For reasons unknown, some of my fave bloggers are writing about music these days, and so, not one to drop my oar, I offer the following which has been simmering within me since the colder months.
All last winter, at the Club Fort Lauderdale, they played the same four songs endlessly and repeatedly and loudly. At first, I was glad for the fact that these songs had replaced J Lo reminding us that she's just Jenny from the Block which was the previous mantra that filled those halls. It was annoying because, in fact, none of those present were just Jenny from the block, although on occasion, with the right piece in one's hand, the lyric "I used to have a little now I got a lot" did seem to make some sense.
The Four Inevitables, as I referred to them in my unheeded complaints to the manager, were
"Beautiful Soul" by Jesse McCartney, which contains the words "I don't want another pretty face". Those of us who sang along while sauntering or posing were outright liars.
"True" by Ryan Cabrera, which contains the words "I've waited all my life to be with you". Another terrific lie. Most of us in that place would wait longer for an ATM to spit out twenty bucks than we would for the attentions of the next man to come around the corner.
"Boulevard of Broken Dreams" by Green Day, featuring the constant phrase "I walk alone". This choice was only partially absurd. I did occasionally walk alone, usually while exiting someone's room and wiping my hands along the walls on my way to the showers. That moment, however, did not capture the existential yearning intended by the Green Day.
"I'm With You" by Avril LaVigne. Finally a tolerable anthem for many of those evenings. Ms. LaVigne commences with the words "It's a damn cold night" which was certainly true of Fort Lauderdale during its last unusually frigid high season, and when she wails "Take me by the hand...I don't know who you are but I'm with you", well there just wasn't a dry dick in the place.
I once read that "Chocolate Cake" by Crowded House was first a hit in the bath houses of Australia, and that the Finn brothers took this as a fine compliment. I wonder if Captain and Tennille would have felt the same if they had heard me whistling "Do that to me one more time" while walking the halls of the Sloane House YMCA many years ago. I liked the fact that there was no music piped into the halls of that wonderful place. Some guys, using a shoe to prop open the door, indicating an interest in the reception of guests, had radios that might catch your ear as you passed, but not in the agressive way that the speakers mounted overhead in most bath houses deliver divas where you just don't want them.
Next career: traveling bath house music consultant. So easy to pack. Won't even need the overhead bin.
"Perge modo et qua te ducit via dirige gressum," said Venus to Aeneas.
Friday, April 29, 2005
Tuesday, April 26, 2005
Fortune
As we were getting into bed last night, C. said, "Do you realize that I have spent the majority of my life with you?"
"No. I hadn't really thought of that but I guess it's true, isn't it?" After a few seconds, I added, "Are you happy?"
Without hesitation, with eyes closed and forehead scrunched against my shoulder, he smiled and vigorously nodded yes.
"Well I've spent the majority of my life with you too", I announced.
"No you haven't", he murmured, "Unless you've been lieing about your age."
"Sweet, if I were going to lie about my age, I certainly wouldn't have been padding it all these years, would I? I'm simply discounting and subtracting those years of my early childhood in which I was obsessed with and desired only sapphires, leopard skin and Troy Donahue. I think it's only fair to let me bundle up and sequester those years in the way that a freed prisoner might sidestep his time of incarceration while making cocktail chat, or an ex-addict might set-aside his pre-clean years or the way someone coming out of a coma might box up the years of oblivion and refer to them as a separate and distinct life. And incidentally, you would think that by now someone would have bought me at least a small sapphire, but no, I remain unadorned, like the last unpurchased Christmas tree on the street corner, late on the 24th, destined for blinglessnessdom."
It took me three tries to get that last word out correctly. Put the blame on the meds I am taking for the pain of my recent back injury (see below). C. missed the whole of my ramble for he had fallen asleep within seconds of closing his eyes. This is his way, and mine as well, for more than twenty years. At various times in the course of the night we will twist and turn, always making sure that some parts of our bodies are touching.
I have lost almost all the jewelry I have ever owned.
I am allergic to cats.
There is definitely no room for Troy in this bed.
"I'm happy too", I whispered into the top of his head.
"No. I hadn't really thought of that but I guess it's true, isn't it?" After a few seconds, I added, "Are you happy?"
Without hesitation, with eyes closed and forehead scrunched against my shoulder, he smiled and vigorously nodded yes.
"Well I've spent the majority of my life with you too", I announced.
"No you haven't", he murmured, "Unless you've been lieing about your age."
"Sweet, if I were going to lie about my age, I certainly wouldn't have been padding it all these years, would I? I'm simply discounting and subtracting those years of my early childhood in which I was obsessed with and desired only sapphires, leopard skin and Troy Donahue. I think it's only fair to let me bundle up and sequester those years in the way that a freed prisoner might sidestep his time of incarceration while making cocktail chat, or an ex-addict might set-aside his pre-clean years or the way someone coming out of a coma might box up the years of oblivion and refer to them as a separate and distinct life. And incidentally, you would think that by now someone would have bought me at least a small sapphire, but no, I remain unadorned, like the last unpurchased Christmas tree on the street corner, late on the 24th, destined for blinglessnessdom."
It took me three tries to get that last word out correctly. Put the blame on the meds I am taking for the pain of my recent back injury (see below). C. missed the whole of my ramble for he had fallen asleep within seconds of closing his eyes. This is his way, and mine as well, for more than twenty years. At various times in the course of the night we will twist and turn, always making sure that some parts of our bodies are touching.
I have lost almost all the jewelry I have ever owned.
I am allergic to cats.
There is definitely no room for Troy in this bed.
"I'm happy too", I whispered into the top of his head.
Wednesday, April 20, 2005
A Plenary Indulgence
By way of follow up to my mention of the indulgence to be gained by correctly receiving Ratzie's Urbe et Orbe blessing, I offer the following interchange with a Monsignor who knows all this stuff. He once taught me the words to Wallis Simpson's favorite hymn entitled "Will There Be Any Stars In My Crown?"
Dear_______,
What kind of indulgence does one get for receiving the first U et O
blessing of a new Pope?
Is it valid via CNN, or does one have to have gotten it through Fox News?
Seriously, what's the indulgence attached to it? Do you have to hear it
live? Via TV OK? Aside from having to be disposed to the indulgence,
what are the requisite prayers that must also be said in order to make
it work?
Dear ____________,
It is plenary -- and even over the radio or TV. However, one has to be in a
state of grace, and free of "any attachment" at that current instant to
venial sin. Since I think neither of us can claim the "any attachment"
part, any indulgence we received from receiving the blessing would be
"partial," rather than plenary, and God would deliver, based upon our good
will. So there!
Dear_______,
What kind of indulgence does one get for receiving the first U et O
blessing of a new Pope?
Is it valid via CNN, or does one have to have gotten it through Fox News?
Seriously, what's the indulgence attached to it? Do you have to hear it
live? Via TV OK? Aside from having to be disposed to the indulgence,
what are the requisite prayers that must also be said in order to make
it work?
Dear ____________,
It is plenary -- and even over the radio or TV. However, one has to be in a
state of grace, and free of "any attachment" at that current instant to
venial sin. Since I think neither of us can claim the "any attachment"
part, any indulgence we received from receiving the blessing would be
"partial," rather than plenary, and God would deliver, based upon our good
will. So there!
Benedict XVI
There won't be much of a honeymoon. The faithful have already been forced into bed with this guy for decades, and it hasn't been fun. There's something in his smile that betrays his relishment of the role of Grand Inquisitor. He tried to twist that smile into something conveying Benevolent Pastor as he presented himself on the balcony for the Urbe et Orbe blessing (which, big time sinners take note, is good for a whooping big indulgence). Think formulaic Hollywood: the seemingly nice man smiles upon his victim revealing the bloodied fangs of a vampire. My body hair stood up as I received this blessing. It was cold and unGodly.
