have is that this has to be cultural. I could do practically anything while he was asleep and not bother him. I wrote in my journal, washed dishes in slow motion if we hadn't gotten around to them. I was emotional a lot, privately. I wanted to incorporate everything, understand everything, because time is cruel and nothing stays the same.

He was appropriate for me and the reverse. I felt it and hated it because it was true despite his being around fifteen years older than me. What did that mean about me? I also hated it because I hate assortative mating, the idea of it. One of my most imperishable objections to the world is the existence of assortative mating, how everyone at some level ends up physically with just who they deserve, at least to the eye of some ideal observer, unless money or power deforms the process. This is equivalent to being irritated at photosynthesis or at inhabiting a body that has to defecate periodically, I am well aware. Mostly it comes down to the matching of faces. When I first encountered the literature, I even referred to it privately as faceism. I will never adapt to it, probably. Why can't every mating in the world be on the basis of souls instead of inevitably and fundamentally on the match between physical envelopes? Of course we all know the answer, which is that otherwise we would be throwing evolution into disarray. Still it distresses me. We know what we are.

A couple of people I recommended this book to were extremely annoyed by the writing-voice, as evidenced in the passage above. I, however, feel like that voice: cerebral, obsessively psychological, yearning, illogical -- comes from right out of me. I relate. Here's more. The book is encyclopedic on love.

If I overdwell on this it can't be helped: love is important and the reasons you get it or fail are important. The number of women in my generation who in retrospect anyone will apply the term "great love" to, in any connection, is going to be minute. I needed to know if I had a chance here. Love is strenuous. Pursuing someone is strenuous. What I say is if you find yourself condemned to wanting love, you have to play while you can play. Of course it would be so much easier to play from the male side. They never go after love qua love, ever. They go after women. And for men love is the distillate or description of whatever happened with each woman that as not actually painful in feeling-tone. there is some contradiction here which I can't expel. What was moving me was the feeling of being worth someone's absolute love, great love, even. And to me this means male love whether I like it or not. C'est ca. Here I am, there I was. I don't know if getting love out of a man is more of a feat of strength now than it used to be or not, except that I do: it is. It's hideous. It's an ordeal beyond speech. When I'm depressed I feel like what was meant by one of his favorite quotations: A bitter feast was steaming hot and a mouth must be found to eat it. Men are like armored things, mountainous assemblages of armor and leather, masonry even, which you are told will self-dismantle if you touch the right spot, and out will flow passionate attention. And we know that this sometimes does happen for one of our sisters, or has happened. This comes full circle back to my attitude about kissing, which he never adjusted to. You want kisses, obviously. But you want kisses from a source, a person, who is in a state. This is why the plague of little moth kisses from men just planting their seniority on you is so intolerable. Of course even as I was machinating I was well aware I was in the outskirts of the suburb of the thing you want or suspect is there. But at this moment in my life I was at the point where even the briefest experience of unmistakable love would be something I could clutch to myself as proof that my theory of myself was not incorrect. Theories can be reactionary and still applicable.

And now, here is Rush's (or his nameless female narrator's) treatise on intellectual love. Obviously, this page in my book is covered in notes, and underlines. Oh, and I don't agree with every sentiment here, but that doesn't matter. I don't read books to meet people just like me. But it is the concept articulated here, the concept of 'intellectual love' which, for me, when I first read it, was like a lightbulb going on, or a door opening. I saw something new. I recognized the longings of my own heart when I read the following passage:

Intellectual love is not the same animal as landing a mentor, although women I've raised the construct with want to reduce it to that. I distrust and shun the whole mentor concept, which is just as well since I seem not to attract them. Nelson was not my mentor, ever. I gave as well as I got, with him. But there was intellectual love on my part, commencing circa that night.

Intellectual love is a particular hazard for educated women, I think. Certain conditions have to obtain. You meet someone -- I would specify of the opposite sex, but this is obviously me being hyperparochial -- who strikes you as having persuasive and wellfounded answers to questions on the order of Where is the world going? These are distinctly not meaning-of-life questions. One thing Denoon did convince me of is that all answers so far to the question What is the meaning of life? dissolve into ascertaining what some hypostatized superior entity wants you to be doing, id est ascertaining how, and to whom or what, you should be in an obedience relationship. The proof of this is that no one would ever say, if he or she had been convinced that life was totally random and accidental in origin and evolution, that he or she had found the meaning of life. So, fundamentally, intellectual love is for a secular mind, because if you discover someone, however smart, is -- he has neglected to mention -- a Thomist or in Baha'i, you think of him as a slave to something uninteresting.

What beguiles you toward intellectual love is the feeling of observing a mental searchlight lazily turning here and there and lighting up certain parts of the landscape you thought might be dubious or fraudulent but lacked the time or energy to investigate or the inner authority to dismiss tout court. The searchlight confirms you.

Mating was the context in which I went through the major "love affair" in my past, with a man who shall remain nameless. My friend Mitchell, who also read and loved the book, referred to my love as "your Nelson Denoon". The similarities were arresting. And when everything fell apart, leaving a nightmare in its wake, that book was an anchor.

In the past couple of weeks, I took Mating out to read again. It is a first novel, and what a first novel. He has not published anything since. There was a book of short stories called Whites which came out years ago, but besides his magnum opus, Norman Rush has been silent. I have begun plans to write a novel myself, and so this time around, with Mating, I was more studying it than reading it. It was a huge hit, it won the National Book Award in 1991. He clearly put everything he knows about everything into that book. It's about love, obviously, but it's also about Africa, and politics, and socialism, and the position of women in Africa, and religion. It's a big book. And obviously extremely personal.

And the ending. The last section, a kind of epilogue, is called "About the Foregoing". It is very mysterious. It ends on a very ambiguous note. She has left Africa, and has left Denoon, her great love. Things have fallen apart. She is now trying to get her life together when suddenly she gets a mysterious message, telling her to come back to Africa. It is not Denoon who calls her. It is a woman. She does not know who it is. Or why she has been summoned. She obsesses about it, wondering what to do. Should she return? What would be waiting for her in Africa? If Denoon did not summon her, then perhaps she would not be welcome anymore? The book ends with these two lines:

Je viens.
Why not?

So, the book leaves you knowing she is going to return, but you do not know the outcome.

I have been haunted by this. Then what? Then what? It has been so long since Mating came out. I have tried to reconcile myself to the fact that I need to, a la Rilke, "live the questions".

The fact that the book ends mysteriously, that it could go either way, confirms for me one of the essential tenets of my life:

You just never know what will happen. Things can always go either way. Also: Things never really end. Not really. They transform, they morph. Love never dies. Ever. I'm not an "I love you I love you - oh you don't love me back anymore? Then I hate you I hate you" kind of girl. Sometimes I wish I were. It might be easier if love turned readily to hate, but for me, it does not.

So alongside my relatively quiet life now are the vibrant exciting love affairs of my past. They make me who I am today. They do not go away, or submerge into the past for good. They are still very much with me, late and soon.

Literally last week, I became obsessed again by the up-in-the-air ending of Mating. What does it signify? What is the message?

And more than that, on a more literal level, on a more literary level: What happened when she returned to Africa? Are they together now? Out on that alternate plane for fictional characters? I always liked to imagine that they were. It made me happy to imagine so. It made me happy to fantasize that on that alternate plane, all turned out well. Eventually.

It's a sort of "Somewhere over the rainbow" sentiment. Things may be lonely here on this plane, but somewhere -- even if it's just for characters in a book -- things might work out. And this alone gives me reason to hope. Things just might work out -- because the ending of Mating doesn't make it clear whether they do or no. This is the degree to which this book affected me.

On a personal note: I used to have these old crazy fantasies about "my Nelson Denoon", fantasies which felt more like getting a glimpse of a never-before-seen alternate path. I comforted myself, after it was all over, by imagining that on that other plane, down that other path, things might have worked out. Or in another lifetime, although reincarnation and alternate lifetimes are not quite in my belief system. However, I became convinced that this was not the first time around for me and "my Nelson Denoon". I would obsess about it, in the terrible aftermath. "Were we married in another life? Or ... with each successive lifetime, are we coming closer to one another? It just so happens that I am stuck in the lifetime where it doesn't work out..." I was blithering like that to my patient friend Kate. She listened. And then she said, "Actually, I bet that your Celtic tribe probably slaughtered his Celtic tribe." We roared.

So I digress. All of these crazy thoughts are very tied up, for me, in Norman Rush's book.

All of this came up to the foreground again, in the last week, (it all began dovetailing), and I thought, impulsively: "I should just write to Norman Rush and ask him what he's up to ... if he's working on anything ..." He hasn't published anything else since Mating, so -- I wondered --- is he chugging away at a sequel? Is he dead? I needed to know desperately.

"Mr. Rush -- are you just going to leave me hanging with the end of Mating? Do you know how important it is, how essential it is in terms of my understanding of how the world works, that I know what happened with the two of them? Will I ever know the outcome?"

Wanting to write to Norman Rush was a random fleeting thought. I have written to authors before, so it wasn't too far-fetched.

Then, a couple of days ago, I stopped off at a computer place to check my email. While there, I visited my SiteMeter for this blog, to check in on my traffic. I saw that someone had gotten to me by typing "Norman Rush" into Google. It led this person to that excerpt. And this piqued my interest. Somebody else is looking for Norman Rush right now? Why? Is something going on?

So I blatantly Googled the man.

The first thing that came up was Village Voice article dated May, 2003. I opened it, and lo and freakin' behold, it was a review of his new book. The man has a new book out. Mortals. I hope I have conveyed how important this is to me. But I am having a hard time finding the words. It would be like hearing that JD Salinger had suddenly come out of hiding and published a new novel. While Salinger is still alive, there is still hope that he may write again. He just might.

So Rush has a new huge novel out. And again, it takes place in Botswana, Africa. Botswana! The country that Rush made live for me.

Mortals (and I just skimmed the article feverishly ... I didn't want to read any spoilers, no give-aways, nothing that would ruin the experience) is NOT about Nelson Denoon and our beloved unnamed narrator. It is another couple altogether, although Rush again tackles man/woman relationships. This time in the context of marriage. Not so much about finding the right mate, and how arduous that process is, how it can break your heart. Rush now goes into the realm of established intimacy, and ... what happens then?

And here's the thing:

I raced through the book review excitedly and could not believe my eyes: Nelson and "she" DO show up in this new book, peripherally. They ARE characters on the outskirts. And, oh so casually, Village Voice reviewer states: "We learn that they have married."

What? They married?? I almost shouted out loud for joy.

I didn't read the rest, I signed out immediately, paid my bill, and hustled my ass down to Barnes & Noble to find the book, which had been published THAT WEEK. (Okay, let's just take a moment to reflect on how weird that is. I contemplate writing to Norman Rush, pestering him to write a sequel, and dammitall if he doesn't have a new book published on almost that same exact day.)

And there it was. A huge book. Hardcover. A map of Botswana inside. I got a chill of excitement. I felt voracious. Almost sick to my stomach, actually. I wanted to download the entire book into my brain immediately. I glanced through and saw that there was a chapter called "The Denoons", and I had to restrain myself. Prolong the anticipation, more pleasure that way.

And as I was walking down Washington Street, with my booty in my bag, I suddenly got weirdly emotional.

It was like: I had heard that real friends of mine had finally gotten married after much strife. It would be like if me and "my Nelson Denoon" ever got hitched (not a possibility anymore) -- my friends, who went through the whole thing with me, would probably jump up and down for joy, yelling, "At last!" Okay? This is the power this book has for me. I felt -- well, it's a bit embarrassing to admit, but I was almost in tears, truth be told.

There have been times in the past couple of years when life has been the cliched howling wilderness. Hopes up, hopes crushed, hopes up, and then crushed. Nothing close to real has happened in that arena of my life. "My Nelson Denoon" remains a kind of monument, a sort of goal. I have tried to knock him off that pedestal, but I have finally accepted the fact that he actually deserves to be up there. Whether I am with him or not. This is a bit more personal than I normally write, but this is my blog, and this is what is going on with me right now.

