Of Clay and Wattles Made

Black cat redux

2012-01-27T06:29:00.001-06:00

Gradually and against my wishes otherwise, I have beenconstructing a home for the homeless black cat. After twenty-five years ofcaring for cats, I wanted to relinquish the responsibility of caring foranimals, and even though the household, against my wishes, had adopted two newkittens, I declared emphatically that Iwould not be caring for them. Whoever wanted the cats wanted to care for them.I was finished.

But I was not that strong. PerhapsI have never been so. I like to think of what I refer to here as weakness asethics. Daily and a bit distant from the cabin this homeless black cat appeared,sitting passively in the woods beyond my windows, sensing a human presence and yetfearing it. It was thin and scraggly, and on its neck was the wound of a recentfight. It looked hungry and sad. At the beginning and before the regular coldset in, I began to leave food out at night that I had taken from the house, andby morning the bowl had been emptied. Since I never saw sign of any otheranimal, I assumed that the cat had partaken. For the most part I didn’t see theanimal so much as sense its presence; the cat stayed quite clear of me. I had placedthe food bowls on the North side of the cabin and under the eaves, and as longas the cat walked close to the frame it could remain invisible. Only the emptybowl indicated its presence.

One night, however, it rained, andthe bowl in which I had left the food filled with rainwater, and even the catwouldn’t eat the soggy mess. And so, I took from in the house a long, low pinetable and placed it under the cabin eaves and over the food bowls. But in thefirst snowfall the wind blew the heavy flakes into the bowls and again spoiledthe food that I had that evening brought out for the cat. And so I moved thebowls and the covering table to the west side of the cabin where the wind didnot blow so strong and where the sun shone for a good part of the afternoon. Ofcourse, outside of the cabin door sat a useless low pine table changing theaesthetic—there was nothingto place on it and it was too low to serve much good—but I felt that now, at least, the cat’s food wouldbe safe.

As the black cat learned that therewould be regular meals, I began to see it more frequently. Sometimes it passed lesscarefully and rather casually beneath my window, and sometimes it even satbefore the door looking in awaiting its meal. Still, if I moved toward it, thecat always ran away, but since I sensed that it might be hungry, I put out thefood. Soon the black cat would return, partake of its meal and head out againon its travels. It undertook, I considered, a large circular route through theenvirons, because it seemed always to arrive at the cabin from the east andnorth after it had headed out for the west and south.

Always the food bowls were underthe table and for the most part safe from precipitation. But the weathereventually did grow very cold, and on several nights the food in the bowlsfroze and became inedible. On those early frigid mornings, I brought the bowlsinto the cabin to thaw out the meal, and I even occasionally placed the bowlover my tea warmer (!) and cooked the cat’s meal, so to speak. Then I wouldreturn the bowls to their spot under the table, and the cat would eat from thebowls and head on its way.

Now the black cat began regularly tocome around twice a day at least; and twice a day I fed it. I began makingweekly trips to the supermarket for food that I stockpiled in my cabin.

It snowed (finally and considerably)this week, and on a sunny afternoon atop the table outside of my door sat theblack cat wrapped in its tail, and though the snow was melting, the cat seemedto be sitting, albeit resting, in the snow. I assumed it was wet and cold eventhough it basked in the sun. And so, I went down into the basement of the houseand found there a small round cushioned bed we had once purchased for anotherof our cats now deceased, and I placed this furniture on the table. I went backinto the house to fix myself a glass of tea, and while the tea brewed, I lookedout the window and saw the black cat comfortably resting in the bed with onlyits head and yellow eyes visible. I think it looked happy.

I wonder when it will ever decideit safe to enter the cabin. I do notwant a regular occupant, but I suppose I might welcome an occasional visitor.

Thoughts in the Snowfall

2012-01-23T07:53:00.000-06:00

If Burt Bachrach asked “What’s it all about, Alfie?” thenRoth’s Zuckerman responds, “Its all about nothing.” Unlike in Everyman, where the stars remind thenarrator (not Zuckerman of death, in IMarried a Communist “the stars are indispensable.” There, up far abovehuman foibles, the stars just exist. Up there, human actions have no effect:“hydrogen alone was determining destiny . . . There is no betrayal. There is noidealism. There are no falsehoods. There is neither conscience nor its absence.There are no mothers and daughters, no fathers and stepfathers. There are noactors. There is no class struggle. There is no discrimination or lynching orJim Crow, nor has there ever been. There is no injustice, nor is there justice.There are no utopias. There are no shovels.” All that exists up in the sky areburning furnaces of the people who have died and become stars. And all of thestars exist in the sky together without conflict: there is a universe where“error does not obtrude.” Yes, the stars are indispensable because they existabove and outside human concern. Nothing occurs up there, and nothing matters. Downhere, where everything matters, it isn’t about anything.

What is it all about, Alfie?Complexity, but not in theory; it is about the unfathomable complexity of humanmotive and action that people attempt to simplify, categorize and dismiss. Evedidn’t marry a communist, Murray says, she married a man hungering after a lifeand yet a man who could not construct one that fit. “Nobody finds his life.That is life,” Zuckerman wondersaloud to Murray, his English teacher, who in the story of Ira Ringold offers onefinal lesson to his illustrious student.

And to avoid that complexity and that failure, Zuckerman hasretreated into his cabin. To avoid having to construct a life that fits, andforever failing to successfully do so, Zuckerman has withdrawn from activelife. “What are you warding off? What the hell happened?” Murray wonders. Interestingly,in Exit Ghost, Zuckerman will return to the City and almost decide to engage again in life, but at the end, retreatback to his cabin where all is safe and all of the conflicts occur only in thewords that he writes. I suppose what happened is the content and meaning of theZuckerman novels.

What happened? If I cannot find mylife, what can I find? Finally, for Murray, all that is left is the myth of hisown goodness—and for that hehad to sacrifice Doris. “Because its not a static system . . . Becauseeverything that lives is in movement. Because purity is petrifaction.” And so Ilive impure in impurity. We wonder why it is we do what we do, and we have to “endurewithout knowing.” The stars are indispensable: they endure without knowing.

On Enemies

2012-01-19T07:11:00.002-06:00

It snowed yesterday and over the course of the day the windblew and the air turned very cold. This morning as I walked out to Walden thesnow crunched under my feet and my steps left a trace on the frozen groundcover. The moon is 17% full and so the sky remained fairly black, though thestars shone calmly, even tauntingly bright in the sky. The food in the bowl Ileave for the black cat had frozen and I have placed it on the tea warmer tosee if it will thaw enough to become available for its breakfast. I worry whereit sleeps at night, but it will not enter the cabin even in the full light ofday. The cat stares at me through the windows and sits expectantly outside theglass door, but it runs into the brush to the south of the cabin whenever Imove in its direction. I want only to offer it some warmth, but it does not appearto trust me though daily it appears for its meals.

In I Married A Communist, Zuckerman journeys to Zinc Town where IraRingold introduces him to his friends Horace and Frank, taxidermists extraordinaire. The walls of their meagershack are covered with the stuffed remains of all sorts of plain and exoticanimals. Zuckerman watches as Frank skillfully skins a fox that he will soonmount whole. And Zuckerman retrospectively considers that the simple lives ofthese two men exude a good-naturedness and humor that Zuckerman admires. And Nathanwonders if perhaps these personalities “who didn’t have to get stirred up andgo through all that Ira-ish emotion to have a conversation wasn’t the real, ifunseen inactive Ira . . .” Because the Ira that Zuckerman knows is contentious,argumentative, confrontational and often rude in his public advocacy for theworking man, a class to which ironically, by marriage he no longer belongs. Thoughat his shack in Zinc Town and through the people with whom he associates there,and who once in their lives belonged to that oppressed working class and have sincebecome society’s outcasts, Ira remains in contact with his past.

And Zuckerman wonders if perhapsIra had lived a more conventional life, remained close to the land and tomanual labor and self-sufficiency, that maybe he might have lived a lesstroubled existence. “The respect and fondness that Ira had for Horace Bixtonsuggested even to me, a boy, that there was a very simple world of simplepeople and simple satisfactions into which Ira might have drifted, where allhis vibrating passions, where all that equipped him (and ill-equipped him) forsociety’s onslaught might have been remade and pacified.” But Zuckerman considers that if Ira had beenmore like Horace, without enemies that “life might have been more impossiblefor Ira to tolerate than it already was Ira needed enemies. Having read all ofthe Zuckerman novels, I do not think that Zuckerman ever achieved any suchpeace. And perhaps that peace remains unavailable to someone like Zuckerman andIra who require enemies to make life tolerable.

What good are enemies? Yes, the world is too much with us late andsoon, and I think our enemies afford us some means to direct our angers outwardrather than inward, and to focus our rage against the world and give itsubstance. Our enemies make our lives difficult, but without them perhaps ourlives would be reduced to stuffing dead animals and selling rocks from thedeserted quarry. We ought not to hate the world, and we should certainly nothate ourselves, but perhaps it is wise to maintain some enemies to save us. ButI suppose we should choose our enemies wisely, which seems to represent someabsurd contradiction.

I think I am the enemy of the blackcat.

