Items That Won't Recycle
_ The Eclipse gum and Nature Valley wrappers always catch my eye on the store shelves. What is this smooth, shiny Mylar (or look-alike material) made of? Petroleum? We see the Styrofoam Sonic cups everywhere, if not perched on someone’s desk at the office, then flattened in the street or skittering across our lawn (there’s a Sonic two blocks over, so the trip isn’t a long one). The Udi Bread wrapper is the same as any bread wrapper. It’s made of plastic. It will get caught in your tree limbs; that’s why I always tie those things in a knot before putting them in the dumpster. Regardless, it will still take thousands of years to decompose. If ever.
Politics
_ I wrote my three congresspersons a letter each week for six weeks, and then I missed a week. I haven’t written since. My congressional rep. wrote back three times, if belatedly, but, of course, it was all the same party line stuff. Nothing new. He probably said the same thing about my letters. I’ll write my three congresspersons again—there’s certainly plenty of fodder for letters—but for now I’m taking a break. The holidays always do that to me. Time to take a break, let the old body and mind rest up.
A Dictionary Of Errors
_ The following may be a matter of choice. Maybe not. Why would a sportscaster on ESPN say a quarterback is the “most steady player” instead of saying he’s the “steadiest player”? It’s a trend I’ve noted for a long time. When I taught elementary reading years ago, we conveyed (I hope) the principle that most adjectives are “regular” and that all you have to do is add “i-e-r” for comparing two and “i-e-s-t” for representing the superlative. You only add “more” or “most” to irregular adjectives, say, like “beautiful”. You wouldn’t say “beautifuler” or “beautifulest”. Of course not; your ear tells you at a fairly young age that that construction is wrong. More and more, however, I hear more and more people treating EVERY adjective as if it were irregular. They say things like “more steady” or “more breezy” instead of “steadier” or “breezier”. Can anyone explain this phenom to me? Is it because elementary readers no longer teach the difference between regular or irregular adjectives, or is there something more sinister (sinisterer?) involved? I’d love to know.
Xmases Past
_ Below is an excerpt from the novel I just finished, tentatively called The Operatic Scale of Desire. It is the blog post of character Dan Wallis, chaplain of a busy teaching hospital in Wichita. He writes about an incident that took place when he was fourteen and philosophizes further on the meaning of a holiday that comes around as regularly as a winter cold.
Some time after reaching puberty, I intuit that there exist two Christmases. One holiday seems to begin ardently after Thanksgiving: arias you hear on the Texaco-Metropolitan Opera radio affiliate, songs you chant in the school program, songs of sentimental cheer crooned by your favorite stars on TV and the movies (‘Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas’ makes me smile and cry). Some time between the church pageant and Christmas Eve, the season’s feverish pitch falls to a hush: by now you have exchanged gifts at school, at church; you have presented offerings to your teachers, your neighbors; in the mail you long ago placed little packages that travel to Pop’s family on the coast. You are witness to the shared anxiety in everyone’s faces, from the postman to the woman who sells tickets at the Orpheum.
If you can’t find your money, Son, will you step aside so that others might enjoy the season. And when I do locate my cash, the toothy woman flashes me a practiced smile and says, Say, aren’t you the boy that played Amahl several seasons ago?
No.
Well, I’m sure you are, I never forget a face.
Fuck you, I mumble under my breath.
Her smile falls away, and she shouts through the hole in the glass. Get out of my sight, the world has no use for your kind.
What kind is that? I rant, giving her the finger. I then see a reflection of myself looking like Ma when she’s hopping mad, and I jump back.
You know what you are, now get out of my window so I can help these good people standing in the cold, Sonny.
The other Christmas is a parallel and unequal world of ancient hymns, the story as it is told from the Big Book on the lectern at church. Long ago a virgin mother gives birth to a very special baby (I haven’t yet learned paradox), a baby that will save all the wretches of the world (especially and including me). Very wise men following a star in the sky travel a long distance to be present on this very chilly night that the baby Jesus is wrapped tightly and laid in a manger. Ma—dressed in her Christmas nightgown through which you can see her breasts—explains that for all intents and purposes Jesus was born in a barn and that his manger was little more than a cattle trough. As she holds me close to her sweet bosom, I think of my grandfather’s barn, a place that smells of dung and car grease, and wonder, That’s where our noble savior was born?
