Running After My Hat

Ridiculous pursuits, matters solemn and less so

The Place You’re From and the Place You’re At

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[Image: “What Do Now? (Tallahasssee, Florida),” by John E. Simpson. (Photo shared here under a Creative Commons License; for more information, see this page at RAMH.)]

From whiskey river:

We’re a race of elsewhere people. That’s what makes us the best saints and the best poets and the best musicians and the world’s worst bankers. That’s why wherever you go you’ll see some of us — and it makes no difference if the place is soft and warm and lovely and there’s not a thing anyone could find wrong with it, there’ll always be what Jimmy the Yank calls A Hankering. It’s in the eyes. The idea of the better home. Some of us have it worse than others.

(Niall Williams [source])

Not from whiskey river:

A Side Street

On the warm Sunday afternoons
And every evening in the Spring and Summer
When the night hurries the late home-corner
And the air grows softer, and scraps of tunes
Float from the open windows and jar
Against the voices of children and the hum of a car;
When the city noises commingle and melt
With a restless something half-seen, half-felt—
I see them always there,
Upon the low, smooth wall before the church;
That row of little girls who sit and stare
Like sparrows on a granite perch.
They come in twittering couples or walk alone
To their gray bough of stone,
Sometimes by twos and threes, sometimes as many as five—
But always they sit there on the narrow coping
Bright-eyed and solemn, scarcely hoping
To see more than what is merely moving and alive. . .
They hear the couples pass; the lisp of happy feet
Increases and the night grows suddenly sweet. . .
Before the quiet church that smells of death
They sit.
And Life sweeps past them with a rushing breath
And reaches out and plucks them by the hand
And calls them boldly, whispering to each
In some strange speech
They tremble to but cannot understand.
It thrills and troubles them, as one by one,
The days run off like water through a sieve;
While, with a gaze as candid as the sun,
Poignant and puzzled and inquisitive,
They come and sit,—
A part of life and yet apart from it.

(Louis Untermeyer [source])

…and:

We may use our homes to help distinguish ourselves, but the dominant Western viewpoint is that regardless of location, the individual remains unchanged. It wasn’t until I stumbled across the following notion, mentioned in passing in a book about a Hindu pilgrimage by William S. Sax, that I began to question that idea: “People and the places where they reside are engaged in a continuing set of exchanges; they have determinate, mutual effects upon each other because they are part of a single, interactive system”…

I can’t possibly live everywhere I once labeled home, but I can frame these places on my walls. My decorations can serve as a reminder of the more adventurous person I was in New York, the more carefree person I was in Paris, and the more ambitious person I was in Michigan. I can’t be connected with my home in the intense way South Asians are in Sax’s book, but neither do I presume my personality to be context-free. No one is ever free from their social or physical environment. And whether or not we are always aware of it, a home is a home because it blurs the line between the self and the surroundings, and challenges the line we try to draw between who we are and where we are.

(Julie Beck [source])

ADMIN: Returning to the RAMH Rhythm

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Today’s whiskey river Fridays post contains a minor (to me) notable element which I didn’t want to make a big deal of at the time. To wit: it was the first post here in over three years which featured commentary on music without simply embedding a YouTube video. (The last one, in June 2020, was a playlist springing from research into The Knack’s “My Sharona.”)

As I say, this is a fairly minor thing to anyone but me. But it feels like a milestone to me, because while we were on the road — and until I had my desktop computer set up at our new digs — I just couldn’t share music in any way other than embedded videos. (The latter often, for me anyhow, distract from the music.) It probably doesn’t signal a return to my once-active blogging form, but it does feel like a return of some kind!

The Neurotic Solo Cast of the Horror Film Starring Oneself

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[Image: “Johnny Was,” by John E. Simpson. I had no idea what this sign might have referred to when I looked up and saw it hanging over a storefront in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California; I’d never heard of the apparel chain. But a chill ran up my back — I considered it something of an omen (although nobody, really, calls me “Johnny” anymore), and went about my business for the next few days in a cloud of apprehension. (See the note at the foot of this post for an additional bit of information.)]

From whiskey river:

People have gotten used to living a botched-up life — to be anxious, insecure, hateful, jealous, and in various states of unpleasantness through the day — slowly humanity has begun to see it as normal.

None of these things are normal. These are abnormalities. Once you accept them as part of life they become normal because the majority has joined the gang of unpleasantness. They are all saying, “Unpleasantness is normal. Being nasty to each other is normal. Being nasty to myself is normal.”

