Harry and Lee
December 6, 1993
Daniel J. Travanti
Harry and Lee lived together for over forty years, then she died, beautiful, brave.
Harry is alone, and the condominium is still being paid for by his son, but Lee won’t be in it.
The hospitality room seemed so big and such a good idea. It was. It doesn’t matter anymore.
The sun shines most of the time, and Harry can’t help looking into faces on the street to see if people are glad today.
I guess he’s glad when they are, but the hospitality room is empty.
They made promises to each other, and kept them.
They made one son and stopped, and he supported them some—now a good deal—now that Harry is alone.
He walks in Santa Monica, but he misses New York, Brooklyn, to be specific. I suppose I want a bunch of money to support myself, because I am never going to make a son.
The hospitality room in this building is not inviting. People smoke in it; I am not welcome.
I walk the streets of Chicago looking into faces to see if they’re glad. It’s cold, but they’re OK, I guess. I’m OK, too. I’m glad to go to the gym on the same floor where they’re smoking. I don’t like that, because I can smell the smoke just outside of the gym.
No escape. I am not married, and I can’t ever be for forty years, to anyone anymore; I make my way keeping the air clear, not being lonely, and not wanting to lose anyone. I will lose ones I love. I’m afraid. I guess I’ll make it.
ART
You have to be free to care about art—especially for its own sake—which bothers me these days; hanging on walls. Photos of “museum quality” seem so artificial, meaning fake. It’s an art-ifice, artful sometimes, not exactly living, if it doesn’t mean life but only itself. You have to be free from hunger and cold to want art. It’s like wanting a beautiful body for its own sake; separate from the life forces of dedication, familiarity, devotion, and companionship. You have to commit to those and have them every day, but you have to be free to take the beauty only for a moment, for a thrill, a fleeting jolt of ecstasy. Any time you spend with love is a comfort compared to that. Art for life’s sake may be the open door to peace, but back through darker corridors lie the manufacturers who market art for commerce. Art for commerce’s sake, for its own gain. Duchamp is laughing now, confirmed in his prophesy that bartering any thing for money is artful if it works. Sell a toilet seat, sell a piece of Limoges, a Picasso or a Dubuffet, an armoire for clothes though it meant to hold arms. WEapons are cruel, but artful, isn’t that a laugh? Life is rented—it’s a lease that expires. Life ought to be art, rented from the museums, safer in the streets.
Entries December 2, 1993
My God, we are in a mental void! The news lady just said, “And in a chilling coincidence, the man was arrested exactly thirty years to the day of President Kennedy’s slaying; of a man apprehended by a Secret Service Agent outside Jackie Onassis’ home on Long Island (?).” A search found a heavy duty pistol with six spent rounds in it and a box of hollow bullets in his camper. The man said he had just wanted to “hand deliver” his manuscript to the famous editor!! The news lady is relieved. . . . . . . !!!!!!!
And the genes genius are on the trail of a gene that could be causing colon cancer in a large family. A sister has died, one parent has it, and the others are worried. But the researchers are cheerful. At last, perhaps a breakthrough! Of no interest to their made-up minds is the family’s history: what they have been eating, drinking, breathing. What their habits are, good and bad. Their research is justified, maybe, at long last. Science will save us. Common sense, go home. We’ll get our grant renewed, and no one will be the wiser, wiser . .
Follow up to the intruder story: Hi, guy, so are you calmed down now? Not roughed up, are you? Hey, man, this is amazing, I mean, did you REALIZE that you were actually on Mrs. Onassis’ property on the exact day that President Kennedy was assassinated? Wow! I mean, like, that’s a one-in-a-million shot, right? And you hit it, whew, great, just, well . . . just blows my mind. How about you?
Religion vs Nature
However effective religions claim to be, they are too varied, inconsistent, arbitrary and self-concerned to be much help to anyone. Morals vary from tribe to tribe and century to century, continent to continent.
Nature—hence science—is ONE: reassuringly consistent and affirmable, and indifferent to cultures and eras. Immutably the same for all time, to all creatures and things. Morals for humans can be deduced from the practices of all creatures. Save one. Humankind, with its fine complex brain, is paradoxically incapable of objective moralizing.
Nature is trustworthy. Science is imperturbable and universal. Religion is corrupt by its very nature, which is the nature of the wayward and vain human. It dictates relative truths, which it insists with passion and violence are the only truths. The only Way. Hindu, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Taoist, Hebrew and Druid. Only Atheists and religious Jews seem not to proselytize. The others cannot peacefully accept difference. The result is chaos of the spirit and universal conflict.
To look to such troubled dogmas for morals is at the very least illogical, and at worst disastrous. All religions contradict one another, less or more. Nature is never contradictory. Nature is never uncertain.
What we call nature’s uncertainties is not uncertainty at all. Humans learn nature’s laws gradually, so we are always only partially aware, and so only partially certain. The nature of humans is to keep discovering what is and always has been consistent in nature. Nature is solid, unchanging, reliable. As long as we observe carefully and stay open to new information, we can follow nature; always adding to our understanding of its complex and perfect operations.
Morals and ethics are evident in nature. The closer we can imitate them in our societies, the closer are we to nature and its perfections.
But religions not only ignore nature’s laws, they arrogantly claim supremacy over those larger forces. They elevate humans to a position above all other creatures, and the planet itself. The result is universal chaos, all the evidence shows. Except in nature untouched by humankind.
We call chaos in nature by that name only when we do not yet see the order. Order is nature’s realm. Nature shows us integration and harmony. Disruption is humankind’s activity. Interference and restructuring drive us. Religions encourage humans to disrupt. They ought to be teaching submission and co-operation. They ought to be preaching harmony and acceptance of forces greater by far than our will. Nature’s order and truths are clear. They ought to inspire in us humility and ambition.
Humility that recognizes our smallness, and ambition to be worthy of our place in the grand order. And the simple wisdom that self-serving religions only drive us away from our purpose, which is to honor and follow nature, which is all-serving, all-nurturing, all-accepting and all-powerful.
Choose religion and you choose discord and pride. Choose nature, and you chose harmony and humility. And peace.
Zoos Art
Chicago
I have been troubled by zoos and art for art’s sake. I just found out what my trouble has been. They are not fair. They are not legitimate. I can explain. I want clean food. I want exercise that makes sense. I want to read only good writing. I wish to be healthy. I have felt that society, all societies, are not fair. They ought to promote health and a sense of well-being, but they promote disease and discomfort. There are artificial—no, worse—synthetic and counterproductive, machines, entertainments, foods, and habits. My society does not think clearly. My society provides and promotes activities of frighteningly destructive force.
Animals are beings equal to humans. Animals are tortured in zoos. They deserve to be natural; to live in their assigned places. They ought not to be trapped, confined, and limited by us. Our excuse for treating them badly is that we wish to see them and get to know them better. This is not fair. It is not valid. It is hypocrisy, because the way to see them and know them is to observe them in their proper habitats. The way to preserve them is to give them their environment and protect them against capture and murder. The way to appreciate them is to release them from all zoos. And the way to make art is not to make it at all.
Art ought to be art for the sake of living. Folk art is art for life’s sake. Some art is made for Heaven’s sake. It is a dedication to deities. That is art for living, too. Beautiful utensils, tools, and toys are made for the sake of utility; and they may be artful. Primitive art is called that because the maker did not mean to make art. He did not study the art of “art.” The maker merely made a chair with charms and usefulness, too. The shakers put their hands to “work.” They made graceful, strong, efficient buildings, furniture, tools, and conveyances. When any of these are displayed, it pleases the eye, the spirit, and the mind. This is the pleasure that art gives. A painting painted to express a feeling, a memory, or just an urge can turn out to be art. It is not meant to be hung or displayed, though it may be.
Quite a large number of languages have no word for art. A thing is just itself, for its use, though it may be so beautiful, odd, or surprising that we call it “art.” Of course this is not a new thought. Duchamps tried to blow away the idea that only certain special things are art by proposing that as ordinary a thing as a urinal or a bicycle wheel is artful, too. He’s right.