I hear that he has said quite plainly that he will not mind the shrinkage of the Roman Catholic Church due to conservative adherence to doctrine. OK, so he's just another stubborn old man who has stopped trusting the unfettered breezes of the Holy Spirit for guidance, preferring to rail against the targets of the old school: gays and women. He stands with that group in "The Poseidon Adventure" that did not go with Shelley Winters. They said, "Nope. We're going to stay right here in the ballroom. Better to dig in our heels rather than to start scampering about." We all know what happened to them.
His choice of name is telling. While casting back to a time and place in which he would feel comfortable, he logically discarded John, Paul and the two John Pauls. But some may wonder why he sidestepped the last century's hugest Germanophile, Pius XII. Maybe it is because of Pius's own difficulties with the Nazis, or because Ratzinger knows that when John XXIII became Pope, the first thing he found on his desk was Pius's plan to call for a Vatican Council, but I suspect the real reason has more to do with Pius's relationship with Cardinal Spellman. There's not much in Benedict XV that stirs the modern heart, but by golly, Ratzinger could place a dollar on the fact that he was a damn fine specimen of an asexual priest.
He's 78. His dictates will be largely ignored, and he is probably not the last nail in the coffin of Roman Catholicism.
I hear that he has said quite plainly that he will not mind the shrinkage of the Roman Catholic Church due to conservative adherence to doctrine. OK, so he's just another stubborn old man who has stopped trusting the unfettered breezes of the Holy Spirit for guidance, preferring to rail against the targets of the old school: gays and women. He stands with that group in "The Poseidon Adventure" that did not go with Shelley Winters. They said, "Nope. We're going to stay right here in the ballroom. Better to dig in our heels rather than to start scampering about." We all know what happened to them.
His choice of name is telling. While casting back to a time and place in which he would feel comfortable, he logically discarded John, Paul and the two John Pauls. But some may wonder why he sidestepped the last century's hugest Germanophile, Pius XII. Maybe it is because of Pius's own difficulties with the Nazis, or because Ratzinger knows that when John XXIII became Pope, the first thing he found on his desk was Pius's plan to call for a Vatican Council, but I suspect the real reason has more to do with Pius's relationship with Cardinal Spellman. There's not much in Benedict XV that stirs the modern heart, but by golly, Ratzinger could place a dollar on the fact that he was a damn fine specimen of an asexual priest.
He's 78. His dictates will be largely ignored, and he is probably not the last nail in the coffin of Roman Catholicism.
Tuesday, April 19, 2005
The Spectator Pumps and Sling Backs of Mrs. Noreen Hamilton of Fort Lauderdale, Florida
Not sure why I painted this. We looked at her condo a few years ago when we were looking for a Fort Lauderdale place. She greeted us and the agent in a floor length aquamarine caftan. She was tiny and quite elderly and full of laughter.She had placed a copy of a high end shelter mag by the door. The condo was featured on the cover. She was the widow of an FBI honcho who had worked with J. Edgar. He had taken care of her. Every cabinet she opened contained bottles. She offered us a drink (10:30AM) and even financing as I snapped pictures. When she led me into the depths of her walk-in, I could sense pride in her arrangement of footwear. We didn't buy the place. Should have. She planned to move to a building nearer the Galleria. Must look her up.I think she'd like this.
Monday, April 04, 2005
Snaxx
At the advice of a blogger, we attend this bi-weekly event at the Westside Tavern last Friday night, and we are pleased with what we find. Upon arrival, we pass through a laconic straight crowd draped about the main floor. Dante, or our instinct, guides us past these creatures to a sign that commands "LOUNGE". We make the descent into a cellar where an attentive bartender efficiently fuels a thick mob of men who are mostly taller than us. I shout over the noise to C. that they must be lacing the drinks with calcium. An intelligent DJ has blessedly subtracted any hint of a vocal line from his mix, charging the air with that sort of frisson one feels just before a lightening strike. The men here, with few exceptions, are very white, and all rather butch and built. (Margaret Butch-White?) Their coloration is neither a positive nor a negative. It is simply worth noting, in a city that usually contains more variety. Most everyone has hair that has been allowed to follow the natural contours of the face, like winter rye in a fallow place. No geometric cuts that seem to be lifted from A Pattern Language. And, unlike in other neighborhoods, no one is smoking. Also unlike in other neighborhoods, these men appear to have left their genitals at home, or perhaps to have placed them in some sort of timed-release security box under their vigilantly zippered jeans. There's not a dick to be seen, nor groping nor pawing nor squeezing of the crotch. C. and I, like those shipwrecked boys in Lord of the Flies have almost forgotten this sort of civilized behavior. We are more accustomed to venues in which the objective is to make Origami folds in jeans worn entirely at the ankles. We behave, and acquire a second drink. These men appear to be assessing each other, perhaps taking notes that might be played out over laundry in weeks to come, as in, "Didn't I see you at Snaxx in a Def Leppard tee shirt?". C. remarks that they are the exact same men who may be seen at Siberia. Very Edith Wharton, but a pleasant spectacle, and one which we will return to perhaps with our single, out-of-town, hairy, butch, built, white and taller friends, should we ever acquire any.
Monday, February 21, 2005
Vox Christi
Saturday February 19, 2005
Provoke.
Invoke.
Evocative.
Convocation.
Vocation.
Oddly enough, these words, all rooted in the vocal, seemed to crowd out all other observations as we walked through “The Gates” in Central Park at 10AM in full sun. Odd because despite the huge crowd, a quiet solemnity prevailed. At first I assumed this was by dint of the extreme cold, but came to realize that what we were hearing was the sound of people thinking rather than talking. I cannot recall a time when I have been part of a throng this big that wasn’t jabbering, fidgeting, jostling, shrieking, chanting or cheering. Even in Rome, when we trotted out the Pope, the crowd was about as ruly as that of a Superbowl, bruising their neighbors to get a full frontal into their cameras.
For this reason above all others, we decide the installation is good.
C feels it conjures fluorescent laundry. I counter with the impression of a bevy of Catholic school girls, but that is because I am obsessed with pleats. Yup, I love em. (I think that in heaven, if Miss Jesus will have me, I will be perpetually draped in Mariano Fortuny, but still allowed upstairs at the Eagle.)
As we approach The Boathouse for brunch, C, who loves this park, says that he’ll side with the Christo fans, but he is glad the installation is temporary “like when the carnival comes to town”.
I am distracted by the sight of a volunteer wearing an official beige “Gates” vest. He holds a long pole with a yellow tennis ball skewered on its tip. This is used to adjust the saffron when the wind twists it over the armatures (and, we agree wholeheartedly with that savvy stud from Philadelphia who observed that the armatures should have been grey to blend in with the winter trees and make the saffron really float.)
C suggests that we should be Christo volunteers next time. I agree and share the rumor that Jeanne-Claude has announced her desire to cover Jeff Stryker with red and gold flocked wallpaper. Wheat paste: the lube of a legend.
Later that evening, I laugh as I enter the soaring atrium of the Time Warner building and am assaulted by the sight of two one hundred foot long orange curtains and a matching valance framing the escalator down to Whole Foods. Is this a tribute or is it a nasty bit of mockery? Either way, it’s just pitifully lame. Worse is next door, where the window dressers at Hugo Boss have replaced the relentlessly black clothing with some orange tat. Everyone seems to have gotten the spirit except for the dour clerks at the Thomas Pink store where the colors were recalcitrant. I suppose that to be a function of the brand name, and I rethink my decision that if C and I ever had a daughter, we would name her Saffron. She might never be pretty in pink. I return to our earlier choice: Aerial Surveillance. She’ll grow into it.
