“ . . . I am with fire between my teeth and still nothing but my blank page.” ~ Monique Wittig

André Kertész, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s Desk at Bernard Lamotte’s Home, ca 1960

“I still don’t know if I am a falcon, or a storm, or a great song.” ~ Rainer Maria Rilke

Friday evening. Overcast, feels like rain.

Flannery O'Connor's Desk and Typewriter at Andalusia, GA

I have wanted to write a post for days now, but just haven’t had it in me. I feel completely enervated—weak and listless. It took everything I had to go to the concert on Wednesday, which really sucks. I hate feeling as if I have to steel myself to go somewhere or to do something.

The house is quiet. Corey is at work, and Brett has gone to see his friends Gordon and Tailor. Tillie is hanging out on the couch, looking out the window, and the two Jack Russells are probably on the bed being lazy. Good day for it. Today I’ve consumed Nilla wafers and Pepsi (caffeine free). Just one of those days.

Well, supposedly the world is going to end tomorrow . . . again. The guy who is predicting this also predicted the end of the world sometime in the 90’s, but says that he got his math wrong. Yep. I’m surely going to trust my future to someone who cannot do math properly. Excuse me for being flippant, but if the world is going to end, does that mean that I don’t have to worry about bills any more?

End of the world, you can stockpile books, or you can stockpile canned green beans. I know what I’m hoarding. I can’t eat the books, but I’ll never be bored. Besides, canned vegetables have no nutritional value and taste like tin.

“No one forces you to write. The writer enters the labyrinth voluntarily . . . ” ~ Roberto Bolaño

André Kertész The Way a Poem of Ady’s began on a Café Table in Paris, 1928

So many things to not write about. So many words tumbling around inside me, none floating to the surface. As a child eating alphabet soup, I used to make letters sink by pushing them down with my spoon. That’s how I would rid myself of the excess letters that did not fit the pattern I was trying to make. If only life were still so easily manipulated. Perhaps if I keep writing, something will float to the surface.

Then there were the boxes of animal crackers. Why were they called crackers when they were in fact cookies? Did you ever wonder how they decided which animals to use? Camels? Now there’s an animal you see everyday. Monkeys? If you took the empty box once you had finished biting the heads off the animals, supposedly you could make a circus cage (back in the days when they acknowledged using cages). I never made the cage as I had enough of a moral dilemma in eating the animals. Truly.

I was a complicated child.

Writing, always writing, even before I knew words, I wrote. I would take scraps of paper and write notes to our neighbors in the large apartment building in London. Then I would slip the pieces of paper beneath their doors and wait for them to reply. They never did. Some of the neighbors thought that someone in the building was a bit mental until my mother explained that I was the source of the mysterious notes.

My first poem in first grade. So proud of it. I read it out loud for one of my mother’s friends, who suggested that I jazz it up by adding some more words. I was highly affronted and told her so. Even then I could not abide criticism.

Words. So many words. So much paper. So much that I felt that I needed a satchel to carry them all in. I lost a tooth and convinced my father that instead of a shilling, he should give me 10 shillings so that I could buy the leather book satchel in Mr. Higgins’ store that I had been coveting for months but which my mother would not agree to buy for me. He did, and I ran to the store and bought it. I filled the tan leather briefcase with paper, pencils, and Barbie dolls. I carried the satchel to Flora Gardens school even though the school supplied all of our necessities.

It was the start of my history as a bag lady. In love with words and bags to hold the pens, pencils, and notebooks.

“The story I am writing exists, written in absolutely perfect fashion, some place, in the air. All I must do is find it, and copy it.” ~ Jules Renard

Virginia Woolf's Writing Desk

I think that satchel is still somewhere in my mother’s attic. Wouldn’t that be grand? Wouldn’t it be grand if I opened it and found something that I had written a lifetime ago? Conversely, wouldn’t it be sad if I opened it and found nothing? Perhaps I shan’t look for it after all.

Carl Sandburg once wrote that the past “is a bucket of ashes.” If I remember correctly, that’s one of the first quotes that I collected. The rest of the quote is something about living for the present, ya da ya da ya da, nothing nearly as eloquent as the bucket of ashes. But consider, if we truly relegated our pasts to the ash pile, if we burned the memories, charred the moments, what would we have to build upon?

Everyone needs a foundation upon which to build. That’s what the past is. That’s what my little leather satchel is: all of the words that my young mind possessed at that time and how I committed them to paper in my early attempts to make things last.

This is not to say that I have not thrown moments of my past upon the pyre, that I have wished them to be gone forever, that I have poured enough kerosene to ignite the pages, only to find that my mouth tasted of ashes, but the past was still there, could not be unwritten no matter how hard I tried.

Fire destroys. Fire cleanses. I think that I fear death by fire more than any other kind.

“Schizophrenia may be a necessary consequence of literacy.” ~ Marshall McLuhan

Do not look for coherence in this post. There is none.

