Nonsense Verse

On being gratuitous

"Since I am neither a camera eye nor much given to writing pieces that do not interest me, whatever I do reflects, sometimes gratuitously, how I feel."
-- Joan Didion, Preface, "Slouching Towards Bethlehem"

I have felt for a long time now an inability to conjure prose, to piece it together in a way sufficient for others to lay eyes on. And yet there is the urge to write. This feeling that not to do so is somehow a corruption. Some knowledge deep in my belly that this is one of those things I am supposed to do, never mind the momentary lapses in personality, in confidence, in a willingness to face life. I love words. I love the way they make me feel when they rub up against each other just so. I have a desire to play back with them, to put them into juxtapositions from which, by some magic, a song may rise. I search for beauty in books, in journals and other clippings. And when these things are beautiful, I want to eat them, to squeeze out their pulpy juices, to feast upon them course by delicious course. I know the mechanics of writing, the right and the wrong, but I have never felt deserving enough of the words. A major handicap has been the firm belief that no matter what I say, no one will want to hear it. The things that interest me, no one will care to know. The world as seen through these eyes -- why? The world has been there, done that. But then I read that quote up there by Joan Didion, and I think, Yes. All right. That’s the attitude. I’m no Joan Didion, but I can spin a line or two. And so what if there’s a good deal of me in there. Maybe all that me won’t be such a bad thing. I have ideas, so many ideas, every day, walking to work, waiting for the subway, riding the subway, staring into my drink, waiting, hours, to fall asleep. And yet most of this has not led anywhere. Yet. I am hoping that this school business can help me finally escape the waiting room into which I have sequestered myself. For so long, I have felt inadequate to the task. But there comes a point when such feelings must be put away, tucked in beneath sheets and sweaters and closed into a dark box. Click of the lock. I see it now, within reach: the courage to toss the key.

Last night: A play in 9 lines

Him: You never slouch.

Her: Yes i do!

Him: No you don't. I never see you slouching.

Her: But I do! I slouch. Just like other people. I slouch, I poop, my feet stink, everything. But when I catch myself slouching I simply tell myself to stop.

Him: See? That's the difference. Why you're unlike the rest of us. You're a stealth sloucher.

Her: OK, yes. Stealth sloucher. Slouching tiger.

Him: Like that movie!

Her: Right. Slouching Tiger, Hidden Back Pain.

Him: Nice.

Perfect

This day was going so perfectly. I got up at 10, despite having set the alarm for 9. And despite having had only five hours of craptastic sleep, I felt surprisingly awake. I worked out, and that felt good. I showered and groomed myself, and that felt good. I had a delicious panino sandwich for lunch, and a couple of the most perfect café au laits I’ve ever had in this city. Then I went to the Amish market, one of the most perfect little grocery stores, and bought all sorts of yummy food items, like preserves and prosciutto and grainy bread and ingredients for making cupcakes.

PERFECT, I tell you.

Then, I got home and sat down at my computer, and started listening to Andrew Bird, one of the perfectest musicians ever. And I began making a couple of CDs for my friends, full of the most perfectest music ever. And I’m sipping some tasty sparkling water, and my kitty cat decides to jump up in my lap and get all cuddly. And I think, Could this day be any more perfect? I may burst for its perfection.

And so there I was, sitting, listening to music, nuzzling with my cute little kitty, and the kitty was purr purr purring, so happy to be sitting in my lap and sharing in my most perfect of days, when all of a sudden, CLONK! SPSHHHHH.

Kitty’s happy tail bumped into my bottle of sparkling water. And sent sparkling water spilling ALL OVER my shiny little 12-inch Powerbook. Which at that moment was right in the middle of burning songs onto a CD. And the water spread so quickly, and seeped so efficiently into the gaps between all the keys, and into the tiny cracks around my touchpad mouse action, and all I could do was look at it and gasp and go, “OH, $@#!”

And then I had a heart attack and died.

How to tell you're a geek for life

For your 30th birthday, you get several books on grammar. And you're excited.

In the mood for...

You know how I want to write? I want to write the way Wong Kar Wai makes movies. So far I've seen only two of his movies, but even if none of his other movies look like these two movies, that's O.K. These are enough. You might have seen them too? In the Mood for Love, and its quasi-sequel (as the reviewers called it), 2046.

I saw 2046 first. Last year. Sitting in my apartment, in the dark. It didn't all make sense, but no problem -- it was more about the mood than the content. All that mattered was that there were these extraordinary creatures moving, often slowly, across my screen. Or sometimes not even moving. No, they were often inclined to pause, to linger, to breathe as the camera breathed them in. They wanted each other, or they only thought they wanted each other when really they wanted something that the other couldn't provide, and all this wanting made me want to be with them. It made me want to join the cast, to be the shadow around the corner listening through the walls, to be the fly on the wall or perched atop the rim of a bowl of noodle soup.