Someone trusted that you would be doing good things at least to yourself and said, “Do unto others what you do unto yourself.” I am telling you, never do unto others what you are doing to yourself! (Laughter) By being with people, I know what they are doing to themselves is the worst thing. Fortunately, they are not doing such horrible things to others. Only once in a while they are giving a dose to others, but to themselves they are giving it throughout the day. If you are a very blissful human being, what he is saying is great. When you are practicing to go to hell — self-torture so that the devils cannot succeed — then it is not a good idea. People have gotten used to living in a disturbed state. It is a botched-up life.

(Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev [source])

Not from whiskey river:

The Hall of Machines: Machines of Movement (Interlocking Machine Room)

On entering the room I found it to be full of giant metal crabs. Great struts of thin metal rod crisscross from ceiling to floor, making it impossible to see very far into the room. The very air shudders with the vibration of these machines. Although the constructions vary considerably, one from the other, a large number of them have the same basic shape. Their nucleus is a mass of rods and other interlocking members, and they stand about ten feet high. The arrangement of these rods is infinitely complex. At their apex they are thickly composed, and are surrounded by other parts which join them and permit their motion. They branch out, and at floor level each machine covers a considerable area.

All of the legs of these machines are connected by free-moving joints to the legs of the other units, and a movement of one causes an adjustment to the position of the other. The whole room is in motion, and the machines twitch each other with an action that appears almost lascivious in nature.

A rod near me is moved by the action of a neighbor’s leg. This movement is communicated at the top of the unit to another of the legs, and it, in turn, imparts motion to a machine further away. As these machines work, a constant metallic clattering fills the air, as if the room is filled with typewriters.

The machines are slick and oiled; their movement is smooth, but gives an impression of great nervousness. All over this chamber are various other parts, all of which seem affected in some way by the movement of the rods. On the wall, near me, is fixed a plaque with a jointed arm extending from it. Taut wires radiate from either extremity into the skeletal gray. One end is angled up, the other down. As the wire of the higher end is pulled by some motion in the mass of interlocking parts, the arm reverses its position jerkily…

The mind drowns among the interlocking machines. Perhaps the reason is in the similarity of this abstract maze to that pattern formed by the neural current. Perhaps these patterns of motion parallel too closely the patterns of electricity that we call personality, and the one is disturbed by the other. Conversely, perhaps the very existence of a human mind in the room causes little eddies and whirls in the motion of the machines.

I was unable to stay in the interlocking machine room for more than a minute or two before the psychological effects became more than I could bear.

(Langdon Jones [source])

_______________

About “Johnny Was”: a bit of research, of course, told me that this is simply the name of an “affordable luxury” women’s clothing store. It’s still an odd name, though. The company’s Web site explains: “Music and family have always been integral to the JOHNNY WAS culture. With his children by his side, [founder] Eli Levite started to conceptualize his fashion business in the late 1980s. The soundtrack to this period was Bob Marley’s infectious Johnny Was a Good Man, the inspiration behind the brand’s name.”

It’s a bit of a stretch to call that song the soundtrack to the late 1980s — but, well, I don’t know: for Mr. Levite, perhaps it was. In any case, in case you’re curious about it (as I was, since I knew no more about the tune than I did about the clothing chain), here’s the song in question (lyrics here and elsewhere):

[back to top]

If It’s Living You Want, Above All Else You Have to Live

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[Image: “Walking on Autumn,” by John E. Simpson. (Photo shared here under a Creative Commons License; for more information, see this page at RAMH.)]

From whiskey river:

Before this is all over. Before they close the house and sell the furniture and give away the books. Before the cosmetics and shoes are handed out. Before they throw the pans in the trash. Before they empty the cupboards, before they take away the spices, the noodles. Before the happy days and Sunday afternoons end. Before the last of the mornings. Before the end of the anguish. Before sex without love and love without sex are over. Before the clothes rot in the closets. Before they take down the paintings and cover the armchairs with canvases and close the windows forever. Before they burn the photos. Before the doormats dry out, before the curtains rust on their tracks. Before curiosity is over, the bones, the liver and the corneas. Before all the plants on the balcony dry out. Before there is no more snow, no colors, no tropics. Before the end of all the jungles, of all the seas, of all the reflections in the water. Before the last poem. From the end of the sidewalks and streets. The end of all walks.

