In the 4-17-09 issue of The Week, the book page featured six "best books" chosen by author Jay McInerney (Bright Lights, Big City). One of his selections was Will You Please Be Quiet, Please, by Raymond Carver, about which he said ...
Carver’s first collection, with its pared-down, colloquial language and its working-class settings, almost single-handedly revivified realism, and the short story itself, when it appeared in 1976. It remains astonishingly fresh and powerful to this day. Like Hemingway, Carver stripped away the cobwebs and taught us a new way to see and hear the world around us.
That statement, with its references to pared-down language and stripped-away cobwebs, brought to mind an article I'd read about Raymond Carver's relationship with his editor, Gordon Lish. Gordon Lish, it seems, wielded an active and unhesitant red pen, and was wont to pare down Carver's original short-story manuscripts by anywhere from 30 to 70 percent. That kind of cobweb-stripping begs the question, Was Raymond Carver mostly Gordon Lish?
Sure, the story ideas and fully fleshed drafts were Carver's. But one can't help suspecting that the trademark "Carver" traits so lauded and applauded by literary critics and Raymond Carver fans—that pared-down language and those stripped-away cobwebs—were largely Lish's doing. Just look ...
Raymond wrote it like this:
I shrugged. "I'm the wrong person to ask. I didn't even know the man. I've only heard his name mentioned in passing. Carl. I wouldn't know. You'd have to know all the particulars. Not in my book it isn't, but who's to say? There're lots of different ways of behaving and showing affection. That way doesn't happen to be mine. But what you're saying, Herb, is that love is an absolute?"
Gordon changed it to this:
"I'm the wrong person to ask," I said. "I didn't even know the man. I've only heard his name mentioned in passing. I wouldn't know. You'd have to know all the particulars. But I think what you're saying is that love is an absolute."
Judge for yourself.
In a similar vein, many believe the creative force behind famed film director Peter Bogdanovich was his first wife, Polly Platt, who collaborated with him on his two masterpieces, The Last Picture Show (1971) and Paper Moon (1973). Their fruitful collaboration—along with Bogdanovich's cinematic triumphs—came to an abrupt halt after Peter moved on to the perceived greener pastures known as Cybill Shepherd. By 1975 he was writing and directing the likes of At Long Last Love, one of the worst films every made according to The Golden Turkey Awards, a 1980 book by film critic Michael Medved and his brother Harry. Seems like Peter just might have been mostly Polly.
There's a moral here which I'll let you define, because I now want to move on to this important ...
UPDATE
Furthering my 3-30-09 screed properly equating political lobbying with organized crime, I found this tidbit from The Washington Post quoted in the 4-24-09 issue of The Week:
Lobbyists spend $3 billion a year in Washington, D.C., and they get their money's worth. A University of Kansas study found that a single corporate tax break in 2004 enabled 800 companies to save a total of $100 billion.
Judge that for yourself, too (when you're done throwing up).
# # #
Okay. Let's try World Peace. May I assume that everyone is for World Peace, that World Peace, at least, is something nobody's against?
See, I'm not convinced I can make even that claim any longer. Not after what happened with Cancer.
I used to jokingly quip that if someone discovered a cure for cancer, somebody somewhere would be against it. That was supposed to sound utterly absurd. That was supposed to be an utterance whose utter absurdity would serve to draw ludicrous attention to and pointedly rebuke the swelling numbers of gainsayers in our society, the people eager to oppose or find fault with just about anything, if only to grab a turn in the spotlight.
Well, look what they've done to my song, ma.
Along comes the HPV vaccine a few years ago, and instead of universal joy over a medical breakthrough affording potentially surefire protection against cervical cancer, what do we get? Gainsayers! People against protecting women from cancer. People who feel it will make young girls promiscuous, and reckon death the more desirable alternative.
As Nancy Kerrigan once wondered, "Why? Why? Whyyyyyy ... ?" Why does idiocy have to figure so prominently in the makeup of Dodo sapiens?
I know I won't live long enough to find the world verging on World Peace; won't be around when the gainsayers start saying gain on that score. Would that I could, though. I'd like to laugh myself to death over their lunatic line of reasoning.
# # #
If a small child can be said to have a worldview, my worldview expanded exponentially the joyous day my grandmother bought me my first cheeseburger.