Some people, especially in our time, have come to regard certain beautiful things as belonging in museums. They use the term “of museum quality” for photographs printed on acid free paper or for furniture that is old but free of damage. Museum quality? My, my, has art come down to this: to be for the sake of display in a museum? Ironically, though I deplore warfare for any reason, I’d have to say that I regard weapons that are finely wrought and beautiful as art. They are not intended as art in our modern sense, but as tools of destruction; yet they can be artful. To me, they are more legitimately art for their own sake than almost all other art which has been made for its own, “art’s sake.”
Both zoos and art museums separate life—animal life, life work, human enterprise—from the world. A museum is in the world, but visited by a small portion of its population. A zoo is seen by relatively few citizens in any country. The art is being preserved, we are to believe, as are the animals. The animals are being tortured. The art is too isolated to be of much pleasure to many people. But I suppose that conceptual art means to give itself meaning beyond its mere appearance. It conveys ideas. The artists who make it wish to have their art be meaningful in our lives, in society. They understand that art merely for its own sake is not enough for them, at least. And some of them tell us that they never mean to say that their art is more artful than unintentional art; it’s just theirs. No zoo, however, or aquarium, or “Sea World” will admit that it is illegitimate. Their controllers defend unkind practices. They defend their artificiality. They claim that they are naturalists, in the most unnatural settings imagi
My cat likes citrus
My cat likes citrus, my niece says
Try yours, start with a nectarine or an orange
Your dog likes almonds, I know
And popcorn gets her going
These delights are tasty incongruities
That prove the rule of taste
For animals and people
The gusto’s in the giving
The juicy, jazzy pleasure of
Conveying these soft, these crunchy morsels
Of love, given by the hand
Each one a salivating spot
Like a touch upon the heart
Along the tongue
Between creatures in thrill
My cats like citrus, my niece says
January
I think of January as a place I get to each year, and I turn
A corner there
Into the next place, which is in a different time, and I feel
I’m moving along
Afraid to be there, sometimes, but wanting to get on with it
With relief
That the land of time behind me can be left alone, walked
Taken care of
And that I don’t have to go back, I’m done, I’ve finished
That part
I’ve had the grade, the rating of the road, I wonder what’s
Up the way
It’s as if my assignment is to travel and I have to finish
The route
But I don’t really understand the purpose, just that I press on
In the changing light
The blocks all looked the same once, now they flash away
Health
November 2, 1993
Chicago
Justice and truth are fled. Let the games begin.
Very heavy people are teaching people how to cook. The human heart comes in only one size, basically. It is designed to sustain the life of a medium to large size creature. It is never big enough to pump blood to a huge person; not efficiently, and not for long. Nature’s notion is to suit the pump to the job. Human beings ignore the rules. No other creature would—not on a large scale, at least.
Many people complain that they are overweight, that they can’t move around as freely as they would like, that they want to look better, meaning slimmer; that they have high blood pressure; that they are developing heart disease. The truth is that many people can improve. They can do it by themselves. The truth is they don’t want to improve; they want to be improved by someone. They ask doctors to give them something. They watch television broadcasts that show them how to prepare “low fat” foods, which are not low fat at all. The foods are not so different from the foods they have been eating all along, that any serious change need be made, or any sacrifice. Think about this. The complainer has a problem, for which the complainer could use a solution. The complainer looks for the solution, but settles for a solution disguised as different from the old bad habit which brought about the need for a solution in the first place—but which is not significantly different at all--it’s commonly, these days, a slight, that is, negligible improvement over the bad practice. The idea that the complainer has at least addressed the problem. The complainer is consoled that the problem has been faced and an effort has been made. When the new practice turns out to be useless, as it will inevitably be, the complainer reverts to the still most popular recourse: to a doctor, pharmacist, or surgeon who will prescribe a drug or mechanical procedure to fix the problem.
Complainers regard the changing of their eating habits as a drastic and difficult solution. They regard the hacking open of their chests and the cutting, scraping, sewing, re-routing, expanding, squeezing bloody acts of the trendy BYPASS OPERATION, as a conservative alternative.
It’s also unnecessarily expensive. Once the complainer has gone this far, the complainer is free. Having gone to this awful (and it leaves one truly in awe) extreme, having suffered this near death-dealing assault on the fragile human body (and the body is stricken almost beyond recall in most, if not all cases); the patient knows that the ultimate act has been performed, the ultimate step has been taken. The supreme sacrifice of fear, physical abuse, and severely high expense has been made. . . What more could a person do? Free at last, oh my, I’m free at last.
Wrong. Heart bypass operations are expensive temporary fixes. They amount to ineffective exaggerated first aid. They come down to a blind dedication to superficial mechanization that is designed to relieve a person from the responsibility or maintain and protecting one’s own life. That is a bad idea. Worse than that is incontrovertible truth that the surgery by itself will not solve the problem. What is required after the operation is the changing of eating habits that would have (might well have in many cases) removed the problem in the first place; making the surgery unnecessary. But now, the view is that the plumbing has been repaired, so we can let the games begin again. It was a close call, but all’s well again. Life has been cruel, but there is new hope, thanks to technology. The old eating practices may have been harmful, but the victim is reborn and ready to jump back into the coliseum and grapple with irresistible, provocative death food. Gladiators, as a rule, did not fare well in the arena. Human beings, who insist on grappling instead of foreswearing, fare no better today.
The surgeon has eliminated the need. I’m not sure who would rank as more negligent—the doctor who fails to send away the patient with proper instructions regarding the new diet that must be put into practice, or the patient who refuses to learn that it is necessary. Who is more negligent—the cook who truly does not know what constitutes low fat, low salt, and low sugar cuisine, but presents fraudulent versions as healthful to millions of viewers and readers, or the public who accept the fraud?
Truth is fled. But justly, the price will be paid. Self-deception is a dangerous and expensive game.
Rides
Chicago
Am I the only one frightened by this tendency? Life is a Disney ride. Every activity is a fantasy. Each one requires a ticket. Most rides are “D” or “E” riders. Those are the tickets you come back with. You use up the good tickets, those for the really interesting rides. You come back with the tickets to the stupid attractions, the childish ones, the dull oversimple gimmicks, like the Alice’s teacup ride. But that used to be only at Disneyland. Disney World came along, and it’s the same. Only worse. More blatant. Epcot center purport to be cultural, educational, an attempt to bring nations together by revealing meaningful aspects of their lives and people. They turn out to be sophomorically superficial “rides” just like the ones dreamed up forty years ago for California. And in Florida, at least in Orlando, the hotels have become rides. On your doorknob in the morning hangs a breakfast menu in the shape of Mickey Mouse, with the cheery announcement sprawled across the top, “Ears Your Breakfast!” Good grief, Charlie Brown! Are we so far gone over the edge of reality?
Into what? VIRTUAL REALITY. Video games. WE accepted them a long time ago. Are we now going to eliminate all reality, before we learned to cope with it? I’m afraid so. If you can’t join it and live it, abandon it. Fast. Before it sets in. Reality is now fantasy. Only fantasy.
Malls are rides. Las Vegas keeps building hotels that are merely rides; huge, expensive rides. Within each ride are special rides; for the children, for teenagers, for women and just for men. Clothing stores and restaurants are rides. They don’t just sell good merchandize. That’s not enough. They must attract customers; entice them with gadgets and tricks, colors, lights, music, streamers, and games. Rides. Baroque “E” ticket rides. Bad rides. Bad idea.
Films now take us on rides. Boat rides, plane rides, auto rides; extravagant, outlandish, absurd, exaggerated sped-up electronic rides, “special effect” rides. These are not special at all, of course. Special means exclusive, extraordinary, meaning rare. Now, they’re common. Ordinary, not special.
And all the rides are designed to create a general effect. This is a general effect of being enveloped—drowned but still breathing—surrounded by light, sound and color of your senses overwhelmed. The idea is to cloak or numb the senses, not to play on their subtle reactions to stimuli. The effect is large, gross. It is not refined. Refined response requires being present and aware. The effort here is to leave the present and lose ordinary awareness, because it is regarded as dull. Pity.