Of Huts and Shacks

2012-01-17T09:05:00.001-06:00

I am often enthralled by the insight into human behaviorthat Roth possesses. In I Married aCommunist, a book I will talk about further and in the future, the youngZuckerman assumes the role of Sylphid’s date at a dinner party thrown by hermother, Eve Frame and her husband, Ira Ringold. The latter is the communist shemarried, and the book she writes is entitled I Married a Communist, but that is not Zuckerman’s book. This ironyalone is remarkable, and reminds me of the complex structure of Doris Lessing’sThe Golden Notebook: the title refersto both the final notebook and the novel itself that contains all of the notebooks. Sylphid is Eve’s daughter by hersecond marriage and “the only way Sylphid could begin to feel at ease in herskin was by hating her mother and playing the harp.” Sylphid’s motives derivefrom her hate, but all of Eve’s actions must conform to Sylphid’s hatred.

Zuckerman is intrigued by Sylphid’sbehavior, and says, “I’d had no idea how very tame and inhibited I was, howeager to please, until I saw how eager Sylphid was to antagonize, no idea howmuch freedom there was to enjoy once egoism unleashed itself from the restraintof social fear.” The OED says that egoism, in metaphysics, is the belief on thepart of the individual that there is no proof that anything exists outside themind. Zuckerman’s fear derives from the idea that everything exists outside themind and is prepared to judge it. In ethics, egoism regards self-interest asthe foundation of morality. For Zuckerman ethics is adhering to the behavioralnorms set by others, or disregarding those norms at the cost of great guilt.Egoism, is opposed to ‘egotism,’ the latter a mere boastfulness or selfishness,a refusal to acknowledge anything outside of the self.

Freedom exists not in egotism; thatis a kind of trap, I suppose, because here behavior is shut off and determined.Freedom exists in egoism, a belief that the world is my creation to do with asI wish; a belief that what is good for me is morally correct. The world remainsopen to my imagination. Sylphid’s egoism attracts Zuckerman because he has forhis life been trapped in a morality organized by others, primarily his parents,their culture, and their dreams for him. And Sylphid’s egoism is placed incontrast to that of the ideal communist, Ira, who rails against the oppressor,advocates for social and political change, and spends his life, until he isblacklisted at the Red hearings, impersonating to the point of becoming AbrahamLincoln, the great Emancipator. For Ira, morality entails care for the worker,the poor and needy, or, in good Jewish terms, care for the widow, the orphanand the stranger in our midst. But Ira lives in the magnificent domicile of EveFrame on 11^th Street, and one gets the sense that his vocal advocacyderives in some part from his sense of privilege. Johnny O’Day would neverapprove.

You see, once engaged in the worldwe are beset by contradictions. Ira’s shack, to which he retreats when he feelstoo battered, like Zuckerman’s shack to which in his sixties he has nowretreated, is “the place where you are stripped back to essentials, to whichyou return,—even if ithappens not be where you came from—todecontaminate and absolve yourself of the striving. The place where youdisrobe, molt it all, the uniforms you’ve worn and the costumes you’ve gotteninto, where you shed your batteredness and your resentment, your appeasement ofthe world and your defiance of the world, your manipulation of the world andits manhandling of you. . .” I think thishut is my Walden, and it is also the theme of the first movement of theSymphony. This hut is where Ira retreats from Eve, from Sylphid . . . from theworld.

The subtlety of Roth’s thinkingattracts me, draws me into the book and I can reside there; the world is therebut I am not in the world. The psychology is so interesting that I do not wantto depart from the pages, and I have little trouble in my sleeplessnessreturning to Zuckerman’s narration.

If I knew then . . .

2012-01-11T05:48:00.000-06:00

My father would often say, “If I knew then what I know now,I’d be a rich man today!” Then he would shake his head with sorrow, and stareoff right through me and toward some distant past. What I think he might have meantwas that if only he knew the end at the beginning, then the end at which he hadarrived would have been different. For him life was all ends and not means, andthe home from which he left every day was always a disappointment when hereturned to it. He never knew or had enough, and he was always unhappy.

Lately, I’ve considered a new wayto view the expression “If I knew then what I know now . . .” and it has somethingto do with the pleasure and regretintrinsic to learning that brings to me something new now which had I knownabout before would have enhanced my life then. I’m going to describe aninsignificant event to illustrate what I mean. Several times on this blog Ihave referred to the place in which I work behind my home as Walden after the cabinmade famous by Thoreau and in deference to the pond made infamous by Zonker in theDoonesbury cartoon strip. And I have referred often to the pleasure I have incarrying my early morning mug of coffee out here to begin the work. Now, onecup of coffee sipped leisurely in the early morning while I write and read andbefore I run delights me, but I rarely have desire for coffee later in the day.When the mug is empty, the coffee is finished.

And somewhere on the blog I havespoken of the pleasure I have learned in the brewing of the leaves purchased ina store that specializes in tea! And so for the past several years I haveenjoyed a variety of teas, exotic and otherwise, in the late mornings and earlyafternoons.

Here we go: now, since I drink my coffeeonly in the morning, it never becomes too tepid or even cold to drink, nor, asI have said, do I ever return to the Coffee Press contraption to refill thecup, but the same is not true for the tea. Often I desire a second cup,especially since I often drink white or herbal teas (the latter often referredto, I have learned, as tisanes). As I have a special mug for my coffee, so do Ihave a specific glass for my tea, but this vessel holds only 12 ounces ofliquid. The mechanism in which I steep the tea leaves contains almost 32 ounces,and to prevent the tea from continuing to brew while I enjoyed a fresh cup, Ipurchased a tea pot into which my brewed tea could be contained! But Idiscovered that in the tea pot the brewed tea cooled too quickly, and the nextcup didn’t satisfy. And so I went to my local store—Amazon.com, to be exact—and discovered something called a teapot warmer. Iclicked the appropriate button, and in two days this lovely device arrived atmy door. I brewed my tea, poured it intomy pot, lit the candle in the new tea pot warmer and set the filled tea pot onthe warmer and lo and behold!, my tea stayed warm during the hours I worked.

I wish I had known about thissystem then because then I would haveenjoyed the pleasure of drinking the tea that I receive from my having learned aboutthe tea warmer now. But such is theparadox of learning that whenever I learn something new the delight in the now makes the then pale in comparison. What I need to learn is to experience noregret from not knowing something then, a condition that I know now isinevitable, and to take pleasure in the satisfactions to be gained in thelearning now, however short-lived the results of this learning must be.

I’ll never know then what I knownow: that is the point.

Least of All

2012-01-08T12:16:00.001-06:00

Another death in the community.
It is easy to write about death, oreven everything else that we don’t understand. We have only to speak or writethose big and empty words we use when we want to define what really can’t bedefined. The idea of death as ‘no more’ I find incomprehensible. Someone dies,and they lie as if asleep, but they will not awaken. Having always awakenedfrom my sleep, I cannot imagine what not to awaken must be like. Of course,this wonder implies a consciousness of not waking, and the dead do not possesssuch capacity. I think. The dead do not dream, I believe. The dead do not feel,though the Rabbis are not firm on this opinion. Some say that they can onlyfeel the sufferings of the living, and others deny even this sentience. Perhapsit is that the dead do not even know that they are dead. We are only a too, toosolid flesh, soon to melt, thaw and resolve itself into a dew, and that is all.“When the soul leaves the body, its cry [of anguish] goes from one end of theworld to the other,” the Rabbis say, but I am wondering, what does the body saywhen the soul departs? Dust to dust. No more. Nothing. Absolute nothingnesswithout even a realization of the nothingness. The notion appalls even morethat it frightens, though it frightens as well by a complete absence ofcredibility.

The Torah keeps describing death asa return to kin; death there is portrayed as some kind of homecoming. Hamletcalls it an undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns. Death isa place. Rage, rage against the dying of the light, Dylan Thomas urges hisfather. Death is a darkness. Sometimes death is portrayed as a brilliant purelight; death is a blinding illumination. Death, where is thy sting: death is apoisonous creature inflicting pain and suffering, though ironically thesuffering of the dying is often relieved by death. It is the living who feeldeath’s sting. Death be not proud: death is personified as a vain and unworthyhuman.

Clearly, death is all around me,but I understand it none the more because it is so proximate. I am familiarwith its presence but fail to comprehend it. It is non-being, and this makes nosense to being. Who would know the hour of his death? Koheleth cautions, “For the time of mischancecomes to all. And a man cannot even know his time. As fishes are enmeshed in afatal net, and as birds are trapped in a snare, so men are caught at the timeof calamity, when it comes upon them without warning” (9: 11-12). “Mischance”and “the time of calamity” are the Rabbis’ euphemisms for death; even the wiseSolomon had difficulty speaking the term itself. And though I am relieved byhis restraint, I am not comforted that Solomon the wise understood death insuch negative terms. The Sixties philosophy which I daily breathed taught methat today was the first day of the rest of my life, but the Rabbis say here totreat every day as if it were my last. Isuppose there is some coincidence between these two positions: if I live everyday as the first day of the rest of my life, then everything is possible; butif today is my last day, then today everything is possible. Actually, the Rabbis anticipated thisdilemma: they suggest that the reason we are not given the hour of our death isto prevent us from lying abed awaiting it; they mean us to be up and about ourdoing. All is possible. Death is of course inevitable, even imminent, but itsimminence should not deter us from living. Spinoza, (again) said that the freeman thinks least of all of his death, but alas, I am not so free nor busyenough to keep my thoughts from death. Or perhaps it is that I do not know howto believe that the work I do in this life possesses enough substance to becalled a life. I wish I could survive my death, but death comes always too soonand immortality too late.

