Dear diary,
Monotheism and absolutism are gorgeous ideas that unfortunately poisoned the atmosphere for subsequent thought, because a lot of subtlety and nuance was lost when…
No I don’t want to write about that. I only started the entry like this because I’m ashamed that I wasted my last post talking about cars; so now today I’m blasting off half-cocked instead of…
I’ll let this entry be a collection of quotations. That’s safe, right? I have all these scraps of paper scattered about my apartment with notes-to-self scribbled on them, reminding me to quote this & that. I’ll copy one out and see if I can remember why I even bothered to attempt communicating with alien life. (The joke is that I’m unknown to myself.)
And since it amuses me to do so, I’ll preserve the private shorthand word-perfect; for instance, this first scrap of torn green paper says:
71 Vasily quote
That means: page seventy-one of Turgenev’s short-story collection, where the sketch introduces the character named Vasily.
. . . we have had strange landowners before, gentlemen‑desperadoes, regular rakes, certainly: they dressed up as coachmen, I dare say, danced, played the guitar, sang and drank with their own serving-folk, and feasted with the peasants; but this chap Vasily is like a pretty girl: all the time reading books, or writing them, or, if not that, reciting verse aloud – talks to no one, is shyness itself, walks in the garden alone, as if he’s bored or sad. [ . . . ] He lives on his own estate as though he was a stranger there.
Ah I remember why I wanted to share this. It’s because I relate to it: everything that is said about Vasily here could just as well be said about me myself.
But why must all this behavior suggest “a pretty girl”? I think of myself as a hyper-masculine brute. You should see me in real life: I’m gross. All my habits are bad. But if the above-quoted lifestyle is girlish, then I’d rather be like a girl than like a boy. Also that last sentence is true (“He lives on his own estate as though he was a stranger there”): yes, I skulk around my apartment with the lights low or off, on tiptoe so as to make no noise, as if I’m a burglar in my own home. —Why do I do this?
I think I wish I were a ghost. I’m afraid of life. Life means causing offense, and I don’t want to offend anyone. I want to be like Jesus: sin-free, guaranteed.
OK, next on my note-to-self is written:
2 quotes from Mme. B. → “That’s me!”
This refers to the fact that I recently decided to reattempt reading Madame Bovary—I’m finding it extremely pleasing, by the way—and there’ve already been a couple places near the beginning where I found the textual description of life so familiar, so relatable, that I couldn’t stop myself from writing the above-quoted phrase (“That’s me!”) in the margin next to each respective passage. My feeling of affinity for both accounts has nothing to do with the novel, generally speaking—by copying the quotes here I’m willfully removing their precious context—so maybe it’s almost better if you don’t have any knowledge of Flaubert’s masterwork: I’m really just pointing out something personal and selfish. (& I’m hoping that you’ll take pity on me and send me cash in big thick envelopes, plus bequeath me deeds for huts in balmy regions; I’d like to escape from Minnesota.)
And now she could not bring herself to believe that the uneventful life she was leading was the happiness of which she had dreamed.
Admittedly, that’s not one of the two passages aforementioned – I just put it here because I like it. I was flipping backwards from where my bookmark was placed, and this sentence caught my eye. (The translation, by the way, is Francis Steegmuller’s.) Now here’s the first of the uncannily perfect descriptions not of any character in the novel but of me myself:
. . . he rented, in a village on the border of Normandy and Picardy, a dwelling that was half farm, half gentleman’s residence; and there, surly, eaten by discontent, cursing heaven, envying everyone, he shut himself up at the age of forty-five, disgusted with mankind, he said, and resolved to live in peace.
This is accurate right down to the very last detail: I AM “he”.
& the 2nd “Mme. B.” example I wanted to share occurs, incidentally, just a few pages after the one above. Here’s the next passage that moved me to remark “That’s me!”
She had to have her cup of chocolate every morning: there was no end to the attentions she required. She complained incessantly of her nerves, of pains in her chest, of depressions and faintnesses. The sound of anyone moving about near her made her ill; when people left her she couldn’t bear her loneliness; when they came to see her it was, of course, “to watch her die.”
The only part of this excerpt that does not perfectly match my own existence is that word chocolate. To be accurate, this should read vodka. Please notify somebody in the publisher’s office, so that they can correct this mistake in future editions.
I didn’t plan on writing anything in this present post, beyond an explanation of my self-note; so I’ll continue with that. Next it says:
People who do “real” jobs (farming etc.) vs. $peculators → also quote Turgenev character on interest lender
I gave the words of Ovsyanikov (the “Turgenev character”) near the end of my last entry; so if you’re really so fucking interested in that quotation, you can go read it there. But I suggest skipping it. Not because of its lack but because of my own. I didn’t make much of the passage, after all.
