A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us.
~ Franz Kafka
Today Jennifer Firestone's dark & luminous Gates & Fields is just that. A book of grieving that shows you joy.
Yesterday it was Louise Penny's latest, A Better Man, who writes about kindness & community in the face of anger & evil.
Every day, there's a book to make me think, feel, sweat, jump up in amazement or anger. Every day I am grateful that I will never run out of books.
We work in the nostalgia industry, at least we did yesterday, when Andrei Codrescu, David Henderston & I comprised a panel moderated by Jeff Wright on "Second Avenue." As Andrei said, that's like asking people in New Orleans to talk about Bourbon Street. We managed to narrow it down, to the chagrin of one listener who wanted everyone to know our era didn't spring from nothing, that there were scenes & arts that came before us. Of course there are, I said, we're not historians, just people with stories. New York will always be New York, at least I hope that's true, a place for young artists & misfits to discover & make their own.
At the Nursing Home
Until it was renovated into fancy condos, I would go once a month to a nursing home on 5th Street to conduct a short Sabbath service for the Jewish residents, at least the ones I could persuade to attend. Challah bread and grape juice were my top offers, but I also told them there'll be singing and camaraderie. I have been known to stand in front of Lucie and beg her to come. It's not that she will participate, but she's sentient. On a good day I get half a dozen, several of whom are wheeled in, asleep.
One woman I'd never seen before asked me to take her home to live with me. When I declined, she said what was I doing there, then? Not helping.
I told her I had a 4th-floor walkup, and she said, "oh" and quit badgering me.
Sidney clutches my hand and can barely be pried loose. Irving looks down my shirt, almost vestigially.
Only Louise won't miss services. Louise is the mayor of the nursing home. She's got the perfect personality for this kind of place. She's friendly to everybody without assuming she's your new best friend. She stays awake and always tells me I have a beautiful voice. She means it but mostly means thank you for coming.
I always ask about upcoming holidays. What happens on Passover (which commemorates the Exodus from Egypt)?
"The oil burned for eight days," Louise says. (That was Hanukkah.)
"You've got the eight days right," I said. "What do we eat?"
"Hamentaschen!" (Purim!)
I go to the neighborhood supermarket & plunk down 3 cartons of yogurt at the register. She rings them up at $1.34 each. $4.02, she says.
They're 3 for $4, I point out.
She agrees. The rest is tax, she tells me.
There's no tax on food, I say.
It's $4.02, she says again.
3 for 4, I say again.
Mike! She calls to the manager.
Correct, no tax on food, he says. But this is how the computer rings them up separately.
Note that they weren't scanned—she keyed in each carton: $1.34, $1.34, $1.34.
Yes, but together they are $4, I say again.
This continues, to their utter bafflement. I can't get through to them! The guy in line behind me is snorting. Finally, I say, give me my money back, & I walk out without my yogurt. How is it possible that they cannot comprehend where they are wrong?
It's not the first time there, either. The last time I tried to explain the very same thing, the cashier finally gave me 2 pennies, but without understanding my point at all. IT'S VERY SIMPLE MATH! It's not the computer's doing!
Johnny's from an Irish "18 & Out" family. Traditionally, as soon as a son gets old enough, he has a fight (I'm talking about shoving & punching—this is not done with words) with his father & leaves home. They may reconcile but they more or less never speak again.
That's what Johnny did, only he was 15: cutting his sons off at 18 was a step up. Johnny left home & lived at the Catholic Worker, where he hawked their newspaper ("Catholic Worker! Only a penny!"), got his girlfriend pregnant, graduated from Catholic school, went to college & so on.
I love this photo because it shows that his sons have done a better job than Johnny, who did a better job than his own father, of changing those tough family ways.
(By way of contrast, when I was 20 & living in Maine, one of the guys I was living with asked who I'd been on the phone with just then. My folks, I said. I thought you weren't speaking to them...? With no sense of irony, I said, Just because I'm not speaking to them doesn't mean I don't check in every week.)
Aw, my much-liked blue-with-dots duvet cover finally devolved into thread. Every time one of us turned over it ripped a ittle more. Usually, that kind of thing goes on a ridiculously long time in our household but for once I marched right on over to Bed, Bath & Beyond & got a new one.
Whenever a theory appears to you as the only possible one, take this as a sign that you have understood neither the theory nor the problem which it was intended to solve.
~ Karl Popper
There's a lot more than this that I don't understand, believe you me!
