Public-Service Announcement: From Behind, Footsteps

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Strange days…

The Employer announced last week that they’d be blocking access to Facebook and MySpace, due to some unspecified virus activity. That took effect immediately. Can’t speak for MySpace, but Facebook access seems to have been restored yesterday (haven’t checked yet today).

This morning, a strange combination of “Personal and Social Networking Sites” are also blocked, with no warning.

Included are Flickr, any site hosted at wordpress.org (some sites merely powered by WordPress software), and blogger.com — but not blogspot.com. (Or maybe vice-versa, hard to tell.)

Still, during the workday — so far — I can see all your blog postings via Google Reader. (Even though I can’t see any images from the blocked sites.)

But I can’t actually get to (i.e., comment at) many of them.

(Aside: If your blog posts use those little “– more –” gizmos which restrict viewing to just the first portion of a post, Google Reader likewise will show me only the first portion: I can’t click through to read what follows.)

Anyhow, please don’t be alarmed (or insulted) if I seem to have gone all silent and unidirectional all of a sudden. If the blockade continues, I’ll try to figure out a way to visit more during off-hours

The Interwebs are our Precious. We hates the nasty hobbitses downstairs, we do — nasty hobbitses who steals from us the Precious.

Update: Nope, the doors are locked to Facebook, too. Also Twitter. I experimented a little last week with something called Posterous.com, which would allow me to update FB/Twitter status… but not to read/comment on anyone else’s status, which (for me) is 80% of the attraction. Sigh.

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29° 57′ N, 90° 4′ W

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As you know if you’ve been here for a while — even if you haven’t read the explanation of the blog’s title; just from reading the content — the mission of Running After My Hat might be summed up, sorta, like this:

Despite the inherent ridiculousness of the act, to pursue in deadly earnest whatever weird little distraction catches my interest.

You could hardly pick a more appropriate city than New Orleans for pursuits like this. And I guess the obvious place to start doing so literally would be at Meyer the Hatter’s establishment. Says my little Frommer’s guide book:

Meyer’s opened more than 100 years ago and has been in the same family ever since. Today the haberdashery has one of the largest selections of fine hats and caps in the South… Go outfit yourself like a proper gentleman caller.

(No, sorry, I didn’t go into the store. I think that word “proper” discouraged me from entering.)

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Breaking It Down

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From whiskey river:

The states of mind or feelings that art can excite have been helpfully distinguished in Sanskrit aesthetics, where they are called rasas, from a word meaning “juice” or “essence”. A fully achieved work of art should flow with all nine of them: their names might be transposed into English as wonder, joy, sexual pleasure, pity, anguish, anger, terror, disgust and laughter.

(Marina Warner, Monsters of Our Own Making [source])

Not from whiskey river:

Naming of Parts

To-day we have naming of parts. Yesterday,
We had daily cleaning. And to-morrow morning,
We shall have what to do after firing. But to-day,
To-day we have naming of parts. Japonica
Glistens like coral in all of the neighboring gardens,
And to-day we have naming of parts.

This is the lower sling swivel. And this
Is the upper sling swivel, whose use you will see,
When you are given your slings. And this is the piling swivel,
Which in your case you have not got. The branches
Hold in the gardens their silent, eloquent gestures,
Which in our case we have not got.

This is the safety-catch, which is always released
With an easy flick of the thumb. And please do not let me
See anyone using his finger. You can do it quite easy
If you have any strength in your thumb. The blossoms
Are fragile and motionless, never letting anyone see
Any of them using their finger.

And this you can see is the bolt. The purpose of this
Is to open the breech, as you see. We can slide it
Rapidly backwards and forwards: we call this
Easing the spring. And rapidly backwards and forwards
The early bees are assaulting and fumbling the flowers:
They call it easing the Spring.

They call it easing the Spring: it is perfectly easy
If you have any strength in your thumb: like the bolt,
And the breech, and the cocking-piece, and the point of balance,
Which in our case we have not got; and the almond-blossom
Silent in all of the gardens and the bees going backwards and
forwards,
For to-day we have naming of parts.

(Henry Reed, from Lessons of the War [source]; see an excellent film interpretation of the poem here.)

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Crossing the Line

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For me, the last few days of May and the first few of June, in most years, are veined with ambivalence.

First, there’s May 29. As you may have put together by your own clever self, that’s The Missus’s and my anniversary. This has always been an easy date for me to remember, because it was also my Dad’s birthday. Somewhere around here was also my maternal grandmother’s birthday. And finally, because I have many happy childhood memories of Memorial Day — which used to fall every year on May 31 — the very end of the month always seems to carry with it an assertive whiff of celebration and commemoration.

But then we come to the small matter of June 4, 1988…

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There Are Some Cures for Pre-Summertime Blues

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Wanted to draw your attention to a couple of recent donations to the “life is complex and frustrating, so let’s go have some fun!” cause.