Before goodbye to all the airports and all the planes, all the cities and all the cafes with steamed up windows. Before the cancellation of all the discussions, of all the arguments, of all the fury, of all the contempt. Of all the metallic anxieties. Before the end of the screams, the desolation and the guilt. Before the last agenda, the last Friday, the last bar, the last dance. Before all the domes and all the screens go out. Before the moths eat the remains of the wool and the pillow. Before the end of pets. Before, much before: you have to live.

But how? As? “How admirable / he who does not think ‘life flees’ / when he sees lightning,” Basho wrote. Admirable those who are in time without thinking about it.

(Leila Guerriero [source: nothing canonical, but see here])

Not from whiskey river:

What Is Lost

Can you picture the Argentine pampa? Flat fields, eucalyptus trees, a seemingly inoffensive landscape where a gray sunset might use your boiling blood to paint a path straight to hell. That’s where I’m from, from that landscape. There, my grandfather showed me how to plant seeds, my grandmother read to me from Struwwelpeter, my mother taught me that cruel things are not always done with cruelty. “I need a hook to reach the high branches,” my father says now in the backyard of the house I grew up in. We watch him disappear into the leaves of the fig tree while my brothers and I shout warnings of absurd dangers—bees, rotten fruit—and we laugh like idiots as he collects figs to make jam. Later on, in the evening, we go fishing and come home when the sun goes down, without having caught anything. That night we eat under the grapevine, on the stone table that has been there since my grandparents were young, since they planted these trees and a sea of calla lilies that no longer exists. The next morning my younger brother and I look through boxes stuffed with toys and old dolls that fall apart in my hands. After lunch we start taking my mom’s clothes out of the closets. We put them in bags (her silk blouse with a pattern of little anchors), and we leave them on the bed, unsure of what to do with them. At night I return to Buenos Aires, staring at the stars, the highway like a smooth metal slide at the playground. A song comes on the radio and suddenly I remember a verse by Arnaldo Calveyra: “I didn’t know I was sad until they asked me to sing.” It’s a lie that we can keep everything alive inside us through memories. Some things are lost for good. And there is, in recognizing that, a brave, icy beauty. Even if it pierces your heart and shatters it to pieces.

(Leila Guerriero [source])

It’s strange, this being-in-your-70s thing. (And yes, I always must qualify these musings with: “Given the entire context of my life… my economic situation, my ‘demographic,’ my personal history, my geography…”) On the one hand, we don’t have the everyday pressure — the pressure of every literal 24 hours: we barely remember what day it is, from one to the next. On the other hand, there always seems so much to do. The latter situation springs largely from the unsettlement of our last few years — travel plans, unraveling travel plans, the impact of COVID, downsizing from a house we loved to an apartment which we liked, leaving the apartment behind to go on the road for two years, and finally moving to an area where neither of us had lived before. We’re kinda exhausted, kinda excited about settling down, and kinda trying not to kill the excitement by settling down too soon…

And although it’s not something to dwell on, always at the back of my mind — I can’t speak for The Missus — skulks the question: how long do I have? Given the unlikelihood (come on: really, now) of my ever finishing and publishing another novel, how easy or how difficult will it be to pull together a collection of shorter works? Once pulled together, how easy or difficult will it be to, well, do something with the thing? What can I do with the thousands of photos I’ve got — can I even manage to whittle it down to a few hundred or so?

For me, at least, I just lock the “how long do I have?” questions away. I know better, but in the meantime I just try to stay focused on the doing which constitutes each moment. Things are still too scattered — literally and figuratively, we still have too many boxes out in the garage to be unpacked — too scattered to be able to say, “I’ll have this personal project done within N weeks, and then I can start on the next,” and so on.

Yeah. I just gotta live, and let come whatever happens afterwards.

________________________

Note: the work of Argentine journalist Leila Guerriero is wonderful — and almost none of it (including the above translated quotation with which whiskey river introduced it to me) exists in English. I could find only one complete book by her in English — A Simple Story: Dancing for His Life (a review here) — although she’s published at least three others in Spanish; she also edited and wrote the introduction to Cuba on the Verge (review here), a collection of pieces by other writers about the island nation. It’s appalling, the extent to which English-language publishers overlook the possibilities of translating writers in other languages. (And yes, again with the context: perhaps the real problem is English-language readers, like myself, who’ve simply never learned to read anything else!)

“Let Me Show You Me,” the Braggart Said — and Show Himself, He Did

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[Image: “Awesome Street/Private Street,” by John E. Simpson. (Photo shared here under a Creative Commons License; for more information, see this page at RAMH.)]