I was around five years old then, and the idea for franchised McDonald's outlets had yet to crystallize in Ray Kroc's imagination. But you could get a thick, juicy hamburger topped with American cheese, together with a side of salty fries, at just about any drugstore lunch counter, including—thank gods!*—the one in the Cunningham's drugstore at the corner of Harper and Gratiot in Detroit.
We walked up there, my grandma and I, from the old house on Townsend, and I had not the merest inkling that my small world was about to be changed for the better, forever. I would truly be a much altered, much happier kid on the hike back.
Sure, hamburgers had been around for eons, or decades at any rate, and cheese-topped hamburgers for almost as long. But not in my experience, because ours was not a hamburger family. My grandmother, who did all the cooking, didn't cook them. My grandfather knew not of the charcoal grill.† My mother knew not of the kitchen. My personal knowledge of ground beef began and ended with meatballs and spaghetti.
So, can you imagine my very first bite into a cheeseburger? Can you grasp the magnitude of the revelation which that was? The profundity of its impact on my worldview?
Had I known about the Big Bang theory back then, it would have been instantly relegated to second place in my hierarchy of cosmic consequence.
Oh, the thrilling mouth feel of high fat-content beef and semi-melted cheese! Oh, the savory, piquant union of impetuous mustard and impertinent pickle chip! Oh, the fabulous festival of flavor revealing to me a heretofore hidden host of possibilities in a new universe containing such unexpected truths as cheeseburgers!
Listen, I could not have been more gobsmacked had I been Moses tripping over a talkative shrub sporting non-scorching flames.
And once again I ask, how about you? Can you recall a similar worldview-expanding experience from your childhood? If so, I'm all figurative ears.
* Homage to Battlestar Gallactica.
† A grill is what you cook on; a grille is what you find on a car. Feel free to point out this distinction whenever you dine at somebody's "Bar & Grille."
# # #
So I was watching this episode of Seinfeld in which Elaine is dating a guy who's been shaving his pate for several years. She catches a glimpse of his driver's license photo and goes gaga over his gorgeous head of hair. He agrees to stop shaving his head just for her, and within a few days discovers he has pattern baldness. He'd gone bald while he was bald.
Then I was watching this episode of Dateline NBC in which a woman whose husband had been wrongly imprisoned for eight years worked day-and-night to get his conviction overturned. She succeeded, but much to her alarmed surprise, discovered within days of his release that she had stopped loving him that way while he was imprisoned. They went their separate ways.
Now, with the foregoing by way of introduction, I invite you to click here for one of my favorite poems of all time, Robert Bly's "Snowbanks North of the House."
# # #
John Updike wrote that line in the December 7, 1963, issue of The New Yorker, in reference to the horrible connotations such ordinary things as an aging movie theater and a particular row of parking meters acquired in the immediate aftermath of President John F. Kennedy's assassination.
I happened upon it in a posthumous retrospective of Updike's New Yorker contributions, and it set me thinking about the duck-shaped ceramic planter out in the garage; an innocent object Susan and I can't bear to part with—or bring inside the house.
I was sitting at the computer desk in our bedroom when Susan came home from a routine obstetrician's appointment and told me with a quavering voice that the doctor couldn't find our baby's heartbeat.
Gina should have been our sixth daughter. Should have arrived on February14, 1986. But our precious valentine died at 20 weeks in Susan's body, and was delivered stillborn on September 19, 1985.
Fully formed. Impossibly tiny. Her cord—no thicker than two twisted strands of yarn—terminating at the partially detached placenta that had caused her death. A doctor placed Gina tenderly in a white plastic bucket, and I regret to this day that I did not kiss her little head before he fixed the lid.
I can't begin to fathom Susan's grief at Gina's loss. I can only imagine an exponentially more wrenching anguish than the crushing heartache that took me completely by surprise. I'd never really wept before; and in the ensuing days and weeks found myself crying at the smallest provocation: a few bars of poignant music on the car radio; a little girl in a pink parka playing in the snow.
Friends sent cards, bouquets, and the duck-shaped planter mentioned above. Hand-painted in muted tones. Overflowing with ivy.