Provoke.
Invoke.
Evocative.
Convocation.
Vocation.
Oddly enough, these words, all rooted in the vocal, seemed to crowd out all other observations as we walked through “The Gates” in Central Park at 10AM in full sun. Odd because despite the huge crowd, a quiet solemnity prevailed. At first I assumed this was by dint of the extreme cold, but came to realize that what we were hearing was the sound of people thinking rather than talking. I cannot recall a time when I have been part of a throng this big that wasn’t jabbering, fidgeting, jostling, shrieking, chanting or cheering. Even in Rome, when we trotted out the Pope, the crowd was about as ruly as that of a Superbowl, bruising their neighbors to get a full frontal into their cameras.
For this reason above all others, we decide the installation is good.
C feels it conjures fluorescent laundry. I counter with the impression of a bevy of Catholic school girls, but that is because I am obsessed with pleats. Yup, I love em. (I think that in heaven, if Miss Jesus will have me, I will be perpetually draped in Mariano Fortuny, but still allowed upstairs at the Eagle.)
As we approach The Boathouse for brunch, C, who loves this park, says that he’ll side with the Christo fans, but he is glad the installation is temporary “like when the carnival comes to town”.
I am distracted by the sight of a volunteer wearing an official beige “Gates” vest. He holds a long pole with a yellow tennis ball skewered on its tip. This is used to adjust the saffron when the wind twists it over the armatures (and, we agree wholeheartedly with that savvy stud from Philadelphia who observed that the armatures should have been grey to blend in with the winter trees and make the saffron really float.)
C suggests that we should be Christo volunteers next time. I agree and share the rumor that Jeanne-Claude has announced her desire to cover Jeff Stryker with red and gold flocked wallpaper. Wheat paste: the lube of a legend.
Later that evening, I laugh as I enter the soaring atrium of the Time Warner building and am assaulted by the sight of two one hundred foot long orange curtains and a matching valance framing the escalator down to Whole Foods. Is this a tribute or is it a nasty bit of mockery? Either way, it’s just pitifully lame. Worse is next door, where the window dressers at Hugo Boss have replaced the relentlessly black clothing with some orange tat. Everyone seems to have gotten the spirit except for the dour clerks at the Thomas Pink store where the colors were recalcitrant. I suppose that to be a function of the brand name, and I rethink my decision that if C and I ever had a daughter, we would name her Saffron. She might never be pretty in pink. I return to our earlier choice: Aerial Surveillance. She’ll grow into it.
Sunday, November 21, 2004
In 2008
An openly gay man will be elected president, because:
a) he will run largely under the radar screen, on the net
b) he will get the youth, urban and swiftly growing minority vote
c) he will get the women vote because he won't be pushing a moral agenda that is prohibitive
d) the media will come up with names of people he has had sex with. It will be a long list. He will beam while proudly admitting to having had sex with them all (even the ones he can't quite recall)
e) the Libertarians will toss in with him just before the election, giving him the support of guys like Clint Eastwood and Kurt Russell
f) The two party system, which is as close to death as the electoral college, will once again produce two candidates who will be distasteful to most of America. Americans will look about for a hero and will sense something in the voice of the gay candidate: that long-lost sound of sincerety.
g) Other countries (need I name them?) will toss in with the gay candidate, as will Oprah
(h) It will help if he has military and government experience)
i) Barbra Streisand will get to sleep in the Lincoln bedroom again.
Early in his presidency, he will be assassinated, and will become instantly heroic in memoriam. Gay issues will reach resolution. He will have been the catalyst.
I know that all this sounds Messianic, but that is rather what is born of oppression.
Who's it going to be? I've been scanning the horizon for sight of him. He hasn't yet appeared. He's out there somewhere maybe just beginning to sense his responsibility and destiny.
a) he will run largely under the radar screen, on the net
b) he will get the youth, urban and swiftly growing minority vote
c) he will get the women vote because he won't be pushing a moral agenda that is prohibitive
d) the media will come up with names of people he has had sex with. It will be a long list. He will beam while proudly admitting to having had sex with them all (even the ones he can't quite recall)
e) the Libertarians will toss in with him just before the election, giving him the support of guys like Clint Eastwood and Kurt Russell
f) The two party system, which is as close to death as the electoral college, will once again produce two candidates who will be distasteful to most of America. Americans will look about for a hero and will sense something in the voice of the gay candidate: that long-lost sound of sincerety.
g) Other countries (need I name them?) will toss in with the gay candidate, as will Oprah
(h) It will help if he has military and government experience)
i) Barbra Streisand will get to sleep in the Lincoln bedroom again.
Early in his presidency, he will be assassinated, and will become instantly heroic in memoriam. Gay issues will reach resolution. He will have been the catalyst.
I know that all this sounds Messianic, but that is rather what is born of oppression.
Who's it going to be? I've been scanning the horizon for sight of him. He hasn't yet appeared. He's out there somewhere maybe just beginning to sense his responsibility and destiny.
Friday, November 12, 2004
Skin Flint
(As I said in askisadora.com)
Sean,
There are gradations to which you must pay attention if you are to get this:
a) heterosexual men do not moisturize, unless they are farmers who use a product called Bag Balm. It was designed for a cow's utter and comes in a nifty tin with some green and rose campion colored graphics. It is vile smelling, but efficient.
b) Suburban metrosexual men of the lowest rank will moisturize but only after they are married, have begun to see wrinkles, and reaching first into their wives' side of the medicine cabinet, uncork potions that don't smell butch. The more persistent of this group will go to the CVS or to Costco, and stock up on Lubriderm or a similar generic.
c) The next rank of metrosexuals are single men who discover that they are better looking than their buddies (mostly because girls tell them this, but sometimes because they are narcissies). They nurture a fascination with their own looks that is free of the boundaries set by heterosexual men.
There are two subsets of this group:
1) black and hispanic men who have been using nail polish for decades
2) television weather forecasters (also known as meteorosexuals)
d) the highest rank of metrosexuals are those men who have extended the investments made by their ego to encompass their face and body. Not only do they have to have the best car, condo, job and babe, but they have to have the best skin, hair, muscles and suits. These are the guys who study grooming products and sometimes consult with their gay friends. These are also the guys who stand on the precarious edge of actually having sex with other men. Afterall, their preoccupation with the whole "men" thing can't help but lead them to appreciation of some men as sex objects.
e) And finally, Sean, there are the homosexuals who have been moisturizing since kindergarten. (No joke, I begged my Aunt Claire to let me use her Noxema, and I knew, even at the age of five, that this was something best kept between her and me.)
Homosexuals don't need to shop in the "Men's Grooming" section for their products. We head straight to the L'Oreal Plenitude Revitalift with brazen assurance (when the jar is empty, the labels are easily removed and you can refill them with pesto for freezing and gifting through the winter.)
The way-high level of this group is the New York homosexual who gets advance notice that Kiehl's is opening a new store on the Upper West Side. He's there right away, and because he drops a hundred bucks on 1.7 ounces of cryste marine cream, and a small jar of multi-purpose facial formula (and because he compliments the salesgirl on her thick mahogany mane), he walks out with enough sample packets to furnish his gym bag for months.
The very highest level of homosexual is inhabited by only one man: me. I am the person who, while visiting the island of Montserrat (two years before it blew up) brought a dozen zip lock bags with me and filled them with various colored muds from the simmering volcano. This made for some very heavy luggage which I forced my very annoyed partner to share. Getting through customs was hilarious. When we got home, I ruined my Cuisinart food processor by trying to mix the mud with some almond paste and eucalyptus oil. Within a few weeks, the baggies of mud hardened into bricks. I set them out as the threshold of the herb garden we put in that year. They were soon covered with glorious lichen and moss. And yes, while putting in that garden, the only thing that replenished my hands was a good dollop of bag balm.