From whiskey river:

Having grown used to the polite verbiage of modern-day counseling—we speak of “having guilt feelings” rather than actually acknowledging our guilt—I found myself delighted by the pithy language and imagery of the early monks. Here, for example, is the seventh-century monk of Sinai, John Climacus, on the subject of pride, from a book that is still read in Orthodox monasteries during Lent:

Pride is a denial of God, an invention of the devil, contempt for men. It is the mother of condemnation, the offspring of praise, a sign of barrenness. It is a flight from God’s help, the harbinger of madness, the author of downfall. It is the cause of diabolical possession, the source of anger, the gateway of hypocrisy. It is the fortress of demons, the custodian of sins, the source of hardheartedness. It is the denial of compassion, a bitter pharisee, a cruel judge. It is the foe of God. It is the root of blasphemy.

Welcome to the truth: that’s the feeling I have when I read such a text. And the monk Evagrius, the first to write down and attempt to codify the beliefs and practices of the desert monks with regard to sin (which they called “demons” or “bad thoughts”), not only provides me with a means of understanding my own “bad thoughts” but also with the tools to confront them. His view of anger is typically sensible. Anger, he wrote, is given to us by God to help us confront true evil. We err when we use it casually, against other people, to gratify our own desires for power or control.

(Kathleen Norris [source])

…and:

It is a curious psychological fact that the man who seems to be “egotistic” is not suffering from too much ego, but from too little.

When the ego is strong and well developed, there is no nagging need to impress others—by money, by rudeness, or by any other show of false strength.

Sydney J. Harris [source])

Not from whiskey river:

But why does compassion have to be universal? Because this is different from moral judgment. It doesn’t prevent you from saying that those [people like Vladimir Putin, Saddam Hussein, and Donald Trump] are walking psychopaths, that they have no heart. But compassion is to remedy suffering wherever it is, whatever form it takes and whoever causes it. So what is the object of compassion here? It is the hatred and the person under its power. If someone beats you with a stick, you don’t get angry with the stick — you get angry with the person. These people we are talking about are like sticks in the hands of ignorance and hatred…

I realize this is a question that no one on the path to enlightenment would ask, but broadly speaking, am I on the right path? You?

Yes. [Laughs.] I mean, I cannot make a clinical examination, but I feel that you resonate with ideas which are dear to me. So that’s a good sign.

I’ll take it! If you had said, “Oh, that’s all rubbish” — you know, once there was a French journalist, very cynical, and he said to me, “This thing about becoming a better person and all that, this is the politics of the hash trade.” I don’t know what he meant. But what I said was, “My dear friend, if genuinely trying to become a better person and do a little good — if that’s the politics of the hash trade, I’m happy to spend my whole life in the hash trade.”

(from an interview of the Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard by New York Times columnist David Marchese [source])

…and:

#42: Years later, it’s not uncommon to forget the names and faces of people you once saw, day after day, as you went about your life of the moment. These people visited you in your office, in your home, in church or elsewhere, and you returned the favor, and cherished the opportunity to again be in their company. And yet you never forget the names and faces of people who “did you wrong”: insulted you, embarrassed you, hurt your feelings, stole your thunder. This paradox says much about memory, of course, but it also says much about why human beings steadfastly, stubbornly remain human.

(JES, Maxims for Nostalgists)

When They’ve All Had Their Quarrels and Parted

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[Image: “Cousins,” by John E. Simpson. (Photo shared here under a Creative Commons License; for more information, see this page at RAMH.)]

From whiskey river:

There is a twilight zone in our own hearts that we ourselves cannot see. Even when we know quite a lot about ourselves—our gifts and weaknesses, our ambitions and aspirations, our motives and drives—large parts of ourselves remain in the shadow of consciousness.

This is a very good thing. We always will remain partially hidden to ourselves. Other people, especially those who love us, can often see our twilight zones better than we ourselves can. The way we are seen and understood by others is different from the way we see and understand ourselves. We will never fully know the significance of our presence in the lives of our friends. That’s a grace, a grace that calls us not only to humility but also to a deep trust in those who love us. It is in the twilight zones of our hearts where true friendships are born.

