May 16, 2008
Jeff Bridges ...
I mentioned recently that I had been thinking a lot about Jeff Bridges.
And here is the result of all that thinking: 5 for the day: Jeff Bridges.
"Let it all go"
Excerpt from Lessons in Becoming Myself
About Requiem For A Dream:
The most difficult scene was one in which my son realizes I'm on speed. It was a nine-page scene, but the last three pages were my soliloquy. I told Darren [Aronofsky] I wanted to do all the coverage of the entire scene, except three pages that would be shot in close-up. I wanted that close-up to be last. That was not the economical way to shoot the scene. Normally, the director shoots everything in one direction and then turns the camera around and shoots everything in the other direction. I was asking for walls to be put up, taken down, and then put up again. That takes time, and in movies, time costs money. But this was a pivotal scene that was beautifully written, and I knew what I needed to do it right. I had never before asked for my creative needs to take precedence over economic considerations. But I had learned to stand up for what I truly needed in order to do my best. I had been testing myself for the last couple of years; testing both my talent and my technique. I knew what I was working with and what I could deliver. Darren and I trusted each other. He told the producer, his friend and partner, Eric Watson, that he wanted to do it my way. They scheduled a whole day for those three pages. I could feel what was there waiting to be expressed. It was my own feeling about aging that I hadn't been aware of, but which surprised me one day in rehearsal. As soon as I felt that little rise in emotion when I said, "I'm old," I knew where the reality of the scene was for me. I had to bank that fire, then wait for the right moment. I had to ask for the right conditions to let that slender shoot of truth expose itself at just the precise moment. All my training and effort I'd put in over the years blossomed in that moment of truth. We got it on the first take. We were finished with our day's work by lunchtime. It ended up costing less time and less money by doing it right creatively. There's a big lesson here.On May 5, 1999, Darren showed me some footage. When I told him how much I liked the film, he returned the compliment and repeated something the producer said as he watched my dailies: that I was one of the greatest living actors. I could feel the inflation rise in me and knew I was getting all puffed up, so I went and sat in my trailer and meditated on the image of polishing the mirror and then leaving so that God's face can shine through. That's the charge in all of this: to remember that when it comes through, it is God who is shining through, not one's personal ego.
It's such a paradox. We must put in all the effort to shine the mirror and then walk away. But isn't that the same as one's work in life - to learn how to die consciously? To build the entire structure of one's life, then breathe - let go - breathe - let go - breathe and then finally, let it all go.
It takes practice.
I shot for two weeks in my fat suits. One added fifty pounds and then, after Sara began her addiction to diet pills, the second fat suit added only twenty-five pounds. Then I was off for two weeks. While Darren shot other stuff, I went on the cabbage soup diet and managed to lose ten more pounds.
When we finished shooting, I wrote Darren a letter and thanked him for the opportunity "to mobilize my entire army, and for wanting what I got and letting me give it."
Question: "How did you guys meet?"
Weird awkward pause with some measure of shared hilarity going on underneath. We looked at each other. What on EARTH does one say. Such an innocuous question but it was as though he had said, "How do you split the atom? What is the process?" Guys. It's a simple question. Answer it. But we both paused, stalled, looking at each other. It's like we share one brain. How do we even answer that and not start out with, "I was born on a cold dark day in 1857 ..." HOW DID WE MEET? I mean, how much TIME have you got for us to sufficiently answer that question, where we will need to pontificate on quantum physics, Katherine Dunn, the space-time continuum, Spandau Ballet and the nature of tragedy in ancient Greece.
Speaking of ancient Greece: another funny thing in the moment was that I, through my writing, have "told" the story - which of course he lived it, but there's something different when you read someone's "story" of your life. It becomes narrative. I "set" it. And all of that was somehow was in his face when he looked at me. So, weirdly, when faced with that unfathomably deep and universe-shaking question ("How did you guys meet?" HOW DID YOU GUYS MEET??") I gave him the words. At least the words to answer the question simply enough so that we all could move on with our lives. There is a reason why Mitchell calls me "the Homer of our group of friends".