Paradoxically, when I write aboutdeath it remains far from my thoughts.

The Impulse to Write

2012-01-04T12:57:00.000-06:00

John Berger’s new book Bento’sSketchbook: How Does the Impulse to Draw Something Begin? links the impulse to draw to aspects of Spinoza’sphilosophy in the Ethics. Spinozatalked about the ability to live in the present fully—to have adequate ideas—andto live in the present under the species of eternity. This would mean to knowthat what exists does so by necessity and could be no other way. And thisknowledge should lead us to an understanding of all that exists and to know howall that exists must exist as it does. When we understand the essences ofthings—then we participatein eternity. Since God is the only substance—because a substance can only beits own cause—and since allthings are only modifications of the infinite attributes of God, then the closerwe come to understand things then the closer we come to God. “God’s existenceand God’s essence are one and the same thing and is an eternal Truth. The closerwe come to realize this the closer we come to eternity. Thought is an aspect ofGod and God, therefore, is a thinking thing.” When we think—and Spinoza knows that to thinkis to discover why things are like they are and can be no other way—then we are like God.

Thus, Berger writes, “we who drawdo so not only to make something observed visible to others, but also toaccompany something invisible to its incalculable destination.” We draw to makesomething visible that demands to be visible—but what that something is we donot know until it is seen. And we bring that something to its proper destinationthat we will know when we arrive there. When we make something visible we makeit be and bring it on.

Or the impulse to draw begins withthe desire to hold onto something when the present has passed. Courage, Spinozawrites, is “the desire by which each endeavours to preserve what is his ownaccording to the dictate of reason alone.” To draw requires courage. Berger’suse of his mishearing of Woody Guthrie’s “So Long It’s Been Good to Know You”as “Hold, on, hold on, Its been good to know you” explains the impulse to drawbecause to draw is to hold onto something that insists it be held onto, butwhat that something is may never be completely known until it is drawn.

It is why I write—toenact E.M. Forster’sstatement, “How can I know what I think until I see what I say.” There is adynamic expressed here: in the act of writing—orspeaking, even—Forstercreates what he thinks becausewriting and speaking (though to a lesser extent) demands a linearity thatcreates thought. I write to think; if I didn’t write, what would I know?

And when I write I think myself intoeternity for when I write time does not exist. “It is the nature of reason toregard things not as contingent, but as necessary . . . but this necessity ofthings is the necessity itself of the eternal nature of God. Therefore it isthe nature of reason to regard things under this species of eternity. Add tothis that the bases of reason are the notions which explain those things whichare common to all, and which explain the essence of no particular thing: andwhich therefore must be conceived without any relation of time, but under aspecies of eternity.”

I’m not always sure what he’ssaying, nor even sometimes what I’m saying, but I’m working on it.

New Years 2012

2012-01-01T09:07:00.001-06:00

I keep trying to write about News Year’s Day and nothingcomes to mind. Which is also to say that for me there is nothing of interestabout this day. Yesterday possessed the marker 2011 and this morning the markeris 2012. What has changed? The hands of the clock. What will change? How couldanyone know anything about what will be but that at the same time next year themarkers will change again and 2012 will become 2013. As Estragon says in Waiting for Godot, Let’s go,” but the stagedirections report, “They do not move.”

Of course, New Years is a symbolicmarker, hence the focus on ‘new years resolutions,” commitments to change lifepatterns in the coming months. Interesting that behind these commitments lieonly the New Years event and no change of character. That is meant to occur in the coming year with the enactment ofresolutions, but I wonder if change was really sought, why need it be initiatedon this day and not another earlier one?

One of the first things theIsraelites did when they left Egypt as slaves is to invent for themselves acalendar. Only free people can organize their own time. And so New Years marksa new beginning. The image of the new year is a baby in diapers: an entirelynew and fresh life lies ahead. But for none of us can the year start fresh. Inall of our refrigerators is the left over foods from last evening’scelebrations; in our closets hang all of our clothes and in our living rooms sitthe same comfy or uncomfy chairs. Nothing changes but the markers. The Israelitesnever ceased complaining during their desert wanderings. And we move into the NewYear with the egos of yesterday. Where are the snows of yesteryear? They arehere, right here now.

What makes for the fulfillment ofresolutions? Character and not calendar. Perhaps New Years celebrations forgetthat, and perhaps this accounts for the quiet of the coffee house this morning.Everyone is either enacting their resolutions or forgetting them with theadvent of the new day.

Another cliché.

End of Year Politics

2011-12-27T16:48:00.002-06:00

I’m still typing without the use of my pinky finger. Ifyou’ve been following events here you’ll recall that I sliced the tip of myfinger instead of the potato and the injury has made typing difficult. Ilearned to type on a typewriter by the traditional methods requiring pinkyfingers.

But I am thankful that myF-A-C-U-L-T-I-E-S still function, thank you. I wish I could say with confidencethe same for others. I read in the papers that Nebraska Democrat, Ben Nelson,will retire from the Senate next year, and his exit from this august body threatensthe slim hold on the Senate that the Democrats still hold. The Republicansalready control the House of Representatives.

Isn’t anybody paying attention? Whatare they thinking? The Republican array of candidates for President reflectsthe frightening shallowness of the party itself. Hell, the Republican array ofcandidates reflects the appalling stupidity of the party itself. Somewhere in The Nation this week someone saidsomething about Rick Perry opening his mouth and his brains falling out . . .well, this description of such consequences applies to each one of theRepublican candidates. Every day one of them outdoes the others in sayingsomething senseless. Newt advocates child labor; Bachman and Perry don’t know verymuch about history or geopolitics. Mitt Romney—who the hell knows what heknows! Herman Cain has dropped out of the race after his sexual peccadilloesbecame front page news, and his economic plan sounded nothing so much as apizza special. And Newt (him again!) took millions of dollars from the verycompany whose officers he claimed should be jailed, and was shtupping who knowswho while he condemned Bill Clinton for shtupping you know who. Hypocrisy runsdeep in the Republican Party of Abraham Lincoln, though I am ashamed to put thename of that great man in the same sentence as that venal party. Republicanpolitics all over the country is undermining democracy—Wisconsin, Arizona,Indiana, Michigan and New Jersey are easy examples—only Ohio gives someevidence of sanity these days.

How could anyone from the 99%consider voting for any Republican in the next election? Isn’t anybody payingattention? Doesn’t anyone care?

It is time someone stand up to theRepublicans, look straight into the camera and accuse, “Jane, you ignorantslut!” It could even be the President.

XMas Eve

2011-12-24T22:01:00.000-06:00

Christmas Eve. I think Santa Claus is en route from theNorth Pole and headed out with his big bag of toys to deliver to good girls andboys. Given the state of the economy, I suspect his bag is light this year. Inthe lane the snow should be glistening but in fact, out here in the Midwest noflakes have fallen and the ground is brown and cold. No one will be buildingsnowmen named Parson Brown out in any meadow. In town the Chinese Restaurantsare starting to fill up with Jews with dinner reservations; the movie theatersare popping popcorn to gear up for the rush on Christmas Day. Not a great deal thatI want to see.

And on this Christmas Eve the wars rage on and thepetty political battles continue. In the dead of the year we light the lightsand bring the green into our homes, but the hope for peace remains elusive.Eleanor Roosevelt said that it is better to light a candle than curse thedarkness, and I suspect that she was right. At such moments I think ofMelanie’s song “Candles in the Rain.” She urged, “So raise the candles high/'Causeif you don't we could stay black against the night.” There was a time when Ithought that the song referred to Woodstock, but I think she was talking aboutthe March on Washington, the former a symbol meant to define my generation butthe latter the event I attended.

I am anxious for the children and the world intowhich they grow.

New Clothes and Imminent Demise

2011-12-22T10:00:00.000-06:00

I purchase things. Of course, I buy foodstuffs for ourmeals. As a result of my long-term stint in New York City I learned to buy onlysufficient materials for today’s meals and to maintain in the home a smallselection of snack food, the latter a miscellany that grows smaller as I growolder and my personal furnace less efficient. Mostly, I buy what I immediatelyrequire, an as I grow older I require less. I enjoy the daily shopping, andthoroughly relish consuming what I have purchased as some evidence that I live!

I do continue to buy many booksthat I continue to read: the UPS delivery man (yes, always a man) and I remainsomewhat familiar, and he inquires about the latest read. Of course, I buygadgets, items I consider might make my life more organized and less rigorous; compactdiscs; and small furniture items that I often must fumblingly put togethermyself. I control my infatuation for the former and try to keep to a minimumacquisition of the latter. These parcels are delivered by a variety of postalservices, but I especially like when the UPS man motors up the driveway in hisbig brown truck. He knows to whom he delivers what waits within his vehicle. Idon’t enjoy shopping in stores, and so much that I purchase outside of daily provisionscomes from purchases from catalogs. And there even is not a little of my bakingsupplies that I order, as they say, on-line.