And that, Sean, should answer your question.
Sean,
There are gradations to which you must pay attention if you are to get this:
a) heterosexual men do not moisturize, unless they are farmers who use a product called Bag Balm. It was designed for a cow's utter and comes in a nifty tin with some green and rose campion colored graphics. It is vile smelling, but efficient.
b) Suburban metrosexual men of the lowest rank will moisturize but only after they are married, have begun to see wrinkles, and reaching first into their wives' side of the medicine cabinet, uncork potions that don't smell butch. The more persistent of this group will go to the CVS or to Costco, and stock up on Lubriderm or a similar generic.
c) The next rank of metrosexuals are single men who discover that they are better looking than their buddies (mostly because girls tell them this, but sometimes because they are narcissies). They nurture a fascination with their own looks that is free of the boundaries set by heterosexual men.
There are two subsets of this group:
1) black and hispanic men who have been using nail polish for decades
2) television weather forecasters (also known as meteorosexuals)
d) the highest rank of metrosexuals are those men who have extended the investments made by their ego to encompass their face and body. Not only do they have to have the best car, condo, job and babe, but they have to have the best skin, hair, muscles and suits. These are the guys who study grooming products and sometimes consult with their gay friends. These are also the guys who stand on the precarious edge of actually having sex with other men. Afterall, their preoccupation with the whole "men" thing can't help but lead them to appreciation of some men as sex objects.
e) And finally, Sean, there are the homosexuals who have been moisturizing since kindergarten. (No joke, I begged my Aunt Claire to let me use her Noxema, and I knew, even at the age of five, that this was something best kept between her and me.)
Homosexuals don't need to shop in the "Men's Grooming" section for their products. We head straight to the L'Oreal Plenitude Revitalift with brazen assurance (when the jar is empty, the labels are easily removed and you can refill them with pesto for freezing and gifting through the winter.)
The way-high level of this group is the New York homosexual who gets advance notice that Kiehl's is opening a new store on the Upper West Side. He's there right away, and because he drops a hundred bucks on 1.7 ounces of cryste marine cream, and a small jar of multi-purpose facial formula (and because he compliments the salesgirl on her thick mahogany mane), he walks out with enough sample packets to furnish his gym bag for months.
The very highest level of homosexual is inhabited by only one man: me. I am the person who, while visiting the island of Montserrat (two years before it blew up) brought a dozen zip lock bags with me and filled them with various colored muds from the simmering volcano. This made for some very heavy luggage which I forced my very annoyed partner to share. Getting through customs was hilarious. When we got home, I ruined my Cuisinart food processor by trying to mix the mud with some almond paste and eucalyptus oil. Within a few weeks, the baggies of mud hardened into bricks. I set them out as the threshold of the herb garden we put in that year. They were soon covered with glorious lichen and moss. And yes, while putting in that garden, the only thing that replenished my hands was a good dollop of bag balm.
And that, Sean, should answer your question.
Wednesday, November 03, 2004
We are a what?!
Someone on the television just reminded us that we are afterall a "faith-based nation". He offered this as explanation for the election of Bush to a second term. Never before has this concept been clear to me. I now see that this nation is viewed by most of its citizens as a club of God-fearers. This is not at all the collection of tolerant, freedom-loving and courageous folks who, despising oppression and able to endorse with conviction the welcoming inscription of the statue of liberty, set up this country as a refuge. Don't get me wrong. I am well aware of the enormity of conservative America, but I thought a larger portion of that mass was tempered by compassion for the rest of us. I was wrong.
We are nolonger about inclusion. We are now about the enforcement of someone's boundaries for right and wrong.
The idea that a President should give us comfort by steering a moral course for us is so foreign to me that I wonder how I could have actually grown up amidst these people.
I thought the President was supposed to keep us safe (even while we are performing sex acts he may not agree with).
If you say "faith-based nation" three times fast, you end up saying "faith-bashed nation".
We are nolonger about inclusion. We are now about the enforcement of someone's boundaries for right and wrong.
The idea that a President should give us comfort by steering a moral course for us is so foreign to me that I wonder how I could have actually grown up amidst these people.
I thought the President was supposed to keep us safe (even while we are performing sex acts he may not agree with).
If you say "faith-based nation" three times fast, you end up saying "faith-bashed nation".
Tuesday, November 02, 2004
Just like in nature,
Just like in nature, one of these balls is slightly larger than the other.
But really, what were they thinking?
a) "Look Honey, the shiny things are on sale. Let's get two."
b) "Might as well put it out there with the one she gave us last Christmas".
c) "Well, we figured we had two windows..."
d) "That'll show those Hendersons a thing or two."
Feel free:
Sunday, October 03, 2004
Two lesbians have informed me that
in the town of Ubud, on Bali, having sex is referred to as "jig-a-jig".
This fact has been labeled "permanent" and stored in the far lobes.
I think you can safely judge a person by the information he has chosen to retain or discard. For instance, it may be significant that I can name the nine muses, list the eight members of the band playing on deck while the Titanic sank, describe Jason Kidd's tattoos, and accurately deliver every word and pause recorded by Karen Carpenter.
I won't begin to list the things I have forgotten, but I am proud of my editing, and pleased with the shiny things I have kept dusted and neatly displayed on the shelves of memory. All the rest has slipped through the cracks and joints of the floorboards and has been carried off by that dark and silent river flowing beneath us while we sleep.
This fact has been labeled "permanent" and stored in the far lobes.
I think you can safely judge a person by the information he has chosen to retain or discard. For instance, it may be significant that I can name the nine muses, list the eight members of the band playing on deck while the Titanic sank, describe Jason Kidd's tattoos, and accurately deliver every word and pause recorded by Karen Carpenter.
I won't begin to list the things I have forgotten, but I am proud of my editing, and pleased with the shiny things I have kept dusted and neatly displayed on the shelves of memory. All the rest has slipped through the cracks and joints of the floorboards and has been carried off by that dark and silent river flowing beneath us while we sleep.
Friday, October 01, 2004
absurd house
While this may not be the ugliest house in Connecticut, it is certainly the most absurd. It has not a single architectural feature that has not been misapplied, misused, misinterpreted or combined recklessly beyond the limits of sensible proportion. Looking at this house is profoundly irritating, but living in it is probably easier (once inside the foolish front door, you don't have to look at it). Is that the lady of the house coming forth as I get back into my car? I can tell she wants to obtain the name of the high end shelter mag in which her gracious home will be featured. Her hair is five times as large as her skull, and sprayed to imitate a five point buck. I speed away sparing her the reality.
Wednesday, September 29, 2004
The dinosaurs are dragging
their feet. Their breath is labored. There is desperation in their eyes as they sniff at their eggs, spoiling and not hatching. The sky is an odd color.
When the last living of their kind crashes chin first to the ground, smaller critters come out of hiding, as would Munchkins, to marvel at the remains glistening in the newly returned sunlight. Hairy men pull out the dreadful teeth and string them into necklaces that will cement their tribal positions.
To have been around for that! To have witnessed the extinction.
We should not feel too deprived, as we are today witnessing the extinction of three huge dinosaurs: the gasoline engine, the American two-party system, and the Roman Catholic Church.
The earlier situation that did in the T Rex and relatives had mysterious causes. Comet? Global climate change? Virus? The three that we are witnessing are clearly caused by unresponsive recalcitrance and greed for money or power.