When things did not come to fruition between us, my baffled thought was: If that didn't work out, that which seemed so damn right, then what the hell will work out? For quite a long time, my answer to that question was: Nothing. Nothing.

But then ... here ... years later ... walking down Washington, knowing that she and Nelson got married -- after all that --

I suddenly felt this upsurge of hope. Not for me and "my Nelson Denoon", because like I said earlier: that is no longer possible. But what I mean is: hope in general. In terms of my prospects.

A word on hope:

Hope for me, now, always goes hand in hand with a bittersweet and rather vague pain. Hope never ever comes by itself anymore. The way it used to when I was a little kid, or a teenager. I suppose that's indicative of age and experience. It seems so to me anyway. That's life. I am not saying this exactly as I wanted to. Basically: Hope no longer comes alone.

This sadness and hope I felt, walking down the street, wasn't about Nelson and she ... at least, not only about them. The sadness and hope was from how I see life now. In terms of mating. I feel like I had my run. It was a good run. I had a lot of fun, a lot of laughs. But that all has stopped now. And that's why hope never comes alone anymore. I still feel hope, occasionally, but never ever by itself.

So I got overwhelmed by this weird sense of sad hope --- a feeling that STILL, after all THAT, "things" might "work out". For me, in my life. It's awful when one becomes afraid to feel hope anymore, protecting oneself against the inevitable disappointment. This is a constant balancing act. I am not a young girl of 22, with a couple of disappointments in my past (like David W. saying no to being my date at the junior prom, etc.) ... I am in my 30s, and I've been through a hell of a lot. Not all bad. Of course not all bad. Like I said: a lot of laughs. Much fun. But now, I just find it easier not to hope ... at least in that arena ... and focus on other things.

But ... but ....

They got married. They got married. What does that mean? For me?

I am so used to the state of affairs I live in now, since I have lived there now for about a decade. I mean, I have changed and grown, of course, I have moved from city to city, I got my Master's, I've made new friends, it has been a very full existence. But I have been alone the entire time. THAT has not changed. Not even close.

Perhaps a breakthrough is approaching. A breakthrough in how I see all of this. And the appearance of Norman Rush's Mortals is the harbinger of something good. Or, something different. Something exciting, unforeseen, challenging. That's what I was feeling as I walked down the street, too. I'm scared of it ... and yet. Perhaps it is time. I don't know. Even as I write that, the logical side of my brain, the side that has all the experience, that knows the let-downs, etc., says: "Yes, but you have felt this before. You have felt this so strongly before. And you were never right."

But maybe ... maybe ... Maybe this is it.

There is SOMETHING weird about how all of this has come about:

Mating
The book being wrapped up with my own Nelson Denoon
Wishing the characters well -- hoping they are happy in another reality
Holding onto a weird strange hope that things worked out well, at least for them
Wondering if a sequel was coming
Studying the book over the last couple of weeks ... as a good example of a hit first novel ... an inspiration ... for this new realm I am going into ... being a writer
That book, for me, is the monument, the goal
Wanting to write to Norman Rush
Someone coming to MY blog, through Googling Norman Rush ...during the very week I was obsessing about Rush, and where he was, and whether or not he was writing
Finding out that Rush has written a new book ... published last week ... in which we discover the Denoons have married
And so:
Things are not what they seem.

Back to the old painful belief: You never ever know what will happen. You can never tell what the future will hold. Your predictions will all be wrong.

I have tentatively and slowly begun Mortals, forcing myself not to browse ahead, looking for references to the Denoons. I want to savor every word.

I have waited for this day for so long.

2003-06-02T15:07:00.000-04:00

LGF

An excellent observation made by Charles at Little Green Footballs, something I completely missed. Go check it out. Very very good point. Hypocrisy staring at me right in the face, but I am so used to it I no longer even see it.

2003-06-02T12:20:00.000-04:00

THE FAMILY, IN ISLAM

The Disaffected Muslim takes on the concept of family, and what it means in Islam, as opposed to what it means in the West. As always, as with all of her posts, it is a must-read.

Muslims often complain that things that seem unjust in Islam, such as honor killings and the like, are really just Arab or Persian or some other ethnic tradition with no basis in Islam itself. The problem is, much of it is in fact codified by the Shari'ah, such as the patriarchal family, and it presupposes a certain societal structure and attitudes that directly lead to such atrocities, such as the absolute insistence on female virginity, to the point where women and girls are killed by their families if even suspected of being alone with a man. Also, if Islam is a "complete way of life," as so many Muslims boast, not just a "mere religion" separated from the rest of life, how can anything that takes place in Islamic society have no basis in Islam, which, as mentioned, encompasses every element of life and is the very basis of the society? Who decides what is Islam and what is tradition?

It would be nice if Muslims could really and honestly look at Shari'ah as something open to change, to be looked at with fresh eyes and reinterpreted according to societal needs, instead of proclaiming it the absolute Will of Allah, which must not be changed in any way, regardless of how things have changed from the 7th century. This leads to stagnation, which leads to death.

I applaud her continued courage in telling the truth.

2003-06-02T12:09:00.000-04:00

POSTWAR MALAISE, PART DEUX

Larry Miller (funny funny man) weighs in on what he calls "Battle Fatigue". I read it, thinking: Yes, yes. This is exactly what is going on with me right now.

After so much passionate debating, thinking, and maneuvering for so many months, from the supermarkets to the offices to the talk shows, I think most Americans are either taking a breather from the big picture, or have just about had it. I have an image in my head of a stick-thin, all-black-clad writer at the Nation, and a chubby, Brooks Brothers-clad writer at National Review, both getting the latest, daily, thirty-page, small-print, CENTCOM report dropped on their desks, and both shoving it away, muttering, "Oh, Jeez," and then both calling out to the hallway, "Hey, anything new on Laci Peterson?"

Ha ha

I hit my saturation point a while back as well. I continue to follow the news, because it is engrained in my DNA to do so. But the passion I felt a mere month ago has dissipated, leaving me pale and apathetic. I can't live in that zone forever. I am not a perpetually outraged person. I have my limits.

(Found this Larry Miller piece via Patio Pundit.)

2003-06-02T10:04:00.000-04:00

SOME LINKS...

Browsing through my pitstops this morning. Things that caught my eye:

Bylines, Datelines and Fault Lines at The N.Y. Times The continuing story ... It does not cease to amaze me. It's like watching a train wreck in slo-mo.

The Zimbabwean nightmare... I got to this through the indispensable AfricaPundit. A showdown is approaching. Things do not look good. But then again, things never look good in Zimbabwe.

Andre at Curveball (a terrific blog if you have not discovered it) has multiple posts up right now on the situation in Africa. What the hell is to be done about the disaster that Africa has become? What is the solution? It is not money. The developed world has thrown billions and billions of dollars at Africa, and still ... still ...

Rudolph captured. The story of the weekend. My favorite part of the story was the rookie 21-year-old cop, taking Rudolph in on suspected burglery, only to discover that he had just captured one of the most wanted men in America. Amazing. Rick Ross, "an internationally known expert regarding destructive cults, controversial groups and movements", wrote the following piece about Eric Rudolph, and the white supremacist lunatic groups he was a part of.

Beginning in childhood he was submerged in a subculture that includes as many as 50,000 Americans in more than a hundred desperate groups scattered across the country. This subculture is often called the "Christian Identity" movement.

Christian Identity believes that whites are the descendants of the biblical tribes of Israel and God's elect. And also that the world will soon be engulfed in an apocalyptic struggle. In that struggle whites will battle against a worldwide Jewish conspiracy.

According to the movement's proponents Jews and non-whites are actually descended biologically from Satan. That is, Satan had sex with Eve in the Garden of Eden and this union produced the other races.

It's ugly stuff to read, very ugly stuff, but it is good information. Context is, as always, decisive.

Long Days Journey into Nighton Broadway. Sounds like a must-see. I waited in line last week for Standing Room tickets (which are only $26 as opposed to $101 regular price). I got there early and joined the line, waiting for the box office to open. New York is such a great place. Any obsession you may have, you can rest assured that there will be many others sharing it. I was not the only freak sitting on the sidewalk at 8 in the morning, waiting for the box office to open at 11. I wasn't even the first one there! Finally, at 10 am, someone from the theater came out and said, "I just want you all to know, so that you are not wasting your time, Vanessa Redgrave will not be performing tonight. I repeat, Vanessa Redgrave will NOT be performing tonight." Half of the line, myself included, got up and walked away. She, to my taste, is the only reason I want to see it. I cannot WAIT.

Some compelling excerpts from the review:

Good old pity and terror, the responses that Aristotle deemed appropriate to tragedy, are seldom stirred on Broadway these days. But Ms. Redgrave elicits them again and again as Mary wanders restlessly through the long day of the play's title, dispensing blame and love, cold lies and scalding truths. You understand on a gut level why O'Neill, when writing this autobiographical play six decades ago, was said by his wife Carlotta to emerge from his study gaunt and red-eyed, looking 10 years older than he had in the morning.

And finally, this:

"The past is the present, isn't it?" Mary asks famously. "It's the future, too. We all try to lie out of that, but life won't let us." Ms. Redgrave's Mary reminds you that O'Neill's "Journey" is a ghost story, in which the phantoms are not things of ectoplasm but blood relations. This Mary is a living specter who haunts her own life as she does the lives of her husband and sons. No one who sees Ms. Redgrave's performance will ever again be able to say there are no such things as ghosts.

A letter to President Bush from Lt. Smash (another great blog). I found this on Instapundit.

Very good and long post (with lots o' links) on Instapundit about "postwar malaise". Well, it's not just about the malaise, it's also about: what now? What is going on in Iraq now? Are we on the right track? What do the people on the ground say? How are the Kurds doing? What the hell is actually going on? Very good stuff. I recommend you surf through these links.

Dr. Frank, at Blogs of War, has a terrific post up about Michael Moore. Just read it.

Crackdown in Burma. (Or should I say Myanmar). Aung San Suu Kyi taken into custoday again. They are closing down universities. People being arrested. Burma has been promoting itself as Myanmar since 1989, and the world does not recognize that as its name. Well, actually, the world map on my wall does have a space for the triangular "Myanmar", but still: articles still have to say "Myanmar --- formerly known as Burma" or whatever. The name has not stuck. Indicative of something else, I believe. The complete illegitimacy of the military junta there. The whole world responds with a rolling of the eyes: "You wanna call yourself Myanmar? WHATEVER, boys. You'll always be Burma to us."

Crackdown in Iran continuing ... women's clothing being the issue. Thanks to Iranian Girl for keeping us up to date on what is going on. As the summer arrives, the harassment of women intensifies. Their country is falling apart around them, and the mullahs focus on women's ankles and foreheads.

Andrew Sullivan's latest article for the Sunday Times: So where are they? WMDs, Iraq, and Iran. Here is the crux of the matter, as Sullivan sees it. It all comes down to a matter of perspective:

If you believe al Qaeda is an exception; that there is no profound terror threat to free societies; and that the significance of WMDs is overblown, you will tend to look at Saddam's Iraq and say: so what? If someone proposes war, you'll demand absolute and incontrovertible proof of the danger. And if that proof is hard to find - as will always be the case in closed, dictatorial police states - your gut will tell you to stay out of trouble.

But if you see the rise of Islamo-fascism as a broad and terrifying phenomenon, with clear animosity toward the West, you'll take a different view. If you believe that a chemical or biological 9/11 is on the terrorist agenda and that an avowed enemy of the West and ally of terrorists is capable of creating such weapons, you'll shift the burden of proof toward those who deny the danger, not to those who fear it. And barring clear evidence that the regime itself has changed its nature, you will prepare to get rid of it.

That was and is the rationale for what was done in Iraq. That's why the Bush administration seemed at times to conflate the issue of disarmament and regime change. In fact, they rightly believed that the two were one and the same thing, and that no regime headed by Saddam could ever be relied upon not to deliver WMDs to the West. It can never be proven if that fear was fully justified - we cannot predict how a future Saddam would have acted. But the choice was between removing the regime or declaring the regime weapon-free and removing sanctions from the beleaguered Iraqi people. 1441 was Saddam's last chance to prove he was a changed person. It proved he wasn't. If he had nothing to hide, why did he try so hard to hide it? And after all we know now about Saddam's evil police state, on what possible grounds could we have trusted him in the future?