He: "Well ... she was standing on the sidewalk ... and I saw her and I walked up to her and said ...." He looked at me, and there was something so funny between us. Like, our whole story. Beyond words, but we were looking at each other, and there it was. I can't put a word to it, I just know that we were identical twins in that moment.
Me: (feeling distinctly foolish in a very funny way, finishing the sentence) " 'Are you waiting for someone?' "
It was as though it was a script that we had been rehearsing. This is how it happened. We had never done that before. I think that might have been why we were on the verge of some sort of hilarious outburst.
When I finished his opening line, he burst out laughing and so did I and he hugged me with one arm, and nobody knew what was going on but us.
Everything is left between the words. As always.
Last night. 2 a.m.
There was a moment careening down 9th Avenue, music blaring (Bleu, if you must know), when all of the lights turned green. Green lights stretched to the horizon. And they're long green lights in New York, uncannily long, it keeps everything moving. But there's that moment, almost like reaching the top of the peak, that small hesitation before you launch yourself down the mountain, when you see, unfurling, all the red lights switch to green ... and then ... you are OFF. If you're accustomed to small town driving (as I am, I haven't driven much in Manhattan) you keep waiting for the yellow light - but then you realize it won't come ... not for a while yet ... so just go go go go go go go. Yellow cabs zip around you, everyone is going 50, 60 miles an hour, and there's no stopping, no hesitation, if you brake cautiously all will be lost ... You submit to the beast, and you drive like a bat out of hell. It was EXHILARATING. Nervewracking too but I wanted to just keep driving up and down the avenues of the city all night, taking advantage of the endless green. It felt like flying.
Orphan Train. The Novel. By me. Age 11. - Chapter 3
Chapter 3
Music drifted through the air at the Florence's mansion. Sarah gazed out the window from the living room.
A tall woman wearing mounds of makeup flounced into the room.
"Sarah!" she cried sternly. "How many times do I have to tell you. Don't look out that window. Especially when I'm havin' a party. Now git upstairs to your room and stay there."
Sarah sadly walked out of the room. She was a thin girl and had used to be an orphan. But Mrs. Florence had liked her (not really) and taken her in. Sarah was treated badly. She was not beaten, but the Florence's did not give her love. She hated living there but she did not dare run away.
As she sauntered down the long hall to her room she heard noises behind one of the doors. Being a curious girl of 13 she peered through the small window at the bottom of the door.
A fat man was setting up his bed. He was the butler. Sarah did not like him.
Right inside the door, and in Sarah's view, was a black leather wallet and Sarah could see clearly that it was full of money as it was so fat.
Sarah still had some orphan traits left in her and she wanted that wallet.
She reached her hand in through the crack in the door and grabbed the wallet. A big book had been lying against the wallet and it fell to the floor with a thump.
Sarah jumped to her feet and darted down the hall. But the man had heard. He dashed out the door and grabbed Sarah by the arm. Sarah thrashed around and screamed at the top of her lungs.
Mrs. Florence rushed up the stairs and was surprised to find the butler shaking Sarah.
"Now stop that Jonathan! Stop it! What did she do now?" Mrs. Florence inquired.
Jonathan (the butler) let Sarah go. "She took my wallet."
"Now Sarah," Mrs. Florence said. "Apologize immediately and give him back his wallet." She turned and walked down the stairs.
Jonathan smiled at her. "Come now, Sarah. Give me back my wallet." He gently rubbed her shoulder.
She wriggled away. "Please don't. Please."
"Now Sarah. You shouldn't have taken my wallet but I will accept an apology. Come now. I won't hurt you."
Sarah gulped. She handed over the wallet. "Sorry," she whispered and ran off.
Back in her room she sat on her small bed and stared out into the street. She sighed. Life was so dismal there.
"I'm gonna run away," she told herself. "But I'll do it tomorrow. I'm too tired now." She flopped down on her bed.
May 15, 2008
"Stay gold, Ponyboy."