The gasoline engine is something we have loved too much, like fried dough or the cigarette. GM and similar companies cannot stop themselves from selling it to us, and we have shown an inability to stop buying it. We are all guilty addicts for this sloppy invention. Mercifully, fossil fuel (remember those earlier dinosaurs? They growl to life again every time you turn the key in the ignition) will be depleted or too costly. There won't be any virtue in our switch to clean fuel. As a culture, we are like the obese who can't start a diet until they are in a coma.
The two-party system would almost be acceptable were it not for the fact that its leadership and message are interchangeably bad. The parties attract neither the heroic nor the inspired. Natural born American leaders like Oprah Winfrey or Garrison Keillor can't be bothered. This should be over by 2008. The vehicle and birth mother of an heroic and inspired president will not be the Green party or the Libertarians or any existing third party. It will be the gay community, flexing its powerful bicep nationally, and producing a startlingly wonderful leader who will, of course, be assassinated early in his presidency.
Finally, there is the pathetic matter of Roman Catholicism. Talk about squandering a franchise. For centuries, these guys had us believing that they owned the gates to heaven and hell. They picked the pockets of those in line at either entrance. We now have a pope who lingers, like that final dinosaur. Years from now, looters will plunder his grave, not recognizing the carved letters of his name as they pick the rubies out of his rotting vestments. John Paul wanted to be holy. He settled for stubborn. The horses (and the sheep) have left the barn.
When the last living of their kind crashes chin first to the ground, smaller critters come out of hiding, as would Munchkins, to marvel at the remains glistening in the newly returned sunlight. Hairy men pull out the dreadful teeth and string them into necklaces that will cement their tribal positions.
To have been around for that! To have witnessed the extinction.
We should not feel too deprived, as we are today witnessing the extinction of three huge dinosaurs: the gasoline engine, the American two-party system, and the Roman Catholic Church.
The earlier situation that did in the T Rex and relatives had mysterious causes. Comet? Global climate change? Virus? The three that we are witnessing are clearly caused by unresponsive recalcitrance and greed for money or power.
The gasoline engine is something we have loved too much, like fried dough or the cigarette. GM and similar companies cannot stop themselves from selling it to us, and we have shown an inability to stop buying it. We are all guilty addicts for this sloppy invention. Mercifully, fossil fuel (remember those earlier dinosaurs? They growl to life again every time you turn the key in the ignition) will be depleted or too costly. There won't be any virtue in our switch to clean fuel. As a culture, we are like the obese who can't start a diet until they are in a coma.
The two-party system would almost be acceptable were it not for the fact that its leadership and message are interchangeably bad. The parties attract neither the heroic nor the inspired. Natural born American leaders like Oprah Winfrey or Garrison Keillor can't be bothered. This should be over by 2008. The vehicle and birth mother of an heroic and inspired president will not be the Green party or the Libertarians or any existing third party. It will be the gay community, flexing its powerful bicep nationally, and producing a startlingly wonderful leader who will, of course, be assassinated early in his presidency.
Finally, there is the pathetic matter of Roman Catholicism. Talk about squandering a franchise. For centuries, these guys had us believing that they owned the gates to heaven and hell. They picked the pockets of those in line at either entrance. We now have a pope who lingers, like that final dinosaur. Years from now, looters will plunder his grave, not recognizing the carved letters of his name as they pick the rubies out of his rotting vestments. John Paul wanted to be holy. He settled for stubborn. The horses (and the sheep) have left the barn.
Sunday, September 19, 2004
Gender is what we
need more of in English. Yup. The French have their Le/La to infuse even the most sexless of objects (stones, doors, rugs) with the whimsicality of femininity or the weightiness of masculinity. La whim, le weight. Teachers who bestow French upon English speaking students say, "Aren't you glad we don't have to worry about that in English?" It's really just another Anglo attempt to denigrate all things Frenchular.
Some guys (think the John Goodman character on the old Rosanne show)like to use the La with some nouns when skewering what they think is a pansy-fied subject. La moisturizer. La scented candle. ("La President?" comes the retort from other parts of the room.) This tells us that even among the testosterone replete whose T shirts ride up over their bellies is the desire for a more poetic approach to all things neuter.
Some others will protest that adding gender to objects would be a politically incorrect misstep. So what? Colorful is superior to correct, any day.
Let's make "the" masculine, and invent a feminine article. My first find would be "tha", but this won't work because its pronunciation is too close to its masculine counterpart. How about "ta"? It looks like "la" so it already has some familiarity, and it can be pronounced as either "tuh" or "tah", just like "the" is spoken in various ways.
Ok, so we've got the and ta. Now boys and girls, let's use them in a sentence. "The guy in the red truck went on a date with ta hairdresser". Hmm. Problems already? Ta hairdresser may be a guy. Duh, he's still proudly Ta Hairdresser, especially at the moment he steps down from that red truck and shakes his shiny shag as he enters Ta Starlight Cafe on The Hairy Arm of The Truck Guy. See what fun we can have here?
I propose a modification of the French assignments. In English, let's let the speaker decide the gender of whatever noun he or she calls forth. Why should ta cake knife always be feminine and the switchblade always be masculine?
These thoughts came to mind yesterday while in the shower. With disposable razor in hand, I was considering the fact that one's first day usage of a disposable razor is never as good as the second day. On day one, the razor can cut you. On day two and three, you get the smoothest and safest shave. After about a week, you've got to toss it or suffer the irritations of a dull blade. I thought that this must be what sex is like for a virgin. The first time's marked by some pain and indelicacy. Smooth sailing doesn't really happen until the follow-ups. Why can't someone invent a disposable razor that is pleasant even on the first usage? Did a woman or a man invent the disposable razor and decide just how sharp those little twin blades ought to be? Since its performance tracks a woman's sexual initiations, should it be Ta Disposable, or, since it's my face that suffers the consequences, should we keep it as The Shaver, and let those sleeping dogs lie dreaming of their first time? Ta choice is yours.
Some guys (think the John Goodman character on the old Rosanne show)like to use the La with some nouns when skewering what they think is a pansy-fied subject. La moisturizer. La scented candle. ("La President?" comes the retort from other parts of the room.) This tells us that even among the testosterone replete whose T shirts ride up over their bellies is the desire for a more poetic approach to all things neuter.
Some others will protest that adding gender to objects would be a politically incorrect misstep. So what? Colorful is superior to correct, any day.
Let's make "the" masculine, and invent a feminine article. My first find would be "tha", but this won't work because its pronunciation is too close to its masculine counterpart. How about "ta"? It looks like "la" so it already has some familiarity, and it can be pronounced as either "tuh" or "tah", just like "the" is spoken in various ways.
Ok, so we've got the and ta. Now boys and girls, let's use them in a sentence. "The guy in the red truck went on a date with ta hairdresser". Hmm. Problems already? Ta hairdresser may be a guy. Duh, he's still proudly Ta Hairdresser, especially at the moment he steps down from that red truck and shakes his shiny shag as he enters Ta Starlight Cafe on The Hairy Arm of The Truck Guy. See what fun we can have here?
I propose a modification of the French assignments. In English, let's let the speaker decide the gender of whatever noun he or she calls forth. Why should ta cake knife always be feminine and the switchblade always be masculine?
These thoughts came to mind yesterday while in the shower. With disposable razor in hand, I was considering the fact that one's first day usage of a disposable razor is never as good as the second day. On day one, the razor can cut you. On day two and three, you get the smoothest and safest shave. After about a week, you've got to toss it or suffer the irritations of a dull blade. I thought that this must be what sex is like for a virgin. The first time's marked by some pain and indelicacy. Smooth sailing doesn't really happen until the follow-ups. Why can't someone invent a disposable razor that is pleasant even on the first usage? Did a woman or a man invent the disposable razor and decide just how sharp those little twin blades ought to be? Since its performance tracks a woman's sexual initiations, should it be Ta Disposable, or, since it's my face that suffers the consequences, should we keep it as The Shaver, and let those sleeping dogs lie dreaming of their first time? Ta choice is yours.