(Henri Nouwen [source])

Not from whiskey river:

The Soul Selects Her Own Society

The Soul selects her own Society —
Then — shuts the Door —
To her divine Majority —
Present no more —

Unmoved — she notes the Chariots — pausing —
At her low Gate —
Unmoved — an Emperor be kneeling
Upon her Mat —

I’ve known her — from an ample nation —
Choose One —
Then — close the Valves of her attention —
Like Stone —

(Emily Dickinson [source])

…and:

Once we were so few we fit intimately into the life of extended families. As our numbers swelled, you would think we would feel an even greater sense of belonging, of belonging everywhere to everyone. But there are so many of us, more than we can ever know in a lifetime—or even imagine as individuals—that we often feel just the opposite: as if we belong nowhere to no one. We can move among multitudes, and feel isolated and alone. We live unique, private lives of hope and self-interest. We also live polite, cooperative lives of teamwork and negotiation. When our population was low, that meant cooperating on a hunt or ceremony or marriage, or perhaps the exchange of goods. We knew the people who owed us, and those to whom we were indebted. We knew our friends and allies on sight—they often revealed talents and tempers in the daily dramas of the community. We knew whom to trust in a crisis, where to go for solace. Today there are so many of us that we forge alliances with people we will never meet, whose names we don’t even know—with banks, insurance companies, sprawling corporations, governments, churches, armed forces. We belong to organizations more virtuous and trustworthy than any of their members are as individuals. We belong to our families as we always did, to kith and kin, but we also belong electronically, telephonically, statistically, generationally, anonymously to people far from us.

We are masons, blacksmiths, teachers, lawyers. We have invented machines in which we fly, submersibles to patrol the secret recesses of the oceans. We have polished the marble of our cities, and also filled them with decay. We have homesteaded the night with electric lights, turning it into a dazzling country. We have learned sin and shame, new words for hate, novel forms of mischief and deep play. We perform towering feats of altruism. Little of it was planned. It simply happened, child by child, loved one by loved one, piece by piece, over the great caravan of human history.

(Diane Ackerman [source])

In high school, I met, befriended, and eventually fell in love with a girl who was utterly outside my league in terms of how many people she knew and was friends with, her likely impact on our school and society at large, and — it must be said — her romantic confusions and entanglements. We eventually attended and graduated from the same college, and stayed in touch for the next decade or so, through one marriage (or another) to other people, and although we never had a “romantic” relationship, we certainly talked about the prospect occasionally. It just never got off the ground.

Anyway, she at some point gave me a book, Stories and Satires — a selection of the stories of Sholom Aleichem. I have no idea how or why she chose that book; it had no obvious connection to anything going on in our lives. I probably read and enjoyed a few of the tales but don’t remember much about them. Frustratingly, though, I remember — but only almost — the inscription she’d added to the title page. It purported to be a quotation from Thomas More, I think — Thomas Somebody, anyhow — but I’ve never been able to trace or recreate it exactly.

But it went something like this, in words which don’t sound to me much like someone of More’s ilk:

We had reached that stage of Anglo-Saxon regard when two people will not look each other in the eye, for fear of revealing how very fond of each other they are.

It kills me that I can’t remember it, and it kills me that I can’t recreate the true sense of the passage (let alone its impact on me), even in other words. My copy of the book, needless to say, is long gone, and while I can certainly buy a new copy, it won’t contain that inscription. (I’m afraid I’m not interested in it otherwise.) My friend — as I learned from a mutual acquaintance — died over 20 years ago, so even that avenue of research is now closed off…

With those exact words or not, I did — do still — love the mystery of friendship which the quotation danced around. Even (maybe especially!) if we never exchange explicit “I love you” declarations, I know and my friends know what lies beneath the surface of our joshing, our sharing of intimate memories and fears, and our simple silence in one another’s presence. I don’t make friends easily — am decidedly not at all the “Hail, fellow, well met!” sort. But the deep understanding that someone is a friend, no matter how often we’re geographically in the same place: I think I may treasure that as much as any other life experience.

“This Is No Movie — This Is REAL! (The Last Reel…)”

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[This post’s title alludes to a favorite bit from Firesign Theatre‘s 1970 album, Don’t Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me Those Pliers. If I could find a transcript of it, I’d link thereto… but I can’t. So allow me to introduce you to the album in its entirety, above, via the magic of YouTube. I’d hate to isolate the specific location in the audio where this line occurs — thus robbing you of the full, rich, 40-some-minutes experience — so, well, just listen.]