A wonderful essay by Sarah Bunting (Sars by another name) about The Outsiders - and how it works almost better as a silent film ... here's just a taste of her essay, but go read the whole thing:
And in case you've failed thus far to grasp The Tragedy, he's dying in the street, shot down by the uncaring Tulsa PD for caring too deeply about his dead friend—and people, Matt Dillon is dying the hell out of it, crawling ass-up on his elbows, face torqued all out of shape, flailing over onto his back. It's an ugly bit of acting, but if you subtract the campy "Noooooooooo!" and "He's just a kid!" ululating of the other Greasers from the equation, it's effective, even eerie.
May 14, 2008
Comedy of errors
I arrived at Vintage Bar on 9th Avenue to meet my sister Siobhan just like we planned. I was right on time. I did a scan of the place for my sister and did not see her. I nabbed us a table, and settled in. The skinny gorgeous waitress with huge boobs came over and asked if I wanted to order. I said I was waiting for someone, so, could I wait to order until she showed up? Skinny Boobs said fine. I was a tiny bit scared of my waitress, and she was a teensy bit snotty. Whatevs. So I settled in. There were two guys next to me - one with a goombah Jersey accent, the other with a deep Southern drawl - and they were loosening their ties as they walked in, obviously young ad execs or something along those lines, talking about work and strategies, and also dirty martinis and interns and the joys thereof. I kept glancing out the door for my sister and the two guys kept thinking I was staring at them. Finally, I let them off the hook and took out Fortune of War and started reading. Vintage is known for its martinis (there are 7 pages of martini drinks on the menu ... you can get an Oreo Cookie Dough martini if you want it) - so obviously the joint starts HOPPIN'. But I can read anywhere, anytime, and so I did. About 20 minutes in, I caved and ordered a glass of wine from Skinny Boobs, who gave me a wine recommendation that turned out to be stellar. I didn't worry at first. It's normal to be late in the city. I didn't think much about 20 minutes but after that, I started to wonder. Where was Siobhan? I reached in my purse for my cell phone only to find, horribly, that I had left it at home. If you ever NEED a cell phone, it's for when you're trying to meet up with someone, and I had forgotten it. It was now a good 45 minutes after our meeting time, and this was totally unlike Siobhan. I didn't know what to do. I finally realized (duh) that I had my blackberry on me ... and it's also a phone. But ... duh as well ... I do not know my sister's cell # off the top of my head, because everything is on speed dial now and so ... my parents number I have memorized but that's only because it's the same number I've had since I was, what, 11 years old? A nuclear holocaust couldn't erase that number from my head. But I didn't know Siobhan's number. The martini decibels were now at their peak. I caved. I needed to contact her, and had no other way to do so. I called my parents. Retarded. "Hello?" said my mother. I launched right into it, regardless of whatever my parents might have been up to in that moment, shouting above the martini noise and the jocular post-work conversation beside me in 2 thick regional US accents, "Hi! I know this sounds crazy - but what is Siobhan's cell number?" And bless my mother (although this shouldn't be a surprise, if you read my blog) she said immediately, "Hang on a second. Let me get it." Within 10 seconds, she read it out to me. I tried to explain, shouting above the Oreo Cookie Dough martini racket, "Siobhan's 40 minutes late and I don't have my cell phone and I also don't have Siobhan's phone number!" Sheila? Stop talking. You sound like a moron. So. I call Siobhan, from the blackberry - shouting into it, "HI! I'M HERE AT VINTAGE! I'M CALLING FROM MY BLACKBERRY! I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT MY BLACKBERRY NUMBER IS THOUGH. SO I HOPE YOU CAN SEE IT ON YOUR PHONE. BUT I'M HERE. SO I HOPE YOU'RE OKAY!" Sheila? Stop talking. Then I realized that I could find out my blackberry number (I never use it as a phone) - and so I wrote it down and called back, shouting, "OKAY, SO HERE'S MY BLACK BERRY NUMBER --" and as I started to read it out I saw Siobhan herself emerge from the back of the bar, stalking towards the front, looking around her like an insane person. She had obviously just gotten my