Wednesday, September 15, 2004
What if I lost
it? My looks.
Isadora Alman once offered to introduce me to a friend of hers who had been a model for Tom of Finland. She cautioned me that he had, in recent years, finally lost his looks. My first reaction was to protest that I would be the judge of that. Afterall, when a man starts out at such a high plateau, even a drastic fall should still land him among the lesser gods (think the aged Don Ameche in Cocoon. Still eminently doable). My second reaction was to wonder if someone would someday say that about me. Some young research assistant or art student:
"I'm going uptown to West 68th on the Park to visit somebody I met a few months ago."
"Oh? Some hot guy?"
"No. Not really. But they say he used to be hot. He used to rule at El Mirage and The House of Regrets. Maybe you'd recognize him."
"Sorry. I don't do Old".
"Not true. I've seen you in more than one back room after your fifth cosmo. On your knees, clawing your way through their aluminum walkers, trying to get at their pleated twills."
When the young man arrives, will I answer the door in a kaftan? Or jeans, cut for a season on the verge of ressurection as retro? Will I eye him with the sleazy hunger of Maurice Chevalier, humming "Thank heaven for little girls" in straw hat and cane?
A few years ago, a frustrated Deanna Durbin released a recent photo of herself to confound the widespread rumor that she was a recluse in the south of France, having become a grotesque, weighing over 400 pounds. The part about France was true, but in the photo she was only rather plump and still pretty enough to advertize something (like Coronet toilet tissue?).
To pass through a crowd undesired by strangers. To sway in a packed subway without anyone tracing the sinews of your arm holding the bar near their face. To step among the machinery at the gym without being the fantasy of at least a few of the married men and women who mentally undress you as you pass by their treadmill. To go out some night and to come home scoreless and relegated and marked-down. What would that be like?
Many years ago, on Valentine's Day at Blue's in Charlotte Amalie on St. Thomas, C and I won "Cute Couple". There was another couple in the room. Rumor was that they had been together for thirty years. Their comportment was impeccable. Their clothing classic and effortless. They left at a reasonable hour. Everyone wanted a chance to speak with them. I dissected the elements of their features, trying to imagine what they had looked like before they were old. This was foolish on my part. Their current composites were highly attractive. They were still hot. I wondered then if we would ever get there.
We seem to be correctly en route, and far away from that dreaded moment. But when it comes, will I know it? Will friends gently tell me so? Or, will I simply become invisible in public, unseen by strangers who will invest their desire elsewhere? That's finally how you realize you've lost it, right?
Isadora Alman once offered to introduce me to a friend of hers who had been a model for Tom of Finland. She cautioned me that he had, in recent years, finally lost his looks. My first reaction was to protest that I would be the judge of that. Afterall, when a man starts out at such a high plateau, even a drastic fall should still land him among the lesser gods (think the aged Don Ameche in Cocoon. Still eminently doable). My second reaction was to wonder if someone would someday say that about me. Some young research assistant or art student:
"I'm going uptown to West 68th on the Park to visit somebody I met a few months ago."
"Oh? Some hot guy?"
"No. Not really. But they say he used to be hot. He used to rule at El Mirage and The House of Regrets. Maybe you'd recognize him."
"Sorry. I don't do Old".
"Not true. I've seen you in more than one back room after your fifth cosmo. On your knees, clawing your way through their aluminum walkers, trying to get at their pleated twills."
When the young man arrives, will I answer the door in a kaftan? Or jeans, cut for a season on the verge of ressurection as retro? Will I eye him with the sleazy hunger of Maurice Chevalier, humming "Thank heaven for little girls" in straw hat and cane?
A few years ago, a frustrated Deanna Durbin released a recent photo of herself to confound the widespread rumor that she was a recluse in the south of France, having become a grotesque, weighing over 400 pounds. The part about France was true, but in the photo she was only rather plump and still pretty enough to advertize something (like Coronet toilet tissue?).
To pass through a crowd undesired by strangers. To sway in a packed subway without anyone tracing the sinews of your arm holding the bar near their face. To step among the machinery at the gym without being the fantasy of at least a few of the married men and women who mentally undress you as you pass by their treadmill. To go out some night and to come home scoreless and relegated and marked-down. What would that be like?
Many years ago, on Valentine's Day at Blue's in Charlotte Amalie on St. Thomas, C and I won "Cute Couple". There was another couple in the room. Rumor was that they had been together for thirty years. Their comportment was impeccable. Their clothing classic and effortless. They left at a reasonable hour. Everyone wanted a chance to speak with them. I dissected the elements of their features, trying to imagine what they had looked like before they were old. This was foolish on my part. Their current composites were highly attractive. They were still hot. I wondered then if we would ever get there.
We seem to be correctly en route, and far away from that dreaded moment. But when it comes, will I know it? Will friends gently tell me so? Or, will I simply become invisible in public, unseen by strangers who will invest their desire elsewhere? That's finally how you realize you've lost it, right?
Tuesday, September 14, 2004
I do not like
work. I have no admiration for those described as "hardworking". I do not see work as valuable, in and of itself. Don't want it scribbled even in rain-pervious chalk upon my gravestone. The most I can say about work is just what Queen Elizabeth, when pressed by her people, finally said about Diana. "She was a remarkable woman". I, in front of the TV, hooted with appreciation of her adroit use of English. Diana, she had said, was a woman able-to-be-remarked-about. Nothing more. The queen didn't really give an inch to her subjects. That's about all I can say of work. It worth talking about. The fact that the world is full of folks subscribing to striving is remarkable.
Gotta get stuff done? Well don't forget the old acid test: if you knew you had one day left to live...Some would reach for the vacuum cleaner, others for unpaid bills. First I'd grab C. before he could go off to work. Then, armed with chocolate and coffee, we'd watch the sunrise over the distant hills of Manchester and watch the miniature skyline of Hartford (workplace-to-be-avoided)begin to catch fire. We'd look through our entire photo collection and I'd open the storage boxes that hold all our old T shirts. Touch each one of them just once more. I'd rummage through the box labeled "Ephemera" into which were tossed all the bits of paper that used to be on the fridge, labels from significant bottles of wine, our subway passes from Paris, a verdigrised shower drain salvaged from an old YMCA, a shriveled leather racquetball glove. In the evening, while C. would make his (some would call it remarkable) wonderful pasta and peppers, I'd paint a final picture without plan or direction. It's fascinating to me that I have no idea what this would look like. I suspect that it would contain that shade of periwinkle that is my own natural color. The color of a pack of those French cigarettes, Galois (sp?).
We'd open a bottle of Shiraz Mourvedre, and then I'd spend the rest of the night doing what I do best: haggling, bargaining and ultimately winning from the clock more time, more days, more wine.
That's the best thing about being a person who plays more than works: I don't have any sense that this will ever end. Workers, on the other hand, always have a sense of the goal and the accomplishment. Work is always terminal, but never over. I've never heard a worker say "That floor could not be cleaner. There is no speck of dirt on it." The most they will say as they hang up the mop is "You could eat off that floor". Well so what? I've put my mouth on some things a lot more suspect in this world of dirt than most of the floors we transgress and I'm no worse for it.
You will excuse me. I've got to get cleaned up and dressed because I am now extremely late for work.