First, you can generally look to the Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast blog for a pick-me-up. (And before breakfast, say researchers, is when 99% of the populace most needs picking up. (The other 1% need it most while they’re sitting on barstools and fantasizing about Mr. or Ms. Right, as the case may be.))

But today’s post, “Some Cartoons for You,” just made me grin from ear to ear. (It might even have made the grin wrap around to the back of my neck — an alarming sight, no doubt, for the people behind me in the elevator this morning.) As is usually the case at 7-Imp, the focus is on children’s books and illustrators — specifically, in this case, illustrators who favor a cartoon-like style of art.

It’s pretty darned hard for me to look at this without smiling, and it’s not even the whole image (from “Mr.” [Tom] Warburton’s 1000 Times No — see a reproduction of the entire page at the 7-Imp site):

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Very Dead Things, and a Small Box of Chocolate Bunnies

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If you’ve read my most recent Friday post, you’ve probably figured out that the early-1990s TV series Twin Peaks looms large in The Missus’s and my collective imagination.

(Actually, we have a habit of latching onto odd, off-center network series which don’t have a chance in hell of surviving past the first season or two — simply because of the confusion and venality of network executives. Don’t even get us started on American Gothic.)

When we met, online, in 1991, the show was in its first season. Prior to the premier, I’d read a review by — of all people — Pauline Kael, in The New Yorker, and it made up my mind that I just had to watch that episode, even if none of the later ones. I can’t find this review online anywhere (even though, with my subscriber’s credentials, I’ve got access to the magazine’s entire archives; maybe I read it somewhere else?). But Kael was nuts about the premier episode; she wrote of the first glimpse of Laura Palmer as something like “quite possibly the deadest thing you will ever see on network television.”

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Her Little Voice

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[Above is the longer version of the Twin Peaks opening title sequence, including a fairly
 complete cast listing (at least for the recurring characters). The “official” and higher-
quality version, with a truncated theme song and cast listing, is here.]

[Note: Comments disabled for this post, for what will eventually be obvious reasons. :)]

From whiskey river:

And then the kicker is this: in passing from the real to the imagined, in following that trail, you learn that both sides have a little of the other in each, that there are elements of the imagined inside your experience of the “real” world — rock, bone, wood, ice — and elements of the real — not the metaphorical, but the actual thing itself — inside stories and tales and dreams.

(Rick Bass)

Not from whiskey river:

your little voice
Over the wires came leaping
and i felt suddenly
dizzy
With the jostling and shouting of merry flowers
wee skipping high-heeled flames
courtesied before my eyes
or twinkling over to my side
Looked up
with impertinently exquisite faces
floating hands were laid upon me
I was whirled and tossed into delicious dancing
up
Up
with the pale important
stars and the Humorous
moon
dear girl
How i was crazy how i cried when i heard
over time
and tide and death
leaping
Sweetly
your voice

(E.E. Cummings)

…and:

Love one another, but make not a bond of love
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf.
Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you
be alone,
Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with
the same music.

(Kahlil Gibran)

And finally, who could argue with this?

One woman can make you fly like an eagle, another can give you the strength of a lion, but only one in the Cycle Of Life can fill your heart with wonder and the wisdom that you have known a singular joy.

(Deputy Tommy “Hawk” Hill, Twin Peaks)

…Okay, I said “finally” up there but, heck, as long as we’re on the theme we may as well go for broke:

[Below, click Play button to begin. While audio is playing, volume control appears at left — a row of little vertical bars. This clip is about 5½ minutes long.

[audio:falling_juleecruise.mp3|titles=Falling|artists=Julee Cruise]

Falling
(lyrics by David Lynch; music by Angelo Badalamenti;
performance by Julee Cruise)

Don’t let yourself be hurt this time.
Don’t let yourself be hurt this time.

Then I saw your face
Then I saw your smile

The sky is still blue
The clouds come and go
Yet something is different
Are we falling in love?

Don’t let yourself be hurt this time.
Don’t let yourself be hurt this time.

Then your kiss so soft
Then your touch so warm

The stars still shine bright
The mountains still high
Yet something is different
Are we falling in love?

Falling
Falling

Are we falling in love?

Happy anniversary, Baby. ♥

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Paying Attention to Your Sense of Play

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I’d already written this post’s title. And I almost began the body of it with these words: “Sometimes, you just have to”—

But, nah. I don’t think everyone, not even every writer, “just has to” do almost anything, much less experience the sort of off-the-wall moment I did one afternoon, years ago. And even less than that, to actually follow up on it.

This was back in the days when I was living on my savings and trying to Be a Fulltime Writer. (If you notice the contradiction in terms there, on either side of the and, you’re not the only one.) I was reading the paper one day after lunch. It had been a productive morning writing session, and I was feeling a bit burnt-out but still not quite ready to toss away the afternoon on something other than writing. Just, y’know, not necessarily that writing — what I was working on every day.