Ah, and I buy clothes. This type ofpurchase is subject for another time, but I note that when the clothes arrive Iput them in my closet and refuse to wear them. These new products accumulate,entombed as it were, in their plastic wrappings. And when I go to dress myselfand survey the collection, I inevitably choose an older garment rather than thenewer one. As I purchase a new sweater, I note the moths have been enjoying theold. I have of late been considering what motivates this obsessive compulsion not to wear the clothes I purchase towear.

And I think it is partly this: if Iopen the package and put on the new item, it immediately begins to become wornand will soon, alas, wear out. But if I don’t put it on, then the article ofclothing remains inviolable and will last forever. Of course, the assumptionhere is that I will last forever, as well and one day will wear the new garment.The refusal to open the package serves as a charm that wards off death.

Freud speaks of this phenomenonconcerning memory. Freud notes that as long as the Pompeian artifact remainedburied under the volcanic ash, it remained preserved, but once it was recoveredin the archaeological dig, it became subject to decay. So with memories: when Ido not think upon them, they remain untouched, but as soon as they areuncovered, these memories are subject to the natural effects of the present,and then they become, if not inaccurate, then certainly unreliable. In arelated sense, what is forgotten—whatremains unconscious—isunalterable and unvarying, but it remains, of course, unknown. It is notremembered. Memory here may beunknowable but not without influence. It undergirds what I think I know anddetermines the contour of consciousness. But what is recovered from memory—what is remembered—is immediately subject to a‘wearing-away.’ And unearthed, memories are subject to natural erosion anddecomposition, and the reliability of such memories becomes suspect. Allmemory, then, must be already a fiction.

When I donot wear the new shirt, it remains useless but pristine. Its lines stay smooth,sharp and straight. Trouser seams continue uncreased and the colors unfaded. Thenew shoes bear not a trace of the ground on which they were meant to walk: theywill last forever. I imagine how good I might look if only I would step outsidein my new shoes. I sigh and put on the older, worn pair, and save the new shoesfor a brighter, sunlit day. Ah, but the feet for which I purchased them will continueto scuff and bruise regardless of the shoe, and soon the new shoes will be nolonger appropriate. Nor might they any longer fit my feet.

And I consider that it might bealso true that I fear that having used and used up the new item, no others willbe forthcoming and when the garments with which I presently adorn myself wearout, I will stand naked and hungry out in the world but for lack of reserve.

Zuckerman says “We are all in thepower of something demented.” I say, is it only one thing?

On Late Assignments

2011-12-20T09:55:00.001-06:00

Once, many long years ago, I worked in a factory thatproduced finished apparel for women and children. Our output were nothigh-priced outfits wrought with great skill and attention to detail, but rather,were mass produced apparel manufactured without great concern for precision orexactness and meant for sale in bargain stores and basements. I think that theproducts were not to be worn by the children of the upper or middle classes!

Once, I remember, an order waslate, and the manufacturer who had contracted with us to make the garmentscalled irate at the delay and threatened us that if the order wasn’t filledwithin the week he would refuse to pay for the finished garments and would stopsending orders to the factory. I understood that if the order wasn’t shippedwithin the week, then his sale of the garments to his customers would becancelled and he would lose his income. There are, I learned, seriousconsequences for lateness in business.

Students regularly write to meapologizing for papers that are or will be submitted late. They ask for briefextensions. There are all kinds of reasons they offer for having not yetcompleted an assignment; many are graduate students with full-time jobs andfamilies. I always offer the extension. I answer that I would prefer to have agood paper a day or two late than a mediocre (or worse) paper on time. Studentsthank me for my patience. I can’t read and comment upon all the papersimmediately; I wouldn’t get to some papers until tomorrow or next week anyway.

But the question I have now isthis: why does it matter that anassignment is turned in late? I understand why a late order of garments ortelevision sets or bed sheets could have disastrous results for sales, but ofwhat consequence could there be in handing in a late project for a school class? What would it mean for the learning that it took a day or seven longer for any learnerto arrive in her effort at a sufficient level of competence and confidence to makepublic her work and brave evaluation. Why must learning occur within aspecified time frame set arbitrarily by someone other than the learner? Is thelearning any less meaningful that it took a day or week longer than expected? Whydoes an excellent paper lose five points for having taken twenty-four hourslonger to perfect?

These are rhetorical questions and,of course, I expect no answers. What I am asking is why we set such severedeadlines for completing assignments when our goal is to produce life-longlearners? If a student can show that she is engaged in the work and merely asksfor additional time to complete and polish the product, or the student offerssome personal reason for the delay, then it could only be the fear or animus ofthe educator that would provoke him to refuse the student’s request andpenalize her for refusing to turn in on timean assignment that does not presently meet the standards set by the studentherself? Actually, it seems to me that such a request displays a student’sgreat respect for the teacher and the process that she would not waste anyone’s time on work that is not yet of sufficient quality to present publicly.

I understand that a late call tothe warden might have catastrophic results, but I can see no consequence to thelearning for turning in a late assignment.

The Percussion Section

2011-12-18T07:03:00.001-06:00

I went to hear the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra lastevening. This orchestra travels about the Twin Cities area and last night’svenue was the United Church of Christ on Summit Avenue. I say this to emphasizethat this particular stage was designed as a platform for religious ceremoniesand not as a concert stage. The orchestra must fit into a much smaller space.

Thus it was that during the final piece, Haydn’s Symphony#100, the Military Symphony, from my seat I observed three men sitting to therear on the right of the chancel. They sat behind a low wall and since I didnot see any instruments I assumed that since there were microphones everywherethey were recording the concert for later air play. They were dressed, however,in the traditional black of the orchestra and so I knew that they were part ofthe unit itself.

But during the third movement, Ibelieve it was, all three stood up and transformed themselves into a percussionsection. The first beat on a drum, the second clashed a set of cymbals, and thethird dinged the triangle. While they played—several minutes at most—they focusedintently on the music on their stands before them and played with a seriousnessand concentration no less engaged than that of the first violins. When theywere done they sat down and did not move nor waver in the attention theycontinued to pay to the rest of the orchestra. Then, towards the close of thefinal movement, the three men rose again to join in the glorious conclusion tothe symphony, beating the drums, the cymbals and the triangle.

I wondered what these playersthought about as they sat immobile during the majority of the piece, and thenhow that thinking changed as they became transformed into the percussionsection without which the symphony would have been incomplete. They wereessential but marginal. In an entire symphony they were involved in 10-20 bars,and yet they were responsible for the entire evening. They receivedcompensation for the entire evening. I marveled at their attention, theirpatience and their dedication.

I recall hearing recentlyBeethoven’s “Creatures of Prometheus,” and noticing on the stage a harp. Andyet during the performance that harp remained silent for all but one small sectionof the entire thirty-minute piece. I thought, how remarkable, that in hiscomposing Beethoven heard this sound of the harp in this one particular place andwas compelled to write the sound into the piece. And that the harpist satthroughout the piece and even through the entire evening of music awaiting hermoment.

There is, of course, a metaphor in thissomewhere. And the concert was wonderful. I especially appreciated thepercussion section.

The Horror, the horror . . .

2011-12-16T06:33:00.001-06:00

I have been thinking about Lionel Trilling’s essay “The Fateof Pleasure.” It is an historical study that defines the status of pleasure inWestern culture over the years; in the essay Trilling argues that there hasbeen a qualitative shift from the seeking of pleasure as a good to a state tobe avoided, and that this shift has occurred not only because the pursuit ofpleasure is associated with much that is exploitative or vulgar or mean, butbecause this ‘specious good’—aterm that refers to those things from which this physical pleasure might bederived—“clog and hamper themovement of the individual spirit toward freedom, because they prevent theattainment of ‘more life.’” Pleasure is a trap.

To destroy this ‘specious good’ isthe work of a great deal of modern literature, art and even music—and certainlyof the work of Philip Roth and especially so in Portnoy’s Complaint. Trilling writes, years before Alex Portnoydisturbed the planet, “Whenever in modern literature we find violence, whetherof represented act or of expression, and an insistence upon the sordid and thedisgusting, and an insult offered to the prevailing morality of habit of life,we may assume we are in the presence of the intention to destroy specious good,that we are being confronted by that spirituality, or the aspiration toward it,which subsists upon violence against the specious good.” This intention tosubvert and destroy our pleasure asserts our moral sense.

I get it, I think. It reminds me ofthe movie, The Aristocrats, in which aseries of reputable comedians try to outdo each other in obscenely retelling analready distasteful joke. Screening the film I remember being appalled butsitting fascinated; at the time I was a grown up man who thought he has becomeused to such things. I had seen John Waters’ Pink Flamingoes, and I had sat through too much of Pulp Fiction. It is Kurtz's realization in Conrad's Heart of Darkness of the horror, the horror . . .

How do you destroy this speciousgood except by the disgustingly bad? By specious good Trilling must mean whatis falsely good—that which is most identified with bourgeois culture ofacquisition and false show, of that which obscures our spiritual selves. Roth’sZuckerman understands this specious good; it is what he imagines destroys SwedeLevov whose Paradise blows up when he discovers that “we are all in thepower of something demented.” As his brother Jerry says to him, “Seymour, yourkid blows your norm to kingdom come . . . and you still think you know whatlife is . . .” I think that this belief in the specious good is what draws us to Anne’s statement in her diary whenshe declares that she still believes in the goodness of people, at the verymoment that the Nazis are killing millions of very innocent men, women andchildren no different than the occupants of the Attic, and not long before Anneherself will be sent to Bergen-Belsen and where she will die alone of typhoidor malaria or hunger or terror. Our saints and martyrs become so when theyrenounce the specious good. I am thinking of Dietrich Bonhoeffer: “Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves.” This grace isthe product of willed ignorance and represents our attachment to the specious good.