Television shows take you on rides. Rescue shows take you along on the rescue. Cop shows take you along on the bust of the lone perpetrator or the raid on the crack house. Home videos—those embarrassingly amateur, shaky, blurry throwaways turned into lucrative professional entertainment (How deep we’ve sunk!)—take us on trips through apartments, houses, and across backyards. Homey romps that merit not even an “E” ticket. Behind the scenes shows take you on trips to movie and television sets. Shows about the rich and famous take you on trips to the Riveria, and through conspicuously over-decorated homes and yachts.
Carnivals used to be rides and shows. Freak shows were popular. Exotic shows were, too. Now we have them on television. Panels are not considered interesting enough if they contain only articulate people. They must consist of people with bizarre problems, strange habits, or peculiar complaints. Many are merely psychotic rides, harrowing emotional roller coasters, or staged battles among angry, frightened, confused family members, friends, lovers, or neighbors. Freak shows. Not that the people who participate are freaks, just that they place themselves in this naked more than merely public forum, and are transformed by the medium and the gawkers into writhing exhibitionists. Are we all freaks, to want this, to participate with relish? This frightens me.
I am afraid of what we have become. I am afraid of what we have stopped trying to be. I fear that we have left reality, and are settling for Never Never Land; where peace of mind can never be found. If peace of mind is not what we’re after, then exile to infantile fantasy may be our only solace. Scary. If everything is a trick—a façade, a forced semi-reality, a disguise—what is the Truth that these simulate, cover, or alter? Where is it? I, for one, can still set it, because I find the pretense boring. But once the “fix” is on. Once the drug has taken hold and the addict can see nothing else. Feel nothing but the relief that comes from satisfying the craving—which has been induced usually by the addict himself—the addict wants nothing else. No reality exists. Even if there is a glimpse of it, the addict sees it only through blurred Virtual Real Eyes, shakes off the uncomfortable mirage, and takes one more ride.
What we could use is a walk in the park, planting a tree, reading good books, writing a bit every day, or most days, or just occasionally (How do I know what I mean until I see what I say?) conversing: actually discussing of today and yesterday and seriously considering tomorrow.
Varieties
October 16, 1993
Daniel J. Travanti
I am amused by another of the “lies we agree to live by.” Some people—many—speak of the variety being offered in the marketplace. They say that we are “faced with so many choices” that consumers are confused, but grateful for “diversity” that helps them avoid being bored with “the same old things” day in and day out.
These peculiarly blind observers mention food. They speak of the variety of burgers, cereals, salads, meats, and fish. The talk about the dozens of car models, choices in underwear styles, and colors.
I see that food comes in four categories only: saturated with fat or all fat, drenched in salt, sugared (true, the variety of sweeteners is impressive. There are sometimes three or four listed in the ingredients of many foods before the food itself—which you thought you were buying—is mentioned at all) or laced with chemicals. This list doesn’t seem varied to me. Sorry, there is actually a fifth category. Though it’s small, it can be found if one searches patiently. It’s food that is nutritious and untainted, un-fattened, unsalted, and un-sugared.
As for motor vehicles, there is still only the infernal internal combustion engine. You can’t buy a car that does not have in it a cigarette lighter and an ashtray. How much more determinedly regressive and unvaried can a detail be! The variety in automobiles is nothing but superficial detail. The vehicles are all the same, save for insignificant and mostly redundant novelties. To prove it, I say that almost no one can distinguish one car from another anymore. We used to have true variety. A ford was not a Buick, a pickup was not a van, and no one would ever have mistaken a Mercedes for a Lincoln Continental.
Hamburgers are, of course, all alike. With each new season, the “accomplishments” vary: lettuce, then none, tomato, salsa or not, mustard with onions, without, topped with mayonnaise or cheese, chicken this or chicken that. And the names serve in place of actual diversity, as the distinguishing and individual factors. We have Fat burgers, Chicken burgers, Chacha burgers, Thinwiches, Halfpounders, Doubledeckers, Surf and Turf, etc. The game is cute. It’s also insidious. The message is “Here are your many choices,” but the truth is “Hey, fools, we have only what we have: fat, salt, sugar, and chemicals; if you demand variety, we’ll go along, as long as you don’t probe too deeply and don’t ask too many questions once we’ve presented our packages.” Okay. But not with me.
Books are being published in greater numbers than ever before. Not because more good information is available and longs to be revealed; only because people will read anything. The choices are limited. The numbers are vast. We find Romance Novels, Self Help, How To, Lists, Picture Books, Historical Novels, Novels, Children’s Books. Not much to pick from. Most of it is not good writing.
Few restaurants offer true whole foods. Few bookstores offer fine literature. Clothes all over the world look the same. Sneakers, jeans, tee shirts, trench coats, baseball caps, polo shirts, heavy hiking boots, and moccasins are the only outerwear allowed in every country. People all over the world don’t want variety. They want many choices of the same few things, and packaging.
Yes; keep changing the bags, closures, and boxes. Fool me into thinking I don’t buy the same things over and over again. I don’t mind. Variety is not the spice of life. Variety is a substitute for many lives. When a person is satisfied and happy, variety is not a question. Diversity is not good if it is mediocre or bad. Only various good experiences can satisfy. Good food and enduring beauty are always satisfying. Good things are always good. Good work is gratifying. If one is engaged in bad work, one will be anxious. Anxiety leads to a search for variety, instead of a useful change. The change that could make a difference would be to do work that is good. Superficial, irrelevant variety will not take its place. It can’t.
Spice is the spice of life. Most people, I’d bet, certainly most people I’ve met, don’t use a variety of spices. They use salt and pepper, one clove of garlic, and a “pinch” of this or that: oregano or basil. The spice of life is life. Life is naturally varied. Human beings are constitutionally limited. They get into ruts, furnish them, and settle down. Down. When they want to be picked up, they take up some new dull habit, craze, fad, “hot” thing.
New cuisines make people think they’re getting something new. New sneakers with lights in the heels make people think they’re getting new footwear. New tie widths make them think they’re hip and new again. Each season a “new” color is introduced, a new fragrance, the new sport—every jerky activity that includes a ball, wad, or paddle and an opponent is automatically a sport, these days—the new video game (which is the same lights, sparks, and beeps show that you find in Planet Hollywood, The Hard Rock Café, and all other counterparts), the latest drink (which is exactly the same as all the old drinks that are harmful and sweet, not good and certainly not new), and a new magazine, newspaper, television channel, cable access, or shopping center and “theme park” are unveiled. Under the veil are the same razzle-dazzle versions of stupid pet tricks, only they’re stupid people tricks.
Distraction is the name of the game. Escapism used to be a reasonable pastime, but only if sought on an occasional basis, not as a way of life. If people spent as much time and passion on experiencing their real lives—fully tasting, feeling good human pleasures of the mind and senses, of family and friends and loving and arguing and really seeing and noting and learning—they would find themselves in a varied life. Variety would be the norm, because experience would be deep and satisfying. The body will crave real food if all it’s had for the day is white sugar. It will want real nourishment. But if it receives nutrition, it will not crave empty calories. The spirit works pretty much the same way, I’m sure.
Chicago Day
Come to the pump room.
Is this a command performance? I asked Mariann. She just faxed me the directions.
This morning I felt rested. I must buy white tape to shut out the light coming in over the edges of my blackout shade. I made some phone calls. The crew arrived from Kenosha.
I lectured them on communication. None of them wrote the stiff, imprecise logos of the attempted cable promotional. It had been an afterthought, and I turned it into a forgotten thought. But we tampered a bit with the intended message to teenagers and made it plausible, I think.
We had a lively conversation, though I dominated. Bigmouth. The bells just rang; musical, cozy. This north light is soothing. It’s better for the plants, but better for me to be facing the North Pole. I don’t know, really, the direction makes such a large difference. I had no idea. How does one turn? Everyone has a tendency—in one direction or another—on a regular basis. The door you reach, on your right or on your left. You tilt a certain way. Reach for a particular pocket to hold keys; once grasped, left hand, right hand, turn lock to right or left. I haven’t this much about handedness or directional inclination, but it’s a strong force. BELLS again. Sweet, melodious, humming, sort of.