Three years later I wrote this in the journal I was keeping at the time:
9-19-88. I am thinking about you today, Mary Regina, on this third anniversary of the night we lost you forever. You would have been two years and seven months old by now. Toilet-trained and talking. Full of fun and mischief. An angel when asleep. An angel when awake. In my mind I can see me doing for you the things a daddy should do. Holding you on my lap in my corduroy chair. Strapping you into your car seat. Hoisting you into the shopping cart at Farmer Jack, while saying, "Such a big girl!" I always think of you as having reddish-blond hair like your sister Thea's. Blue eyes, of course. There, at the end of the hall, by the clothes hamper, you sit on the floor wailing about the toy Kelly grabbed from you. I come, full of sympathy, lift you and hold you near, feel the cool skin of your cheek against mine and the wet trace of your tears. God bless you, my daughter.
Well, that journal entry was about 20 years old when I was viewing an episode of Medium one Monday night and got weepy all over again for Gina.
The principal character, Allison DuBois, was dreaming that she and her grown-up son—who had died as a child—were driving somewhere in a car. And as I was looking at that vivacious young man, I began envisioning Baby Gina as a vibrant young woman of around 22, and completely lost it.
# # #
You know, I have absolutely no idea what my proudest moment was, or if any moment in my life deserves that distinction. I ponder and ponder, but nothing moves to the fore. On the other hand, I can tell you with absolute certainty what my most awkward moment was.
High-school play rehearsal. Couldn't find fellow cast member and best friend. (Omigod! I actually did have a best friend once.) Finally checked darkened backstage music room. Found friend slumping over covered keyboard of upright piano. (Playing dead, I quite naturally assumed, because pranking was his, like, métier.)
Ran bellowing across darkened room. Leapt onto friend's slumping back. Began pummeling friend's head with blunted blows while assailing friend's ears with chortled obscenities. Then I heard him ... sob! (His adored girlfriend, I later learned, had broken up with him only minutes before.)
Yes. He was weeping.
And there I was, right up there on his back. My knees digging into his ribs, my palms resting on his shoulders, my mind struggling for a way to extract my stupid self from that surreal situation in something resembling a dignified manner. (I mean, really, how does one go about climbing down from a distraught friend's back graciously?)
Yup. That was my most awkward moment by a country mile. Care to share yours?
# # #
Out driving today, I noticed that a nearby subdivision providing a handy shortcut to my home enjoys award-winning status, according to a prominent sign on the grass island at the main entrance.
Turns out the award was for best marketing campaign for residential properties in the $200,000 price range.
Now, how's that for a source of pride and peace of mind?
# # #
Whenever I buy a used book from Amazon.com, I always choose, if possible, a copy once owned by a library. In fact, I'd much rather possess a retired library copy than a brand new copy of just about any book.
Why? Three words: fun discoveries.*
Example 1. My retired library copy of Alice Munro's Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage.
Formerly owned by the Salt Lake County Library System, my cello-wrapped hardbound copy of one of Alice Munro's uniformly marvelous short-story collections came with an equally delightful surprise inside: a computer-generated checkout receipt.
The receipt shows that on the twenty-seventh instant of December 2006, at one o’clock in the afternoon, a woman named, incredibly, "JAMES, JOYCE" checked out what is now my precious tome along with three other books: When I Loved Myself Enough; Finding Peace: Letting Go and Liking It; and Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive Psychology to Realize Your Potential for Lasting Fulfillment.
Could the possibly unwary Ms. James have assumed that self-help would likewise be forthcoming from Alice Munro? I certainly hope not, because, while invariably brilliant, Alice Munro stories can be whopping downers.
Example 2. My retired library copy of Thomas Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge.
This sturdy little linen-bound gem came from the library of Cleveland High School, Portland, Ore. It was published by Harper & Row at some indeterminate point after 1950, as part of the Harper's Modern Classics series.
And here's the fun discovery: a pasted checkout label showing just two withdrawals—twelve years apart.
On September 30, 1964, my little red Hardy book was checked out by a Miss MaryAnn Hillstein. It then collected dust until September 8, 1976, when a Miss Vickie Peck, bless her heart, condescended to withdraw it too.
See what I mean?
* Intentional homage to American Idol.
And "Happy Birthday!" Kristin.
# # #
Rhonda, I'm having a heap of trouble deciphering what a Pulitzer-Prize winning author was trying to express in these two sentences from one of her early short stories (emphases mine):
1. She has spent her life trying to escape from the parlor-like jaws of self-consciousness.
2. Her late marriage has set in upon her nerves like a retriever nosing and puffing through old dead leaves out in the woods.
Parlor-like jaws, Rhonda? As in doily-draped jaws, or jaws protruding from a yellowing linen lampshade bedecked with dingy tufted fringe? How can "jaws" be "parlor-like," Rhonda? Feel me?