AmericanPastoral blows up the self-satisfied myths of American history and exposesthe falsity in the American promise to escape from history altogether. Thenovel exposes how our faith in the specious good gives the power over us tosomething demented. I think this is the saddest book I have ever read, and one ofthe most beautiful books written in and of the United States. It stands on anyshelf as necessarily as Melville’s MobyDick.

Pinky Swear

2011-12-12T09:47:00.002-06:00

I sliced my fingertip while cutting potatoes for a creamypotato cabbage soup. It was the finalpotato, added as an afterthought when I considered that the proportions ofpotato and cabbage already added as part of the mix were unequal and might result in an imbalance in flavor. Itwas an obsessive move and a rash decision and it took two trips to theemergency room to stop the bleeding. During the second visit the attendingphysician applied silver nitrate to the open wound causing considerable pain.To my sharp in-take of breath and moan he directed: “Go to your happy place, goto your happy place,” and I told him my happy place was located somewherebefore I cut my finger and I could no longer go there! He was not amused. Hemade a second application to the wound with a long match-like stick tipped with silver nitrate, then applied a patch ofsomething called Hemo-con and the bleeding was stopped. The pain, however,continued. He wrapped the wound in a huge bandage and sent me home. The soupwas delicious, though it contained, I think, one potato too many.

Now, I have known Gary very wellfor the past twenty years, and during this time he has always worked inconstruction, run a very successful business. There are very few rooms inmy house he has not done work in, and there are whole additions to it for which he isresponsible. Gary built Walden. And in all that time he has never arrived atour morning run wearing evidence of any work-related accident, save theoccasional emotional complaint concerning some spiritual fatigue. Gary worksdaily with instruments of potential destruction. He uses a variety of saws andelectric drills and hammers, and yet he has never sliced anything but the necessarymaterial and has never hammered the nail into anything but the wood; Gary climbs highladders and has never fallen off, and he installs glass windows without ever puttinghis hand through a single pane of them. I have never seen him in need of even a band-aid,while I periodically arrive for our morning runs with body parts variouslywrapped and bandaged. He looks at me with alarm and resignation. He says, “Nexttime, give me a call.”

Gary possesses patience, acharacteristic that could serve me well and might have left my finger intact.Gary thinks before he acts, and positions himself always outside the danger zoneand thereby minimizes the possibility of work-place accident. Gary never moveshis car without first buckling his seat belt. Gary always drives under thespeed limit, though he once was pulled over by the police for driving on theroad to his house that he firmly believed was too long under construction. Garyalways measures twice and cuts once, but when he cuts it is never himself thatis rent.

I’m typing this without use of myleft pinky finger.

On Complaint

2011-12-11T07:09:00.001-06:00

He asked how I could keep such knowledge from him. Ishrugged my shoulders and responded that I did not know. But, in fact, I thinkI did know. I have actually considered justthat question for some time now because I have of late been loath to talk to anyoneabout any matter concerning myself other than my thoughts on intellectual (the reading) and impersonal matters (the gossip and politics). I’ve beenthinking about what that reticence might mean

So much of conversation turns onthe subject of complaint. “How are you?” And to too large an extent, we are notoverly interested in listening to the reply. The question is a formality, as isthe lack of response. “I’m fine (or not). And you?” And I did not want tocomplain. Complaining, like whining, is such passive activity: we speak ourstate rather than change it. Neither did I see much purpose in leaking. Foryears I have referred to a particular form of conversation as ‘leaking,’ thepropensity to reveal neurotic proclivities rather than devote the energiesrequired to keep them private. I think that there is a qualitative differencebetween leaking and complaining. In the former I acknowledge my own weaknessesand bring them out for analysis, but in the latter I accuse the world for mystate and remain innocent. From the former I think intimate conversations mayflourish, but in the latter they arrive lifeless. I mean, what can be said tocomplaint except that the one who complains is either right or wrong? To the complaintone either extends or withholds sympathy, but from leaking one explores thesources of the leak and even attempts some exploratory work and repair. Fromleaking conversation and dialogue ensues, but complaint condemns theparticipant to monologue. My concerns were not of the neurotic variety and soentailed no leaking. And I would not complain.

I did not want to demand sympathyand I did not want to experience disregard. I meant to impose no burden onanother in my need to merely unburden myself; and besides, nothing in theconversation could not have affected a healing I sought or provide the comfortthat the cure I desired would ultimately bring. What could anybody offer thatwould make me calm, and nothing in the complaint would fix what was broken. Myconversation could make nothing happen and I did not want to confess. From suchconfession there could be no absolution.

So I didn’t tell because . . . becauseto tell, perversely, would have felt to me some betrayal of the relationship. Iknow relationships need not be easeful, but this particular sharing seemed tooffer nothing upon which anything further might be built. It would have asked for something that in away could not be given.

But can honest relationships followfrom such concealment?

Morning Early Morning Thoughts

2011-12-08T06:16:00.001-06:00

I awaken too often in the too early morning hours and cannotreturn to sleep. I do not suffer from too much pervasive anxiety—well, no more than I have sleptthrough for much of my life. I am not troubled by nightmares: the daytimepossesses more than enough, and I am psychically unafraid of dissolution. I maysuffer bad dreams but they are of my own devise and they do not frighten me orkeep me awake. And though I have much to look forward to upon arising, it isnot restless anticipation of the day that keeps me from my slumber. When Iawaken in these too early mornings and cannot return to sleep it is my memory thatis too active. I review not the day but the years. My life appears as slides ona screen, not too carefully ordered or edited, but the scenes are all familiar;in the review there exists a certain calm. These things have happened and theyare no more; yes, I suppose, in my daily life the consequences of the pastremains, but I possess little capacity to change the smallest detail—only a perception here and there, perhaps—but the cathectic energies thatonce were attached to the events no longer have power in the present to possessvery much influence at all, and I am not kept troublingly awake with myremembering.

There is in the memory no regret, but neither does theirinhere any jubilation. I am kept awake merely because I can’t seem to shut offthe slide show. I try to distract myself by ruminating upon the books I amreading, but the images blur all of the phrases. I try to focus on mybreathing, but I am neither out of breath nor breathing irregularly. My mantrasare cut off before they mesmerize. I remain wide awake with my eyes closed.

It is not an unpleasant sensation, this early, early morningwakefulness. Sometimes the brilliance of the full moon lights up the bedroomand the house casts a shadow against the trees outside my window. I turn myhead towards the dark beneath the covers. And at the best of these moments, I justwelcome the time.

Tempest From a Teapot

2011-12-04T12:00:00.000-06:00

I think it was Jake Barnes in Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises who said, “The worldis a good place to buy in.” I have thought that this sentiment represented theheight of Jake’s cynicism: for Jake there was no sense of the spiritual or thetranscendent on this earth. Rather, everything has measurable, even pecuniaryvalue and can be obtained only here on earth. Jake’s closing line in the novel,“It’s pretty to think so,” explodes what ever little hope value in this lifethat is not material and commercially available. Frederic Henry, in A Farewell to Arms, would articulatethis position pointedly when he says that he places no meaning in all of thosebig words like honor and patriotism. The sum of these positions is that allthat exists is quantifiable and can be physically acquired and enjoyed.

I bought a teapot. I have been enjoying brewed tea from tealeaves purchased at the tea store. As it happens, the tea brewing device I had previouslypurchased from the same tea store brewed more tea than would fit in the teaglass I had purchased from the tea store. I had liked the way my tea looked inthe glass, which is how it was served in the tea store, and I especiallyappreciated how enjoyable it was to sip my tea from the glass when I satquietly at home sipping tea. So now I needed to coordinate the 16-ounce tea-brewingdevice with the 12-ounce glass. I know I could have poured only 12 ounces ofwater onto the tea leaves in the tea brewing device, but what if I wanted 16 ouncesof tea? They did not sell a 16-ounce clear tea glass! I now reasoned: so thatthe brewed tea that remained in the brewing device after filling my glass wouldnot get too dark and bitter, I needed a container to hold the tea. Thus, Ibought a teapot to hold the surplus tea. And the coordination works very well,actually. But, I soon discovered, after a while the tea in the pot grows cold.I have been considering procuring a tea blanket for the new teapot.

It seems all so silly and frankly, quite awkward. On a verysmall scale the situation in which I find myself represents an embarrassment ofriches. With so much suffering and hardship out there in the world, is it truethat all I can worry about is the temperature of my tea and how to maintain itproperly so that I might better enjoy it? Doesn’t it seem the height of vanityand frippery to engage in such conspicuous consumption that borders, I’mafraid, on the absurd? Can I really be that shallow? Have I become everything Icondemn in the royal opposition?