message and had been sitting in the bar the entire time. I hadn't seen her though, in my original sweep, I swear! I shouted up at her, "SIOBHAN!" We then hugged and laughed and Siobhan went back to the back of the bar to grab, you know, all her stuff - to join me up front. She had left me numerous messages on my cell phone which I, naturally, had not gotten, because it was sitting at home on my desk ... so we could have gone the entire night, sitting 30 feet away from each other, total missed connections, if I hadn't remembered that I could use my blackberry. Sheila. Why else does one have a blackberry? But let's disregard that. So Siobhan came up and joined me and we were laughing about how ridiculous the whole thing was, both of us practically crying about the fact that we were sitting so near to one another, and yet so far ... and at some point Snotty Skinny Boobs came over to our table (she had also been Siobhan's waitress) and she said, gesturing at the two of us, now finally together, "Okay, this? Is hysterical." She totally got the entire situation, the missed connections part of it, the comedy of errors - and then Siobhan and I said, in unison, "And we're sisters, too!" And that sealed our fate. Turns out, Skinny Boobs has two sisters, and they all live on the same floor in the same apartment building, and so Skinny Boobs will get a call from one of her sisters at 8:30 in the morning, saying, 'Hi. I bought a dress yesterday. I need you to come over right now and tell me if I look cute in it." Skinny Boobs goes next door, and her sister answers the door wearing the dress in question. Skinny Boobs looks at her sister in the dress. She then silently leads her sister back to her apartment, opens her closet, and shows her that she had bought the very same dress on the very same day. She told us that entire story. We totally fell in love with her. You know. Sisters. Anyone who has sisters understands. She absolutely loved us - and the snottiness I felt (oh, and that Siobhan felt, too) was probably just being harassed by having too many tables and too many Cookies 'n Creme martinis to make. Oh - and off of their huge wine list, Siobhan and I separately had both ordered the same glass of wine. Skinny Boobs loved that, too. She swooped by us on her way to another table and stopped just long enough to say, "You know what is also hysterical? You ordered the same drink. Brilliant. This is brilliant!"
Just 'cause (corrected title)
Oops - got an email from my sister asking me to explain the title which was listed originally as "Just Cause". It should be "Just 'cause" - as in "Just because" - Kind of funny how there are two totally different meanings. Just Cause sounds rather ominous ... like: Sheila. What have you done?? Whatever it is I am SURE you did not have "just cause" at this point. Whereas "just 'cause" is whimsical. I mean it in a whimsical manner.
May 13, 2008
Culture notes and emotional notes
-- I'm reading A Widow for One Year
-- Thank you, dear Siobhan, for introducing me to the amazing pleasures of L.E.O. - I cannot get enough of them right now. (Website here) Mike Viola and the Candybutchers are pretty much a required course if you are an O'Malley - kinda like the Foo Fighters - you at least have to give them a chance ... otherwise we won't take you seriously. It's kind of non-negotiable. Sorry. Anyway, L.E.O. is sheer liquid joy floating through the atmosphere. The song "Make Me" is my current fave. (Explanation of what L.E.O. is here)
-- Thinking a lot about Jeff Bridges these days. More later.
-- Went to a screening last week of Mongol, the sweeping Russian epic about Genghis Khan. Big plush press screening room on 57th Street, it was great. Everyone (myself included) blackberrying throughout the film, stepping outside to take a phone call, whatever ... and also scribbling on notepads throughout ... totally different atmosphere from seeing a movie out in the real world, but fun and interesting. My review will be on House Next Door eventually - I'll point you that way when it launches.
-- Totally consumed by something I'm working on now. It's causing me a lot of stress, there are not enough hours in the day, but I find a deadline ultimately very freeing.
-- Oh, guess who I heard from randomly (God bless Facebook) ... the guy I gave a photograph of my eyeball to for Valentine's Day 'lo those many years ago. Hysterical. It was good to catch up. I didn't bring up the eyeball. It's still too embarrassing.