Spoke to Arney. Will rendezvous for brunch Saturday, 12:30. Fan mail: set out 24 photos, six to one address. I’m keeping a list, geographical and general. I won’t keep it up. Bob Swan on the phone, where are you? I’m in 2202. I’m here. Come on up.
We talked about his preacher family. Three preachers. One is tolerable, with a Gone With The Wind name. Bob said that wrestling is tangled up violence and sex. His uncle was tongue-tied, livid. The notion damned his innocent pastime. Don’t bring around the sunlight to shine on my parade.
Is the convocation as a ruse; to get us together for the happy announcement that we’re here to stay another day or so?
Wheeling my bike, I found Paty, Suzanne, and Bob twittering on the curb. Wished I had a camera. Talk of gurus, spirituality, fake, misguided, and actual. Convocations be damned. The herders are confused, no doubt in my mind. As long as I am not, that’s O.K. with me. To Marshall Fields and Company.
I looked at the unbleached blankets and sheets from France. The luscious blanket was $350, down to $225 several weeks ago, and today at $180. I was right. We’ll wait. But I bought at Filene’s Basement: underwear, gray; two silk suede shirts. . . still no black in the right size, a truly EXTRA large. The Chinese see smaller—everything—including human beings. They don’t bother to measure or know that they are making the garments for the west. And no one tells them. HMMM? Three bananas were $1. I ate all three, though I didn’t mean to. . . at first. Bought winter laced snow-rain boots. Vote of confidence? Socks. The sock fetish holds on to me. I’m dressed now for DON QUICHOTTE. Let’s see if it’s comparable to all the other versions I’ve seen.
It was pleasant. The scenery is pretty and evocative. The singing was good.
The meeting was satisfying. The bosses wanted to keep us friendly; asked for our complaints, laughed with us, commiserated. We lodged a loud protest against the firing of Carolyn.
Education
I know a seventeen year old who is heady with excitement of reading philosophy and writing papers at a college in an ideal setting. She believes that she can make bad things better. She believes in learning. She feels the beauty of it. She is feeling the soothing pleasure that stimulating her mind conveys to her whole being. The drug. The security of the orderly courses taught by organized teachers. The feeling that the chaos can be controlled, if only it can be studied, outlined, and summed up in a few words—analyzed—and thereby, captured. It’s a roll in the academic hay. Make hay while this sun shines.
I know a ninety-two year old who had that satisfaction seventy-five years ago, not far from the same setting. She recalls that the Smith girls were “sensible.” Now she feels she is no longer of any use. She feels “obsolete.”
The girl was once annoyed by what she calls “dead white males” whose philosophies and lessons she would be forced to learn at certain universities. She is studying those annoying men. The drug. Mrs. T. taught many young women. Men, too. She taught some to be teachers. After she stopped doing that at her university, she taught the wives of graduate students, who were stuck at home with children, some of them, and not much intellectual stimulation. She taught them at her house. Her house is filled with cobwebs now, except every fourth Monday, when a crew of four come to clean. Funny, spider’s webs are woven of silk. Such an elegant material. Natural. Luxurious, when we spin it into cloth. Of course we use the silk trailed out by worms, not the gossamer webs. They are not so attractive. Dust collects on them in houses. The dust and the webs grow mold, and the mold gives out an acid odor.
The wives are gone. The husbands have graduated. The bus service to Mrs. T.’s house has been cut back. It would be difficult for them to get there anyway. The teachers at her nearby university are teaching ecstatic students, some of them. The same lessons, most of them, that she taught, written by the same dead white males, and some still living, and even some written by females. Not much new is being taught. We haven’t learned the old stuff very well yet; it would be foolhardy to learn too much new. It’s hard to tell what will be thought worthy of keeping and following years from now. So it’s a better bet to keep on learning the old wisdoms, literature, philosophies. Histories are useful. They don’t change much, except in interpretation. But they repeat, don’t they? So all you need to learn are a few patterns, and you’ll soon see that humankind is not very imaginative; it just repeats, in different languages.
Mrs. T. is happy that the president is trying to reduce the costs of medical care and to provide insurance for all. The teenager is glad, too. Both support efforts to save the planet. Both want to see all the hungry fed and homeless house. I wonder where the young lady will be when she is ninety-two. Was our world very different in 1918 from this world? Did the learning help us avoid bad things? The teenager doesn’t care. It’s her turn, however it turns out. “I want to try,” she says. “We’ll see,” she says. Sensible.
Nuclear Energy
September 28, 1993
Chicago
Daniel J. Travanti
The infernal internal combustion engine is one of the worst ideas man ever had. Nuclear energy—energy, not just the nuclear bomb or missile—is the more frightening and more destructive.
Prometheus stole fire from the gods and never got over it. He was chained forever—in pain—from an eagle clawing at his heart. He lived. This didn’t kill him, it only hurt him forever. In the 1940’s, we stole fire from the gods again, for real. The parable had done no good. The warning wasn’t good enough, because the pain we are feeling is subtle—not to me, but to too many, obviously—and it will come like the poison it is; seeping over time, centuries, into the earth, water, air, everywhere. The poison is going to hurt us forever.
During the 40’s, films were made. They were awkward, homey, reassuring, messages from “experts” who told us that we had nothing to fear from nuclear radiation. No one could be an expert on the subject. It was too early. Almost nothing was known about radiation. Today, little is known, but still, the experts declare that all is safe. We’ve had Three Mile Island and other examples to the contrary, but still the experts tell us it’s safe. For years now, they have been telling us that “low grade” nuclear waste is safe, because it’s not as powerful. It’s low. That’s the reassurance. No one bothered to ask what the term means. No one understood nuclear energy in the first place. We felt we understood the bomb. That was simple. It was big, it created a huge mushroom, it sent a brilliant light. It had to be dropped on the stubborn enemy, to save lives. It had to be dropped again, just to be sure. It worked. Nuclear bombs were dangerous. But the waste? No one talked about it, yet.
Then when they begin to talk about it, they said it could be contained. Some of the same people, the experts from those first films and new “experts” reassured us again, a little more professionally. They knew more, they said now. Finally people saw the figures. Low grade means that the waste will deteriorate in only about 500 years. That’s all. Nothing to worry about. And it can be contained, in concrete tombs, buried deep in the earth. People who grow tobacco say that smoking tobacco is not harmful to our health. There is no real proof. People who grow nuclear plants say that nuclear energy is not harmful, and nuclear waste won’t hurt you. There isn’t enough proof. Lies we agree to live by. Lies we shall die by.
The parable is not just a warning that might perhaps dissuade some, a lesson, an aid. The parable is a prophecy also. Its prediction is coming true. Not just that humankind will steal fire despite his inability to control its force, but that humans will not care, won’t believe it. Or, if they do, will defy the destruction anyway, willing to pay in pain. But if the pain does not come now—immediately—there is no pain. The future doesn’t hurt, especially if you’re not in it. And if it hurts others, that is only a myth to us now. Profit is now. And profit can be made from nuclear plants. The price is too high. The price cannot be paid. Usury is not a strong enough word to describe the exorbitant cost. Irresponsibility is strong enough to describe what we are guilty of. Insensitivity, too, that’s strong enough. But there is no word strong enough to describe the insanity and ugliness of not facing the truth. Our egos are paradoxical. They are small, bloated, powerless blobs puffed up into gigantic, sickly, overbearing, relentless monsters.
We harness nothing. Not if the force ultimately releases us and lives to kill us all. It’s only a matter of time. There are better ways now, but America seems to have a penny-ante, gimme-some-now-and-we’ll-worry-about-the-rest-later, don’t get in my way, you can’t stop me from makin’ an honest buck-kinda mind.
Unchain me. I didn’t ask for this.
Actors
September 27, 1993
Chicago
Daniel J. Travanti
Actors act. They react. Act, the first three letters of action. We take action. But why? What’s it all about, Alfie? Heaven knows, Mr. Allison. Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn. I do.