The saddest thing is that one Christmas wars against the other like a jealous sibling. Yes, one is crass, the other wise. One powerful, the other weak and self-deprecating. One encourages inane consumption, the other generosity, the former eradicating one’s desire to practice the latter. It is a war I relive each year—fretting over what to get for whom and how much to spend or not—a case of post traumatic stress that multiplies and folds over itself year after year. It is a war that always ends in a truce, heathen burghers smiling smugly—even as a babe coos quietly in his manger.
Some time after reaching puberty, I intuit that there exist two Christmases. One holiday seems to begin ardently after Thanksgiving: arias you hear on the Texaco-Metropolitan Opera radio affiliate, songs you chant in the school program, songs of sentimental cheer crooned by your favorite stars on TV and the movies (‘Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas’ makes me smile and cry). Some time between the church pageant and Christmas Eve, the season’s feverish pitch falls to a hush: by now you have exchanged gifts at school, at church; you have presented offerings to your teachers, your neighbors; in the mail you long ago placed little packages that travel to Pop’s family on the coast. You are witness to the shared anxiety in everyone’s faces, from the postman to the woman who sells tickets at the Orpheum.
If you can’t find your money, Son, will you step aside so that others might enjoy the season. And when I do locate my cash, the toothy woman flashes me a practiced smile and says, Say, aren’t you the boy that played Amahl several seasons ago?
No.
Well, I’m sure you are, I never forget a face.
Fuck you, I mumble under my breath.
Her smile falls away, and she shouts through the hole in the glass. Get out of my sight, the world has no use for your kind.
What kind is that? I rant, giving her the finger. I then see a reflection of myself looking like Ma when she’s hopping mad, and I jump back.
You know what you are, now get out of my window so I can help these good people standing in the cold, Sonny.
The other Christmas is a parallel and unequal world of ancient hymns, the story as it is told from the Big Book on the lectern at church. Long ago a virgin mother gives birth to a very special baby (I haven’t yet learned paradox), a baby that will save all the wretches of the world (especially and including me). Very wise men following a star in the sky travel a long distance to be present on this very chilly night that the baby Jesus is wrapped tightly and laid in a manger. Ma—dressed in her Christmas nightgown through which you can see her breasts—explains that for all intents and purposes Jesus was born in a barn and that his manger was little more than a cattle trough. As she holds me close to her sweet bosom, I think of my grandfather’s barn, a place that smells of dung and car grease, and wonder, That’s where our noble savior was born?
The saddest thing is that one Christmas wars against the other like a jealous sibling. Yes, one is crass, the other wise. One powerful, the other weak and self-deprecating. One encourages inane consumption, the other generosity, the former eradicating one’s desire to practice the latter. It is a war I relive each year—fretting over what to get for whom and how much to spend or not—a case of post traumatic stress that multiplies and folds over itself year after year. It is a war that always ends in a truce, heathen burghers smiling smugly—even as a babe coos quietly in his manger.
Current Reading
_ I continue my close readings of New Yorker stories from 2011. Only two more to go until I write about the project.
What kind of statistics will be interesting? The number of male authors? Female? Number of stories about ethnic minorities? Gays/lesbians? Trannies? Average age?
How many stories are set in New York or on the eastern seaboard? How many are set in the boondocks, a foreign country?
Literary issues? Who uses the third person close point of view? Who writes in first person?
After January first I begin my trek through these fifty or so stories to see what the magic is, the alchemy that is the New Yorker story.
What kind of statistics will be interesting? The number of male authors? Female? Number of stories about ethnic minorities? Gays/lesbians? Trannies? Average age?
How many stories are set in New York or on the eastern seaboard? How many are set in the boondocks, a foreign country?
Literary issues? Who uses the third person close point of view? Who writes in first person?
After January first I begin my trek through these fifty or so stories to see what the magic is, the alchemy that is the New Yorker story.
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