-- I miss all of my friends right now.
-- Cashel wears a fedora to school now. He calls it his "trademark".
-- Allison's going to Italy for 10 days with her aunt to take a vacation in Tuscany on a horse farm. She's going to be riding horses the entire time. I'm so happy for her, although I will miss her.
-- Thank you, Hitachi. From the bottom of my heart: THANK. YOU.
-- Oh, and I'm also reading Patricia Neal's autobiography
-- I crossed 2 or 3 pretty major things off my To Do list which have been haunting me. I actually cried when I crossed the last one off. It had been tormenting my mind, and giving me stress dreams.
-- Watched Stranger Than Fiction last night for, oh, the 10th time, and had to mop the tears off my face at the end. Slowly it's becoming one of my all-time favorite movies. ("You're never too old for space camp, dude.")
-- Last week I said the following sentence to Patrick, "My fallopian tubes are unfurling." Patrick still has not recovered.
-- My entire consciousness is now consumed by the bridesmaid dress I will wear in September.
-- I find office supplies immensely relaxing.
The Books: "Bad Dirt: Wyoming Stories 2" - 'The Wamsutter Wolf' (Annie Proulx)
Next book on my adult fiction bookshelf:
Bad Dirt: Wyoming Stories 2
A lot of Annie Proulx's stories are dominated by silence and space. Maybe there's wind, the sound of snow on the windshield - but her people, in general, are not talkers. But 'The Wamsutter Wolf' is so "noisy", so crowded - that I ended up aching for Buddy (the lead character) to get away, get away ... so he could at least hear himself think! Buddy Millar is a drifter, not really tied down to anyone. Well, he's a bit tied to his parents - who are openly disappointed and angry at him, for the way he lives his life. Buddy tried to work for his father, but that didn't work out. His dad has a temper, and Buddy couldn't take it. He is broke, he eventually rents a trailer for forty bucks a month in a bleak place called Wamsutter - it's filthy, but he can't afford anything else. There's a big dirty loud family who lives in the trailer next door - Buddy watches them from afar for a while, gives them nicknames (Fat Wife, Big Dad) - and it eventually becomes clear (and that's in the excerpt below) that Buddy went to high school with the mother and father (their names are Cheri and Rase). This is not an overwhelmingly joyful reunion - Rase is a sociopath who smashed Buddy's face into the pavement in grade school. Cheri was pathetic in high school and she's pathetic now. They live in squalor. This is not about being poor. This is about not giving a crap about where you live. This is about being so lazy you can't ever wash a dish. The kids are filthy. Their parents let them drink beer, to start them young. Annie Proulx has never been so mean. She's merciless. Buddy is the only one here who comes off looking okay ... he's actually kind of sensitive, and he's doing the best he can. But he gets sucked into the disgusting family drama across the way, and increasingly he feels he cannot escape. Cheri and Rase both treat him as an intimate, there's no polite neighborliness - these people have no boundaries whatsoever, with anyone - and Buddy comes home sometimes and Cheri is sleeping on the floor of his trailer because she had a fight with Rase. Rase is a terrible character. A violent ignorant man with a giant chip on his shoulder. Poor Buddy. He tries to be polite at first, after all he went to high school with these people - and they're all grown up now, right? The past is in the past, right? Buddy realizes very quickly the error of letting such people into his life. These people are barely civilized. It's horrible. A horrible story. Well written but I was sure glad when it was over.
Here's an excerpt.
Continue reading "The Books: "Bad Dirt: Wyoming Stories 2" - 'The Wamsutter Wolf' (Annie Proulx)"Orphan Train. The Novel. By me. Age 11. - Chapter 2
If you want to read Chapter 1, it's here. I am holding myself back from interjecting snarky little comments like I do in Diary Friday. Believe me, I want to - but there's something truly innocent about what I was going for here ... my passion for the TV movie completely expressed ... and I just don't feel right about making fun of that.