In this absurd world—no, in the absurd world of human beings, because the planet is sensible, sensitive, determined, balanced, and eternal, I insist on hoping—the only way I can make a living with a full heart, no regrets, and sometimes even complete satisfaction, is to be an entertainer. I am a creature of delights; a clown, a poet, a buffoon, a villain, a hero, a lover, a dreamer, a pragmatist, a revolutionary, a victim. But when I act, I am all things to all people, depending on the limitations of the play. I operate on three principles: order, symmetry, and control. I will act, play, portray anyone. As long as the world—the little round world I live in as the character—is orderly, symmetrical, and whole. Someone writes it. Real places, real furniture, real trees, cups, and people—but not all substantial, only shadow words—all on an impossibly small space, a page, pages. Pages bearing a gigantic world that can be contained in my mind, in yours.
A person is written. I breathe him. Of course I have nothing to give him, nothing with which to inhabit him, but me. I am he. I believe that so strongly that it is true. All good actors simply believe. As a child believes. It just is so, whatever’s happening. It will be for the audience, too. Because everyone is always a child still, no matter whether she thinks so or doesn’t even realize it. But why in Heaven’s name do I want this? Why does the viewer?
Life is haphazard. At worst, it’s chaotic and painful. At best, it’s unpredictable and pleasant. It is never in my control. It’s never in yours, no matter how much you believe it is. Life—natural life—is poetic. It is always harmonious and satisfyingly clear, pantingly alive and complete. Nature is perfect. Human beings are messy, confused, and scared. But not completely stupid. Human beings long for nature’s order. So they write poetry. They paint pictures. They write novels, essays, histories, life stories, signs, slogans, and laws. They build houses, monuments, workrooms, and even little dwellings for smaller creatures. They map out roads, mountains, boundaries, and borders. They write plays that will include all of the above, full complex characters, human beings, little models to inhabit the miniature worlds of the plays.
Human beings admire weather. We admire it so that we humanize it, as if that were the supreme compliment. We have a word for that—anthropomorphism. We anthropomorphize the storm: it’s vicious. The earthquake is destructive. The wind is unrelenting. The waves are treacherous. The tide is irresistible. The sky is cheerful, the clouds are gloomy, the weather threatening, the hurricane nasty, the cyclone whirling insanely out of control. The breeze is cheery; it’s swirling gaily, it’s soft, caressing, romantic. Human beings admire animals even more. The love birds are romantic. Dogs are faithful, bees are busy, ants are industrious, owls look wise, at least, if they aren’t truly. Foxes are wise, many smaller creatures and even whales are affectionate, dolphins are intelligent (like us, hyuck, hyuck, lucky stiffs), but snakes are treacherous (like some storms and winds are snowstorms, right?) and tigers, lions, wildebeests, and hawks are vicious. Poor, dumb human beings. So naïve, so silly, so childish. No, that’s not fair to children, meaning all of us once upon a time, and some of us still and still fewer of us, namely all actors at least, for all time. We want to belong, we are so discombobulated, so fractured, confused, fearful, and disorderly. So we imitate the storms, all weather, all animals, plants, and even the “restless sands” and shifting, waving seas of grass, wheat, and fields of flowers. The reason we attribute to them our emotions and thoughts, even, is that we need them, crave them, need to claim them in order to feel that we belong to the universe. That’s O.K. But we are confused. The actors—with the blessing of the writers—dispel confusion and bring kinship, harmony, integration, order, symmetry, and control. Out of kilter, out of nature, we want in. So first, we name the orderly forces and creatures after us, as if that will make them family and make us welcome. All of us One. But the wisest of us know that this just ain’t so.
So the writers and actors—all the entertainers—reassemble all the forces. They make plays, skits, ballets, symphonies and play the music, storms and stalkings, mating calls and dances, flights and gallops and swoops, heat and chills, rages and caresses, loves and loyalties, hatreds and compassions, confusions and certainties, in orderly constructions. We actors reintegrate, repeatedly. The reintegration never gets done once and for all, remember. We must reconstitute over and over. We must reorder on a regular basis. People who don’t, go on feeling confused and out of sorts. Out of nature. Lost. Actors find lost people and herd them back, yes, like lost sheep. And maybe actors are the most lost sheep of us all. The neediest. So we do it ourselves because we are desperate for love, for harmony, and the transcendent peace of merely, once and for all, belonging and mattering. Mattering, oh great cosmic force, whatever thou may be, one with the wind, rain, tides, all other creatures, rocks, and EARTH. We take everyone, I mean everyone, along.
You want it too, so you come. Before the ultimate catharsis, though, before the great cosmic ultimate epiphany, what are the immediate understandable attractions of this work?
First, it’s playing. Play acting, I call it. At first, it’s haphazard and that’s part of the fun. At first, it’s very simple and that’s easy. We imitate people we know. We pretend to be someone else we recognize. We have two emotions: happy and sad. WE always start by making people laugh, or scaring them. We like to play villains, but everyone wants to be a hero. Wise and understanding. No one likes to make a fool of himself, except born clowns, and they emerge early. They’re almost always goofy, unstoppable kidders, relentlessly silly. Later, they find it hard to get people to take them seriously. They may be very serious spirits, and that can be exasperating. Everyone likes to play dress-up. Disguises are everybody’s favorite.
The first disguise is a hat or mask. The rest follows. Makeup is a little harder to come by, but lipstick, rouge, and powder are easy. Making faces is better. Real acting will turn out to be an internal change. Faces adjust, flicker, and challenge, please and surprise alternately, scare and attract, according to the emotions that are painting them.
We think we’re being people, but we’re really being emotions. We use words right away, but the ideas come later. WE need only simple plots and simpler stories. Characters are two dimensional at best. Later, all the writing will be more complex. We are heading for the THEATER. Serious constructions. Serious business.
It’s a serious business because it incorporates all the arts. In opera, the plot matters but not so much the words: except as simplistic conveyors of the story and the basic emotions. There is little subtlety of emotion in opera; little shading of motives or actions. The emphasis is on the music—even more on the voice. The sets are important, but they needn’t be as carefully realized as the settings of complex dramas. The actor moves, in a dramatic dance. The actor speaks in poetic prose sometimes, in prose and in poetry, whatever form will best convey the meaning of the play. Lights illuminate the play and paint the locales to harmonize with the theme; the tone of the tale. Furniture is carefully chosen, costumes too. Every prop is selected to enrich the meaning. The actor even sings, a little or a great deal, if the drama warrants it. This is the most human, most nearly universal of the arts. Drama—meaning comedy too, of course—means to be everything in the way of recreated life, but not just human life. It intends to restructure existence as humans see it. Each drama is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying everything. Maybe because we know that it is howling in the wilderness, whistling in the dark, pissing in the wind. It’s a consolation.
A consolation prize? That means something given in lieu of the thing actually wanted. A substitute. I mean, it consoles. It is the very thing wanted, needed. We need to keep understanding. We need to be reminded. We need to keep reaffirming our existence and the meaning of it all. It never comes clear once and for all. So we repeat. To make sense, to make order, to reharmonize, in imitation of nature. We regroup repeatedly, in theater. We reassert ourselves. We distract ourselves with laughs and purge ourselves in tears and anger. We feel less lonely to see others like ourselves. We are enthralled to see others different from us in other, new circumstances. We are transported to other times. We are shown our own times intensified. Sometimes we are shown ourselves as is, and are disturbed by it. But it can be a comfort. And there can be something about a particular actor that soothes. The actor is a combination of qualities that please. The actor emits a personality, an aura, a feeling, feelings, sounds, expressions, tones, a presence: effects that give the viewer comfort. The actor then is all the best that people want and feel, the fullest representation of humankind. Combined and harmonious, not fragmented, confusing, disjointed, vague. To see an actor who appears to be whole is a consolation. It consoles one. And yes, the actor is the substitute for you, perhaps. The actor does is for you, makes sense of it all. That’s entertaining. The actor is essential. The playwright is not. But the actor without the play is not much. The actor is the voice. The playwright provides the song. In order to have a hit record, the actor must have a good song to sing, in a good arrangement.