I consider: When haveI purchased too much? When do I have too many shirts or slacks or sweaters?When is the tea skirt too extravagant a purchase? Do I really need a second wastebasket for the office? What should I dowith the money I earn after all of the bills are paid? And what services thatattend to those bills can I learn to do without? What should I be doing when Ishouldn’t be spending money? I remember John Lennon once complaining that itwasn’t his fault that he had made so much money and could well-afford hisluxuries. It was us that had bought his records, after all! How much guilt mustI suffer to earn me expiation for my good fortunes? When do I stop cashing inon my good fortune and suffer more? How much more should I suffer? It’s amasochist’s game, I think, and I am playing it too well.

I don’t really know the answer to any of these questions.Nor I think does anyone else. But this dilemma regarding my materialist sense intrudesupon my daily life. I am not wealthy enough to buy anything, but right now I have everythingI want with only a mortgage for debt. I feel quite privileged. But the questionremains: how much of everything I own is necessary to my contentment in theworld and how much was purchased for some other yet unexamined need. There aregood reasons for not examining the source and motives of these needs, and so,bound not at all in a nut shell, I am condemned to have bad dreams.

Friday, early December Thoughts

2011-12-02T09:29:00.001-06:00

Nathan Zuckerman says that when he was a child Swede Levov ‘invoked’in him the possibility of another life. In this fantasy Zuckerman’s actualmaterial situation could be not merely transcended but actually discounted, andno place in Zuckerman’s development need be attributed to it. In his apparentperfection, Levov made the achievement of this perfection attainable. In theglory of the Other, Zuckerman could become the Other. This is Gatsby’s dream aswell, I think—that he was not the child of his parents but the son of God,which I have always taken to mean that Gatsby considered himself more an ideathan a real human being—a platonic ideal, perhaps—not human flesh and bone butdivine and without history. Gatsby held that he possessed infinite possibility,and that he could invent himself without consideration to his actual materialsituation and therefore, could be impervious to consequences.

Zuckerman recognizes, however, that to imagine one’s selfinto another’s perceived glory—to live in their achievement— is impossible, “untenableon psychological grounds if you are not a writer, and on aesthetic grounds ifyou are one.” We cannot become the glory of another, for the obvious reasonthat we have accomplished none of his/her deeds and can part participate innone of the experience. We can never know what it is to attain such adulationfor our adulation of the life of the other is all that we know. When we say weknow, we are always wrong. Despite our longings we remain only ourselves, andthe very presence of the dream that we are someone else contradicts any possibilityof the realization of the dream. Nor can a writer, Zuckerman, the writerclaims, imagine and present with any honesty the life she has not experienced.

But, Zuckerman speculates, for us to consider our hero “inhis destruction, to let your hero’s life occur within you when everything istrying to diminish him, to imagine yourself into his bad luck, to implicateyourself not in his mindless ascendency, when he is the fixed point of youradulation, but in the bewilderment of his tragic fall—well, that’s worththinking about.” Our hero’s fall can beunderstood by the experience of our lives, and I suppose the hero’s destructioncasts some light on our own afflicted existences for what that insight may beworth to us. Such discernment into the tragedy of another cannot help us avoid ourtragedy: the experience of tragedy seems inevitable. Indeed, it is our experience of tragic life that allows usinsight into the destruction of the hero. But it is Zuckerman’s contention, Ithink, that the knowledge of our own tragic lives is kept from us by our willedignorance that permits us to create for ourselves illusions for a different andenchanted life. It is a willed ignorance, a Freudian repression and avoidance,for who would imagine her own destruction. And this ignorance dooms us to ourexperience of tragedy for we are forever caught by life unawares. “The tragedyof the man not set up for tragedy—that is every man’s tragedy.” We are alwayswrong, even when we know we are wrong, we are wrong. I suspect that I mightdiscover in this rereading of AmericanPastoral that Zuckerman discovers how similar in his dreams he truly alwayswas to Seymour, ‘the Swede’ Levov, and how the tragedy of this American hero isZuckerman’s own tragedy and also the quintessential tragedy of America.

Wrong

2011-11-27T11:01:00.001-06:00

In Roth’s AmericanPastoral, Zuckerman twice in the opening chapter offers an hypothesis aboutthe motive for Swede Levov’s request for a meeting with the famous author.Given the intimations in the letter Swede sends, Zuckerman believes that theSwede, who the writer believed had lived a charmed life, intends to reveal somehidden secret, some ‘shock’ that he had in his life experienced. “I was wrong,”Zuckerman announces. At dinner nothing at all is revealed, and the conversationremains on a mundane, superficial level to which Zuckerman can barely attendand to which he can contribute little if anything. Thus, having probed aboutfor some entry into the Swede and hismotives, Zuckerman concludes that, in fact, there is no substratum to SwedeLevov. The Swede is all surface. “There’s nothing here but what you’re lookingat. He’s all about being looked at. He always was . . . You’re craving depthsthat don’t exist. This guy is the embodiment of nothing.” As far as Zuckermanis aware, there is no substratum to Swede Levov. And after this assertion, thechapter closes: Zuckerman writes, “I was wrong. Never more mistaken aboutanyone in my life.” The novel, of course, explores the depths of Zuckerman’swrong judgment.

I am intrigued by Zuckerman’s admission twice that “I was wrong.” I wondered why Roth would have hischaracter twice announce this error, the first time when he expected revelationfrom his conversation with Swede Levov, and the second time in not thinkingthere was anything in Swede to reveal. Nothingexists between these two possibilities. That is, between the double assertions thereis nothing to be known: wrong when we expect something and wrong when we don’texpect anything. Since both presumptions are based in what we think we know,then whatever we know is wrong. “You get them wrong before you meet them, whileyou’re anticipating meeting them; you get them wrong while you’re with them;and then you go home to tell somebody else about the meeting and you get themall wrong again.” The fact is we are always wrong.

Zuckerman doesn’t know what to do with this realization. Ina scathing indictment of his own profession he offers an alternative scenarioof the writer who closes himself off in a soundless cell and invents people outof words and believes that these inventions are more real than the real people“we mangle in ignorance every day.” Pretending reality does not create it. AndZuckerman acknowledges that “The fact remains that getting people right is notwhat living is all about anyway. It’s getting them wrong that is living,getting them wrong and wrong and wrong and then, on careful reconsideration,getting them wrong again. That’s how we now we’re alive: we’re wrong.” Thatwould be scann’d.

I guess when we are wrong, which is always, we havesomething else we can learn learn, even though to learn does not mean that wewill then know anything and not be wrong. Of our knowledge of others we willalways be wrong and wrong again. But this stance, perhaps, is a way for us tokeep on keeping on. Of course, we are assured of nothing, neither in thisawareness can we take comfort, but at least in the acknowledgment of ourignorance we may remain curious and become compassionate.

I think another answer comes in the third volume of Roth’sAmerican trilogy, The Human Stain.Zuckerman there asserts a certain knowledge of the relationship maintainedbetween Coleman and Faunia. And Zuckerman writes, “How do I know she knew? Idon’t . . . I can’t know. Now that they’re dead, nobody can know. For better orworse, I can only do what everyone does who thinks that they know. I imagine. Iam forced to imagine. It happens to be what I do for a living. It is my job.It’s now all I do.” We imagine and wetake our imaginations for knowledge of reality. We live in the world But we do not know: Nobody knows. Zuckerman,at least, remains painfully aware what it is that he doesn’t know and mindfulof how he manages that basic and fatal ignorance. “I am forced to imagine. Itis my job.” This is the stuff of tragedy, after all, isn’t it? Oedipus does notknow but asserts certainty. George Bush asserted certainty but did not know. Nobody knows. We suffer these days froman ignorance of imagination and a failure to understand how all that we knowderives from it. We assert what we know, but we are always wrong.

Thanksgiving

2011-11-23T08:01:00.001-06:00

There has appeared outside of my cabin a black cat. It had stalked the backyard for weeks sensing, I suppose, the presence of our two well-fed cats living within the house. Of course, whenever I enter the backyard either on my way to or from the cabin the black cat would scurry away in fear. I was opposed to adopting yet another cat that would require food and shelter and veterinary care. After almost twenty-five years of cats, I had resisted the adoption of the two new ones we eventually acquired at the pleas of my daughter vowing I would assume no responsibility for their feeding or care. I even swore to myself they could not sit in my lap and shed all over my clothes.And so I tried as best I could to avoid the black cat that stalked the backyard. But once a week or so ago I carelessly (and thoughtlessly) tossed an unfinished plate of fairly unpalatable food into the brush outside the cabin. And very soon the black cat appeared and lapped up the fare. Actually, over about three days he returned and savored the remains of what I had considered inedible.
The cat continued to return to the brush under the now bare tree searching for a next meal. I would see it sitting out where it had earlier eaten, or it would sit outside my cabin door staring in, not unlike the house-bound cats sitting at the windows looking out. They, however, are warm, and winter here is icumen in. And I couldn’t bear its suffering. I brought some food out to the cabin and began to feed the animal knowing that this would now condemn me to feed it daily. Oh, I know nature is red in tooth and claw, but I think that if there is sin, then what we humans have done to the animals of the earth is sinful. Perhaps this one is a feral cat, but there are too many mistreated animals roaming about the outdoors abandoned by people who have grown weary of caring for them or become too poor to feed them. There is a long, sordid history of our cruel massacre and exploitation of the animals of the earth. I suppose I am part of that crime.
In the beginning, the Bible says, all of God's creations were vegetarian, and the lamb and the gazelle were not afraid to lay down with the lion. God blessed Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and said to them: "I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be food for you. And to the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground--everything that has the breath of life in it--I give every green plant for food. And it was so" (Genesis 1:29-30). And all was good.
But after the flood, God relented and permitted the eating of meat. "Then God blessed Noah and his sons, saying to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth. The fear and dread of you will fall upon all of the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air, upon every creature that moves along the ground, and upon all the fish of the sea; they are given into your hands. Everything that lives and moves will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, now I give you everything." After the flood God seems to sigh and to acknowledge reluctantly that humans have been, and will continue to be hopelessly, innately immoral and venal. The permission to eat meat—the hunting and killing of animals—is the result of this recognition. After the flood Noah’s first act is to plant the vineyard and get ragingly drunk and his son, Ham, does something unnamable that results in Noah’s curse upon him and his descendants.
I am usually a vegetarian. But tomorrow is Thanksgiving, and I will sit at a full table at the center of which sits a roasted turkey and I will eat its flesh. It is my yearly acknowledgement of God’s sigh.
But I will leave a full bowl for the black cat and hope that the temperature does not drop too severely.