Even though some of my word choices are funny and how many times can paragraphs begin with the words "Miss Sims sighed"? Apparently a lot.
Chapter 2.
The children rushed up to the bars and peered through. A small crowd had gathered around the gallows.
Miss Sims looked over the children and saw two policemen dragging a boy, around 17, toward the gallows. There was complete silence everywhere. No one uttered the slightest sound.
Suddenly a boy up front, around 13 or 14, called out in a strong English accent, "'Ey! 'E's got friends! Let 'em say g'bye!"
The policemen turned to face the melancholy boy.
"Listen, kid. You just --" one of them began but the other one interrupted.
"No. He's right. But just for a minute." He pushed the boy gently.
David (the boy) ran over the 13 or 14 year old boy. "Bye, Liverpool."
Liverpool looked at him seriously and set his lips together tightly.
David looked at Liverpool sadly. Then he bent over and took off his worn out boots. He held them out to Liverpool.
Liverpool looked at David questioningly.
David thrust them at Liverpool violently. "Take 'em. To remember me by."
Liverpool nodded and took them. He looked at David and immediately turned his gaze at the ground. David stared sadly at his friend. Liverpool, who was usually tough and brave, was now furiously fighting back tears. " 'Ey." David said and patted him on the shoulder.
Liverpool didn't look up. The policeman came and led David away.
******************************************
Miss Sims walked briskly down the street and turned in at a large mansion. She walked up the stone steps and in through the huge front doors.
The inside was cool and airy with pillars and statues and wide, elegant staircases.
She took off her brown coat and put it in the hall closet.
She sat down helplessly on a green plush chair.
A man walked in a dignified manner over to Miss Sims. "So, Miss Sims," he said in a very sophisticated voice. "How are the little ragamuffins today?"
Miss Sims sighed. "I have told you before. They are orphans. Not ragamuffins. They may look like ragamuffins but they are innocent children. Poor little children."
The man looked her face over. "Anything the matter, Miss Sims?"
Miss Sims sighed. "Yes there is. Today I saw a boy hanged. I couldn't do anything about it. I just stood there and watched. I never want to feel that helpless again. Never! I am taking those children out West."
The man's eyes practically popped out of his head. "You, Miss Sims? But how?"
Miss Sims straightened out her puffy dress. "I have no idea, but I am going to do it. Those children have got to have homes and I am going to find them some."
May 12, 2008
Happy birthday, Edward Lear
Edward Lear (the so-called "father of nonsense") was born today in 1812 in London.
I could recite from memory a lot of his stuff when I was pretty close to this age here. The Golden Book of Poetry was so read in our family that the cover faded to almost nothing, the binding fell apart ... and I can still, in my mind's eye, see all of the illustrations - and where they were placed on the page. And most of the poem's, when I read them now, I hear them in my father's gravelly voice. (The photo at the top of this post is me, "candidly" posing with the Golden Book of Poetry.) "The Owl and the Pussy-cat" is still a favorite. Look how the verse just rocks and sings. It's perfect.
The Owl and the Pussy-cat - by Edward Lear
I
The Owl and the Pussy-cat went to sea
In a beautiful pea green boat,
They took some honey, and plenty of money,
Wrapped up in a five pound note.
The Owl looked up to the stars above,
And sang to a small guitar,
'O lovely Pussy! O Pussy my love,
What a beautiful Pussy you are,
You are,
You are!
What a beautiful Pussy you are!'
II
Pussy said to the Owl, 'You elegant fowl!
How charmingly sweet you sing!
O let us be married! too long we have tarried:
But what shall we do for a ring?'
They sailed away, for a year and a day,
To the land where the Bong-tree grows
And there in a wood a Piggy-wig stood
With a ring at the end of his nose,
His nose,
His nose,
With a ring at the end of his nose.
III
'Dear pig, are you willing to sell for one shilling
Your ring?' Said the Piggy, 'I will.'
So they took it away, and were married next day
By the Turkey who lives on the hill.