For the actor, the singing is therapeutic. When an actor is correct, he is exactly and only in this moment. He achieves the ancient goal, being here and now. Undistracted by sounds or other sights, riveted on the truth of his fantasy. It’s peace. It’s clear order. It’s perfect bliss. This rejuvenates and energizes. It keeps actors enthusiastic. It’s this childlike enthusiasm that keeps actors youthful. We think they are prettier and handsomer than they actually are, because they seem joyful. This is one characteristic that is so attractive in them. It’s one reason, I know now, that I felt actors were immortal. They were just too lively to die. They couldn’t. They were too wonderful to end. We end. Sometimes, with a whimper. While we live, we may whimper a great deal more than we like.
Of course, an actor you like is immortal. Like any loved one. But because the actor has touched so many, the actor seems more powerful. The actor endures as a representative of all of us. People make the actor important. The actor agrees to the bargain. The actor needs the bargain. But the actor pays for the privilege. It has always been a curious aspect of the deal, that the public seems to have mixed feelings about the actor. The actor is admired, and even worshipped. The actor is envied, and hated even, by some. The public is ambivalent. We want the actor to shine for us. We want to know the pain the actor is suffering, we long to see the dark side, we rush to read the dirt. We are almost relieved to find out that the life we imagine and envy is ugly, filled with problems. The actor can be our sacrificial lamb, no, human, an Inca dedication to the salacious gods. The actor pays our price for us for seeking immortality, thrilling to immortal longings.
The actor’s price is high. The actor may be the greatest escape artist, who helps us escape. A dual felony. But actually, it’s honest and useful. Some actors know very well that they can’t stand being themselves. One famous actor, a legend, thanked the public and the American Film Institute for allowing him to be other people so successfully, because he had always found it unbearable to be only himself. He couldn’t wait to get to the theater for three years straight to play a hero he admired. The actor’s price for escaping is sometimes failed marriage, failed parenthood, failed friendships. The actor pays the price of humiliation, rejection, doubt, fear, and confusion of playing the waiting game. Patience is trying and promises nothing. Rejection is sometimes the cruelest sort. It’s indifferent, not merely cruel. It shuns. The worst punishment in some religions is shunning. No one knows you. No one even sees you. Phone calls are not answered. Even if you are in the same room with producers or directors and fellow actors—they don’t hear you, if you are out. If you are “in,” you may be praised. You may be respected. But not even respect in an actor’s world is impenetrable, and it’s certainly not immortal.
Our profession throws away talent. To begin with, it’s simply not very good at detecting talent in the first place. Maybe that’s because it isn’t looking for talent, only appeal. Only the appeal of beauty, sexiness, eccentricity, oddness of a milder order, cuteness, “presence.” Sometimes talent is actually recognized and given roles to act that are worthy of it. Often, there isn’t material good enough to match the talent, or too little of it to go around. The actor is seldom a gifted playwright, too. The actor is at the mercy of someone else. The actor does not wish to do business. But the actor is in show business. Still, no actor I know relishes the business work, the making of deals, the scheming that some say is necessary, the bookkeeping. Even when an actor succeeds and makes plenty of money, the actor does not want to be a business person—whether good at it or not. But we are forced to be; to invest, go into debt, to sign documents, make financial decisions, choose business managers, accountants, advisers. We need advice on how to choose advisers. Where do you start? Where does it all end? Sometimes in being thrown away. But we aren’t the only talents to be gotten rid of. In recent decades, our profession threw away half a dozen great film directors who had a great deal to offer, still. We—no, the commercial forces, those indifferent powers that count profit, the only good and youth, the only hope—tossed out the full talent of Frank Capra, Vincente Minnelli, Fred Zinneman, David Lean, Stanley Kramer, Joseph L. Mankiewicz, and others. Many more actresses were sent home before they’d lost all their charms. Many actors, too.
Should this risk be counted a fair bargain? Considering the prizes, the large amounts of money, the acclaim, the privilege that can be achieved. Perhaps the pitfalls are not too deep, too treacherous. Nonsense. The cosmic price for carrying the fantasy, for bringing one of the most satisfying comforts to the spirit, for this witchcraft powerful enough to attract adulation and acclaim, is usurious. The fact is, few actors make money. Few actors are ever famous. The burden of fame is backbreaking, for the few. The burden of anonymity is carried by most actors; some with resignation, some with resentment, some with relief. Yes, some actors would just as soon work in small places, are happy to be playing the game of escape, disappearing while in plain sight, and making a decent living. They have never wanted to be hounded and recognized, to be business people, to be frightened by the responsibility, to feel like moving targets of the public or the press.
Some of us simply long to play great roles—or at least good ones—in memorable plays or, better yet, in films . . . because they will live longer. We don’t act for ourselves, though we ought to learn. If we wish to have some peace of mind that in the end of all, we do it for ourselves, our own need, and to our own satisfaction. But we do it for the public. We make spectacles of ourselves. We want to be seen by everyone and to be accepted by all, or most, anyway, at the very least. If an actor is frustrated enough in these attempts, he learns to settle for just working steadily for the most part and having decent work to do from time to time.
In this increasingly absurd world, acting is the only thing I care to be doing. It saves me. It lets me go away and come back refreshed. It lets me enter myself, explore my own depths, and see what might frighten me if I could never get at it. One’s unknown demons, the paper tigers, the mysteries that threaten if only by their invisibility, remain hidden from most people. Actors have a chance to look inside. Sometimes, it’s enough to see and know that the emotions deep down there are not ugly or life threatening. Sometimes, it takes exploring them to find out they can be borne. Sometimes, finding them tells us we’re complicated, and that can be useful. People who can’t ever touch their emotions can stay frightened of them forever. Sometimes, facing things inside—that we feared might be horrible—shows us they are not. Sometimes, we experience emotions that were always there, but not erupting—not reaching a full boil—only bubbling and irritating, scaring us with the threat of explosion. Getting in there, we can meet them, have them, know them. Actors learn to make friends with inimical feelings. We use them, consciously or unconsciously. The actor’s talent is for using emotions the actor doesn’t even know are in there. Acting is intuitive. It has a force of its own. It can give more than its own inspiration. Happiness can sleep inside. Some people don’t know it’s in there. The sheer pleasure of leaping into fantasy can make an actor happy.
Passport
September 15, 1993
Daniel J. Travanti
I was confused by the “03” under expiration date on my new passport. The passport is green. The print is strong, neat, and sure of itself. The pages are official, formal, proud. It feels like a serious, demanding document. The number didn’t make sense. How could they have made a mistake; marred the perfect surface? All the way up in the elevator, then I got it. Ten years from now! It’ll be sixty-three. It will be 2003. Two thousand. The year TWO THOUSAND.
The House
September 15, 1993
I’m beginning to see when I’m in my house, I feel that I must work. It’s not a place of relaxation. I’ve joked about being a “prisoner of the house.” When I try to leave, the house breaks down. It hurts and needs me. It cries out, “He’s trying to get out, clog up, pipe, rot, step, break, anything, break so he’ll have to stay.” Here, I can read. Here I can just sit.
Forgetfulness
September 9, 1993
Daniel J. Travanti
There is this habit of forgetfulness going around. Some have just discovered that children in the kitchen with their moms can be enjoyable and edifying. To advertisers.
Take your kids along. Let them help you with “food preparation”. FOOD PREPERATION? We mean cooking, don’t we? Baking, making a casserole, salad, sandwich? Is this new? Were children not always in the kitchen; helping grandma and mommy, fooling around with big or little sister, even in Caesar’s Rome? Have not tribal mothers, village wives, single aunts, and fathers always taken along their children to hunt, garden, and forage for food? We forget. We don’t learn.
We don’t learn, that’s the problem. We learn that meat is harmful to your health. We announce that heart disease is still the number one killer: up to forty-five percept of all deaths are caused by it. We hear that salt is not salubrious. We are told by study groups that sugar is not nutritious; that it damages blood vessels and body tissues in general. We “learn” these things. But we don’t. the people who announced the facts may have learned them. We haven’t.