While you're chewing on that one, let's move on to the retriever.
There's something amiss here. The author doesn't say how near or how far those specific woods might be vis-a-vis the nerves being set in upon by the retriever's allegedly objectionable nosing and puffing.
What if the woods lies waaaaay down the road from the cozy, parlor-like parlor in which the aforesaid nerves sip herbal tea while snugly wrapped in a fleece throw; a calico cat perhaps comfortably curled up and purring in their (the nerves') lap? Under those circumstances, a retriever, acting in the capacity of a metaphoric proxy for marriage, couldn't do much "setting in upon" anything, I wouldn't think.
And what's the big deal about a retriever snorting around in dead leaves anyway, Rhonda? That's a totally idyllic image as far as I'm concerned. Consider this not implausible scenario:
It's a brisk fall afternoon. Twilight's setting in upon my by now ginormously soothed nerves as I stroll homeward through the idyllic autumnal woods, anticipating with mounting relish the mug of piping hot cocoa—all tricked up with midget marshmallows—awaiting me at the kitchen table, thanks to the infallible thoughtfulness of my good wife. And notice how ol' Big Feller, my loyal and hale retriever, fuels my equanimity even further as he trots hither and yon, a-nosin' and a-puffin' through the lush carpet of old dead leaves. "What'cha lookin' for, Big Feller, huh? What'cha lookin' for, boy? Heh-heh."
I believe I've made my point.
So. What's the deal? Is it that the leaves crackle inordinately? Is that it, Rhonda? Or is it that the sonofabitch retriever is so goddamn single-mindedly persistent?
If that's the case, the author's meaning might more lucidly have been expressed with a few deft revisions (in bold):
Her late marriage has set in upon her nerves like some crazy-ass relentless bloodhound nosing and puffing for the waning scent of a fleeing thief's stinking B.O. through old dead leaves ... etc.
Or something.
# # #
This has nothing to do with the specific moral issues I'm about to cite. It has everything to do with self-deception on an Orwellian Doublethink scale. Or an Emperor's New Clothes scale, take your pick.
Imagine attending a vegetarians' convention and discovering that barbecued ribs and brisket are getting the most play at the buffet table. That's what I'm talking about here. Vegetarians lovin' their barbecue. As in ...
Sex Outside Marriage
The Catholic Church says, "No, no, no." Sixty-seven percent of Catholics versus 57 percent of non-Catholics say, "Yes, yes, yes." The better Catholics? Non.
Homosexuality
The Catholic Church says, "No, no, no." Fifty-four percent of Catholics versus 45 percent of non-Catholics say, "Yes, yes, yes." The better Catholics? Non.
Divorce
The Catholic Church says, "No, no, no." Seventy-one percent of Catholics versus 66 percent of non-Catholics say, "Yes, yes, yes." The better Catholics? Non.
Unmarried Motherhood
The Catholic Church says, "No, no, no." Sixty-one percent of Catholics versus 52 percent of non-Catholics say, "Yes, yes, yes." The better Catholics? Non.
Embryonic Stem-Cell Research
The Catholic Church says, "No, no, no." Sixty-three percent of Catholics versus 62 percent of non-Catholics say, "Yes, yes, yes." The better Catholics? Non.
These are Gallup Poll stats, by the way.
So. My question is, How can you be something and not be that thing at the same time? I'm of the opinion you can't, any more than you can shun your meat and eat it too.
In other words, Catholics whose beliefs deviate from their Church's position on any issue are de facto non-Catholics. Furthermore, I think the world would be a better place if they stopped kidding themselves and did the right thing by dropping out.
In too many ways we all, Catholics and non-Catholics alike, cut ourselves too much slack. Pay too much lip service to too many matters of major and minor import. Especially major.
We commit ourselves partially; which amounts to not committing at all.
# # #
Speaking of deficient dictionaries, I wrote an unanswered—or more accurately, an unsatisfactorily answered (same diff)—letter a year or two ago to a vice president at Wiley Publishing, where the default dictionary used by the Associated Press comes from, suggesting the overwhelming need for a compact dictionary (i.e., 60,000 entries or fewer) containing big words only. And by "big" I don't necessarily mean syllables up the butt.