I'm trying to figure out the 19 parts of the 5 ballot questions & mostly I wonder if it's ever possible to know in advance if they'll do what proponents hope. It seems as though every single change brings about unintended consequences, some positive, some not. I'm not at all saying that's an excuse to cling to the old ways. Just that I am never surprised when the promise fades.
Anyone miss me? I don't know that I meant to take time off from my blog, but I seem to have done so. I've been avoiding the news & I guess that made me duck all sorts of things. Anyway, I'm re-inspired to start back up again. I have a few things jumping around in my head & it helps me think them through when I commit myself to publishing regularly.
Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo.
~ H. G. Wells
I was thinking of how tired I am of being indignant. Time to hang up the halo.
Joe Carey sent me this. I'd entirely forgotten this poster—but not New York Is Missing, a six-page novel I wrote with Maggie Dubris. I remember Steve in a bald wig as Mayor Kroch. Tim Milk & Johnny Stanton were supposed to be dancing boys, but Johnny & I had a big fight right before & he didn't show up & Tim wouldn't wear the little short-shorts alone.
I loved the holidays this year, the whole month of them seemed to be a rolling epic through stages of life & states of mind, from Rosh Hashanah, the birthday of the world, through the 10 days of self-reflection, to temporary outdoor life, to rejoicing in our Torah. I don't always relish them but this year I was able to relax into them & feel a part of it all. I got to hang out without deadlines, make goals for improvement, eat on the roof of the Y....
But I can't say I'm not glad they're over!
Sparrow
on a pipe outside
I give them
crumbs
to entice & cheer
until an adolescent rat
comes out of
my wall & eats
their food
the birds
forgive
me except when I
give them peanut butter cocoa puffs
Buster in his Halloween crab hat. Not liking it but OK with whatever silliness I force upon him. He is such an enlightened little being.
Also, I seem to have lost my mind. I now have tickets for three trips in the next 4 months, to St. Paul, Barcelona, & Edinburgh.
My dojo is moving, after 43 years in the same location. There were a lot of people at the last-ever black belt promotion at West 23rd Street.
Vow in Old Age
I will never
I swear
talk about
my health problems. torture
me
I'll stay
mum
how boring & demoralizing
to hear from anyone
who isn't Susie Timmons
my cat doesn't complain
my husband doesn't complain
my neck wobbles—that's OK!
I can't stay awake
O Susie, tell me your troubles!
On Tuesday I got ready for Yom Kippur. On Tuesday night & all day Wednesday I atoned, prayed, ponderd, fasted. (Very meaningful! Best holiday in years!) On Thursday I caught up with as much of my work & to-do list as I could. Today looks to be about the same. The editing work I've been doing is so intensive that I don't have much brainwill left to talk about the holiday. Nothing out of th ordinary except to be immersed the whole 26 hours.
Here's Buster, relaxing atop me.
Action and feeling go together…by regulating the action, which is under the more direct control of the will, we can indirectly regulate the feeling.
~ William James, Talks to Teachers on Psychology and to Students on Some of Life's Ideals
This is very Jewish, I think. Before receiving the 10 Commandments, the people said, We will obey & we will hear. I had an argument with a friend once. She said, I can't do anything I don't believe. I said, I can't believe anything I don't do.
Doing leads to belief & to feeling. If I act kindly towards you, I'll end up liking you.
Yom Kippur is a day away so of course I'm thinking about how to do better.
So happy! Buster has been taking thyroid meds & in 3 weeks he's easily gained a pound, I'd bet—a lot for a being that was down to 8.1 pounds. Now what he eats stays on him, rather than peeing it all out. His eyes were sunk in his head he was so dehydrated & he barely could get off the floor. Now his behavior is beginning to match his kitten face. He leaps & trots & meets me at the door. Also, he is so in love with us. I can barely get him off my lap. We haven't been back to the vet, not for another couple weeks, but it's so clear that the meds & subcutaneous fluids are doing him a world of good.
An Old Story
when I didn't give the young man money
he said is it because I'm black
& you a old white lady
& I said that's right fuck off
& when I told this guy I know
he told me a story about a beautiful girl
he once lived with who made the thugs
on 8th & B back off by screaming
you fucking pussies
her tininess making her curses louder
he found a story of his own to top, correct & instruct me
fuck off, you fucking pussy
Stealing this story but it's too good not to!
So my friend's 10-year-old kid just got her period, freaking out the dad no end. He was, she said, frantically googling and at one point said in front of my friend and her sister, "It could last SEVEN DAYS!"