From whiskey river:

Self help

In the middle of the night
in Sweden, in the northern part
northish, anyway,
at midsummer
there are no stars
the light shimmers when you get up
and walk through the woods
to the outhouse
shimmers. it is not

like
what you are used to, shining from
like the sun through
the trees to your eyes.
it breaks and shimmers
in all directions.
at least i am pretty sure,
i didn’t have my glasses on.

we saw two moose
a big one one evening
a little one the next evening

i sat on the porch in a lawn chair
i looked at the lake
and at the trees
eventually i noticed i was not thinking
i was a little surprised

what am i doing when i am not thinking
i am living
so i lived on the porch
for a few days.

would i recommend this?
i don’t recommend anything
anymore
you’ll figure it out

(Mig Living [source])

…and:

The moon glows the same:
It is the drifting cloud forms
Make it seem to change.

(Matsuo Basho [source])

…and (ibid.):

Awakening doesn’t mean you awaken. It means that there is only awakening. There is no “you” who is awake, there is only awakeness. As long as you identify with a “you” who is either awake or not awake, you are still dreaming. Awakening is awakening from the dream of a separate you into simply being Awakeness.

The problem is that most people are paying attention to objects, to what they perceive – rather than to the ultimate perceiver, the background. Either way, awareness is happening 100% of the time. The light is on brightly. It never goes off, but where is it looking? The human condition is characterized by a complete fascination with objects, starting with this object that we interpret as “me.” Me is only a thought. You are before this me thought.

(Adyashanti [source, source])

Not from whiskey river:

Nonreading

Bookstores don’t provide
a remote control for Proust,
you can’t switch
to a soccer match,
or a quiz show, win a Cadillac.

We live longer
but less precisely
and in shorter sentences.

We travel faster, farther, more often,
but bring back slides instead of memories.
Here I am with some guy.
There I guess that’s my ex.
Here everyone’s naked
so this must be a beach.

Seven volumes—mercy.
Couldn’t it be cut or summarized,
or better yet put into pictures.
There was that series called “The Doll,”
but my sister-in-law says that’s some other P. [*]

And by the way, who was he anyway.
They say he wrote in bed for years on end.
Page after page
at a snail’s pace.
But we’re still going in fifth gear
and, knock on wood, never better.

(Wislawa Szymborska [source])

…and:

When you contemplate the nature of Self, you are meditating. That is why meditation is the highest state. It is the return to the root of your being, the simple awareness of being aware. Once you become conscious of the consciousness itself, you attain a totally different state. You are now aware of who you are. You have become an awakened being. It’s really just the most natural thing in the world. Here I am. Here I always was. It’s like you have been on the couch watching TV, but you were so totally immersed in the show that you forgot where you were. Someone shook you, and now you’re back to the awareness that you’re sitting on the couch watching TV. Nothing else changed. You simply stopped projecting your sense of self onto that particular object of consciousness. You woke up. That is spirituality. That is the nature of Self. That is who you are.

As you pull back into the consciousness, this world ceases to be a problem. It’s just something you’re watching. It keeps changing, but there is no sense of that being a problem. The more you are willing to just let the world be something you’re aware of, the more it will let you be who you are—the awareness, the Self, the Atman, the Soul.

You realize that you’re not who you thought you were. You’re not even a human being. You just happen to be watching one.

(Michael A. Singer [source])

____________________________

* The “other P” in Szymborska’s poem refers to Polish writer Boleslaw Prus (1847-1912). His 1890 novel, The Doll, was eventually adapted both for television and for film.

Life Behind a Glass Mask

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[Image: “Day 19 — Untitled,” by Lip Jin Lee. Found it on Flickr; using it here under a Creative Commons license. (Thank you!)]

From whiskey river:

The Game of Roles

In any narrative, facts are present or not. One might assume the more facts, the better the constructed history, since facts are meant to reflect what can’t be computed by storytelling alone, which is said to be subjective and therefore inaccurate. In many cases, the story is filled with complex details, which only one person knows. You sit at a table and turn a page on which marks make letters that suggest a timeline. It’s clear that you believe nothing will ever outrank your cold and unforgiving erudition, however, everything you think is based, even at the most basic neuronal level, on the way you connect a long line of dots. Refined interpretation requires that you know that someone once said the offspring of reality and illusion is only a staggering confusion. Keep in mind that your mind is a twice-shattered light bulb and on the other side of detachment is the fact that someone is busy living while you are translating the fact that she’s dead. Also remember that behind your glass mask is only your mind.

(Mary Jo Bang, A Doll for Throwing [source])

Not from whiskey river:

Sometimes people have to get slapped in the face with a fish before they’ll admit being allergic to seafood.