They dined on mince, and slices of quince,
Which they ate with a runcible spoon;
And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,
They danced by the light of the moon,
The moon,
The moon,
They danced by the light of the moon.
Michael Schmidt, in his book "Lives of the Poets" writes that Lear, and Lewis Carroll (Lear's younger peer) wrote "nonsense verse" which "strays into the musical zones that Longfellow mapped with his self-propelling meters."
-- the inventor of the term "snail mail" in this whimsical letter to Evelyn Baring? The letter itself reads, along the twists of the snail shell:
Feb. 19. 1864 Dear Baring Please give the enclosed noat to Sir Henry - (which I had just written:-& say that I shall have great pleasure in coming on Sunday. I have sent your 2 vols of Hood to Wade Brown. Many thanks for lending them to me - which they have delighted me eggstreamly Yours sincerely
"Don't tell me of a man's being able to talk sense; every one can talk sense. Can he talk nonsense?" -- William Pitt
In regard to his verses, Lear asserted that "nonsense, pure and absolute," was his aim throughout; and remarked, further, that to have been the means of administering innocent mirth to thousands was surely a just excuse for satisfaction. He pursued his aim with scrupulous consistency, and his absurd conceits are fantastic and ridiculous, but never cheaply or vulgarly funny. -- Carolyn Wells
However, there are subtler methods of debunking than throwing custard pies. There is also the humour of pure fantasy, which assaults man's notion of himself as not only a dignified but a rational being. Lewis Carroll's humour consists essentially in making fun of logic, and Edward Lear's in a sort of poltergeist interference with common sense. When the Red Queen remarks, "I've seen hills compared with which you'd call that one a valley", she is in her way attacking the bases of society as violently as Swift or Voltaire. Comic verse, as in Lear's poem "The Courtship of the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bò", often depends on building up a fantastic universe which is just similar enough to the real universe to rob it of its dignity. But more often it depends on anticlimax -- that is, on starting out with a high-flown language and then suddenly coming down with a bump. -- George Orwell, "Funny But Not Vulgar"
From Michael Sala, "Lear's Nonsense":
Edward Lear, a skillful illustrator of science books (botany, zoology), started his literary career by chance. As a matter of fact, "most of Lear's limericks were not written with publication in mind, but rather as gifts for specific children" (Rieder 1998: 50). He was persuaded toward their publication by the enthusiastic reaction of his young audience.
There was an old person of Rimini
Who said, "Gracious! Goodness! O Gimini!
When they said, "Please be still!" she ran down a hill
And was never once heard of at Rimini.
There was an old person of Sestri
Who sat himself down in the vestry,
When they said "You are wrong!" - he merely said "Bong!"
That repulsive old person of Sestri.
This is a typical example of Lear's limericks, and a perfect example of what is intended by nonsense, that is to say, "language lifted out of context, language turning on itself [a] language made hermetic, opaque" (Stewars 1979: 3), language that "resists contextualization, so that it refers to 'nothing' instead of to the word's commonsense designation [and] refusing to work as conventional communication " (Rieder 1998: 49). In other words, what happened to the old person of Rimini? What is wrong with the person of Sestri? It is impossible to answer, because, despite the perfectly grammatical use of the words, they don't tell much. They are just bizarrely arranged so as to sound appealing. If there is a shadow of a story, usually it is nothing more than that: only a shadow of a story (without causes or consequences). In Lear's limericks, words introduce "a number of possibilities, including dangerous and violent ones, and at the same time disconnect those possibilities from the real world, that is, from what goes on after the game is over" (Rieder 1996: 49).
'My dear child, I'm sure we shall be allowed to laugh in Heaven!'" --from a letter to a little girl he knew
In the limericks [. . .] to an extent difficult for us now to imagine, Lear offered children the liberation of unaffected high spirits [. . .]. Here are grown-ups doing silly things, the kind of things grown-ups never do [. . .]. for all their incongruity, there is in the limericks a truth which is lacking in the improving literature of the time. In an age when children were loaded with shame, Lear attempted to free them from it. -- Vivien Noakes
Like the limericks, they celebrate the outsider. Their principal characters are socially unacceptable" --Susan Chitty on Lear's ballads.