I asserted in my letter that there's a niche going unfilled for a compact dictionary for people who already know the definition of tree, but not necessarily of twee. A dictionary a grad student could conveniently carry around in a backpack, or a dude (e.g., me) could effortlessly snatch from the nightstand while reading by flashlight in bed.
I mean, what in the heck are all these compact-dictionary publishers thinking? Ninety percent of the words collegiate types and voracious readers of challenging content want to look up aren't going to be found in a compact dictionary. And a regular dictionary is too doggone heavy to lift through a smooth arc with a single outstretched arm while supine in the sack—short of incurring tennis elbow.
So I think they need to publish a compact dictionary chock full of such less commonly encountered words as dirigisme and quiddity, with words like dog and quiet left out. I've already written the letter; somebody else can do the petitions.
Oh-oh. The clock on the wall says it's Tangent Time. Let's go off on one. ...
My son and I were watching Wild Things the other night. The episode concerned the Thompson's gazelles inhabiting that stupendous grassland known as the African savanna. It focused almost exclusively on the growth and development—from birth through first birthday—of one adorable little male gazelle. At the end of the program the narrator noted that the yearling would now have to fend for himself. To which Daniel quipped, "So he has to find his own grass?"
# # #
... with Wheel of Fortune. Problems I'd like to share with you.
First off, the producers are cheapskates. They go out of their way to make sure contestants don't get to take home all that much coin. In support of this thesis I offer the following particulars:
1. Prize placards cover the dollar values on too many of the wheel's wedges. A contestant gets to pluck the placard if he or she calls a letter that's in the puzzle, but receives zero dollars for doing so. A big ouch! when there's like five T's.2. There are way too many BANKRUPT spins. This not only holds down the cash awards by regularly erasing accumulated sums, but makes contestants leery of trying to spin their way to big bucks. They routinely jump straight to solving for fear of losing even the meager monies amassed to that point.
3. Eighty percent of the time, spinning the bonus wheel at the end of the show yields the bottom-level prize ($25,000 or $30,000 depending on how recent the episode). That's because, even though they make the bonus puzzle ridiculously difficult with off-the-wall solutions like ZINC COATED, the producers urgently want no one to win more than the minimum cash award if humanly possible. Which turns out to be very humanly possible, in most cases, for those relatively rare, uncommonly creative thinkers who can indeed sort out ...
_ _ N _
_ _ATED
... within ten seconds.
Next, the contestants themselves. My main problem with the contestants themselves, apart from the intimidating (and therefore excitement-extinguishing) effect all those BANKRUPT spaces have on them, is that even when they obviously know a puzzle's solution they'll frequently go ahead and buy another vowel and wastefully shave another $250 off their potential haul. Or worse still, they'll call a letter that appears just once in the puzzle instead of an equally obvious letter appearing two or three times, thereby earning only a thousand dollars, say, instead of two thousand or three thousand for the spin. In other words, they too often shoot selves in feet.
Finally, my biggest Wheel of Fortune beef of all: THE INCESSANT, POINTLESS CLAPPING.
Man! Every damn time a contestant spins the damn wheel they all stand there clapping like trained seals until it stops spinning. Clapping for what? FOR WHAT? I ask. Why do you clap, people? WHY? Why not pop and lock until the spinning stops? The Pavlovian clapping would be delightfully bizarre were it not so freaking annoying.
As for Vanna White, I have no problems at all with Vanna White.
# # #
Erin's stomach was in knots that morning about homework gone undone, and the drive to school had thus assumed the dreadful aspect of a trip to certain doom.
I could see fear distorting her features as we traveled up Catalpa, and offered some unsolicited (what other kind is there?) fatherly advice about attacking it head-on. Go straight to the teacher, I proposed. Tell her you forgot to bring home your math book. Ask for a day's grace on the homework assignment. That's all you can do, and you'll feel better after doing it no matter what.
Maybe she took my advice, maybe she didn't. I can’t recall. But I do recall what Irene Henderson, an amiable business acquaintance, told me later that morning.
Irene, a thickset, hyperactive woman of winning disposition and grizzled hair haphazardly piled above perpetually twinkling eyes, spoke of her childhood in Poland. ...
Of standing twice against a wall to be shot by Nazis ...
Of trudging bootless and coatless through knee-deep snow ...
Of dislocating both wrists hauling buckets on labor gangs ...
Of almost going crippled from rickets.
Then Irene pulled up a pant leg to show me the scar on her calf from a bullet that had grazed her leg when she, like Erin, was ten.
# # #