(N.K. Jemisin [source])

…and:

…art is the most unnatural minion of the state. Not only is it created by fanciful people who tire of repetition even more quickly than they tire of being told what to do, it is also vexingly ambiguous. Just when a carefully crafted bit of dialogue is about to deliver a crystal-clear message, a hint of sarcasm or the raising of an eyebrow can spoil the entire effect. In fact, it can give credence to a notion that is the exact opposite of that which was intended. So, perhaps it is understandable that governing authorities are bound to reconsider their artistic preferences every now and then, if for no other reason than to keep themselves fit.

(Amor Towles [source])

…and:

Wrinkles

Lines on the face, tattoos of aging.
Life is proved upon the body
Like needle-jabs from a blind machine.

The older one gets, the more one is conscious of aging. We can barely remember childhood innocence and exuberance. We are surprised by the youthful vitality and unmarked face when we see earlier photos of ourselves. When we look in the mirror, we reluctantly acknowledge the aging mask. It seems that there is no escaping the marks of life.

Every experience that we have, everything that we do and think is registered upon us as surely as the steady embroidery of a tattoo artist. But to a large degree, the pattern and picture that will emerge is up to us. If we go to a tattoo artist, it is we who select the picture. In life, it is we who select what we will become by the actions we perform. There is no reason to go through life thoughtlessly, to let accident shape us. That is like allowing oneself to be tattooed by a blind man. How can you help but turn out old and ugly?

Whether we emerge beautiful or ugly is our sole responsibility.

(Deng Ming-Dao [source])

At Sea in an Open Boat: God’s Dog, the Sound of Steaming Coffee, a Fairy Godmother…

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[Image: “Aloft (Redwood City, California),” by John E. Simpson. (Photo shared here under a Creative Commons License; for more information, see this page at RAMH.)]

We were traveling down in Florida over the last couple of weeks — from the Panhandle down to South Florida and on up to Jacksonville — tying off some loose ends of our erstwhile life there, and visiting family and friends to boot. As a result, I never got around to posting anything at all a week ago: the first missed “whiskey river Fridays” post in a long while…

So, let’s wrap today’s post here around several passages from the river‘s entries during those two weeks. First:

Beyond the wall of the unreal city, beyond the security fences topped with barbed wire and razor wire, beyond the asphalt belting of the superhighways, beyond the cemented banksides of temporarily stopped and mutilated rivers, beyond the rage of lies that poisons the air, there is another world waiting for you. It is the old true world of the deserts, the mountains, the forests, the islands, the shores, the open plains. Go there. Be there. Walk gently and quietly deep within it. And then—

May your trails be dim, lonesome, stony, narrow, winding and only slightly uphill. May the wind bring rain for the slickrock potholes fourteen miles on the other side of yonder blue ridge. May God’s dog serenade your campfire, may the rattlesnake and the screech owl amuse your reverie, may the Great Sun dazzle your eyes by day and the Great Bear watch over you by night.

(Edward Abbey [source])

…and then this:

Breathing Space, July

The one who’s lying on his back under the tall trees
is also up there within them. He’s flowing out into thousands of twigs,
swaying to and fro,
sitting in an ejector seat that lets go in slow motion.

The one who’s standing down by the docks squints at the water.
The docks age faster than people.
They have silver-gray lumber and stones in their gut.
The glaring light pounds all the way in.

The one who’s traveling all day in an open boat
over the glittering bays
will fall asleep at last inside a blue lamp
while the islands crawl like huge moths over the glass.

(Tomas Tranströmer, translated by Patty Crane [source])

…and finally (italicized portion):

If, by the virtue of charity or the circumstance of desperation, you ever chance to spend a little time around a Substance-recovery halfway facility like Enfield MA’s state-funded Ennet House, you will acquire many exotic new facts. [Such as:]

…That boring activities become, perversely, much less boring if you concentrate intently on them. That if enough people in a silent room are drinking coffee it is possible to make out the sound of steam coming off the coffee. That sometimes human beings have to just sit in one place and, like, hurt. That you will become way less concerned with what other people think of you when you realize how seldom they do. That there is such a thing as raw, unalloyed, agendaless kindness. That it is possible to fall asleep during an anxiety attack.

That concentrating intently on anything is very hard work.