Gotta get stuff done? Well don't forget the old acid test: if you knew you had one day left to live...Some would reach for the vacuum cleaner, others for unpaid bills. First I'd grab C. before he could go off to work. Then, armed with chocolate and coffee, we'd watch the sunrise over the distant hills of Manchester and watch the miniature skyline of Hartford (workplace-to-be-avoided)begin to catch fire. We'd look through our entire photo collection and I'd open the storage boxes that hold all our old T shirts. Touch each one of them just once more. I'd rummage through the box labeled "Ephemera" into which were tossed all the bits of paper that used to be on the fridge, labels from significant bottles of wine, our subway passes from Paris, a verdigrised shower drain salvaged from an old YMCA, a shriveled leather racquetball glove. In the evening, while C. would make his (some would call it remarkable) wonderful pasta and peppers, I'd paint a final picture without plan or direction. It's fascinating to me that I have no idea what this would look like. I suspect that it would contain that shade of periwinkle that is my own natural color. The color of a pack of those French cigarettes, Galois (sp?).
We'd open a bottle of Shiraz Mourvedre, and then I'd spend the rest of the night doing what I do best: haggling, bargaining and ultimately winning from the clock more time, more days, more wine.
That's the best thing about being a person who plays more than works: I don't have any sense that this will ever end. Workers, on the other hand, always have a sense of the goal and the accomplishment. Work is always terminal, but never over. I've never heard a worker say "That floor could not be cleaner. There is no speck of dirt on it." The most they will say as they hang up the mop is "You could eat off that floor". Well so what? I've put my mouth on some things a lot more suspect in this world of dirt than most of the floors we transgress and I'm no worse for it.
You will excuse me. I've got to get cleaned up and dressed because I am now extremely late for work.
Sunday, September 12, 2004
There is no one alive today
who is anything like Eve Arden. What happened to that type of actress? To that type of role? Has that type of person become extinct?
For those of you who do not remember her, Eve Arden played the reluctant friend/co-worker/participant in the life of the lead actress in a zillion movies. Everything she said was a stand-alone zinger expressing chagrined acceptance about the fact that life's tough, but, hey, someone's got to do the cooking, so hand me that apron and run for cover. If you played an ingenue who lands a job in a fashion house in Paris, she'd play the hard working ex-patriot who's been abroad for fifteen years, seen 'em come and go, has managed to survive and can tell you why. If she was in the chorus, and you were in tears because you had just broken up with the producer, she'd be rubbing her tired feet in the dressing room, but able to deliver a bromide and walk you home. Before you got to your door, she'd have completed ten perfect statements beginning with words like "That's the problem with men...", or, "Honey, haven't you figured out that all guys...", or, "Well if you ever find a man who...". If you concoct a plot-centric scheme involving lies and jewelry and an out-of-town ruse, she'd shake her head, tell you it will never work, but faithfully execute her part of the deception just because she's your pal. She never seemed to be accompanied by a boyfriend or a husband. Never admitted to wanting one, except once-per-movie when she'd allow you a brief glimpse into her lonely soul before slipping back into her hard shell.
Because she played the same character in each movie and because her lines were invariably of the same caliber and cadence, I am convinced that she had an agent who must have said "Miss Arden will appear in your picture under one condition: she will furnish her own lines."
I'm having trouble picturing her dead, although I assume she is indeed that. Her eyes not fixing you with a mock-glare, the corner of her mouth not turning down with a cynical aside, her big shoulders not nudging you with "buck-up" support. In her casket, she is probably informing her cemetery neighbors "Well there's not much of a view but I've always liked putting my feet up at the end of a hard day".
She made her films in a time when nudity and sex were not on the menu, but had she been called upon, I'm sure she would have delivered the goods. Imagine her taking off her bra in front of Jesse White as the Maytag repairman. "OK buddy, the store's open. Step right up and make your selection. The shelves are pretty much stocked with two of almost everything you're looking for, except my heart, and remember, if you break it, it's yours."
Where'd you go, Eve? Why no daughter, no passing of your torch?
For those of you who do not remember her, Eve Arden played the reluctant friend/co-worker/participant in the life of the lead actress in a zillion movies. Everything she said was a stand-alone zinger expressing chagrined acceptance about the fact that life's tough, but, hey, someone's got to do the cooking, so hand me that apron and run for cover. If you played an ingenue who lands a job in a fashion house in Paris, she'd play the hard working ex-patriot who's been abroad for fifteen years, seen 'em come and go, has managed to survive and can tell you why. If she was in the chorus, and you were in tears because you had just broken up with the producer, she'd be rubbing her tired feet in the dressing room, but able to deliver a bromide and walk you home. Before you got to your door, she'd have completed ten perfect statements beginning with words like "That's the problem with men...", or, "Honey, haven't you figured out that all guys...", or, "Well if you ever find a man who...". If you concoct a plot-centric scheme involving lies and jewelry and an out-of-town ruse, she'd shake her head, tell you it will never work, but faithfully execute her part of the deception just because she's your pal. She never seemed to be accompanied by a boyfriend or a husband. Never admitted to wanting one, except once-per-movie when she'd allow you a brief glimpse into her lonely soul before slipping back into her hard shell.
Because she played the same character in each movie and because her lines were invariably of the same caliber and cadence, I am convinced that she had an agent who must have said "Miss Arden will appear in your picture under one condition: she will furnish her own lines."
I'm having trouble picturing her dead, although I assume she is indeed that. Her eyes not fixing you with a mock-glare, the corner of her mouth not turning down with a cynical aside, her big shoulders not nudging you with "buck-up" support. In her casket, she is probably informing her cemetery neighbors "Well there's not much of a view but I've always liked putting my feet up at the end of a hard day".
She made her films in a time when nudity and sex were not on the menu, but had she been called upon, I'm sure she would have delivered the goods. Imagine her taking off her bra in front of Jesse White as the Maytag repairman. "OK buddy, the store's open. Step right up and make your selection. The shelves are pretty much stocked with two of almost everything you're looking for, except my heart, and remember, if you break it, it's yours."
Where'd you go, Eve? Why no daughter, no passing of your torch?
Friday, September 10, 2004
I can't even begin to imagine the face of
God. For that matter, I can't even begin to imagine the dimensions and boundaries and fabric of the next life. If it lacks both time and space, I have no ingredients and hence no recipe for it.
This irritating situation came up last week while Hurricane Frances battered our windows and screamed about the seventeenth floor of our tower on the beach in Fort Lauderdale. Knowing that my corrugated metal storm shutters had sealed off my view, my neighbors invited me next door for dinner and to witness the storm through their newly installed high-impact-glass-category-five-proof windows. We watched the waves literally deliver the beach up onto Route A1A and began to talk about our lapsed practice of Roman Catholicism. We watched the blue flashes from arcing power stations to the north, somewhere near Oakland Park Blvd, while performing the ritual trashing of absurd 20th century church leadership. We saw the entire city north of our perch on East Sunrise Blvd slip into darkness as power failed, while we recalled our childhood exposure to Limbo.
A nun in the 1950's explained to her class that the unbaptized (mostly infants whose brevity on earth did not allow for the spilling of holy water across their brows, and folks trapped in the outback of Australia) who, through no fault of their own, had missed the golden opportunity to join the family of God, should expect to end up in Limbo rather than in Heaven. The words Limbo and Heaven were delicious and as attractive and unknowable as were the daily televised Mouseketeers whom I was sadly certain I would never meet and never join. Each day, in order to get to this nun's classroom, I took a bus labeled Blue Hills. I never rode that bus to the end, and I assumed that Blue Hills was the last stop before Limbo which neatly preceded Heaven.
Supposedly, in Limbo, one enjoys all the pleasures of Heaven except for the joy of seeing the face of God. He simply doesn't go there. The nun went on to assure us that the infants and Australians don't really miss his company because they are afterall, immersed in every other conceivable and inconceivable pleasure.