We don’t believe them, I supposed. We don’t get it. We won’t.
Not only are we unwilling to change, we are unwilling to see that we forget. We knew once that grandparents and grandchildren belong together. We once knew that mothers belonged in the kitchen with their children, in their bedrooms, too, and in their laps. That mothers, grandfathers, and little boys and girls enjoyed being together. We don’t remember.
So we send away grandma and grandpa, early. We feed our children sugar, meat, and salt—lots of it—and we discover that taking our children into our kitchens to help can be fun. Taking our children along. We have taken wrong roads for so long, we can only mislead. We have forgotten so much, that we can only misinform. It may not be too late.
Grammar is good. It helps. Clear speech is good. It helps to communicate. Exercise is not vain; it helps us to move, stand, sit, and think. Nutritious food is not exotic, it’s the best fuel. It’s not dull, it’s tastier than bad food and more interesting. Conserving water is not an imposition, it’s necessary to our survival; so is recycling. Composting is recommended, too, for everyone’s sake. Reading good books strengthens the mind; the spirit too. Savoring beauty can be entertaining as well as edifying. Eating flesh is dangerous to our health. Eating fiber is not.
Pantries big enough to walk into are good. Electric cars are better. Solar cars are best. Front porches are fine. Garages should be hidden. In the best of all possible worlds, they ought to be unnecessary. Shrubs are good. Trees are better. Classical music is not strange and difficult to appreciate. Rock and roll is okay. Bach, Beethoven, Verdi, Benny Goodman, and Ray Charles make it better. None is difficult to “understand.”
May we remember. May we learn, relearn, keep learning all the time. May we regard our lives as complete enterprises, requiring maintenance of mind, body, spirit, and surroundings. May we take responsibility for our own lives. May we pass it on.
Books
When I moved to Los Angeles in the 60’s, I liked the sight of a red barn on La Cienega Boulevard. It was a bookstore. They sold used books and new, old ones, first editions, and rare copies. I went in once and felt overwhelmed. I felt that way when I was a boy and went to the Simmons Library in my hometown in Wisconsin. There were so many books to read that I was frozen. Why even begin when I couldn’t possibly read them all? Where do I start? I loved the idea of books. I read the jackets. I read the quotes on the paper covers.
Books seemed friendly. Books seemed serious, but entertaining. There was nothing frivolous about books. Nothing shallow. So many activities seemed useless. People read badly written dailies, weeklies, and rags. Some books were not good, sure, but BOOKS were nourishing, substantial, reassuring, lasting, warm, protective, and beautiful. They had a way of putting things. They put thoughts in order.
When a graceful paragraph conveys a clear pattern of thought, out of a troubled mind or a happy spirit; when a description of a place is so precise that you are in it; when an emotion comes floating off the page on words buoyant, lithe, and confident as a flying carpet on a certain mission; when a turn of a phrase splashes your face like a cool spray from a waterfall on a hot day; when a conversation is witty and penetrates as deep as a stiletto knife, barely tearing the psychic flesh and leaving an eerily pleasurable wound; when the suspense pulls you around the corner of the next page steadily as the irresistible pressure of a team of tug-of-warriors; when a place you’ve seen seems more vivid dressed in descriptive words; when the book leaves an impression that it was a complete world perfectly ordered and you know that you’ll want to visit again. When you experience all this, you know the thrill of books.
I know it. I read them now. The rhythms of life and eternal complaints satisfy me. Novels are about problems. The complaining complaints poetically put, points firmly made, identified precisely, and in a clear purifying light can brighten the gloom. Knowing someone understands so well that she can put it just right, makes you less lonely. Seeing an orderly account of chaos eases the stress. We are in this together, the writer and me. You and I.
We don’t communicate very well. So we are frightened. Fear makes us angry, and anger makes us do bad things. Books make my day. Books make my nights.
On location in Africa once, I read seven, well, six, and one on the plane and partially near Lake Naivasha. Under the low sky near wildebeest, antelope, hippos, giraffes, acacia trees and birds; books between scenes in front of the camera kept me fresh. I smelled the land; saw and heard everything. My senses were bees buzzing, bats swarming, breezes swirling. Books generated an intense light in my brain. The words felt as natural as the flora and each creature. Their worlds blended with everything on the plateau where we worked. Ants and beetles, pages and words, were equally alive.
Being alive makes my day, but only if I’m not afraid. Being alive means being awake and not dead to the world. In peace. Peace of mind I presume to say is everyone’s wish—well, except odd individuals who say they thrive on turmoil, tension, living on the edge. . . but then, those contradictory conditions may be peace itself to certain mysterious minds. People who write books are obsessed with order. . . and peace of mind.
Writers face problems and deal with them. They argue and manipulate. They set up and tear down. They judge and sometimes condemn. They tell the story out of an unknowable store of thoughts and feelings. This inner grain bin is a jumble. It’s an underground mountain that shifts, runs, spills, and emits from its substantial center puffs of dust. Like a silo full of wheat. You can’t pick out a particular nugget, but the writer doesn’t need to. The writer broadcasts handfuls of words that end in arranged fields. The problems proliferate. The field yields an orderly harvest.
And just as food is light—the sun itself—words illuminate. Books have always been illuminating manuscripts. The calligraphy isn’t nearly as bright as the words. Decorate early texts were embellished, perhaps, but their words bring the light. Books are as nourishing as the sun, but only in good portion; that is, good form, full bodied, richly constituted, the whole grain, not stripped. They nourish the inside, they warm it.
It’s a matter of staying alive inside as well as out. To some people, it’s just passing time. Some people escape into books. Not a bad place to go. Some say it relaxes them. It does that to me, as exercise does. Sometimes it puts me to sleep, but not really—only by way of satisfying a craving—which brings peace and rest. History books are fiction. I know that’s not the official party line. But they’re made up, aren’t they? Who can know what anyone said or really did or exactly how? Biographies are even more decidedly fictitious. I know that sounds wrong. Autobiographies just must be a little more accurate than accounts of hundred year old events by total strangers. Even biographies by a stranger, about someone the stranger knows or talks to, must be closer to the actual truth. The actual truth; there’s the rub.
Actuality is only that. It can’t be written. It can only be experienced. But that doesn’t mean that the person experiencing is capable of telling it accurately. Even if the person starts to tell it only weeks later—usually, it’s not for years that the writer takes it up again—things have changed. The filter has strained the event over and over again. It can’t be the same thing that happened. If you ask two people to write an account, well, the variations will be downright strange because of so many discrepancies. There’s no getting at the truth, if the truth be known. So it’s all fiction.
But fiction is reality. Its own. And not only its own. It is a careful rearrangement of details from the inner life of an observer. It is a serious attempt to explain formally what happens haphazardly. This can make the written account more than just the accidental truth. It can reveal more than the actual even could.
Great Lakes
Chicago
Great Lakes
The lake is long. Lake Michigan is only the second largest but it’s an ocean. From Lakeshore Drive, it is clean and rippled, detritus, dirty wet sand. At the water’s edge, the sand is washed. On the sidewalk there was paper and plastic, jagged broken cups, and white forks are smudged, twisted, grainy, agonized. There’s glass. Glass diamonds—tiny, chunky, everywhere. I imagine the glass gang sneaking out at night just to carpet the concrete. You see it from the bike. You try to avoid it. Avoid the grains of sand, why don’t you? People wander, dropping. Their feet wear sand socks unravelling. They’re carrying dripping ice cream bars and lidded paper soda cups, sipping, licking, and tiptoeing through the glass mine field. The beach seems safer.
It's uneven, gouged, spread out like a wrinkled huge sheet, bumpy, disturbed, and restless. So are the people. Wandering. Some get wet. Many young people are yelling.