(David Foster Wallace [source])

Then — as per usual, seeming to me somehow mystically and/or at least vaguely thematically linked with the whiskey river selections — consider the following:

“I might be able to still enchant the babe,” said [fairy godmother] Agnes a bit doubtfully. “Even if we miss the christening. But it doesn’t take as well, not with humans. You lay a name on them and suddenly their whole future is rolled out like dough in front of you, but it doesn’t last. Life starts to bake it pretty quick.”

(T. Kingfisher [source])

…and:

A large guerrilla party formed in one of the suburbs, setting off on their own to fight the victorious enemy.

The madmen suffered a terrible fate: they were disarmed, divided, forcefully washed, given new clothes, and made to listen to music, eat luxurious food, and revel in company with beautiful women.

Many took their own lives, many were put into lunatic asylums, while most, disgraced and ridiculed, victims to the temptation, returned to Principal City.

(Yefim Zozulya, translated by Vlad Zhenevsky [source])

…and:

The Applicant

First, are you our sort of a person?
Do you wear
A glass eye, false teeth or a crutch,
A brace or a hook,
Rubber breasts or a rubber crotch,

Stitches to show something’s missing? No, no? Then
How can we give you a thing?
Stop crying.
Open your hand.
Empty? Empty. Here is a hand

To fill it and willing
To bring teacups and roll away headaches
And do whatever you tell it.
Will you marry it?
It is guaranteed

To thumb shut your eyes at the end
And dissolve of sorrow.
We make new stock from the salt.
I notice you are stark naked.
How about this suit—-

Black and stiff, but not a bad fit.
Will you marry it?
It is waterproof, shatterproof, proof
Against fire and bombs through the roof.
Believe me, they’ll bury you in it.

Now your head, excuse me, is empty.
I have the ticket for that.
Come here, sweetie, out of the closet.
Well, what do you think of that?
Naked as paper to start

But in twenty-five years she’ll be silver,
In fifty, gold.
A living doll, everywhere you look.
It can sew, it can cook,
It can talk, talk, talk.

It works, there is nothing wrong with it.
You have a hole, it’s a poultice.
You have an eye, it’s an image.
My boy, it’s your last resort.
Will you marry it, marry it, marry it.

(Sylvia Plath [source])

Weekend Music Break: Tom Rush and James Montgomery, “Statesboro Blues”

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[Original “Statesboro Blues” lyrics by Blind Willie McTell are here. But of course, since this is a blues song, individual performers often wander away from the “official” version…]

Tom Rush, oh yeah: him I knew about. His Wikipedia entry summarizes:

Thomas Walker Rush (born February 8, 1941) is an American folk and blues singer, guitarist and songwriter who helped launch the careers of other singer-songwriters in the 1960s and has continued his own singing career for 60 years.

…which — because, well, Wikipedia — doesn’t tell you everything (or much, really) that you need to know about him; even the details provided there kinda skim the surface. (Visit his own site to get meatier info about him.)

But James Johnson? I confess — that was a new name to me… See, I subscribe to a newsletter — a blog, really — called “The Lefsetz Letter,” by a music industry insider named Bob Lefsetz; this post of a couple days ago alerted me to the presence of this video. It was so euphoric — rhapsodic — a writeup that I just had to see the video for myself. In typical Lefsetz fashion, he rambles quite a bit, and quite a bit entertainingly, before getting to the point; I recommend the full post, but here’s an excerpt:

Tom talks about playing a song. They’re going to do “Statesboro Blues.”

James says he’s not sure he remembers all the lyrics, but he’ll give it a whack. And then Tom starts strumming his guitar, and then James comes in on his harp… JAMES COME IN ON HIS HARP!

Man, this is the sound that launched a million careers. The blues of yore. We heard it, locked into the groove, and were influenced by it. We played the blues, we listened to the blues, but the blues are nowhere in today’s modern music world. Oh, you can hear influences. But the pure element? That’s gone. But Tom and James are locked right into it.

And then James starts to sing and…

Man, this is good!

So I go back to Wikipedia, to find out more details, I mean where’s this guy been? Performing! But in the Boston area. He’s still doing it, like a bluesman of yore. And he’s got it.

And just like pornography, you know it when you hear it, and I’m hearing it. I’m woken right up. James is positively wailing on that harp, like a pro, not an amateur, it’s everything it used to be, BUT IT’S NOW!

So this, in any case, seems an ideal excuse to resuscitate my old “Midweek/Weekend Music Break” series — something I’ve been contemplating since we finally settled down here a couple months ago. I can’t promise to post regularly in the series… but jeez, I do miss music.

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