So I was reading the paper, as I said, and my attention was caught by the Ann Landers advice column on the page opposite the comics. “Dear Ann Landers,” it began (they all began that way). “I was a closet smoker who went through a pack a day for 20 years and tried to quit dozens of times. I failed because I felt as if I was depriving myself of a great deal of pleasure even though I knew in my heart that cigarettes were killing me…”

To this point, a fairly conventional letter. Yet even as you read of this guy’s struggle with the Tobacco Demon, you could sense, lurking in the wings, a but. You could sense he wasn’t writing to seek advice. He was writing to offer it.

And so he did.

Something about the solution he came up with just suddenly struck me as bizarre. Flat-out hilarious, even. I’d been a smoker myself, and the thought that I might actually employ this solution back then, on the occasions when I’d most wanted a cigarette, just, well, it just unhinged me.

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Airborne

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From whiskey river:

As you go the way of life, you will see a great chasm. Jump. It is not as wide as you think.

(Native American Indian saying)

Not from whiskey river:

Don Juan and don Genaro stood up and stretched their arms and arched their backs, as if sitting had made their bodies stiff. My heart began to pound fast. They made Pablito and me stand up.

“The twilight is the crack between the worlds,” don Juan said. “It is the door to the unknown.”

He pointed with a sweeping movement of his hand to the mesa where we were standing.

“This is the plateau in front of that door.”

He pointed then to the northern edge of the mesa.

“There is the door. Beyond, there is an abyss and beyond that abyss is the unknown.”

Don Juan and don Genaro then turned to Pablito and said good-by to him. Pablito’s eyes were dilated and fixed; tears were rolling down his cheeks.

I heard don Genaro’s voice saying good-by to me, but I did not hear don Juan’s.

Don Juan and don Genaro moved towards Pablito and whispered briefly in his ears. Then they came to me. But before they had whis­pered anything I already had that peculiar feeling of being split.

“We will now be like dust on the road,” don Genaro said. “Perhaps it will get in your eyes again, someday.”

Don Juan and don Genaro stepped back and seemed to merge with the darkness. Pablito held my forearm and we said good-by to each other. Then a strange urge, a force, made me run with him to the northern edge of the mesa. I felt his arm holding me as we jumped and then I was alone.

(Carlos Castaneda, Tales of Power — the last words of the book. I always thought Castaneda’s entire “Don Juan” series would have ended perfectly at this point, but no: he went on to write numerous further books, none of which attained the convincing — and impeccable — power of the early ones.)

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Real-Life Dialogue

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Patient (handing appointment card for his regular checkup to receptionist at desk in Super Mega Giant medical center): Hey, how you doing, I’m—

Receptionist: I know. Got you right here. (Hands exam paperwork to patient; calls out to someone out of sight behind her.) He just got here! I’m sending him right back!

(Patient wanders around corner, meets nurse at door leading to warren of exam rooms, check-out area, etc.)

Patient (to nurse): Wow. You took me fast. I even brought a book up h—

Nurse: I know! You got here just at a good time! Come with me, please.

(She leads patient through maze. Patient’s imagination starts to get better of him; he believes he sees a troll at the check-out window, and a gnome taking phone calls. This can’t be true, although the corridors are getting narrower and more twisty and the walls are running with slime.)

Nurse (gesturing at scale): Step up here, please. (Looks startled.) Hmm. (Purses lips. Makes notation on pad.)

Patient: Something wrong?

Nurse: Step down, follow me… No, sir, nothing wrong!

(More corridors. Spiders on ceiling and walls. Oil-guttering torches. They arrive at the correct exam room.)

Nurse: All right, I’ll just sit here at the computer (she sits) and you sit there on the table. (He does so.) Now let me just verify your prescriptions, okay?

Patient: Okay—

Nurse: Fosamax.

Patient (eyes crossing): Uh, Fosamax? Isn’t that for, like, wom—

Nurse: Okay, no Fosamax? Okay. How about aspirin. You still taking aspirin?

Patient (relieved): Yep! Enteric—

Nurse: Right. The 81 size, right?

Patient: The, uh, 81—?

Nurse: And how about the [insert what sounds to patient like a completely improvised brand name with many x‘s, z‘s, k‘s, and a short a or two]? Are you still—

Patient (taking command of the situation): Y’know, I’m getting a little worried. I don’t recognize these prescriptions you’re talking about. Are you sure—

Nurse (glances at patient, glances at screen, glances at paperwork in her lap): Oh my gosh! I’ve got the wrong patient! Come with me, please.

(They exit the exam room. Nurse leads patient back into corridors. A left, a right, straight ahead, dodge the pharmaceutical salesman, the falling stalactites and screeching bats, and suddenly back into the relative daylight of the waiting room.)

Nurse (to patient): Just have a seat, please. Someone will be right with you. (To room at large) Stephenson! Julia Stephenson!

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