It’s quieter across the wide street on your left as you travel north. Lakeshore Drive is a boulevard of the world. Confident brick stone and glass semi-skyscrapers are the castle wall. Inside, some of the youngsters on the beach live next door to people who own the large vessels out on the waves. The sidewalk is clear and neat, the grass is combed, the streets are protected from congestion by warning signs, some doormen wait to help. Trees line most of the way. Behind the rampart is a village world. It’s startling, amusing, and welcoming. There are low gabled hundred year old miniature gothic townhouses, painted wooden carriage houses, and newer brick apartments. Some have neat little front gardens. There’s lots of gravel and rock islands separate evergreens from annual flowers. The wrought iron fences and gates are protective and cordial at the same time. I read many plaques. There are societies, institutes, and offices. They give help or knowledge. Books are visible from many dens and libraries. Drapes are pulled back from high ceilinged parlors. These people live graciously.
Here and there is a clapboard homely relic. The owner won’t sell to the developer. The occupants like things simpler and quiet. These narrower streets are clean and canopied. The trees shelter, guard, and cool their emissions, while they dilute toxic fumes. Garages are in some of the bowels of the elegant retreats. Enclaves within the castle walls; of the counts and earls? This is Chicago. It’s on a Great Lake. It’s the Midwest of the United States of America. It’s Europe, of course. It’s the Old World reconstituted, renewed only a hundred years ago here.
It's a shy place. People seem peaceful, and they help you. Store clerks don’t seem to be anxious to make a sale. Mayb they are, but they’re patient and cordial. It’s Old World charm and security with a modern twist. Proud but modest, I’d say. Is it the security of the wide Illinois plains or knowing that it’s the hub of a universe? The railroads all met here, and the airport may still be the world’s busiest. The crossroads. The world’s tallest building isn’t muscled by other giants. But it’s the leader of a gang of individualists. They’re a mixed crew of triangular, rectangular, circular, twin, skinny, single, lone thick, squat wide and thrusting, stately, demure, graceful, dynamic, solid and whimsical and silly structures. It’s an architectural forest in which you can see the trees. They’re thick-skinned and thin-sheeted, orange, charcoal, silvery, glassy black, gray, white, creamy, tan, sooty and clean.
It's a city risen literally from the ashes. In 1871, they say, a cow caused a conflagration. What I see of the Gold Coast and the Loop grew much later, more calmly after the first rush up out of the flames. The new pioneers. I’m here pioneering a project shot, assumed, recorded and orchestrated entirely in town. It’s a local craft which will tour the world.
When I Was A Boy
Chicago
When I was a boy, movies set in Warsaw, Vienna, and Berlin made me sad. I thought I couldn’t watch them. They were dark. Those places seemed very far away. I felt I might be stuck in one of them. The lights were dim. I wanted to turn up the lights, add some, cheer things up. The stories were grim.
Usually, they were about lovers and secrets. Often, they were about spying. He knew, but he wasn’t sure of her. She suspected he didn’t really love her, but only wanted to know what she knew. She’s protecting someone. No, not a lover, but a friend from the past who helped her when no one else would. But why didn’t she just explain? He would have understood. He’s a monster, you know. No, no, I can’t listen to this, that’s not the man I knew. You do love him. Only like a brother. I owe him so much. Think of it this way; even now he is giving me you, maybe the first real love of my life. She’s lying. He’s confused.
I’m confused. I never could grasp what all the fuss was about. WHY DIDN’T PEOPLE JUST TALK AND TELL THE TRUTH?!! Well, there would have been no movie. And why didn’t someone turn up the lights, for Heaven’s sake.
They wore hats. Both men and women. Hats with feathers, hats that slouched over one eye, and coats—especially in the rain. Sounds of rain, wheels in the rain, screeching around corners, and sirens. Those eerie sirens and that Ooh, AHH, Ooh, AHH, Ooh, AHH. I thought, I’m so glad our sirens aren’t that grating and scary. And ours came down brightly lit streets. But that was another thing . . . even in the daylight those cities were dark. All that dark old stone, those old buildings. Courtyards, and those inner lobbies or foyers just off those sooty streets. Someone would ring the bell, a squawky buzz was heard, the door pushed open and you were in a black hallway. Sometimes there was a glass-enclosed “lift.” It was always the lift, not the elevator. There was wrought iron and you could see the cables. Often a door person appeared, partially, from a doorway. A short old woman or a hunched middle aged man; sometimes with warts, wary, toothy, or toothless, dark. Of course, these movies were almost always in black and white, the better to film shadows and make stark effects and emphasize all that darkness.
I would swear these streets, buildings, and apartments were smelly, too; musty. Smell-o-scope would have revealed this old odor, a scent of history, oldness, dank tired Old World.
Maybe that was it. It wasn’t the New World. It wasn’t Hollywood, where even dark stories had a cleanliness, a neatness, and bright lights. Except, there were those films noir. Those angry tales of American corruption. They made me sad, too. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what the problem was. If one particular person had only confessed, everything would have been all right. Adults were always in such trouble. I empathized too much. If she was lying, I wanted to warn him. If the lawyers were trying to railroad a guy, I squirmed and throbbed. I wanted to jump into the screen and save him. I wanted to be in the alley when they jumped the guy, and hiding in the closet when the bad guys were coming to get the girl. Oh, maybe the worst was when the good guy was going back to the bad woman. She was seducing him and he was buying it. She wanted to kiss him, and I knew, I just knew, she was going to stab him. NOOOO, I wanted to scream, but I didn’t want anyone to know I was so involved.
So, what do I do? I become an actor.
I was scared. New York was big, bad, and noisy. I said it was exciting. It scared me. I entered small apartments and felt strangled. One apartment, in a new building, was on a corner and I realized too late that the builders had squeezed the hallways to make the rooms. I hurried through to get to my small rooms. They were in the back. I could see a bit of green foliage from the bedroom window, but little else. I had wanted to escape my small town, where the sky was big and grass and trees were everywhere; you could see out of every window other houses, people, streets, and clouds. So I ran to a giant city with no sky, squished corridors, tiny back rooms, and sat there itching to get out. I spent most of my time trotting around the city. The New World sirens were spooky enough.
But I was out, and I stayed out. How could I ever settle here? I couldn’t and I never did. I swam. I charged around. I would walk very fast downtown or across Central Park. One night, I did that and told my roommates (I had them for about a year, the first there) and they screamed that I was never to do that again. Do what?! Walk across the Park at midnight on a snowy night, when it was an icicled, powdery, never-ending moonscape. Never, never EVER do that again. O.K. I would flee my digs and speed generally in the direction of my agent’s office. I looked at shop windows. I seldom went in. I sweated. I arrived at the office and talked to Jane E. Brown Alderman. Janey. She was sweet and bright. She is. I’d bring lemon drops, apples. Then I’d go to an audition in the Village. Afterward, I’d phone her and say I was on my way back. I’d walk. The game was to touch no one. I chose the Garment District route because the racks of clothes scattered all over the place. Bodies flew between vans, cars, racks, and trucks—it was a demanding gamut. I ran it. I touched nothing, no person or thing at all. I sweated. I got back to the office. Janey said, ‘You didn’t walk.’ I did too. You didn’t. You took a cab. Part way. I did not, I walked the whole way from the second I hung up. . . You’d better sit down. No, I need another appointment or a job or. . . I drank every night just to stay down, to sleep. Medicine. Ha.
I did not see those foreign movies then. Not the same kind. I saw THE CRANES ARE FLYING, THE FOUR HUNDRED BLOWS (which sounded like a train engine sounding its whistle), THE APARTMENT, JULES ET JIM, LAST YEAR AT MARIENBAD (I thought it was pretentious nonsense; some people still think so, but I learned the match stick game from it: well, from “Time Magazine” sometime later, actually. No one can beat me at it—but it is a trick). I wandered around. I was lost.
When I was a boy, Sundays made me sad. It was quiet. Radios played opera music, televisions showed Bishop Sheen or someone like that. I never liked the Comics section of the paper. People went to church, and I felt irreverent. I went, but not whole-heartedly. I went to please my devout stepmother. Or, I left the house and ambled about, letting her think I was in church. I was, on my own. Lately, I’ve been thinking it would be nice to make a movie in Vienna, Munich, or Prague. Warsaw or Berlin might be fun.