Aaron, at 6:01 a.m., links to the New York Times special on summer reading. Seems to be a goldmine.

Powerline compiles a bunch of links on the Robert Scheer article (the one where he declared that the rescue of Pfc. Jessica Lynch was a fake).

And finally, on a lighter note, I found this quiz on One Hand Clapping, and had to take it myself: What Matrix Persona Are You?

You are Morpheus, from "The Matrix." You
have strong faith in yourself and those around
you. A true leader, you are relentless in your
persuit.

What Matrix Persona Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

2003-06-01T10:01:00.000-04:00

JUNE IS BUSTING OUT ALL OVER....not

Rain pouring against my windows. Last night, Jen and I sat in our living room, listening to the thunderous downpour wash down onto our roof. One of my favorite sounds. I also love the sound of cars driving by when it is raining. The wet tires splashing through the puddles.

More to write. So much more. Stay tuned.

2003-05-30T14:17:00.000-04:00

SAY AGAIN??

I pulled that incoherent Chita Rivera quote from this pre-review of the Nine revival. But once I read the whole thing, my overwhelming response is: I don't think there is one coherent quote in this entire 3 page article. Everyone sounds like a blithering idiot. I hope the director's concept has more clarity than his actresses.

Choice quotes:

"In the States we choose to do things because they bring us to prominence. In London, for instance, you go back and forth from being a spear carrier to being Hamlet. What you learn is the value of the piece. And I think it really minimizes ego." -- Laura Benanti

"I literally counted my lines and went, `No'...I finally just went, `Too small for who?' Not too small for me. Too small for Julia Roberts? Yes. And then they said Chita Rivera, and I was like, `Sure.'" -- Laura Benanti

"You're very much a huge part of what you give yourself to." -- Chita Rivera

"I've never in my life felt like I'm a beautiful girl; I've never held that with me. And this has taught me to at least carry myself as if I am, even if I don't feel it in my heart." -- Laura Benanti The woman should be stopped from giving interviews forevermore, frankly

"I have a code: of our world and not of our world. And these women were of our world." -- David Leveaux (the director....That quote made me think of my OWN personal code: Of a pretentious nature and NOT of a pretentious nature ... every person in this article except for Banderas sounds "of a pretentious nature" - Also, every quote from the director made me wonder: Hmm. Wonder if this one's gonna bomb...sounds that way to me)

Antonio Banderas saves the day at the end of the article, with some coherent and charming quotes, about what it is like to be surrounded by women at all times.

"When I was sick, I got seven chicken soups in one afternoon."

2003-05-30T14:03:00.000-04:00

WHOA, CHITA ... CHILL

Incoherence from Chita Rivera, now doing a Broadway revival of Nine with Antonio Banderas : Try to make sense of this:

"I suddenly got this picture. Antonio, he's going on an adventure. It's like not wanting to miss a good party. I saw Antonio like this golden bird climbing into the sky with all this power and all this energy coming from the tail feathers. And I was on the back, hanging on. I was on it for the ride. And the deeper I got into it, the more I realized I was supposed to be there. It was almost not for me. It wasn't like I was on this trip for me. I feel Antonio so strongly, and I really want him to get everything that he deserves because he really deserves it. It's a spiritual thing."

Uh ....

okay ...

WHAT??

2003-05-30T08:39:00.000-04:00

DIARY FRIDAY

This entry is from my second year in grad school. One of my best friends in grad school was a crazy Texan named Wade. He would wear his Stetson hat to voice class. We were two peas in a pod. Wade is one of the most insightful men I have ever met. And he loves women. But somehow our relationship was like – brother and sister, or kindred spirits. We're still good friends.

September 24, 1996
Saw Wade sitting out in the courtyard, writing in a notebook, hair all haywire. I tentatively walked over. Didn't know if he didn't want to be disturbed. He looked up at me, deep grey shadows under his eyes. Hm. What's up here?

He put his notebook down. We exchanged Hey, how ya doins – all with a deep subtext going on. Hm.

He asked me what I was doing. I had 45 minutes before I had to be anywhere. Then he offered up to me what was going on, what had just happened to him in his acting class.

"Wade! What?" Squatting next to him. I hadn't been sure before if he had wanted me to sit down, but then I knew he did.

He is so open. So angry, so conflicted, so self-aware. I really relate to this man. We can actually TALK to each other and actually BE in the conversation. He confided in me.

It's hard sometimes, to describe a conversation like this one. It has an essence, hard to capture, yet so potent. Deep. We're very alike, he and I.

He described something he's going through – very complex, very specific – and I was right with him. I know it in my bones, in my blood. "I know just what you mean, Wade."

"Yeah, I actually thought about you. I had a feeling you'd know. I mean, from that night we spent together, member, and what we talked about?"

"Yeah."

He told me about B. [his acting teacher]. What she had said to him in class. We go all over the place in our conversations, but somehow, we keep up with each other. Nobody else can. Others try to follow me and Wade and get completely lost, or left behind, like: "Oh … I thought we were still talking about this…" Wade and I are like: "Nope. We moved on. Now we're talking about this." So, for the most part, when Wade and I are deep in conversation, people leave us alone. It's all telepathic with the two of us. We're also very tough with each other.

Me to him, about what was going on in his class: "So do you find that to be abusive or helpful? Sounds abusive to me, actually."

We give each other room to explain ourselves, though. It's all about listening.

Listen to me rave about Wade!

We talked about hands. Why women are so into men's hands. How he doesn't get that. I reached out and took his hand, to explain it to him. "I'm not indiscriminately into hands. But certain men have hands I love. For me, it has to do with if I can feel you in the hands. If I can feel the man in his hands."

"Ohhhh." (Light bulb on for Wade.) "Yeah, okay, I know what you mean now."

"Cause not every guy is really in his hands."

I talked about Pat's hands. His hands were great. I loved his hands most of all. Wade gets me, man. He just gets me. Not many men do.

We talked about Fool for Love. Beirut. The scenes we are working on.

Wade, to me: "Oh no! Don't learn your lines yet! Get into the situation – Time and place. Don't even look at the lines! Understand the situation." We both want this year to be about getting out of the way, getting our egos or whatever out of the way, so that we can act.

We talked about therapy.

He had had a mind-blowing day. B. called him "a Rolls Royce with a dent … No, you're not a Rolls Royce. You're a Wade."

As he was talking to me, really confiding in me, I got tears in my eyes.

Can we let go? Can we allow ourselves to breathe? To just breathe? To simply breathe? So much of acting is in the breath. Everything starts with the breath, and half the time we're up on stage all stressed out and barely breathing at all.

Wade and I sat in the courtyard at school and practiced breathing together. Slow breath in. Concentrate only on your breathing. Be in your body. BE IN YOUR BODY.

Then came Wade's BRILLIANT observations about my drawings. What do I draw? It's really just a doodle, but when I doodle, I draw ladies' faces. There are cartoon lady-faces all around the borders of all my notebook pages. Some have straight hair, some have glasses, some have boingy-boing curls, some have long eyelashes … I am always doodling this woman. She literally is everywhere. I do not even know I am doing it half the time. She's like Tic-Tac-Toe for me.

So Wade had noticed these drawings before, and had mentioned them to me once or twice. The first time he brought up "the lady", all he said to me was, with no preamble, "Who's that lady, darlin'?" I had no idea what he was talking about. "What lady?" Silently, Wade pointed at my notebook, and I suddenly saw, as if for the first time, the 20 "ladies" clamoring in the margins. I BURST into laughter. "I have no idea who that lady is!" Wade does drawings, too: skeletal woodcut faces with deep shadows under the eyes, eyes bored into the head. These faces are all over his various notebooks. A counterpart to my "lady". That's what Wade calls her. "The lady."

Last year, in voice class, I noticed a skeletal face staring up at me from Wade's voice journal. Or maybe it was the memorable day he sat next to me in Theatre History, and we wrote notes to each other in our respective notebooks, like we were in high school. Legs sticking out from under our desks. Stephen all the way across the room. I remember it was the day of Shelagh's presentation. She said Wade and I made quite an impression when she first walked in the room. Like we had become the same person, joined at the hip. This was from Shelagh's directorial visual sense of things, her instinct for people's energy.

Later, I mentioned the skeleton-guy to Wade and we had an intriguing talk about him. Ruminating – or, no, not even – just commenting on these faces we draw, over and over and over. What are they about? Why? Who are these people?

And I remember Wade saying point-blank, "Well, I know I'm drawing myself." And that sparked a tiny bit of recognition in me. I remember him suddenly drawing the parallel between his drawings and mine. I didn’t even know he noticed my "ladies". Wade's eyes, man. Nothing gets by those eyes. Nothing. Especially if you're a woman.

I remember feeling sort of startled when he dragged me into the discussion of his drawings. Wait, this is about you, not me!

But Wade is smarter than me in some ways. He was like: I had noticed your drawings, and related to them on a subconscious level, because – subconsciously again – I recognized myself in it. I saw your drawings and was like: Oh. You do that too?

I was almost pissed to be discovered like that. How dare he see so much? I can never ever hide when I am with Wade. It pisses me off.

Wade said casually, "It's like that lady you draw."

I was puzzled, again having no idea what he was talking about. "What lady?"

"You know. The same lady you draw everywhere. The one with the luscious lips."

Startled. I felt naked.

This was all last year, during the first conversation about the drawings. And it came up again today.

Wade actually looked like one of his own drawings today, sitting in the courtyard. The eyes burrowed into his head surrounded by shadows that almost look like bruises, the pale sensitive face, the pain exuding from that face.

Wade burst out, "That's why I just love the lady you draw! And her lips! Those sensuous lips! You're drawin' yourself, darlin'."

There are moments when I feel closer to Wade, more known by Wade, than anyone else at this school. Even Shelagh. I do not know what I would do without him. He sees my dirt, my shame, the stuff I don't like about myself. And he loves it. It makes me human to him. We talked about that today.

We talked about Lily Taylor. We talked about Jennifer Jason Leigh. She drives Wade crazy. "I want to see her in a movie where she does nothing. Where she sits still. Where she keeps it simple. She's always so busy distracting herself, twitching, all mannerisms. It drives me out of my fucking mind." We talked about Martin Landau.

Wade told me a story about Landau and Tim Burton, during the filming of Ed Wood, a movie I loved. Landau said to Burton, during the rehearsal process, "So this film is a tribute to Bela Lugosi." And Burton said, "No, it's a tribute to acting."

I welled up as Wade told me this. It's true. That's the genius of the movie, that's actually why I loved the movie. The horrible pathos of the scene with the octopus … Lugosi being a trooper, flailing about in the puddle with the octopus arms … it was hilarious, and tragic. Michael Gilio and I saw that film together, and we were literally laughing and crying at the same moment. Humiliation hand in hand with dignity: acting in a nutshell.

I wonder if Landau has ever played King Lear. He should.

So Wade and I parted, after we had a conversation about holding tension in our mouths. How to let it go, how to relax the jaw. Wade has always commented on how tense my mouth is. So sitting there, in the courtyard, I consciously tried to relax my jaw. Wade scoffed at my attempt. "Sweetheart, you're TENSE. Come on now. Really relax." So we both sat there, doing it, massaging our jaws, sticking our tongues out, moving our mouths around. We roared at how stupid we must look.

I told him about the clipped-tongue thing I had when I was a baby. Also having braces for three years in high school.

Wade exclaimed, "Ohhhhh! No wonder!" He meant it kindly. I knew just what he meant. It just came out funny. I laughed, and threw my arms around him, saying, "No wonder you're all fucked up, Sheila!"

"No! No! You know what I mean!"

"No, I know. I'm kidding."

Later that day, in voice class, he passed me a note. A propos of nothing. I literally will keep this note forever. FOREVER. Here is what Wade passed to me, during class, spelling mistakes and all:

"That explains a whole lot. ie: about your mouth. You have beautiful teeth. It's muscle memory. You may have been an ugly duckling. Your now a swann. Swann's are beautiful. And mean."