As soon as she said this, I began to long for Limbo and to resent my parents for having baptized me before I could think for myself and fend off the holy water. I began to imagine living in Heaven. I'm in my perfect home. My quarreling parents do not exist. My younger brother does not exist. I am eating great stuff, and the Mouseketeers are with me. We are singing when the doorbell announces a visit from God. Annette quickly cleans the kitchen table while I run to make the bed. We welcome God into the house and have a cordial visit. Things are just fine. Would you like some coffee? God, it's wonderful to see your face. Come again soon.
I imagine Limbo right down to the same doorbell, but without the visit from God. What could possibly be better? If I had been ten years older, I would have framed this in terms of "no need to hide the magazines or flush the drugs". That evening, at the dinner table, I glared at my parents and protested my permanent and relentless baptism. They looked at me as if I were not their spawn, but trapped as they were in an unhappy marriage with responsibilities that they wished would disappear, their eyes betrayed a longing for the Limbo I described to them.
The next day, as I boarded the bus to school, I decided that since Limbo was off limits, I would opt for Blue Hills rather than Heaven. This plan has led me through a wonderful life of serious sin in which I swear I've seen the face of God many times. He smiles at me before he slips out the back door in the early hours and returns to his obligations. He's OK with my choices. He's relying on me for his inconceivable and conceivable pleasures.
This irritating situation came up last week while Hurricane Frances battered our windows and screamed about the seventeenth floor of our tower on the beach in Fort Lauderdale. Knowing that my corrugated metal storm shutters had sealed off my view, my neighbors invited me next door for dinner and to witness the storm through their newly installed high-impact-glass-category-five-proof windows. We watched the waves literally deliver the beach up onto Route A1A and began to talk about our lapsed practice of Roman Catholicism. We watched the blue flashes from arcing power stations to the north, somewhere near Oakland Park Blvd, while performing the ritual trashing of absurd 20th century church leadership. We saw the entire city north of our perch on East Sunrise Blvd slip into darkness as power failed, while we recalled our childhood exposure to Limbo.
A nun in the 1950's explained to her class that the unbaptized (mostly infants whose brevity on earth did not allow for the spilling of holy water across their brows, and folks trapped in the outback of Australia) who, through no fault of their own, had missed the golden opportunity to join the family of God, should expect to end up in Limbo rather than in Heaven. The words Limbo and Heaven were delicious and as attractive and unknowable as were the daily televised Mouseketeers whom I was sadly certain I would never meet and never join. Each day, in order to get to this nun's classroom, I took a bus labeled Blue Hills. I never rode that bus to the end, and I assumed that Blue Hills was the last stop before Limbo which neatly preceded Heaven.
Supposedly, in Limbo, one enjoys all the pleasures of Heaven except for the joy of seeing the face of God. He simply doesn't go there. The nun went on to assure us that the infants and Australians don't really miss his company because they are afterall, immersed in every other conceivable and inconceivable pleasure.
As soon as she said this, I began to long for Limbo and to resent my parents for having baptized me before I could think for myself and fend off the holy water. I began to imagine living in Heaven. I'm in my perfect home. My quarreling parents do not exist. My younger brother does not exist. I am eating great stuff, and the Mouseketeers are with me. We are singing when the doorbell announces a visit from God. Annette quickly cleans the kitchen table while I run to make the bed. We welcome God into the house and have a cordial visit. Things are just fine. Would you like some coffee? God, it's wonderful to see your face. Come again soon.
I imagine Limbo right down to the same doorbell, but without the visit from God. What could possibly be better? If I had been ten years older, I would have framed this in terms of "no need to hide the magazines or flush the drugs". That evening, at the dinner table, I glared at my parents and protested my permanent and relentless baptism. They looked at me as if I were not their spawn, but trapped as they were in an unhappy marriage with responsibilities that they wished would disappear, their eyes betrayed a longing for the Limbo I described to them.
The next day, as I boarded the bus to school, I decided that since Limbo was off limits, I would opt for Blue Hills rather than Heaven. This plan has led me through a wonderful life of serious sin in which I swear I've seen the face of God many times. He smiles at me before he slips out the back door in the early hours and returns to his obligations. He's OK with my choices. He's relying on me for his inconceivable and conceivable pleasures.
Wednesday, September 01, 2004
I woke up too early
and I knew that I would not be able to reconvene the troops of sleep for the two hours before the alarm. I lay still, with eyes closed, invoking any deity who might be perched over the bed and knew the way back to sleep. Instead, these thoughts were among the two hour parade that passed through my head:
Is it really such a good thing that despite my restless thrashing, this mattress does not transmit any ripples of movement to C's side of the bed? Maybe humans have evolved to need to feel their partner's sleep movements. Maybe this high tech-induced deprivation is the cause of much urban irritability.
I'm in a hospital room seated in a visitor chair between two beds. The friend I am visiting has been wheeled away for tests. In the other bed is a woman who looks like Laura Dern. Her husband arrives. He looks like Patrick Swayze. They have murmured conversation and then ask me if I would be offended if they had sex. I say no and remain in my rather front row seat. He draws the cubicle curtain around her bed and includes my chair within the private space. He climbs up onto the bed and they begin to have somewhat conventional sex. They seem anxious. He looks over at me and says "Please, please join us". We're off to the races.
Which dining room chairs should we use in New York? If it's the turquoise vinyl mid-century modern set, the wooden parts need to be stained black. No. Wait. Make that bleached white. No. Maybe stained honey. like in the fifties. Well there are three of them. Let's do one in each color. Nevermind. There's only three of them, and the table really needs four. How about the Thonet chairs? There's four of them. They need to be taken apart, sanded and urethaned to death. How about the iron and oak theater seats from Provincetown? They need a lot of work, but I love the way they rock slightly when you sit in them, and I've got twelve of them. Mostly in storage. C hates those chairs. I'll have to buy cushions to appease him, but really they don't need it.
Are maggots just the larval form of a critter that then makes some kind of subterranean cocoon and emerges prettier, or is a maggot always a maggot from birth to death? How is it that maggots appear wherever there is carnage? Were they just passing by, and lucky to stumble upon some corpse, or are they always nearby, lurking and waiting for that sniff of decay?
Is it really such a good thing that despite my restless thrashing, this mattress does not transmit any ripples of movement to C's side of the bed? Maybe humans have evolved to need to feel their partner's sleep movements. Maybe this high tech-induced deprivation is the cause of much urban irritability.
I'm in a hospital room seated in a visitor chair between two beds. The friend I am visiting has been wheeled away for tests. In the other bed is a woman who looks like Laura Dern. Her husband arrives. He looks like Patrick Swayze. They have murmured conversation and then ask me if I would be offended if they had sex. I say no and remain in my rather front row seat. He draws the cubicle curtain around her bed and includes my chair within the private space. He climbs up onto the bed and they begin to have somewhat conventional sex. They seem anxious. He looks over at me and says "Please, please join us". We're off to the races.
Which dining room chairs should we use in New York? If it's the turquoise vinyl mid-century modern set, the wooden parts need to be stained black. No. Wait. Make that bleached white. No. Maybe stained honey. like in the fifties. Well there are three of them. Let's do one in each color. Nevermind. There's only three of them, and the table really needs four. How about the Thonet chairs? There's four of them. They need to be taken apart, sanded and urethaned to death. How about the iron and oak theater seats from Provincetown? They need a lot of work, but I love the way they rock slightly when you sit in them, and I've got twelve of them. Mostly in storage. C hates those chairs. I'll have to buy cushions to appease him, but really they don't need it.
Are maggots just the larval form of a critter that then makes some kind of subterranean cocoon and emerges prettier, or is a maggot always a maggot from birth to death? How is it that maggots appear wherever there is carnage? Were they just passing by, and lucky to stumble upon some corpse, or are they always nearby, lurking and waiting for that sniff of decay?
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