Mr. Lear was delighted when I showed to him that this couple [the Owl and the Pussy-cat] were reviving the old law of Solon, that the Athenian bride and bridegroom eat a quince together at their wedding -- Sir Edward Strachey
More information on Edward Lear here.
The Books: "Bad Dirt: Wyoming Stories 2" - 'Man Crawling Out Of Trees' (Annie Proulx)
Next book on my adult fiction bookshelf:
Bad Dirt: Wyoming Stories 2
I love this story. It's about two transplants from New England to Wyoming - and the culture is so different they might as well have moved to Turkmenistan. Mitchell and Eugenie are a couple in their 50s - who have spent their lives in New York (I think they lived in Brooklyn) - until a couple of bad things happen (a mugging on the subway?) and they decide to move. Their daughter Honor is a young woman now - with her own life - so they decide to move to Wyoming. Their dream is to live near Yellowstone or one of the national parks, but they soon discover that any property anywhere NEAR any of the parks is way beyond millions of dollars. They eventually settle on something - smaller, scraggly ... and it's almost like they're stepping into a dream-state. Like, to people in Wyoming, it's all real, for God's sake ... there's no fantasy in living how they live - but Mitchell and Eugenie are foreigners and they have a fantasy of the West, and what their lives will be like. Mitchell was a philanderer - and we eventually realize that Eugenie is no saint, either - so I think they're hoping that a change of venue might help their marriage. Yeah, well, the people who actually live in Wyoming are used to folks like Mitchell and Eugenie - people who move there with some sort of "dream" - and they try to accept Mitchell and Eugenie but it's like the two of them just cannot get the language straight. They miss symbols, they don't pick up on messages ... they keep breaking "the rules". It's like they are still living by New York rules (the "man crawling out of trees" incident is a perfect example ... Eugenie sees an injured man crawl out of her trees on a snowy day and is so terrified she locks all the doors and calls the sheriff's department. Turns out, the man was an injured skier, who was calling for help - and so the town judges Eugenie - In Wyoming, even if a man is your mortal enemy, you help him if, say, his truck broke down, or he's fallen on hard times. Even the sheriff yells at Eugenie. But there's more. Mitchell and Eugenie are not particularly close - you can tell - and their daughter Honor has had a baby with a man Mitchell's age - her boyfriend (he sounds a little bit like the Tim Robbins' character in High Fidelity - they live in Maine - and Mitchell and Eugenie are baffled as to who their daughter has become. They don't know how to deal with it. At the same time, they are now trapped in the reality of Wyoming - wondering where the dream went.
Great story. Very funny, but with Proulx's insightful observations - and her accurate aim - not only at folks like Mitchell and Eugenie, their pretensions and mistakes - but the folks of the town who are rigid and close-minded. Culture clash. And you write people off at your peril. But also: some people are just assholes, and never forget that. A total lack of curiosity about another person and another region in the country means you are an asshole.
Proulx rides both sides here - although the story is from Mitchell and Eugenie's point of view. Proulx lives in Wyoming and has for many years. She knows it intimately. But she can slip inside Mitchell and Eugenie, because that's what she does, as a writer.
And the response of the folks in the town, their neighbors, reminds me of the B&B we stayed in on Achill Island, a big island off the west coast of Ireland. The couple who owned the B&B had lived there on Achill for thirty years. And they were still referred to, by the villagers, as "blow-ins". Blown in from somewhere else. How long would you have to live there before they just accepted that you were one of them? Probably a very long time. But also: if you move to Achill, with some leprechaun-filled fantasy of the 'auld country' - you will be doomed to disappointment. Deal with reality, please. Have real curiosity about the culture you are visiting.
Proulx describes this whole divide perfectly.
Here's an excerpt.
Continue reading "The Books: "Bad Dirt: Wyoming Stories 2" - 'Man Crawling Out Of Trees' (Annie Proulx)"