HAHAHAHAHA

Swanns are beautiful and mean. That is absolutely classic. Wade loves me because I am like a swann. I am beautiful and MEAN.

Later in the day, I left a scrap of paper in his mailbox. All it said was:

To: Wade

From: Sheila

And in that big space, I drew a "lady". Just for him.

2003-05-28T12:03:00.000-04:00

GIMME A BREAK

Look at this. Why is this pissing me off so much? I know the "world is too much with me, late and soon". I can feel it. Things are getting to me.

Why doesn't she be a good obedient Muslim, go to Saudi Arabia, and try to get a driver's license there? She should be praising Allah for even BEING in this country, where she is allowed to drive. Take the veil off, and thank God you are HERE and not there.

I've had it. I don't just have compassion fatigue. I have no more compassion whatsoever. At least not for stuff like this.

2003-05-28T11:42:00.000-04:00

Something is totally screwed up with my blog. It is disappearing. It is never-constant. It is driving me out of my g-d mind.

Update: It is a Blog-spot server-transfer. We all are experiencing it. It is not just me.

2003-05-27T17:23:00.000-04:00

"LIGHT YOUR FIRE"

I am off to acting class ... I'm working on Saint Joan, one of my favorite plays. It's one of my favorite plays to READ. Like all Shaw's plays, it is delicious language, beautiful to READ ... but a play must be spoken, the words must lift off the page, and that is where actors (myself included) can get into trouble with Shaw. Can you speak the damn thing? And make it sound real? This is my challenge with Joan. I love her. Calling the Dauphin, "Charlie". "Listen to me, Charlie..."

And then, at the end, when she realizes she has been betrayed, she turns to the group of inquisitors and states, "Light your fire."

DAMN!

My acting teacher Sam Schacht said once to an actress working on Shaw: (I can't remember which play she was working on ... but she was playing an upper-class woman, obviously ... and, sorry to be bitchy, but this actress was quite quite pleased with her own work. Self-regard radiated from her every pore, as she chewed up the scenery imperiously.) Anyway, Sam watched her work, she finished, there was a long pause, and all he said was, "You can do whatever the hell you want to do. Just don't put a stick up your ass and think you're playing Shaw."

Ah, Sam. He certainly has a way with words.

2003-05-27T15:01:00.000-04:00

BENJAMIN KEPPLE IS MY HERO...

...for tracking down stories like this one. (It's the first link on the page at the moment.) I read the tale of New Rome, Ohio and the insane traffic tickets issued left and right, with growing bewilderment, and a "WHAT??" expression on my face. What??

Kepple has also linked to a "New Rome" photo gallery - you have to see it. It's hilarious. And tragic. The URL is "newromesucks.com" ... Get the picture?

2003-05-27T14:54:00.000-04:00

A COMPLIMENT? Uh...NOT.

Talking with my brother on the phone this weekend.

Bren: Yeah, so I'll be bartending Monday and Tuesday. You should come in!
Me: (enthusiastically) Yes! Maybe I will definitely come in!
(Pause.)
Bren: You sound like Ari Fleischer.

2003-05-27T14:33:00.000-04:00

IN MEMORIUM

The Greatest Jeneration, as always, has a very moving photo-gallery up for Memorial Day yesterday.

The Vietnam vet hugging the statue has brought tears to my eyes.

2003-05-27T14:24:00.000-04:00

QUOTE OF THE DAY

"Where are they holding the Cannes Film Festival this year?"

-- Christina Aguilera

2003-05-27T14:15:00.000-04:00

"Wanna go out to dinner with me?"
"Uh ... have you been to Toronto lately?"

Last week, Jen (roommate) was meeting up with her best friend from high school, who flew into New York for the weekend. She flew in from Toronto.

Jen invited me to come out with them. Jen, her friend just in from Toronto, and about five other people, who had also just flown in from Toronto. What -- are you NUTS?

I said, "You are aware of the problems in Toronto right now."

"What ... like ... SARS?"

"Uh - Yes."

"Well, she says that that's all blown over now ... She didn't see any sick people in Toronto or anything."

"Hmm." (Clearly, they aren't reading the newspapers I'm reading.)

Long pause. Jen said, (and I wish I could have taped her tone of voice, it was hilarious ... hilarious only because she said it in a dead-serious way): "So ... do you want to come out with us? Or ... you don't want to get SARS, huh..."

We roared.

"No. I do not feel like getting SARS this weekend. LAST weekend I kinda felt like contracting SARS, but I'm over that now."

(One must joke in such serious times.)

2003-05-27T14:10:00.000-04:00

TOUGH LOVE

Tom Friedman says it's about time we practice a little tough love with the Saudis. I couldn't agree more. We just need to be willing to tell the truth - to the Saudis and to ourselves.. And we need to be willing to get smaller cars.

Saudi Arabia is a sick place. And we support them. It's an abusive relationship, and we're the enablers. No more. I am glad we are pulling out of there. Good. Saudi Arabia, figure out your own damn problems, build your own damn roads, build your own skyscrapers, and create your own business plans. 19 of your sons were on those planes of death. Buh-bye.

I have no objectivity, I realize. I cannot stand the Saudi regime, the Saudi culture, and I cannot stand that we have tolerated that 7th century bullshit for so long.

2003-05-27T13:56:00.000-04:00

LOVE/MARRIAGE/POETRY

To all the poetry-lovers out there, Emily and Stephen have put out a call for poems on love and marriage, appropriate to be read at a wedding. I put up two of my faves, but if anyone has a good suggestion, go on over to their poetry blog and post it.

Spread the love. Spread the word.

2003-05-27T12:43:00.000-04:00

TAKE THE DAMN VEIL OFF, WOMAN

Read this post on PowerLine.

Sultaana Freeman, a Muslim woman in Florida, refused to take her veil off when being photographed for her driver's license. Now all hell, of course, has broken loose, her trial starts today, the ACLU is defending her, blah blah. LOOK AT THE PICTURE of her though. LOOK AT HER PICTURE.

You're in America, woman. Driver's license are used for identification. Take your damn veil off. This is how we do things here.

2003-05-27T11:54:00.000-04:00

MORE ON EMERSON

The man is eminently quotable. I have always loved the "foolish consistency" quote. Love love love it. Here's more. Read them!!

-- A chief event of life is the day in which we have encountered a mind that startled us.

-- Great geniuses have the shortest biographies.

-- When Nature has work to be done, she creates a genius to do it.

-- America is another name for opportunity.

-- Hitch your wagon to a star.

-- A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesman and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do.

-- Let us treat men and women well; treat them as if they were real. Perhaps they are.

-- The louder he talked of his honour, the faster we counted our spoons.

-- All sensible people are selfish, and nature is tugging at every contract to make the terms of it fair.

-- A child is a curly, dimpled lunatic.

-- A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him I may think aloud. I am arrived at last in the presence of a man so real and equal, that I may drop even those undermost garments of dissimulation, courtesy, and second thought, which men never put off, and may deal with him with the simplicity and wholeness with which one chemical atom meets another.

-- A good indignation brings out all one's powers.

-- A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is brave five minutes longer.

-- Adhere to your own act, and congratulate yourself if you have done something strange and extravagant, and broken the monotony of a decorous age. (I just love his word choices here. "Strange and extravagant" ... "decorous age")

-- Bad times have a scientific value. These are occasions a good learner would not miss. (I love this one.)

-- Doing well is the result of doing good. That's what capitalism is all about.

-- Each man takes care that his neighbor shall not cheat him. But a day comes when he begins to care that he does not cheat his neighbor. Then all goes well - he has changed his market-cart into a chariot of the sun.

-- Enthusiasm is the mother of effort, and without it nothing great was ever achieved. (I loved a man once whose main religion was enthusiasm. A thirst for enthusiasm truly is one of the most attractive and lovable traits you can have.)

-- I hate the giving of the hand unless the whole man accompanies it.

-- I suppose every old scholar has had the experience of reading something in a book which was significant to him, but which he could never find again. Sure he is that he read it there, but no one else ever read it, nor can he find it again, though he buy the book and ransack every page.

-- Is not marriage an open question, when it is alleged, from the beginning of the world, that such as are in the institution wish to get out, and such as are out wish to get in?

-- It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion, it is easy in solitude to live after your own; but the great man is he who, in the midst of the world, keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.

-- Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted. (Words to live by!!)

-- New York is a sucked orange.

-- Meek young men grow up in libraries, believing it their duty to accept the views which Cicero, which Locke, which Bacon, have given, forgetful that Cicero, Locke, and Bacon were only young men in libraries, when they wrote these books. (I must remind myself of this, when I am filled with despair that I can't write like James Joyce. Just chill out, Sheila. You should NEVER EVER think about Joyce when you sit down at your desk!)

-- Every man I meet is in some way my superior.

-- You send your child to the schoolmaster, but 'tis the schoolboys who educate him.

-- No great man ever complains of want of opportunity.

-- None of us will ever accomplish anything excellent or commanding except when he listens to this whisper which is heard by him alone.

-- Perpetual modernness is the measure of merit in every work of art.

-- Everybody keeps telling me how surprised they are with what I've done. But I'm telling you honestly that it doesn't surprise me. I knew I could do it.

-- Few people know how to take a walk. The qualifications are endurance, plain clothes, old shoes, an eye for nature, good humor, vast curiosity, good speech, good silence and nothing too much.

-- The characteristic of a genuine heroism is its persistency. All men have wandering impulses, fits and starts of generosity. But when you have resolved to be great, abide by yourself, and do not weakly try to reconcile yourself with the world. The heroic cannot be the common, nor the common the heroic.

-- Fine manners need the support of fine manners in others.

-- Genius always finds itself a century too early. (!!!!!)

-- God offers to every mind its choice between truth and repose. Take which you please - you can never have both.

-- The days come and go like muffled and veiled figures sent from a distant friendly party, but they say nothing, and if we do not use the gifts they bring, they carry them as silently away. (Man. So true. So true.)

-- The age of a woman doesn't mean a thing. The best tunes are played on the oldest fiddles.

-- Sometimes a scream is better than a thesis.

-- Win as if you were used to it, lose as if you enjoyed it for a change.

-- Who you are speaks so loudly I can't hear what you're saying. (Ha ha! I know just what he means!)

-- When a resolute young fellow steps up to the great bully, the world, and takes him boldly by the beard, he is often surprised to find it comes off in his hand, and that it was only tied on to scare away the timid adventurers.

-- What would be the use of immortality to a person who cannot use well a half an hour.

-- We ascribe beauty to that which is simple; which has no superfluous parts; which exactly answers its end; which stands related to all things; which is the mean of many extremes.

-- The miracles of genius always rest on profound convictions which refuse to be analyzed.

-- 'Tis the good reader that makes the good book; a good head cannot read amiss: in every book he finds passages which seem confidences or asides hidden from all else and unmistakeably meant for his ear.

-- Think, and be careful what thou art within; For there is sin in the desire of sin; Think, and be thankful, in a different case; For there is grace in the desire of grace.

-- There was never a child so lovely but his mother was glad to get him to sleep.

-- The two parties which divide the state, the party of Conservation and that of Innovation, are very old, and have disputed the possession of the world ever since it was made.

-- We are too civil to books. For a few golden sentences we will turn over and actually read a volume of 4 or 500 pages. (HAHA!)

-- Truth is beautiful, without doubt; but so are lies.

2003-05-27T11:25:00.000-04:00

EMERSON

This past weekend was Emerson's 200th birthday. Emerson has always been a personal favorite of mine.

(What's Up, Doc tangent:
Mr. Larabie: A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds!
Judy: (gasping in pleasure) Emerson!!
Mr. Larabie: You like Emerson?
Judy: I adore him.
Mr. Larabie: I adore anyone who adores Emerson.
Judy: And I adore anyone who adores anyone who adores Emerson. Your turn!)

Here's a great piece in The Boston Globe about Emerson, the man. The Self-Reliant man.

Emerson's self-reliance did not mean a narrowly personal or economic self-interestedness. The kind of individualism that mattered to him, and that he himself lived out, was independence of thought or action undertaken not in arrogance but within, despite, and against an acute self-consciousness of one's perennial susceptibility to group-think.

