{"id":20982,"date":"2019-03-08T12:52:48","date_gmt":"2019-03-08T17:52:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=20982"},"modified":"2019-03-08T12:52:48","modified_gmt":"2019-03-08T17:52:48","slug":"a-cast-of-thousands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2019\/03\/a-cast-of-thousands\/","title":{"rendered":"A Cast of Thousands"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Image:<\/a><\/p>\n

[Image: “The Matryoshka Dolls,” by Mathieu Croiseti\u00e8re; found on Flickr<\/a>, and used here under a Creative Commons license (thank you!). While the photo was posted by Croiseti\u00e8re, the piece is actually the work of multimedia artist Laetitia Soulier<\/a>. (The full name is “The Matryoshka Dolls 2”; it’s the second panel in a triptych.) You can read more about Soulier’s “Fractal Architecture” series — of which this image is but one part — here<\/a> and here<\/a> (and elsewhere around the Web). Her process is quite involved — fascinating, I think — and as the saying goes, you can’t argue with results.]<\/em><\/p>\n

From whiskey river<\/em><\/a>:<\/p>\n

Costumes Exchanging Glances<\/strong><\/p>\n

The rhinestone lights blink off and on.<\/span>
\nPretend stars.
\nI’m sick of explanations. A life is like Russell said
\nof electricity, not a thing but the way things behave.
\nA science of motion toward some flat surface,
\nsome heat, some cold. Some light
\ncan leave some after-image but it doesn’t last.
\nIsn’t that what they say? That and that
\nhistorical events exchange glances with nothingness.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Mary Jo Bang [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and<\/em><\/a>:<\/p>\n

Last night I had a dream within a dream. I dreamed that I was calmly watching actors working on a stage. And through a door that was not locked men came in with machine guns and killed all the actors. I began to cry: I didn’t want them to be dead. So the actors got up off the ground and said: we aren’t dead in real life, just as actors, the massacre was part of the show. Then I dreamed such a good dream: I dreamed this: in life we are actors in an absurd play written by an absurd God. We are all participants in this theater: in truth we never shall die when death happens. We only die as actors. Could that be eternity?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Clarice Lispector [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and<\/a> (italicized stanza):<\/p>\n

Passing Through<\/strong><\/p>\n

—on my seventy-ninth birthday<\/p>\n

Nobody in the widow\u2019s household
\never celebrated anniversaries.
\nIn the secrecy of my room
\nI would not admit I cared
\nthat my friends were given parties.
\nBefore I left town for school
\nmy birthday went up in smoke
\nin a fire at City Hall that gutted
\nthe Department of Vital Statistics.
\nIf it weren\u2019t for a census report
\nof a five-year-old White Male
\nsharing my mother\u2019s address
\nat the Green Street tenement in Worcester
\nI\u2019d have no documentary proof
\nthat I exist. You are the first,
\nmy dear, to bully me
\ninto these festive occasions.<\/p>\n

Sometimes, you say, I wear<\/em>
\nan abstracted look that drives you<\/em>
\nup the wall, as though it signified<\/em>
\ndistress or disaffection.<\/em>
\nDon\u2019t take it so to heart.<\/em>
\nMaybe I enjoy not-being as much<\/em>
\nas being who I am. Maybe<\/em>
\nit\u2019s time for me to practice<\/em>
\ngrowing old. The way I look<\/em>
\nat it, I\u2019m passing through a phase:<\/em>
\ngradually I\u2019m changing to a word.<\/em>
\nWhatever you choose to claim<\/em>
\nof me is always yours;<\/em>
\nnothing is truly mine<\/em>
\nexcept my name. I only<\/em>
\nborrowed this dust.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Stanley Kunitz [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Not from whiskey river<\/em>:<\/p>\n

The Kindergarten Concert<\/strong><\/p>\n

The kindergarten concert was an interesting show.
\nPeter walked onto the stage and yelled, “I have to go!”
\nKatie was embarrassed, but she had nowhere to hide.
\nShe raised her dress to hide her face. Her mother almost died.
\nKeith removed his tie and said, “It’s ugly, Dad. I hate it!”
\nDavid picked his nose on stage. What’s worse is that he ate it.
\nThey sang their song, and Wyatt burped. Then he did a dance.
\nMichael fell while spinning ’round. Peter wet his pants.
\nThe music teacher at the end said, “There, I’m glad that’s done.”
\nThe kindergarten bowed and said, “Let’s sing another one!”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Robert Pottle [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