Old Friends

2011-11-21T05:57:00.001-06:00

There are certain songs to which I never grow weary oflistening. It is not that they appear new with each listening; rather, wheneach I hear some familiar chord in my soul sounds. These songs are old friendswith whom I share my thoughts, my fears, and my confidences. These are thesongs that make me feel at home though often they speak of alienation andaloneness. I suppose that the category under which these compositions mightfall is Desert Island Songs—and the category traditionally includes those works(songs, albums and novels usually) that I would have to have with me if I wereto be marooned on a desert island. Well, I am not marooned on a desert island.I am here and it is now. And there are certain songs to which I never growweary of listening. I will offer a sample of three that have sounded recentlyon my iPod:

For forty-five years or so I have listened to Bob Dylan’s“Desolation Row.” I will probably listen to it for another forty-five years. Thesong has always evoked the sense of the world in which I think I live and of thepeople who populate that world. Desolation Row is where Lady and I live out ourlives, and with each hearing I recognize better another part of the scene. “Allthese people that you mention/Oh I know them, they’re quite lame/I had torearrange their faces/And give them all another name.” I have not searched forthe faces, though I am certain that they all have other names. And I have nevertired of looking at the life on Desolation Row nor the behaviors of its residents.Alas. I am one. And behind Dylan’s nightmarish vision I delight in the intricateguitar accompaniment of Charlie McCoy that delights and surprises me with itssteady and unpredictable movement that comments intricately on the poem.

For the same amount of years I have listened to EricAnderson’s “Thirsty Boots.” For me this is a song of struggle and solidaritythough not at all one of triumph. Anderson offers respite to his weary friendlong on the road: “So why don’t you take off your thirsty boots, and stay forawhile.” But implicit in the offer is the acknowledgement that soon he must begoing out again. For some reason I associate this song with the failedcandidacy of George McGovern to whom I looked for a way out of hell, and when Ihear the song I am reminded of the struggle and my place in it.

Finally, there is Bill Staines’ song, “Show Me the Road,” bothin his own version and that of Harvey Reid. Here it is a single phrase to whichI am drawn. He sings, “Show me a sign, tell me a reason/Cold winds havescattered these seeds I’ve sown.” In these lines spoken to the universe I hear nota demand but a plea. The supplicant seeks some sense of hope that all hiseffort has not been in vain. Explicit here is the reality of the cold, harsh windsand the despairing suspicion that our efforts will not bear fruit. Despite our workand intent, our seeds are blown about by cold wind, do not land on fertilesoil, and will not grow roots. In these lines I hear resignation but not despondency,and in these lines as well an acknowledgement of our struggle and its cost. Sometimes, Itake some comfort I am not alone.

Shutting Down

2011-11-18T20:20:00.001-06:00

We were running this morning. I don’t know what the medicineI’m taking is supposed to be doing, but I am certainly running and feelingbetter than I have in months. Lately, when they say ‘take this,’ I take it anddon’t ask too many questions. I know this response is a lapse on my part ofgood sense, but when I think the medicine will save my life (of course, I’mbeing melodramatic, of course) well, I prefer not to know too much and followtheir recommendation. In this case, I have no idea what the medicine is meantto do, but it seems to be achieving whatever it was meant to accomplish.

So we were running this morning and today was his day tocomplain. And yes, he had a few harsh comments to make about the state of theworld, the national and local scene, and even his intimate familial web. Thisis not the best of all possible worlds though it is the only world we possess. Today’swas a typical discourse with which after twenty years we are both familiar.Running enables this kind of release, and our friendship permits it. Afterabout a mile I said, “It sounds like you are ready for Mexico.” He laughed foran answer, and I think I understood. He leaves for Mexico in about three weeks timefor a two-week withdrawal. Of course, I’ll miss him, but he’ll return refreshedto refresh me.

Sometimes I feel like I need to emotionally and physically shutdown. Close up. Make myself unavailable. Withdraw from human contact so that Iquestion no one and no one questions me. To whisper nothing in nobody’s ear. Iam in the midst of a retreat. This withdrawal represents for me a movementalong the continuum towards the autistic proclivity of my personality. I thinkthis shift serves to allow me to protect a battered ego, gather up depletedenergies, and even renew my imagination. The present book project draws to aclose, and it comes time to fill the cup again until it runneth over. I wantspace enough and time. Almost without my notice the books to be read begin toaccumulate: everywhere I go in the cabin and the house there are newlypurchased books in a random assortment of categories waiting to be read. TheUPS man (yes, it is always a man) andI greet each other on a first name basis, and he even sometimes asks why I needso many books. I tell him it is to make sure he has a job and that I remainsane. Or insane, as the case may be.

I love my Lake of Innisfree and my cabin of clay and wattlesmade.

“And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow . . .”

All the News That's Fit?

2011-11-13T17:32:00.001-06:00

For a week or so now the front pages of the newspapers havebeen filled with the allegations against Herman Cain who has been accused ofsexual harassment, and the scandal at Penn State that has now cost Joe Paternohis job, the kidnapping of a baseball player in Venezuela, and the suddendivorce of Kim Kardashian after 24 days of marriage. Oh, yes, there have been steady reports onthe financial crisis in Europe and the fall of the Berlusconi and Papandreou governmentsin Italy and Greece respectively, but I hear in these reports a tone of derisionand contempt. As if our economy isn’t in shambles and our behavior can in nosense be adjudged complicit with the economic turmoil now besetting Europe. Asif we have managed our affairs with skill and concern for the welfare of ourcitizenry. As if our policies are above reproach.

But the front pages remain consumed with sex scandals. Themselvesabsurd, newspapers are replete with absurdities. George Bernard Shaw noted that“Newspapers are unable, seemingly to discriminate between a bicycle accidentand the collapse of civilization.” Henry David Thoreau held a very low opinionof newspapers. In his journal Thoreau advises, “Do not entertain doubts, ifthey are not agreeable to you. Send them to the tavern. Do not eat unless youare hungry; there’s no need of it. Do not read the newspapers.” For Thoreau,the newspapers were filled with idle gossip that was not worth the paper onwhich it was printed or the time it would take to even glance at it. Hesaid, “I do not know but it is too muchto read one newspaper in a week.” Of course, a single newspaper contains all ofthe week’s news, though sometimes (but not always) the names do daily change.American writer A.J. Liebling said, “Peopleeverywhere confuse what they read in newspapers with news.” ForThoreau, the news took one away from what was, in fact, important: the wealthof the day. After all, who wants yesterday’s papers, and yet that is whatnewspapers offer: the events that occurred yesterday and will certainly happentomorrow again. Thoreau bemoaned the time spent on the news asserting that ourattention to them was a symptom of the emptiness of our internal lives. Hesays, “In proportion as our inward life fails, we go more constantly and desperatelyto the post-office. You may depend on it, that the poor fellow who walks away[from the post office] with the greatest number of letters, proud of hisextensive correspondence, has not heard from himself this long while.”Sometimes all a person knows is what he reads in the Daily News.

A story is told: Once, a foreign journalist came to Americato do a series of articles on the quality of life of the workers. After all,the United States has served as the Promised Land for countless dreamers and believers.Give us your tired and your poor, your sick of heart. Of course, it took thereporter some time to find a worker, most of the jobs having been eithertransferred out of the country or become non-existent in this most recenteconomic crisis. Finally, at a local Wal-Mart store, the correspondentapproached what the company likes to call an associate.

“Do you find your job rewarding?”he asked.

“Absolutely.”

Ah, that is very good. And what isyour home like?”

“Oh, it is affordable, spacious,and clean.”

Indeed, the journalist was becomingnot a little envious. “And during your time off, how do you spend yourleisure.”

“Oh, we go often as a family totheater or to the opera. Several evenings a month I attend evening classes, andon the weekends I spend a great deal of time with my family, my friends andcolleagues.”

“Do you read the newspapers?”

“Well, of course, I do,” theassociate responded indignantly, “How else would I know how to answer all ofyour stupid questions?”