To qualify as true self-reliance, an act must not merely be ''the choice of the hands, of the eyes, of the appetites'' but ''a whole act of the man''-the ''choice of my constitution.'' As always with Emerson, the choice of words matters. ''Constitution'' here suggests both one's bedrock personal character and the fundamental law of the American republic. Emersonian self-reliance fused together the moral-religious and the sociopolitical, a belief in the awakened conscience or ''inner light'' and a belief in the inherent equality and worth of every person-male or female, white or nonwhite.

2003-05-27T10:56:00.000-04:00

My weekend in Rhode Island:

-- Green. Everything in Rhode Island is a lush lush green. The trees meet over the roads, creating a long green canopy.

-- Grey skies and fog.

-- Green and grey. My favorite combination in nature. (Tell me my heritage isn't Irish.)

-- My aunt Regina and my cousin Emma drove to my parents for a visit. Emma showed us her pictures from her prom. She wore a lavendar shiny dress and looked absolutely spectacular. My tomboy cousin, who usually dresses like an urban youth, an urban youth about to become a rap star - bandana wrapped around her head, huge puffy parka, and glittery sunglasses -- Emma looks like a ghetto rapper who has a freckled Irish face and rosy cheeks. Emma is a trip. I said to her, "Emma, it's just that you have a 45 year old soul, and you happen to be in high school." Emma nodded seriously. She knows it is true. I said, "You will catch up with your own soul. But for now: you have to hang out with other 15 year olds, and pretend that you guys are the same age." Emma murmured, "Yeah. It sucks."

-- My mom and I walked the sea wall. It was a grey day, with long grey swells coming in. Over in Newport, across the bay, we could see the surf crashing on the rocks. It's a couple miles away, so we could only imagine how huge the surf was. There was a teeny slit of sunlight coming through the grey, beaming down on that Newport shore... which is why the surf gleamed like that.

-- The air was chilly the whole weekend. Freezing. Not like Memorial Day at all. We all sat around in the living room wrapped up in fleece blankets.

-- My father gardened so diligently that he literally could not move the next day. My father's garden is a work of art.

-- Had a late lunch at the Ocean Mist with my sister Jean. The Ocean Mist is a big rickety shack on stilts, standing on the sand. When the tide is high, the waves roll right under the bar. Jean has said, "Someday, that shack is going to slide off into the ocean." But for now, it's a great place to hang out. We sat at the bar and ate burgers. Jean told me about her experience taking her class to Alton Jones (part of the URI campus ... which hosts local high school and grade school classes to come spend the weekend, and go on nature hikes, learn about animal tracks and constellations.) I went to Alton Jones myself, in grade school. Jean was telling me about her junior high kids, and how they succumbed to the experience. Some of the other groups kept wise-cracking through the whole thing, and kept getting in trouble, and wouldn't work together as a team, but her group totally got into it. She was very proud of them. Jean's stories about teaching make me cry. I was shedding tears at the Ocean Mist, like a pathetic lunatic.

-- Went out to Mews (a notorious tavern in Wakefield) with Beth and Regina, friends from high school. It was awesome. I love the Mews. We talked nonstop.

-- I slept until 10 am every day. Sometimes 11 am. I also took naps. This is absolutely unheard of in the lexicon of Sheila. I do not take naps, and I only need 5 hours of sleep a night. Well, this weekend, I literally could not get enough sleep. I was in a stupor.

-- I drove down to the beach by myself my first night home. It was windy, cold, drizzly. The surf was crazy. There were little people in black wetsuits bobbing up and down far out, waiting for the perfect wave. I was wearing my father's rain parka. I sat on the end of the sea wall, by the clam shack (not open yet), and watched the water. The greyness of the waves, the tumultuous white-water, churning against the rocks. I just watch the water and let my mind go blank. It is one of the most relaxing things in the world.

-- Sunday night, Beth and I met at Mere's. We hung out in Mere's living room, drinking wine, eating bread and cheese, and laughing like maniacs. Calvin, Mere's son, showed us his karate uniform. Calvin is a black-belt. He is very very proud, as well he should be. Very into his accomplishments. Showing us the program from his graduation, and the pictures of him in karate class. Mere is now taking karate. She's such a bad-ass! I do not know who I would be without those two women. We have been friends for so long. Junior high was when it all began. They KNOW me. It is so easy being with them. And also: still challenging, and thought-provoking, and hilarious, and fun.

-- Took a walk down to Potter's Pond. I sprayed myself with Off, because I fear the deer tick. I saw a mallard couple, swimming around peacefully. The birds in the trees were shrieking like maniacs ... they were LOUD.

-- Jean and I drove around, listening to Eminem (of course), with Hudson panting in the back seat.

-- We drove by the house Jean will be moving into next month. It is adorable!! It's not finished yet, so we stalked around on the periphery, peering through the windows, setting up her furniture theoretically. There was a very very VERY bold male duck who approached us as we were doing this. He had no shyness. No fear. He was huge. He was quacking incessantly. He came right up to us, quacking, on his big orange feet, staring up at us. Jean and I were like: "Uh ... hi there ... what is up with you?" He followed us around ... at one point we got ahead of him, when we walked around the corner of the house. I turned around and saw the duck RUNNING to catch up with us. He was RUNNING. And quacking the whole time. Then, Hudson, sitting in the back seat of the car, saw the duck, and strained his neck out the window. The duck skittered away. Suddenly silent. No more quacking. A couple of tense moments passed, as we watched the duck waddle away, trying to maintain his dignity. Then Jean and I heard two very small subdued quacks. We burst into laughter. They literally had the sound of terrified defiance, like: "I'm not afraid of that dog ... I can still quack ... Listen to this..." (Then, two teeny tiny scared little quacks.)

-- I took the bus back yesterday morning. The bus left at 6:15 am. So my dear dear mother woke me up at 5 a.m. We drove up to Bess Eaton and got some coffee. The fog was very heavy. Visibility was quite low. Nobody was awake. The whole world was covered in fog. But you could sort of see the greenness through that heavy grey. Mum had to drop me off at the deserted bus stop, so I just stood there, on the empty sidewalk ... staring up and down the street ... feeling like I was going to die from the beauty. Everything was hushed, muffled. It was so early in the morning. You could not see more than a block down the street because of the fog. There wasn't even any bird song yet. It was poetry. Total poetry.

2003-05-23T09:54:00.000-04:00

THE REDHEAD IS IN THE BUILDING

To those of you who have written to me saying, "Where the hell are you??" I apologize. I am here, I am well. There are developments in the writing part of my life ... I am not ready to speak of it yet, fearing a jinx. But basically: I have started to get down to some real work. A bit daunting, a bit intimidating, but necessary. Exciting. I have missed checking in here on a daily basis. I will divulge more details, once they become concrete-r.

Plots, words, ideas, fragments ... all of these things crowd in my brain, insisting to my conscious-ness:"I'm the one! I'm the one! Write about me! Write about me!" It's a very competitive atmosphere. That's actually an interesting concept, in and of itself. A writer, tormented by her own plot ideas, fragments of stories and full-blown novel ideas fighting it out like gladiators inside her own brain. May the strongest survive.

Regardless: you will be hearing more from me, from now on. One of the best things about having a blog, is that it forces me to write every day. And not just in my journal, which is a private experience (with the exception of Diary Fridays). Every day, I come to Blogspot, and I write for an audience. This is fantastic practice.

Anyway: I am off to Rhode Island for a long weekend home. I have not been out of the city of Manhattan since Christmas. That is ridiculous. I need to see the ocean, I need to have a beer at the Ocean Mist and play pool, see the high school friends, drive around with my sister, hang out with my parents, lose my mind at TJ Maxx. That is the plan.

To all of you out there: have a lovely and safe Memorial Day weekend.

I will catch you on the flipside.

2003-05-20T11:34:00.000-04:00

Last couple of days have been chock-full. I am so tired I go to bed at 10 p.m. Regular blogging will begin later on today. Still clearing out some cobwebs.

2003-05-16T17:36:00.000-04:00

RACHEL LUCAS ROCKS

In line with my rant earlier today about history books, and loving David McCullough, here is Rachel Lucas, on the cancellation of a 2-part miniseries about Hitler's early years. The station cancelled it because they were concerned about the few people out there crazy enough to think Hitler is a role model. They would rather punish the normal people in this society who would like to LEARN stuff, because some wackos might mis-understand. And so who suffers? The normal people. Anyway, read Rachel's rant. It's good stuff.

2003-05-16T17:30:00.000-04:00

GRATITUDE

Tony Pierce talks about what he is grateful for.

And below that post, check out this photograph. Damn, I want to crawl my way INTO the picture.

2003-05-16T15:40:00.000-04:00

Supposed to be a big nor'easter blowing in tonight.

2003-05-16T14:09:00.000-04:00

RECLAIMING AMERICAN HISTORY

God. Just read this. I knew there was a reason why I loved David McCullough as an author. In this interview, he takes on the way history books are written today. He attacks the lack of knowledge kids today have of the birth of the nation.

Something must be done. Something must be done. I feel quite frantic about it, and have actually felt this way for quite some time.

My public school education in the 1970s gave me a very good basis of American history. My parents, too, also loved the history of the American revolution, so we grew up hearing the stories of the Boston tea party. Longfellow's poem about Paul Revere's ride was a common bedtime story. We come from a Boston Irish family, so all of those events were very real to us.

Will the stranglehold multiculturalism and the PC-police have over education today EVER END? Is it a phase? Please God, let it pass. It is killing intellectual inquiry in this country.

The whole U-Mass thing wanting to get rid of their Minuteman mascot because it's a "violent image of a white male" makes me CRAZY. CRAZY. These kids are STUPID and uninformed. They're also missing out on so much. An actual education, for one thing.

Notable quotes from Mr. McCullough:

-- "Something's eating away at the national memory, and a nation or a community or a society can suffer as much from the adverse effects of amnesia as can an individual."

-- "History is a story, cause and effect. And if you're going to teach just segments of history - women's issues - these youngsters have almost no sense of cause and effect. They have no sense of what followed what and why, that everything has antecedents and everything has consequences. And they might begin to think that's true of life, too."

-- "And so many of the blessings and advantages we have, so many of the reasons why our civilization, our culture, has flourished aren't understood; they're not appreciated. And if you don't have any appreciation of what people went through to get, to achieve, to build what you are benefiting from, then these things don't mean very much to you. You just think, well, that's the way it is. That's our birthright. That just happened. [But] it didn't just happen. And at what price? What grief? What disappointment? What suffering went on? I mean this. I think that to be ignorant or indifferent to history isn't just to be uneducated or stupid. It's to be rude, ungrateful. And ingratitude is an ugly failing in human beings."

AMEN.

God, please let somebody listen!!

2003-05-16T13:46:00.000-04:00

CROCODILE SAUDI TEARS

I will never forget either. Never.

More on the Saudi response to terror in Riiyadh, and pledges of cooperation:

Dean Esmay

Little Tiny Lies comments on Dean's post

Cold Fury ... Muslims are NOW condemning suicide bombings because Arabs were killed as well, not just Jews. These people are despicable. But I suppose it's a hopeful sign as well.

2003-05-16T13:37:00.000-04:00

A NEW POETRY BLOG

Emily Jones (my favorite Hawk Girl) and Stephen have started up a poetry blog. It's right up my alley. If you're a poetry-lover, check it out.

2003-05-16T12:50:00.000-04:00

SPEAKING OF DAWSON'S CREEK...

Turns out, I am not alone.

2003-05-16T10:44:00.000-04:00

BIG APPLE BLOGGERS

So tonight I travel to Siberia for the Big Apple Blogger Bash. Very much looking forward to it.

Scrolling through the NYC blogs ... getting to know these people. It's fun. Some are already known to me, such as:

Jane Galt (what a writer. Love her blog, and have for quite some time.) I'm linking to a piece of hers I really liked, about Jayson Blair, the Times, and affirmative action. A very clear-headed view.

Brian, the 646 guy, who unfortunately won't be able to attend. He threw the last bash. He just had his one-year blogging anniversary.