The Chime<\/strong><\/p>\n

When death stands in your doorway, you must show no weakness. If he points at his watch, answer “in five minutes.” If he insists, murmur “just a minute.” When he bridles, whisper “half a minute,” “a second,” “half a sec,” “one moment.”<\/p>\n

You mustn’t look him in the eye. But don’t avert your gaze. Glance decisively at the bridge of the nose or the moist place right below the lips.<\/p>\n

If he unfolds a map, please don’t express a preference for the seashore or the mountains. Betray no longing or anxiety. You might tap the margin nonchalantly, if there is a margin.<\/p>\n

There’s an old superstition that death is a healer, he brings peace, escape from corruption. On the contrary: he is not a person, an animal, an insect, not even a pebble. Not even a name. Not an event. Not a whiff of night air.<\/p>\n

So why, ask yourself, does he fidget there, with that peevish “can’t we meet each other halfway” expression, in those absurd Goodwill clothes, baggy corduroy suit, pants and jacket the same color but different wales, so often folded the seams are white as chalk lines, fat two-tone white-and-beige golf shoes with cleats, nylon argyle socks, like someone’s idea of an encyclopedia salesman from the nineteen thirties?<\/p>\n

And why is the street behind him so fascinating, empty as a stage set, a few vans double-parked, a cat hiding under one, sometimes the flicker of the tip of a tail, sometimes the glint of the eye itself, voracious, ecstatic?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(D. Nurkse [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

Listen: you are not yourself, you are crowds of others, you are as leaky a vessel as was ever made, you have spent vast amounts of your life as someone else, as people who died long ago, as people who never lived, as strangers you never met. The usual I<\/em> we are given has all the tidy containment of the kind of character the realist novel specializes in and none of the porousness of our every waking moment, the loose threads, the strange dreams, the forgettings and misrememberings, the portions of a life lived through others\u2019 stories, the incoherence and inconsistency, the pantheon of dei ex machina and the companionability of ghosts. There are other ways of telling.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Rebecca Solnit [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

______________________________<\/p>\n

Note about the Rebecca Solnit quotation:<\/strong><\/em> As it happens, I’ve used this passage before. While doing a general search for prose which more or less fit with today’s theme, I came across that posted on Goodreads. And then, because I always try to track down the original source for the fragments I post on Friday, I did a more specific search… and that’s where I found my own earlier post<\/a> (which flowed from, yes, a whiskey river<\/em> entry — dizzy yet?).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Image: “The Matryoshka Dolls,” by Mathieu Croiseti\u00e8re; found on Flickr, and used here under a Creative Commons license (thank you!). While the photo was posted by Croiseti\u00e8re, the piece is actually the work of multimedia artist Laetitia Soulier. (The full name is “The Matryoshka Dolls 2”; it’s the second panel in a triptych.) You can […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20988,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","h5ap_radio_sources":[],"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Stanley Kunitz, Rebecca Solnit, et al: 'A Cast of Thousands'","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[247,1393,250,5,4878,251,713,4159],"tags":[1061,3884,4167,4393,4691,4879,4880,4881,4882,4883,4884],"class_list":{"0":"post-20982","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ruminations","8":"category-whiskey-river-runningaftermyhat","9":"category-art","10":"category-06_writing","11":"category-fiction","12":"category-poetry-writing_cat","13":"category-humor-writing_cat","14":"category-essays","15":"tag-death","16":"tag-rebecca-solnit","17":"tag-clarice-lispector","18":"tag-stanley-kunitz","19":"tag-mary-jo-bang","20":"tag-d-nurske","21":"tag-robert-pottle","22":"tag-past-lives","23":"tag-multiple-lives","24":"tag-laetitia-soulier","25":"tag-self-reference","26":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/thematryoshkadolls_mathieucroiseti%C3%A8re_thumb.jpg?fit=500%2C251&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-5sq","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20982","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20982"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20982\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20992,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20982\/revisions\/20992"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20988"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}