I finally saw In the Mood for Love, the quasi-prequel, last night. It was a different movie, less surreal, slightly less unsettling, and yet just as powerfully emotional and heart-palpitatingly beautiful. Perhaps more so. Again, there were the gorgeous creatures, or at times just shots of their slippered feet or lissome arms or elbows peeking out of doors. There was sparse but strategic use of slow-mo. There were coincidences and missed opportunities too numerous to count. Fingers that brushed furtively against each other, and bodies that slid past each other in narrow, winding stairways. There was waiting in the rain. There was voyeuristic indulgence, peeks through keyholes and phone calls ripe for the eavesdropping. There were so many empty words spoken as the characters reached for things to say, anything as long as it wasn’t what they were actually feeling. There was much aching, and much longing, and again, I wanted to be there.

I can’t explain it, exactly. It’s just something about the filmmaker’s touch -- his ability to evoke intense flavor through a spectacular, otherworldly palette of colors, costumes and 60s mood lighting. In watching the film, you can sense it all, the moist steam dancing across a face, the pressure of skin on skin, the taste of sticky rice lingering on the tongue. The scenes are so vivid, and yet -- there’s something off. Time, in real life, doesn’t move this way. Or does it? Scenes are cut together, they run together, and as days go by, the only way the viewer can tell is that Maggie Cheung is wearing yet another phenomenal dress. But then, as Maggie or Tony Leung wait for the phone to ring, for a knock on the door, for a voice to answer, time slows to a crawl, and it’s pure agony. And maybe that’s the magic -- the earth moves as quickly or as slowly as our desires allow, and here Wong is, with his movies, to show us, and to let us all know that we’re not the only ones.

The long tail of education*

"You have made the decision to significantly complicate your lives."

This is what the director of the Bachelor's Program at the New School told us in orientation yesterday, my first day on campus as a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed student. (Or, rather, as a frozen-eared, wind-whipped student. It was solidly down in the 30s last night. About time, Old Man Winter.)

I don't think it quite hit me that this was real until I arrived at the building on 13th Street and walked up the stairs to the auditorium on the second floor. A couple of helpful-looking twentysomethings sat behind a folding table, waiting for new arrivals.

"Are you a student?" they said.

I paused. I smiled. I thought, Well, how about that. And I said, "Yes, I am." A general sense of satisfaction suffused my body. It wasn't quite a tingling. It wasn't butterflies. It was more -- well, a warm thrill of possibility (to be completely cheesy).

There was milling around. There was picking up of collated handouts. There was some sizing up of our fellow guinea pigs, the stolen glances, the awkward shifting from left foot to right. There was waiting in line to be assigned an adviser, and there were the same cheeses and fruits, cookies and beverages on a long table off to the side of the auditorium that had been available for nibbling at the last New School event I attended.

This is a nice touch, I thought. I wondered if cheeses and fruits might be a regular component of my educational experience. I figured probably not. But perhaps one day I'll suggest that. This is a pretty hang-loose place.

Our keynote speaker was the same guy who did the presentation at the info session a couple of months ago, and this time I walked away liking him even more. The personal story he told, about his long, circuitous path to the New School, was yet more assurance that yes, this was the right decision:

- Musician in Chicago
- Restaurateur in Wisconsin
- Husband, father
- Aspiring C.P.A.
- Student of mathematics and physics
- Student of art, resulting in M.F.A.
- Student of philosophy, resulting in Ph.D.
- Professor, artist, all-around nifty dude

The message being, if he did it, then so can we. And: You can't predict where you're going to end up. And also: It's never too late to stop in the middle of something, reassess, and try something new.

I'm about to turn 30. I have no idea if this fact had anything to do with my decision to go back to school. But I like to think that the decision had less to do with panic and much more to do with the natural course of a life, the bend in the river we all come to as challenges arise and are conquered, as certain priorities shift, and as we start to think, Well, gosh -- now what? Yes, 30 is an obvious benchmark, and it's a deadline many people set themselves to step back, evaluate, and start throwing around scary, entirely subjective words like "success" or "failure." But not being one to believe in that sort of thing, I'd rather look at it as a coincidence, or maybe a convenience -- an easy number to remember when it comes time to calculate credits and count semesters and assign a year to the ol' résumé saying what I was doing when.

It's also a nice round number to see when notating a list à la this:

- Ballet dancer (5 to 18)
- College student, Round 1 (18 to 21)
- Intern (21)
- Editor, online (21 to 25)
- Editor, in print (25 to … )
- College student, Round 2 (30 to … )

And what's after that? We'll call it this:

- TBA ( … to … )

* Taken from the orientation keynote. Reference to Chris Anderson's book "The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More," which only one person in the auditorium had read, but which we were told is about niche businesses and a vision of the "shattering of the mainstream." Applied to education, the "long tail" is the philosophy of the New School: an education tailored to each individual, comprising those topics that are particularly fascinating and relevant to that person's life -- i.e., the only kind of education that makes sense, IMHO.