I recently discovered God of the Machine. Great blog. Here is how he describes himself. He writes about art, poetry, architecture. I like it a lot.

And then there's Moodlighting. Unfortunately, his permalinks aren't working. His first post is very interesting, about the anti-war stance. "How do you deal with the fact that defending an anti-war stance is essentially defending a corrupt regime?" The post I like best on this page though is his description of meeting his friend at the clock at Grand Central. You have to scroll down a bit, to Tuesday, May 13. First of all: I did not know that the constellations painted on the ceiling of the main terminal at Grand Central were painted backwards, so it is actually painted from the perspective of God. I love that!!! Also: I do love the fact that when they restored the ceiling, they did leave one tiny spot un-restored, so that you could see the difference. Anyway: he really captures what it feels like in that magical space. My writing group meets in the big echoey food court at Grand Central every other week; I love that building being part of my every day life.

Paul Frankenstein. The mere fact that he announces tonight's bash with the walrus poem from Alice in Wonderland is enough for me! I love that. Also: "cheap cold beer" is one of my favorite things.

Anomaly. A very good-looking blog. He has Dean Esmay on his blogroll. As well as Michele and Tony Pierce. I approve! He is a fellow Command Post-er.

Ramblings of a Blue-Collar Slob. Another cool-looking blog, with good posts. Very good posts. I am looking forward to meeting Nick.

Stephen Silver. Another cool discovery. I also want to thank him in person for bringing the following Jon Stewart quote to my attention: "As a fake newsman myself, it’s always encouraging to see the profession catching on...If I can inspire one guy to make up all his sources, well then I’ve done my job." -Jon Stewart, complimenting Jayson Blair. I love Jon Stewart more and more every day.

zeebahtronic What immediately jumped off the page for me? Under "Currently reading", she lists Geek Love, by Katherine Dunn. I read that book years ago and I am haunted by it to this day.

Randomness Personified. First of all: I love his post about June Carter Cash. Quotes from various people about her, and then his own thoughts. Very moving.

Lady Crumpet's Armoire. The first post alone (the 40 top books written by women, Brits polled) has made me a fan. Jane Eyre came in second? How can that be? Also, why the hell are the Harry Potter books on there? They're a good romp those books, surely, but it looks odd: Middlemarch. To the Lighthouse. Frankenstein. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Uh ... what?

The famous Alex at Broken Type. Everyone has a blog-crush on Alex. I met him at the last bash. We drank our cocktails beside a precarious stairway.

Ursula, the NY Yoga Girl. I met her at the last bash. She is absolutely fabulous, and that's all I have to say.

Dollhaus. The text is in a column which is so thin that it barely fits two words across. The references to ultimate frisbee make me long for college days on the quadrangle.

The Illuminated Donkey, blogging from Jersey City, 3 miles from me, in view of the famed Pulaski Skyway.

Jahna D'Lish. First of all, if you have a headline "Tea and Cake, or Death" (a quote from the brilliant and HILARIOUS Eddie Izzard), you have my loyalty forever. "Thank you for flying Church of England. Cake or death?" Trust me: in context, it is one of the funniest things you will ever see.

Hands Free. I feel, in looking thru this blog, that I have discovered a gold-mine. Pardon the cliche. Photographs, NYC-street photographs, interesting commentary, rich rich rich.

Pia Wilson. I like the idea of trying to merge two lives together ... the two lives she has within herself.

Gothamist. A plethora of Jayson Blair information.

Navigating the Info Jungle. A ton of great stuff about technology, AOL, new media. Having once worked closely with AOL, all of this stuff is very interesting to me.

Everything New York. Many interesting points, including this one: The Williamsburg Bridge has never gotten the respect it deserves. I laughed when I read that. Yes! That is so weirdly true! Additionally, check out this incredible panoramic photograph from the Worlds Fair in 1939. Woah.

watching expired appliances align Did everybody but me watch the Dawson's Creek finale?? It sure feels like it.

2003-05-16T08:52:00.000-04:00

DIARY FRIDAY

In the fall of 1999 I had a brief relationship with a guy who I will call "The Deli Guy". He worked at the deli counter at A&P, and my friends kept saying, "So … how's Deli Guy?" and it just stuck. The story of the relationship is long and absolutely insane. But that's for another day. At the time of this entry, I didn't really know him at all, we had gone out maybe twice … and he invited me to his brother's wedding. It would be our third date. I went primarily because I wanted to see his family, I knew I would get a lot of clues into Deli Guy's personality from seeing who they were.

I ended up having a cosmic experience that had nothing to do with him, which I clearly have a very difficult time articulating to myself in the journal.

September, 1999
"You wanna go to a wedding on Sunday?"
"Yeah, sure, your brother?"
"Yeah, how did you know?"
"You told me."
"I did?"
"Yeah …"
"Well, so you want to come?"
"Sure."
"I think you'd look good in a dress."
"You do?"
"Yeah. Although when I last saw you at the A&P, I loved what you were wearing?"
"You did??" (I had looked like such a slug.)
"Oh yeah. The overalls? I LOVED those."
"Well … I do have dresses."
"Yeah, so I'll squeeze you in."
"Into the dress?"
"No, into the wedding."
"Oh, okay."

Jen was listening to my end of this conversation as she was unloading her groceries and cracking up over the "squeeze you in" confusion. I was like: "I can squeeze into my own dress, thank you very much …"

Then he started rhapsodizing about my eyes in conjunction with my baseball cap and overalls, and then stopped himself. "Okay, I'm gonna go now. I'm getting' goofy."

Then there came the wedding – the weird experience at the wedding – which really forced me to accept the reality in front of me instead of attaching myself to what I wanted to be happening. I had a couple of self-pitying moments but then – they seemed futile and silly. What was going on was what was supposed to be going on. (It all goes back to what Kimber always used to say when we were rehearsing a play and it wasn't going as well as planned: It may not be the play you want, but it's the play you got.)

I hadn't gone into this wedding-date with any hyper-specific expectations (although I did have some). Mostly I just wanted to stay as aware as possible, pick up on everything I could, take pictures, and LEARN. Be as relaxed as I could be, so I could receive as much information about him as I possibly could.

Which is what happened.

And then I realized some of my other expectations, only because they did not manifest: like slow dancing with him. Etc. etc. And I realized at one point that a part of me was wishing that he was a different person. Which is ridiculous. And unfair.

I am who I am, and he is who he is.

I don't want to start any kind of editing process, or self-consciousness. I am into him precisely for the reasons that were (are) driving me crazy … And that's that. If nothing else, the guy is honest.

Once I relaxed, I felt no more self-pity. I felt ACUTE self-awareness, awareness of "the pattern" – or I should say "my pattern" – But it wasn't accompanied by the self-destructive whining of "Poor me", or "Look what always happens to me." I had more distance. I became curious about my own life. I sat there at the table, watching everyone slow-dance, knowing NO ONE, feeling so separate from everyone, and so connected to myself – at the same time. And I was so interested in my own life – in a kind of ironic detached way. I could see it. For what it was. There it was. All in front of me. And it just seemed so interesting.

Interesting not in terms of dramaturgy, or "Oh, this would make a good play", not like that. It was interesting in terms of thematics – (I know I sound like such a cerebral asshole, but that was my experience). The themes of a life – the recurring themes – the pattern, still discernible in the chaos (The Goldberg Variations) … You never lose the pattern, but you need to have clarity of thought and good ears to pick up the theme at times. The pattern is always there.

And the wedding, for me, was one of those times. One of those times where my mind cleared, and where my ears picked up the pattern of my own life. Like that night I walked home from the Gingerman, passing Wrigley Field, at 2 a.m.

Amazing moments – a life revealed.

Deli Guy slept upstairs through the whole reception. I talked with Garrett and Polly, who were wonderful to me. I can't even say how much. I liked them both so much. I liked them separately and I loved them as a couple. He is a fireman, she is a physical therapist. They really seemed to get a kick out of each other. One of those couples with a great couple-vibe. Watching them dance together, I started to feel unbelievably wistful.

No, that's not right.

I didn't feel – I guess I did feel wistful – but I was more separated than that. I was just watching the dancing, mostly watching the two of them. They made such a nice couple. And I wished I was out there, too. I love to dance. But that was not my situation. I had some time of feeling so far outside everything that it was almost out-of-body.

I am so not describing this.

Basically, I was having a cosmic moment. Sitting on the side of the dance floor, watching all the couples dance. Feeling MY LIFE. Seeing it. MY LIFE. Almost as though it were separate from me. And my self-pity and wistfulness went away a little bit once I got all cosmic. And it felt like what was happening was clearly supposed to be happening.

Yeah, I would have loved to dance with him, out there with Garrett and Polly – but that wasn't the reality in front of me. Why invest in a fantasy? Everything seemed so clear to me. The moment seemed so real, so vital: It felt like my life. The whole thing was so me. I have had that experience (sitting on the sidelines, watching all the couples) countless times in my life. And here it was again, only this time, I was actually on a date. The theme still exists, regardless of the changing circumstances.

It wasn't a moment of "Woah! Look at what always happens to me! I am always alone! Even when I have a date, I'm not out there on the dance floor!" No. Maybe because I'm finding my way back to God … I felt like something from outside of me was trying to give me a message. It was like I finally was open enough to listen for God. He was trying to speak to me. Or – he was speaking to me – only not in any human language – It was more like he was showing me my life – with love. There was this chorus of "Accept accept accept" – over and over, pulsing through me. God is not a punishing God. He is love.

Something like that.

The theme of being alone watching all the couples happens too much to me for me to go the victim route. Clearly, God has a plan – Something's going on here that has nothing to do with a self-pitying stance. Whatever's happening is way deeper than that.

I went up and checked on Deli Guy. He was so fast asleep that his behavior didn't actually seem like it belonged to the sleep category. It was like he was under hypnosis or his body was there but his self was out on the astral plane somewhere. He was not there.

Which was what he needed to do. He needed to step off this plane. He was taking care of himself. He completely abandoned me, but he needed to take care of himself. He was lying on the couch in his tuxedo. Or, at least, his body was. I sat down beside his head, squeezing in on the couch. I was still in my cosmic place. (I sound so hysterical. I never talk like this. Astral planes, cosmic places … ) Receptors alive … I felt very mellow, even though I knew no one at this wedding – including Deli Guy, really, and he left me at the reception – awkward, lonely, etc…but I felt really mellow, once the self-pity left. I got out of myself. I was not "replete with very thee". I accepted the moment in front of me. It really relaxed me.

And, I got this sense, this feeling, as I sat next to him, that his brain was on fire. That somewhere within him he was burning up. And I suddenly felt so cool – cool temperature-wise, I just knew my hands would cool him down, so I put my palm on his forehead, and left it there, letting the coolness go down into his hot brain. He never woke up, but I kept pouring coolness into him.

Then I left him and went outside to be with myself. I had no idea where I was. Out in NJ somewhere. No clue.

The reception place was surrounded by trees. We were way out in nature, big empty parking lot, woods all around, night-time, lots of stars, and a great moon. Way high up, clouds rolling over it, big tall dark pine trees, and I wandered thru the parking lot, staring up at the moon, watching it disappear behind the trees, and then the clouds, and then re-appear again. Cricket sounds. I stood there, closed my eyes, soaked it in. Nature.

Cool night – darkness – clouds – stars – trees – crickets – woods –

The night then became about that for me. Me and the Night itself. Which was not what I expected either.

I was standing in the gravel lot, taking it all in, looking around me, with this major party going on behind me inside. But all sound was muffled outside.

On the other side of the lot (which was surrounded by woods), I suddenly saw this beautiful tranquil smooth "path" of grass, leading up into the darkness of the woods beyond. I felt like it was beckoning to me.

And it's funny: I saw it, and I heard it call to me, and I had a moment of thinking about it, like: "Wow. That path just called to me. Hm! Cool moment." I was distanced from it in a way, and then in the next moment came the thought: Why don't I just answer the call?

So I did.