Parmenides after Trilling

2011-11-11T08:52:00.001-06:00

For the most part I have come to understand, education todayhas little to do with learning, which is a continual and difficult process thatmust be boundless. Education today seems rather to have everything to do withachievement, which has a measure and an end. Learning means that there is noanswer, but in education the answer is ubiquitous. Evidence for this existseverywhere in the structures of the school. There are finite classes that arebound by beginning and ending dates, at the former one is given a syllabus andat the latter a grade. Every class is structured to arrive at a conclusion thatwill lead clearly to the next day and follows immediately from the previous one.“What did I do wrong” is the question posed and not “what did I learn?” And atthe semester’s end another check mark is made to the credit audit report andanother step towards graduation is said to be completed. And it is on to thenext class.

I wonder in what class students are taught that learning hasno end and that learning ought to engage them in the mire and the muck of life ratherthan keep them from it. I have known them both, in fact, have appreciated myengagement in the rare air of philosophy and the rank remains of the world. Perhapsit is that I have lived a life of privilege and enjoyed the luxury of endlesslearning that inclines me to the former. In my life though I have oftenstruggled I have not suffered. And perhaps that has led me to Thoreau more thanMelville, though of late it is often to the darker side of Thoreau and Mt.Ktadn that I am attracted. I think Thoreau finally might have understood Moby Dick though he might have hated itsimplications.

In his lovely essay on George Santayana that seems to havebeen a review of a publication of his letters, Lionel Trilling expresses anadmiration for Santayana’s ability to define himself in this American world.Trilling says that Santayana’s critique of the American poets who retreated toEurope, or of his Harvard friends who ‘petered out’ was “not that they wereworn out by American life, not that they were hampered by economic circumstances,or perverted by bad ideals; it was that they did not know how to grasp andpossess . . . did not know how to break their hearts on the idea of thehardness of the world, to admit the defeat which is requisite for any victory,to begin their effective life in the world by taking the point of view of thegrave.” I think what Trilling refers to here is Santayana’s acknowledgement of theinability of these ‘poets’ to accept how difficult living in this world mustbe, and how that difficulty led to a certain tragic view of life that waswisdom. Finally, from that acceptance all goodness might come.

Thus it is that Santayana considers the smile of Parmenides,an ironic response to a young Socrates who complains about the “‘ideas’ offilth, rubbish, etc. with which he is surrounded and which he would avoid.”Parmenides and Santayana recognized that to be wise Socrates must accept hisengagement in all ideas that stem from the world because that is finally wherewe must live. It might not be pleasant but it is certainly real. Perhaps my scherzo is a response to this view ofthe grave, especially as it follows the marchefunebre.

And so I think my involvement in education has led me toappreciate that smile of Parmenides as in the classrooms I experience too many whowould avoid the world’s hardness to find where they might comfortably resttheir heads.

The Edge of Our Bodies

2011-11-09T09:40:00.000-06:00

We went to the Guthrie the other night to see a productionof Adam Rapp’s play “The Edge of our Bodies.” For all but five minutes there isonly one character on the stage—Bernadette—a sixteen-year-old preparatory school studenttraveling from Connecticut to New York on the railroad to tell her boy friendthat she is pregnant. Alone on stage, she narrates a series of encounters sheengages in with older men on her journey, some to whom she speaks and some aboutwhom she speculates, and one whom she even accompanies to his hotel room. There,she narrates a rather kinky sexual encounter that leaves her untouched butfully participatory. In fact, she describes each of her encounters in explicitand polished detail. But as she goes on it becomes clear that it is theattention of the men to Bernadette that sits at the center of each narration:as one would expect from a sixteen-year old, Bernadette imagines that everyone eitherthinks about her, or desires her, or has designs on her. It is her physical allurethat attracts these men to her. Bernadette imagines the world with her at thecenter of the consciousness of others.

But, in fact, we aren’t certain whether any thing that shenarrates occurred in fact, or if the entire plot is all a product of Bernadette’simagination and her narration a reading/enactment of a short story she haswritten based in the dreamy fantasies of a sixteen-year-old white middle class adolescent.She aspires, she tells us, to be a writer. Indeed, the play actually beginswith Bernadette reading to the audience for almost twenty minutes out of herjournal in which she has recorded her journey. But the narration is in thepresent tense!! I early in the performance early that she was speaking herstory in which she is the protagonist and the action enacts her fantasies. Itis very possible that the entire play is Bernadette’s fiction! Furthermore,“The Edges of our Bodies” takes place on the setting for a stage production of JeanGenet’s “The Maids,” a school play in which Bernadette has been cast as lead(of course) and which she periodically and quite dramatically enacts during hermonologue. I don’t know Genet’s work very well, but I have learned that “TheMaids” concerns illusion. Histrionic is the hallmark of her story: everyfantasy (and fear) an adolescent sixteen year old girl can imagine occurs toBernadette, though she is never physically threatened or financially troubled. Butthese dangers would not be part of her romantic fantasies. Her story is, infact, a cliché, though very credible.

Ostensibly, the play narrates the crisis of her pregnancy andevents that follow from it that impels a sixteen-year-old girl into adulthood.But in fact, the events narrated are those about which many white, middle classsixteen-year-old girls obsess. This playgives voice to the romanticized drama of an adolescent. This is a one-characterplay. All of the ‘action’ occurs in Bernadette’s narration: there are no othercharacters with whom to interact: this is all Bernadette’s story. The action ofthis drama concerns the critical events in Bernadette’s present. Thus, hertruancy, her pregnancy and break-up with the child’s father, the meeting with aseries of men, her rather graphic fantasy of sex with one of the older men, andthe story of her abortion are the stereotypical events that would sit centrallyin the consciousness of a sixteen year old. The play becomes her short story.And the actress for this performance, Ali Rose Dachis, played the part as a sixteen year old. She is the sixteen-year girl in appearance,intonation and affectation. Bernadette’s imagery is overblown and somewhatclichéd, as one might expect from a romantic sensibility. Thus: the theme ofthe play involves the life of a sixteen year old girl, the voice of the play isthat of a sixteen year old, the rhythms of speech are those of a sixteen yearold, and the events are told from the perspective of a sixteen year old girl.Yet, the production itself is intended for an adult audience. There were twochildren in the theater that evening and one of them was my daughter! AdamRapp, the playwright, has a reputation as a writer of young adult fiction; thisplay is a young adult drama. And except for Bernadette’s explicit descriptionof fantasy sex with an (older) man whom she meets in a bar, there is nothing inthis play that wouldn’t play fairly well in a serious theater company intendedfor the performance of young adult drama. But I think that his play is not atall meant for adults except as some interesting portrayal of the clichéd fantasiesof white, middle class privileged sixteen-year-old adolescent girls.

Or the play could appeal to those who would appreciate awonderful acting performance.

And How Shall I Presume

2011-11-04T07:20:00.000-05:00

I take ‘presumption’ to mean an untoward, rude orfalse assumption of privilege or knowledge. Prufrock asks, “So how should Ipresume” to engage in life, to be at all a presence even in this superficialand meaningless world of façade and appearance. Prufrock is no more than ashadow.

To presume means to assumesome authority. My daughters presume to know everything I clearly don’t know. Theyhave authority, and I do not possess it. Away from my daughters, I often presumea familiarity with others and things that I ought not to assume. Presumption isnot unproblematic.

In his wonderful essay “OnPresumption” Montaigne seems to define the term as “an assumption, a belief, aguess or hypothesis.” In this essay Montaigne offers his idea concerning twovainglorious stances that he describes as “presumption.” The first stanceconcerns how we esteem ourselves too highly: “It is an unreasoning affection,by which we cherish ourselves, which represents us to ourselves as other thanwe are.” The second presumption concerns how we do not esteem others highlyenough. Mea culpa. This essay isconfessional, and concerns mostly his sense of his own inadequacies—how little he presumes. “It seems to me that thenursing mother of the falsest opinions, public and private, is the over-goodopinion man has of himself.” Alas, he has little to say positive about himself(“When things happen, I bear myself like a man; in conducting them, like achild”) but unlike Prufrock, it is not for lack of trying. Indeed, the tryingis the delight and joy of his life.

In an essay criticizing somany of his traits (Montaigne notes that he is ugly and too short, and thatthough he can behave like a stoic, he often acts like a fool) in fact Montaigneexpresses content with himself and his life. Acknowledging his many faults, heminimizes them. Montaigne never complains or bemoans his fate. Like Prufrock,he seems lost, but unlike Prufrock, Montaigne seems not at all to care; heportrays himself as a happy man. “For I have come to the point where except forhealth and life, there is nothing for which I am willing to bite my nails,nothing that I am willing to buy at the price of mental torment and constraint. . .” Quite content with the life he has constructed from the things thatFortune has offered him. Montaigne lives a full and productive existence. “Theonly ability I have needed is the ability to content myself with my lot, which,however, if you take it rightly, requires a well-ordered state of mind, equallydifficult in every kind of fortune, and which we see by experience is morereadily found in want than in abundance . . . as with our other passions,hunger for riches is sharpened more by the use of them than by the lack ofthem, and because the virtue of moderation is rare than that of patience.” Itis the lesson Thoreau will learn in the cabin at Walden Pond: to front theessentials of life so that when it came time to die he would not discover thathe had not lived.

Montaigne.Spinoza. Thoreau. Even Dylan: I’ve got nothing, ma, to live up to. Montaignesays, “I think my opinions are good and sound . . .,” and offers as proof ofthe soundness of his opinions the low esteem he holds for himself. And thatwill suffice.