Their conclusion: The most perfect example of mansplaining in the universe.
Poetry is a rival government always in opposition to its cruder replicas.
~ William Carlos Williams
Is this an impeachment inquiry quote? I dunno, I've just been so in love with Williams lately. I never exactly know what he means but he always inspires me.
Almost a new year, the chance to set things right, aim better, get on the mark. Happy New Year, l'shana tova, to all, whether or not it's your holiday. May it be a sweet & healthy new start, may you find your passion, & make a start on repairing the world.
I'll be off the next two days but a Monday Quote will magically appear nonetheless.
Two women with 4 bags apiece, including two I could hardly budge, were at the West 4th stop, looking to get to West Canal Street. Not the F, I said, it goes to Brooklyn. I got off with them at Broadway-Lafayette, planning to help them haul their stuff upstairs to the 6 train, when they let slip that they were going to the Chinatown Bus (way east! on) Canal. I told them to get off at East Broadway. They didn't believe me, asked a man, who said East Broadway. They were headed for Cincinnati. We got back on the F. You'll have to walk a couple of blocks from the train stop, I said, can you manage? We'll have to, won't we, she side-eyed at me. No thanks at any point. Did I look like a scary New Yorker who was trying to scam them or run away with their luggage? They did not like me! The nicer I was, the more resentful & suspicious they were.
Someone spilled half a cup of (tepid, thank goodness!) coffee on me then said it was really my fault, that I'd bumped him while he bumped me. C'mon, manners, people! I'm the one wet & ill-smelling, just apologize for the inconvenience, yeah?
I sat on 5th St half-hearing then listening to (& recording pages of) this woman talk for at least half an hour (& I left while she was still on the phone). She was addressing "Detective" & telling a incident-filled tale of woe: her apartment broken into & art stolen ("I'm a well-known artist & surrounded by a lot of celebrity stuff"), which unfortunately wasn't identifiable ("people who sign their drawings are not serious artists"), her elderly parents were in the hospital, her bank account defrauded, her building broken into, her boyfriend Derek Jeter was wildly jealous ("he flipped out when any man came near me") but the Yankees didn't respond when she complained about his behavior, she also does bigtime corporate design work & was a prodigy ballet dancer ("I'm in better shape than any of them").
I sort of imagine the detective putting the phone down, going off for coffee, or maybe playing games & throwing in uh-huh occasionally.
Do I sound as crazy as her when I tell people I divorced Derek Jeter & am happily remarried to Didi Gregorius?
A writer is in the end not his [sic] books, but his [sic] myth. And that myth is in the keeping of others.
~ V.S. Naipul
Yet another reminder that doing the work is what’s important, not worrying about what happens to it.
Finally made it to the Biennial, just a couple of days of days before it closed.
I liked everything & I didn't like anything.
I don't know what I mean by that.
Last night I stopped by the Salmagundi Club to see the American Impressionist show. It was depressing—like a bunch of MFA poems, competent & lifeless. The Biennial was full of life but a lot of the work seemed entirely conceptual, so there was no point in actually executing the piece, or they were op-eds. It wasn't depressing but I didn't leave wanting to charge home & make art.
Then He Who Must Not Be Named stepped on my foot & now I can't walk.
The Alphabet's Dilemma
For want of a bee the hive was lost
For want of the sea a ship was lost
For want of a gee the wonder was lost
For want of an I the novel was lost
For want of a jay the aviary was lost
For want of an ell privacy was lost
For want of Em Dorothy was lost
For want of a pea the soup was lost
For want of a queue no time was lost
For want of tea the afternoon was lost
For want of you I was lost
For want of a why the philosopher was lost
We die. That may be the meaning of life. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives.
~ Toni Morrison
My birthday twin (same day not the same year!)
I hope this is true.
It's hard to write a light account of a bad week. There was Buster (who's doing better! long saga); & September 11 anniversary (for some reason more talked about this year than of late); a friend with a sudden (benign!) brain tumor (diagnosed the day before they were leaving on a month-long birdwatching & Galapagos trip) (she had surgery the next day & seems like it'll be fine); & a horrific gun/domestic-violence tragedy involving a family I'm tangentially aware of (too awful to be in this list except as part of a tough week).
Well, there was one little bright spot (right): Yours truly as a member of the largest consecration class ever at Mt. Zion. It's pretty easy to tell which kid grew up to be a pawnbroker, isn't it? I had a crush on him when I was 5 because he tanned so dark & fast. What a great trick! How'd he do that?