It took me a couple of seconds to come to the decision: "Let me follow that path." – which is interesting to me. What else do I have to do? Why do I feel obligated to go back into that reception? Because I'm "supposed" to? Why? And, when I decided to follow the path, I felt like I was experiencing what it was like to be Jen, a lot of the time. When nature calls, she answers unquestioningly. At least it seems so to me.

I teetered on my high heels over the gravel to the path. It was an upward slope of clear grass going up into the woods. Everywhere else around the lot was thick with trees, no way in. (It was all very Blair Witch.) So this swoop of grass was like the yellow brick road. The grass was thick and beautiful, and the second I got into the woods, it was like I was in another world. The reception was a million miles away. My LIFE was a million miles away. But I was so there.

I will cherish my time in the woods forever.

I felt a one-ness. I felt close to everything, and also like I was soaring above everything. The reception really disappeared for me then. I was in the woods – the moon peeking thru the trees – me in my strappy heels. I came to a clearing in the trees. It was a pretty big space – dark and mysterious – grass underfoot – not dirt –

Jersey had been having intense floods that day. The National Guard was everywhere, the phones still weren't working. People missed the wedding because of roadblocks. And I really wanted to lie down in the grass, but I assumed it would be muddy and wet. I squatted to feel it, and it wasn't wet at all. It was lush thick grass, but not wet.

Everything was unexpected and perfect.

I lay on my back in the tall grass (wearing my little spaghetti-strap dress) – in the woods – with dark trees all around me – crickets high up – close – far – the moon playing peek-a-boo with the clouds – and the sounds – the sounds of the night were coming up thru the earth into me. It was also like I fell up into the sky. I fell up there with the moon.

The whole thing was RICH.

I have no idea how long I was out there.

And I wasn't missed when I finally went back in…Of course I wasn't! Deli Guy was still sleeping and no one else knew who I was.

It was BEAUTIFUL. To not be missed.

Lying in the grass in my little dress – with that soaring moon – and the Blair Witch trees all around me –

In looking back on it (that, and also my time sitting on the side, watching all the couples dance) – I felt something profound going on within me. I felt like if my life could be boiled down to its essence – if you could strip away the ballast, the non-essentials – and you looked into the pot to see what was left, what had survived the alchemical turbulence – those two moments would remain. Those two moments would be there. They say: SHEILA.

They are me. They say ME.

And – because I got that sense – as it was happening, which is so rare – because I got that sense that these moments contain my essence, I stopped judging. I stopped thinking that something else should be happening. I accepted.

I don't know what it all means, beyond what I just said. But it has stayed with me.

Later in the night, sitting at the table with Garrett, he said, "Where's *****? Smoking a cigarette?" (Judging.)

I said, "No. He's upstairs sleeping."

5,000 things went over Garrett's face. Confusion – alarm – annoyance – also concern for me. He was a sweetie, this guy. He said again, like he hadn't heard right, "He's sleeping?"

I said calmly, "Yeah."

I didn't judge Deli Guy. I felt disappointed, and also slightly embarrassed about being ditched so publicly, but it didn't manifest in me wanting to wake him up so that I could have a slow-dance with him. He needed to sleep. He got overwhelmed. Too many people. Family issues. His father shot himself a month ago. A month ago. Deli Guy checked out of the situation. Self-preservation.

Garrett took it all in. Then said, "And how are you doing with all of this?"

"Oh, I'm okay. I just took a really cool walk in the woods. It's okay."

He just STARED at me. He did not know what to say. (This guy really made an impression on me. Beautiful person.) Then he said, "You are so brave."

I burst out laughing. "I am?"

"Jesus CHRIST. Yes! You don't know anybody here, you don't even know him … and he goes and falls asleep … and you're just … you're just hanging out … I have to tell you. I could not do what you are doing tonight."

I laughed again. "I don't know what else to do! I guess he needed to sleep, y'know?"

From that point forward, Garrett (and then Garrett and Polly) never left my side. They took me out onto the dance floor with them, so the three of us danced together … we went to get drinks together, we took breaks and sat at the table together … we talked … books we were reading, what we do for a living … They completely took care of me. I wish I knew where they lived. I'd like to send them a card. I felt like, when I was with them, "People are good."

Deli Guy's cousin Joey (who could be cast as an extra on "The Sopranos") drove us back to Hoboken after the wedding. Joey's a fireman. Tough guy, also sweet sweet SWEET. Sweet with Deli Guy. Everyone was sweet with Deli Guy. Clearly a family concerned.

"If you should ever need anything…"

Joey has a tiny red convertible. A hot-shot car. I sat in the back. He put the top down. He drove like an absolutely MANIAC. It was glorious. Nighttime – that huge moon – and the wind blowing on us so hard we had to scream at each other. I sat in the back, hair going nuts, screaming out loud in joy. "WOOOOOOH!" Deli Guy grinning over his shoulder at me.

We were having such a great time driving that we lost the car we were following. We probably, actually, sped right by them – They must have been like: "Guys! You're supposed to be following us!" Waving frantically at us as we careened off into the night.

Then there was Deli Guy's clothes chaos … left his bag of clothes somewhere – We had to stop by the church first – but we got lost – random – running into National Guard roadblocks everyhere – soldiers and humvees. Weird.

I eavesdropped on the conversation going on in the front seat. It was killing me. Cousins. That long history. Joey's dad is Deli Guy's godfather.

Joey: "I'm not an educated man, but I'm a very lucky man. I have the best job in the world and I feel lucky. I thank God every day for my life."

Joey talking about spoiling his niece – who's one year old – buying her sneakers, buying her everything – and ignoring his nephews. He has to remind himself to get them gifts, too. "There's just something about a little baby girl, y'know? You just want to give her everything!"

Joey was asking Deli Guy what was up in his life. Deli Guy gave him the details. Living in Bayonne, wrote a book, broke. "I'm f***in' broke, man."

Joey: "Yeah, but you're doin' what you gotta do, man. That's all that matters. And you got your girl –"

Sweet. "You got your girl –"

Deli Guy talks like that, too. "So are you my girl now?" Joking: "If you get a car, then I will definitely make you my girl."

So we got hopelessly lost, but then suddenly I thought I recognized a 711 – and then I saw a roadblock which looked familiar – called out over the shrieking wind: "Joey! The church is a couple blocks down this street –"

We get to the church. No one there but the National Guard. The church parking lot is full of army jeeps.

So we didn't get Deli Guy's clothes back. We moved on. I leaned over the back of the front seat: "You guys – can we just take a moment to revel in how amazing it is that we actually found the church? Even though it came to nothing – let's just take a moment."

Joey loved that. It made him giggle.

Then Joey dropped us off … and something weird happened. Deli Guy had this strutting moose-at-Yellowstone confrontation with a random kid on the opposite sidewalk. "What are you lookin' at, man? You wanna get into it with me? HUH?"

I was so pissed. I saw red.

He got all sheepish with me, but still defending himself. "He was looking at me!"

That's a big deal to him. Being looked at. He feels like people can see inside his head.

I flipped out. "So what? What are you, 8 years old? So the man looked at you! So what? It's one o'clock in the morning and you're wearing a tuxedo! Maybe he was looking at that. And even if he wasn't – who cares? So he looked at you! Big deal."

Deli Guy said, "You sound just like my brother. He's always saying that to me – Just walk away. Just walk away."

"You should listen to your brother. That was just so bullshit right now. You f***ing freak me out. What are you gonna do – get into a huge fight with someone, with me standing right there? You would put me at such a risk? You are out of control, dude." I was pissed off and completely freaked. Adrenaline racing.

Finally he said, "I'm really sorry. It won't happen again."

"It better not. It better not."

Despite that one glitch, the evening was fascinating. Not because of Deli Guy, although he is very interesting. It was fascinating because of what was revealed to me about my life. Watching the couples dance, sitting on the side, and lying in the grass out in the woods.

I won't forget it.

2003-05-15T16:42:00.000-04:00

80 DAYS THAT CHANGED THE WORLD

Very funny post by Emily Jones about the following CNN special: 80 Days that Changed the World.

I don't think Mickey Mouse should be on there, alongside events like Hitler's beer hall putsch and Black Tuesday. Mickey Mouse changed the world?? Changed the world? Uh. I don't think so.

The Stonewall riots? Prozac?

Grrrr.

But still, there's some good stuff. Tet Offensive, Sputnik, Chinese Cultural Revolution...

TO MY LOYAL READERS
Look through CNN's special. What did they miss? Any event which, in your mind, clearly should be included? If we booted out Mickey Mouse, I Love Lucy, and Princess Diana's death (among other events): what could be added? I know we're missing things.

I'll compile them all and list them here.

2003-05-15T15:22:00.000-04:00

A RAMBLING DISCOURSE ON STEREOTYPES:
JAYSON BLAIR, OJ SIMPSON, "THE BACHELOR" BITCHES, MALE BASHING

There should be no need for every black person to hang his head in shame because of Jayson Blair's behavior. If you see everything through the filter of race, then you cannot see anything clearly.

I remember those awful pictures of black people jumping up and down for joy when OJ was declared "not guilty"... It seemed to me that the revelers were not gleeful because OJ was acquitted. Not really. They jumped up and down because they themselves had probably received unfair treatment from the LAPD (or wherever they lived) and felt vindicated. A wrong had been righted. That logic seems completely insane to me, but whatever: that was what was operating, because everything had been turned into a racial issue, as opposed to a criminal question: "did he or did he not" kill his wife?

Yes, the LAPD cops have a terribly racist reputation. Black people can be unfairly targeted by racist ignorant cops. However: REALITY CHECK: I am guessing that none of the blacks complaining about racial profiling had ever experienced a white cop planting a bloody glove in their backyard. Vincent Bugliosi, famous prosecutor of the Manson murders, commented on the miscarriage of justice that occurred in the OJ case, and wrote (and I'm paraphrasing): "I've spoken to all of my black friends and colleagues about this, and asked them what they thought. They have all spoken about being pulled over unnecessarily by the LAPD. I always reply: 'Yes. Perhaps you have been harassed and pulled over unfairly. But FRAMED? Have any of you been FRAMED by the cops?" Of course, the answer was always No to that.)

Blacks saw the OJ trial through their own filter of race, their own filter of bad experiencees they have had, and felt that OJ's acquittal was their vindication.

"OJ could not be allowed to pay for that murder, because if he was found to be guilty... then our entire race house of cards would come crumbling down. We cannot bear to have a member of our race pilloried, because it reflects on all of us."

The closer I look at that, the less sense it makes.

All black people are not OJ. OJ is not indicative of all black people. I do not look at OJ's behavior and have any opinion about black people as a whole.

Don't hang your head in shame because Jayson Blair is a bad egg!!!

I watched "The Bachelor" last night. There was a scene at the end where the absolute worst side of women (in general) was on display. They all looked like catty back-stabbing passive-aggressive bitches. Some of them would be bitchy when on camera privately - cutting each other down, mean mean mean, and then be simperingly sweet to each other in person.

The final scene was like an anthropological study. "Watch the female of the species. Notice how her bitchiness grows as each day goes on. Interesting, too: the oldest girl in this flock of females, Christina, who is 30, appears to be the least mature, and most bitchy of them all. Must make a note of that, and look into it further."

I am many things I am not proud of (I can be arrogant, and righteous, I can be way-moody, I can be scared of stupid things, I have a pretty hot temper), but I am not a back-stabber. And I am not petty. I am also not passive-aggressive. If I have a problem with you, you will hear about it. And not 5 months later. I do not give someone the silent treatment. It is not in my nature. I also have many great women friends. There are women who don't like other women, women who secretly do not want other women to do well, women who say "You look gorgeous, Susie" one moment and "Doesn't Susie look awful?" the second poor Susie leaves the room.

I watched last night, cringing at times, taking it personally, feeling like the worst of my sex was on display.

However: just because they're a bunch of back-stabbing straight-haired tank-top-and-tight-jeans-and-highheeled-boots-wearing bitches ... doesn't mean anything about ME, personally. They all look TERRIBLE in terms of their personalities, and also the general lack of self-awareness (well, except for Tina Fabulous who came out of the whole debacle smelling like a rose.) I am sure many men watched the show last night and had their worst thoughts about women confirmed. "Yup. Look at that. All women are back-stabbing money-hungry bitches." I've met guys like that, I've been on a couple of dates with guys like that (it never goes past one date, obviously) ... men who have terrible opinions of women, for whatever reason. Mommy didn't love them enough, whatever. I have no interest in playing psychologist.