Jane Austen's Writing Table

T. S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land” (1922) is heavy upon my mind tonight. Yes, I do think like this sometimes, like the Penelope chapter in James Joyce’s Ulysses—Molly Bloom’s soliloquy, words tumbling out without internal punctuation, stream-of-consciousness, free association and complete nonsense.

Yes, I remember my Eliot, but not by heart, except for the Shakespeherian Rag that Susan (long gone from my life) and I used to recite on our way to Blacksburg. Four hundred thirty-four lines of poetry, prose, prophecy, reflection, repudiation, the parsing of life itself. Just a few, here:

• “I will show you fear in a handful of dust” (30) — If only fear could be reduced to dust and blown into the wind. I carry my fear with me.
• “I knew nothing/Looking into the heart of light, the silence” (40-41) — We seek out light, thinking that it will bring truth, but in reality, light is silent, just as dark is silent. The layers in between light and dark harbor the truth.
• “Unstoppered, lurked her strange synthetic perfumes,/Unguent, powered, or liquid” (87-88) — The sense of smell is deeply connected to memory. I inhale essence of spring lilacs and am transported to the side of a mountain, to the cup of fresh lilacs my first husband brought me to atone for his deception. It was a salve, an unguent for my soul.
• “My nerves are bad to-night. Yes bad. Stay with me./Speak to me. Why do you never speak? Speak.” (111-112) — My nerves are bad tonight, every night, all of the time, some of the time, sometimes. I get so tired of speaking of it.
• “‘Do/You know nothing? Do you see nothing? Do you remember/’Nothing?'” (121-123) — My mother-in-law remembers nothing most of the time, some things, some of the time. I ask Alexis if she sees anything. . .
• “O O O O that Shakespeherian Rag—/It’s so elegant/So intelligent” (128-130) — Can be sung to many different tunes.
• “HURRY UP PLEASE IT’S TIME” “HURRY UP PLEASE IT’S TIME” “HURRY UP PLEASE IT’S TIME”(141, 152, 165, etc.) — Said in pubs and bars worldwide, but do they ever specify just exactly what it is time for? Time to go? Time to pack up your troubles and smile, smile, smile as we march off to war? Time to make time? Time for change? No more time?
• “By the waters of Leman I sat down and wept . . .” (182) — From “The Fire Sermon,” not Psalm 137, weeping will not be enough to quench the fires of my soul.
• “Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata.” (432) — Three Da’s: give, be compassionate, be self-controlled. No explanation needed.

Enough already.

Shantih. Shantih. Shantih. (Children of Men, bearded Jasper (Michael Caine) and his strawberry cough.)

More later. Peace.

Music by Damien Rice, “9 Crimes”

                   

From “Miner’s Pond”

1

A caver under stalactites,
the moon searches the stars.

In the low field, pools turn to stone.
Starlight scratches the pond,
penetrates in white threads;
in a quick breath, it fogs into ice.
A lava of fish murmurs the tightening film.

The crow is darkness’s calculation;
all absence in that black moment’s ragged span.

.

Above Miner’s Pond, geese break out of the sky’s
pale shell. They speak non-stop, amazed
they’ve returned from the stars,
hundreds of miles to describe.

It’s not that they’re wild, but
their will is the same as desire.
The sky peels back under their blade.

Like a train trestle, something in us rattles.
All November, under their passing.

.

Necks stiff as compass needles,
skeletons filled with air;
osmosis of emptiness, the space in them
equals space.

Their flight is a stria, a certainty;
sexual, one prolonged
reflex.

Cold lacquering speed, feathers oiled by wind,
surface of complete transfluency.
The sky rides with tremors in the night’s milky grain.

.

Windows freeze over like shallow ponds,
hexagonally blooming.
The last syrup of light boils out from under the lid
of clouds; sky the colour of tarnish.
Like paperweights, cows hold down the horizon.

Even in a place you know intimately,
each night’s darkness is different.

They aren’t calling down to us.
We’re nothing to them, unfortunates
in our heaviness.
We watch at the edge of words.

At Miner’s Pond we use the past
to pull ourselves forward; rowing.

~ Anne Michaels

“To sit alone in the lamplight with a book spread out before you, and hold intimate converse with men of unseen generations—such is a pleasure beyond compare.” ~ Kenko Yoshida

“Fourth Avenue Bookstore,” by Andreas Feininger (ca 1940s)

  

“I’ve never known any trouble that an hour’s reading didn’t assuage.” ~ Charles de Secondat, Baron de la Brède et de Montesquieu, Pensées Diverses

"Comic Book Readers, New York City," by Ruth Orkin (1947)

I really do miss the days of reading at least one book every weekend, but as with everything else in my life, I go through phases. Luckily for me, I’ve been in the mood to read lately. So just this week, I read two books that were as different from each other as is possible. Last week I read a collection of short stories.

I thought that I might do brief reviews of these three books, spread the wealth, as it were.

“Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body. It is wholesome and bracing for the mind to have its faculties kept on the stretch.” ~ August Hare

I was fortunate to win this first book in a Goodreads giveaway, and doub ly fortunate because it was one of the books for which I submitted my name that I really wanted to read. James Rollins writes what is called thriller/adventure novels. I am a junkie for these kinds of books as they are easy to read and can be read in one sitting. That and the fact that these books appeal to me in the same way that action movies appeal to me. I am fully aware that they are fluff, but fluff can be a great distraction.

I have read two or three other Rollins’ novels, can’t remember exactly, but this one, The Doomsday Key, is probably my favorite. One thing that I like about Rollins is that he always tries to base the plots of his books in some kind of historical fact. He also employs twists and devices that seem a bit far-fetched, only to reveal in the notes at the end that these things actually exist, take for example, WASP daggers.

The Doomsday Key is based on The Domesday Book, which was commissioned by William the Conqueror in 11th century England. King William sent royal commissioners to all parts of his kingdom to conduct a survey of the lands and properties, supposedly to measure the taxes owed to the crown. The completed book became an incredible source of information about Medieval life.

Rollins again uses his Sigma Force and recurring characters in an adventure that includes avalanches, polar bears, and honey bees. The book does not pretend to be anything but what it is—a romp through Rollins’s world of heroes and villains, and those who straddle the middle.

(526 pages, HarperCollins)

“When I read a book I seem to read it with my eyes only, but now and then I come across a passage, perhaps only a phrase, which has a meaning for me, and it becomes part of me.” ~ William Somerset Maugham

"Kisling's Atelier," André Kertész (1933)

On the other end of the spectrum is Proust’s Overcoat, a true story about one man’s obsession with all things Proust.

Written by Lorenza Foschini, this small biography (literally at 144 pages) is a captivating tale about Jacques Guérin, a Parisian heir to a perfume company. Guérin’s passion lay not in perfume but in collecting rare books, manuscripts, and papers. After spending the day in the factory, he would stroll through Paris in the evenings, frequenting small bookstores, looking for treasures. That is how he came to find a proprietor who happened to have corrected proofs of Marcel Proust.

Ultimately, the book tells Guérin’s tale, as well as that of Proust, his brother Robert, Robert’s wife Marthe who bore no love for her brother-in-law, and the family shame over Proust’s homosexuality. It was this shame that led Marthe to destroy many of Marcel’s papers after his death, only later to realize that these papers and notebooks were valuable.

Foschini’s retelling of Guérin’s search for and amassing of Proust’s papers, furniture, and his famous overcoat reads lyrically: “Proust’s homosexuality surrounded him like an invisible and insurmountable wall. His family’s unwillingness to understand led to a history of silences that mutated into rancor. This in turn was transformed into acts of vandalism—papers destroyed, furniture abandoned” (71).

Proust’s Overcoat is a lovely afternoon read, one that can be appreciated by bibliophiles and historians alike.

(144 pages, black and white photographs, Imprint of HarperCollins)

“It is not enough merely to love literature, if one wishes to spend one’s life as a writer. It is a dangerous undertaking on the most primitive level. For, it seems to me, the act of writing with serious intent involves enormous personal risk. It entails the ongoing courage for self-discovery. It means one will walk forever on the tightrope, with each new step presenting the possibility of learning a truth about oneself that is too terrible to bear.” ~ Harlan Ellison

"New York City," André Kertész (1950)

And finally, there is The Dark End of the Street, a collection of short stories featuring the work of Lee Child, Joyce Carol Oates, Amy Hempel, Michael Connelly, and many others.

Edited by Jonathan Santlofer and S. J. Rozan, this book includes nineteen stories that take a new look at the old themes of sex and crime, violence and darkness. The stories feature serial killers, characters who fancy themselves killers, wives who have been wronged, cruel sadists, and characters who are just plain pitiable.  A few stories read a bit like detective true crime stories from the old magazines, but for the most part, the stories are evocative and intriguing, a memorable collection crafted by an enviable group of writers.

Plot twists abound. For example, Lee Child’s “Me & Mr. Rafferty” features a serial killer and a cop and their fixation on each other. Then there is the revenge with a twist in Laura Lippman’s “Tricks.” The idea of sadism is the focus in Lynn Freed’s “Sunshine,” as well as S. J. Rozan’s “Daybreak.” But my favorite story out of the collection is Jonathan Letham’s story, “The Salon.” I love the premise of a hair salon being a serial killer’s milieu. Letham’s narrator is deftly drawn, just dripping with sarcasm and a sardonic wit.

(291 pages, black and white illustrations, Bloomsbury)

“A book must be an ice-axe to break the seas frozen inside our soul.” ~ Franz Kafka

I have three more books lined up for this weekend. Good times for me. Now go read a book.

More later. Peace.

Music by Chris Isaak, “Blue Moon”