This is a rambling post. I haven't written all day.

What I am trying to say is that black journalists and black professionals do not need to hang their heads in shame because Jayson Blair is BLACK. They should hang their heads in shame because he is a dirty JOURNALIST. Or: don't even hang the head in shame! Please, let's stop it with the shame-filled confessional stuff. Just 'fess up that he sucks, that he should never have been allowed to advance, and make sure that your own work is beyond reproach. Do what you can, in your small corner of the profession, to insure that it doesn't happen again. His race is inconsequential. Do not over-identify yourself with your race, or with your gender. It's a stupid thing to do. There are way too many exceptions to every single stereotype to take any of it seriously.

Men who grumble, "Women only care about money" don't know women like me. Men who grumble about women who spend hours shopping, have not met me. I race into a store, try on a pair of pants, fall in love with them, race out, in half an hour's time. The stereotype does not fit. I also am the opposite of cling-y or need-y. I'm too fierce about my own independence to ever try to put boundaries on somebody else. I don't need to be with somebody at all times. I could give a rat's ass if the man I'm interested in needs a couple nights to go out with the boys and whoop it up and revel in testosterone. I don't care if he looks at other women while he is out with his guy friends. Or actually, even if he is with me. If I ever couple up with someone, I am not SUDDENLY not going to find other men attractive. I am not going to SUDDENLY not have a huge lustful crush on Jeff Bridges. I probably will still squeal with excitement when I see that "The Fisher King" is playing on TNT.

So yes, women can be small-minded, petty, and jealous ... but not all women are this way. So you cannot make a blanket statement like that.

At least if you're not interested in the truth.

I am very glad that journalists are going through soul-searching right now, and that the issue of race is being brought up, left and right. It's about time.

I do not make any assumptions about black people, in general, because of Jayson Blair. Jayson Blair was a smarmy conniving liar. And that's IT.

We need more common-sense applied to affirmative action. As it stands now, it sucks eggs.

Two possible conversations involving a hypothetical reporter:
1. Is [hypothetical reporter] good at what he does?
Yes.
Good enough to deserve promotion?
Yes.
Well, all righty- then.

2. Is [hypothetical reporter] good at what he does?
Well ... he's had some problems with accuracy ...
Really? Let me see some documentation of that ...
Here it is ...
Huh. Well, we probably shouldn't put him on the big national case, and we should keep a sharp eye on him.

The fact that that man is black is a big YAWN to me. Doesn't matter at all. And neither should it matter to you.

More:
One other thing on stereotypes: Male-bashing in the media.

It's not just in the media. It is all around me. 10 minutes ago I received an email from a friend of mine, one of those joke emails, called "Men are like..." Here are some of the "jokes":

Men are like ... Laxatives ....They irritate the shit out of you.
Men are like .... Blenders .... You need One, but you're not quite sure why.
Men are like ... Commercials ... You can't believe a word they say.
Men are like ... Lava Lamps ..... Fun to look at, but not very bright.

Who finds this funny? Who would find this funny?

"Fun to look at, BUT NOT VERY BRIGHT"...

Sorry. The smugness of women sometimes is insufferable. I don't see men in that way. I just don't. I listen to the litany of complaints from women with husbands, the treating him like a child, like a buffoon, an idiot, etc. It's incessant. I think: "Jesus, why did you want to hook up with him if you have such contempt for men?"

I can't participate in male-bashing. I won't. I refuse. I know too many brilliant men. Brilliant sensitive stand-up guys. Who have their acts together. I think of my nephew Cashel. I don't want him to grow up feeling shame-faced about his gender. It's just not funny to me.

2003-05-15T12:59:00.000-04:00

EXCERPT OF THE DAY

From the novel Mating by Norman Rush - an absolutely incredible read ... I highly recommend it ... For years, I looked at that book as an articulation of my philosophy of life and love ... I am not so sure about that now. I've been burned a ton more times since I first read it ... but still. A riveting story with absolutely unforgettable characters. It won the National Book Award in 1991.

It is a first-person narrative, told from the point of view of a disgruntled female anthropologist (who remains nameless throughout the entire novel), trying to finish her thesis about hunter-gatherers in Botswana. The only problem is: "I had to hunt for gatherers. Gathering was a dead issue in my part of the bush. Normal-type food seems to have percolated everywhere." Norman Rush, a male author, is completely convincing, creating a female voice. The novel begins with her hanging around in Gaborone, the capital of Botswana, trying to figure out how to save her thesis. She has a couple of dilatory "relationships" ... which she cannot take seriously. Also, because she is an anthropologist, she sees everything in anthropological terms. Which is a challenge for any normal person trying to be intimate with her. She takes self-analysis and deductive reasoning and critical thinking to a whole new level. People who don't sympathize with that kind of thinking will be extremely irritated with the book. I, however, heard her very specific voice as an uncanny echo of my own.

She hears a rumor about a famous renegade anthropologist named Nelson Denoon, who has fallen off the face of the earth, and has apparently disappeared into the Kalahari desert, to create an ideal society. A utopia. A utopia where women hold all the power. This is all sounding rather corny, as I describe it. You just have to read it. So our un-named heroine becomes convinced that she must meet Nelson Denoon, that he will be the key to her finding her brilliance, her greatness ... she treks across the desert, uninvited, and arrives at his utopia. Events unfold from there.

Nelson Denoon, to my taste, is one of the most memorable fictional characters I have ever encountered. The book pained me at the end. I knew and loved someone like Nelson Denoon.

So today's excerpt is the chapter "Weep for me", from early on in the book, before Denoon enters into it. She has started dating a wildlife photographer, merely because he has an assignment at Victoria Falls, and she wants to tag along and see this wonder of the world. She feels kind of bad about using him, but not really bad. She has lost her moral compass. She is disappointed by life. She doesn't know what to do next. She and her lover arrive in Rhodesia/Zimbabwe ... and she pretty much blatantly ditches him the second they check into the hotel, to go see the falls by herself. She does not hide from him that she basically used him for the free plane ticket.

"Weep for me" is the chapter describing her solitary encounter with Victoria Falls.

Weep for Me

Well before you see water you find yourself walking through pure vapor. The roar penetrates you and you stop thinking without trying.

I took a branch of the path that led out onto the shoulder of the gorge the falls pour into. I could sit in long grass with my feet to the void, the falls immense straight in front of me. It was excessive in every dimension. The mist and spray rise up in a column that breaks off at the top into normal clouds while you watch. This is the last waterfall I need to see, I thought. Depending on the angle of the sun, there were rainbows and fractions of ranbows above and below the falls. The first main sensation is about physicality. The falls said something to me like You are flesh, in no uncertain terms. This phase lasted over an hour. I have never been so intent. Several times I started to get up but couldn't. It was injunctive. Something in me was being sated and I was paralyzed until that was done.

The next phase was emotional. Something was building up in me as I went back toward the hotel and got on the path that led to overlooks directly beside and above the east cataract. My solitude was eroding, which was oddly painful. I could vaguely make out darkly dressed people here and there on the Zambia side, and there seemed to be some local African boys upstream just recreationally manhandling a huge dead tree into the rapids, which they would later run along the bank following to its plunge, incidentally intruding on me in my crise or whatever it should be called. The dark clothing I was seeing was of course raingear, which anyone sensible would be wearing. I was drenched.

You know you're in Africa at Victoria Falls because there is nothing anyplace to keep you from stepping off into the cataract, not a handrail, not an inch of barbed wire. There are certain small trees growing out over the drop where obvious handholds on the limbs have been worn smooth by people clutching them to lean out bodily over white death. I did this myself. I leaned outward and stared down and said out loud something like Weep for me. At which point I was overcome with enormous sadness, from nowhere. I drew back into where it was safe, terrified.

I think the falls represented death for the taking, but a particular death, one that would be quick but also make you part of something magnificent and eternal, an eternal mechanism. This was not in the same league as throwing yourself under some filthy bus. I had no idea I was that sad. I began to ask myself why, out loud. I had permission to. It was safe to talk to yourself because of the roar you were subsumed in, besides being alone. I fragmented.

One sense I had was that I was going to die sometime anyway. Another was that the falls were something you could never apply the term fake or stupid to. This has to be animism, was another feeling. I was also bemused because suicide had never meant anything to me personally, except as an option it sometimes amazed me my mother had never taken, if her misery was as kosher as she made it seem. There was also an element of urgency underneath everything, an implication that the chance for this kind of death was not going to happen again and that if I passed it up I should stop complaining -- which was also baseless and from nowhere because I'm not a complainer, historically. I am the Platonic idea of a good sport.

Why was I this sad? I needed to know. I was alarmed. I had no secret guilt that I was aware of, no betrayals or cruelty toward anyone. On the contrary, I have led a fairly generative life in the time I've had to spare from defending myself against the slings and arrows. Remorse wasn't it.

To get away from the boys and their log I had moved to a secluded rock below the brink of the falls. At this point I was weeping, which was disguised by the condensation already bathing my face. No bypasser would notice. This is not saying you could get away with outright sobbing, but in general it would not be embarrassing to be come upon in the degree of emotional dishevelment I seemed to be in.

What was it about? It was nothing sexual: I was not dealing on any level with uncleanness, say. My sex history was the essence of ordinary. So any notion that I was undergoing some naughtiness-based lustral seizure was worthless, especially since I have never been religious in the slightest. One of the better papers I had done was on lustral rites. Was something saying I should kill myself posthaste if the truth was that I was going to be mediocre? This was a thought with real pain behind it. To my wreck of a mother mediocre was a superlative -- an imputation I resisted with all my might once I realized it involved me. I grew up clinging to the idea that either I was original in an unappreciated way or that I could be original -- this later -- by incessant striving and reading and taking simple precautions like never watching television again in my life.

There must be such a thing as situational madness, because I verged on it. I know that schizophrenics hear people murmuring when the bedshhets rustle or when the vacuum cleaner is on. The falls were coming across to me as an utterance, but in more ways than just the roar. There seemed to be certain recurrent elongated forms in the falling masses of water, an architecture that I would be able to apprehend if only I got closer. The sound and the shapes I was seeing went together and meant something, something ethical or existential and hving to do with me henceforward in some way. I started to edge even closer, when the thought came to me If you had a companion you would stay where you are.

I stopped in my tracks. There was elation and desperation. Where was my companion? I had no companion, et cetera. I had no life companion, but why was that? What had I done that had made that the case, leaving me in danger? Each time I thought the word "companion" I felt pain collecting in my chest. I suddenly realized how precipitous the place I had chosen to sit and commune from was. The pain was like hot liquid, and I remember feeling hopeless because I knew it was something not amenable to vomiting. I wanted to expel it. Vomiting is my least favorite inevitable recurrent experience, but I would have been willing to drop to all fours and vomit for hours if that would access this burning material. It was no use saying mate or compadre instead of companion: the pain was the same. Also, that I genuinely deserved a companion was something included.

I wish I knew how long this went on. It was under ten minutes, I think.

Who can I tell this to, was the thought that seemed to end it. I may have been into the diminuendo already, because I had gotten back from the ledge, back even from the path and into the undergrowth. It all lifted. I sat in the brush, clutching myself. I had an optical feeling that the falls were receding. Then it was really over.

I hauled myself back to the hotel feeling like a hysteric, except for the sense that I had gotten something germane, whatever it was, out of my brush with chaos.

2003-05-14T17:01:00.000-04:00

STINKY CHEESE

Alex, over at Broken Type, another Big Apple Blogger has a very enjoyable post up at the moment, entitled "New York Cocktail Party". He discusses Stinking Bishop, a cheese offered at the party. He discusses its hyperbolic stinkiness at some length, and with great eloquence. He uses the word "cthulu". Then he closes with some quotes (so FABULOUS) from the cookbook The Playboy Gourmet. Damn. They don't seem to write cook books like they used to. Mouth-watering quotes.

Read on. Good stuff.