And I can’t say why the comparison of real (physical OR mental) work versus Wall-Street wankery was on my mind, but I can say a couple words about it here. I think the people who do the jobs that help us all to meet our basic needs, like farmers who make our food, and garment workers who make our clothing, and construction workers who make our shelters, and doctors who prevent and treat afflictions, and creative artists who aim life onward and outward—these people should receive the highest pay. And the people who do jobs that nobody wants to do: messy jobs, physically demanding jobs, dangerous jobs… those types of workers should receive even higher compensation. But speculating, gambling on the stock market—this should not be a paid occupation at all: it should be like a video game, a diversion, a great silly joke, like a happening of performance art, a live play where only the brokers and their clients aren’t aware of the setup: those latter souls will assume it’s all genuine and that they’re actually making or losing money every day, but the truth is that the surrounding cohorts and staff which populate their purlieu are a theatre troop. And all business owners and officers and chief executives should have a similarly sham production feeding their compulsions: whenever they are handed a balance sheet showing their corporation’s profitability, the numbers (unbeknownst to the beholder) are a mere fantasy: they refer to nothing & injure no one. In other words, all businesspeople and broker cronies and banksters should be placed in an elaborate, friendly, quarantined madhouse.
I’m only sorry to taint the word “mad” in this way. For those who are truly mad are super sane; they possess sacred sanity.
Now here’s the last tittle jotted on my green-tinted note:
M.M./T.L. description of theater @ 65:00
This is a time stamp for the place in his “WTF” podcast where Marc Maron (M.M.) makes a few remarks to the writer Tracy Letts (T.L.) about watching live plays. I’m pleased to realize that this topic nearly follows from what I wrote above about our suggested finance-sector pageantry.
Before giving this last quotation, however, I gotta make a couple disclaimers about podcasts, otherwise I’ll feel remiss...
Insofar as Mr. Maron’s show presents the listener with a long-form interview, I’m on-board; because I love conversation: the longer the better. And to the extent that Maron himself achieves, in his own disclosures, or draws out of his guest, by way of painful inquisition, depth of insight, revelations of soul, sublime thoughts (etc.), I am enthusiastic about his show. But my problem is that podcasts are never deep enough, and they’re almost always baggy. They feel so lazy. I should take up ironing, if I’m going to endure such snooze-fests. And Maron’s effort is not always the exception that I wish it were.
I don’t know why podcasts, which, I repeat, are not essentially different from any other audio offering, should be so much worse than the radio programs of eld…
Maybe I’m just not homing in on the best examples. Let’s leave it at that: I suffer from the lack of guidance from a good podcast curator.
So I’ve listened to a lot of Maron’s shows—I’m drawn to them by the artists that he interviews. At first, I was fanatical about trying to catch each new release; but then I started to cool towards the concept, because too often the crucialest questions were left unasked. And, from what I can gather, this is due to Mr. Maron’s own lack of interest. Or limited interest. He’s not passionate enough about strangeness in creativity: he clings too close to the craftsmanship side of affairs, at the expense of genius. What moves him is the Hierarchy of Hollywood, not the School of the Ages.
But I hate what I’m doing here: negative criticism. It’s a waste of time. There have been a fair amount of great talks that Maron has achieved; that must be why I fell, just now, in the trap of attempting to delineate what I wish to redeem. Let the poor guy have his fun. I just wanted to explain why I knew of him, and why I feel ambivalent towards his work. Nowadays, I check out his show only if I idolize that particular episode’s guest. Or I’ll make a point of catching unknown individuals IF they’re part of the world of creative writing. Not even film directors are of interest, when Maron’s driving the chat. And tho I love actors, they very rarely accomplish passable interviews. Willem Dafoe and Philip Seymour Hoffman are the exceptions. (I don’t even know if Maron ever spoke with Hoffman—I’m just recalling conversations I’ve heard in general, out there in the mediascape.)
So I tuned in for a recent episode, to hear Tracy Letts. How do I know Letts? I wish I could say I’d seen his plays, but the truth is that he’s familiar to me as the screenwriter for the film Killer Joe (2011), which I loved to death—for me, it out-Lynches David Lynch’s late attempts—and also Letts wrote the screenplay for Bug (2006), which I liked as well; both titles were adapted from Letts’ own plays, and both films were directed by William Friedkin, who holds a throne in my pantheon of Cinema Gods. (I know, I know: Letts also wrote the screenplay for the 2013 film August: Osage County, which was “a hit” with audiences; but that film didn’t move me much. And it’s not directed by Friedkin.) Now, because Mr. Letts is foremost a playwright, his talk with Maron veered towards performances raw & in-the-flesh as opposed to closed, finalized, changeless, edited films; and a few remarks surprised me, from both Letts and Maron—I found them wise & beautiful—regarding the experience of watching a live playact.
All my above hem-hawing was in effort to set up the following quote from M.M./T.L.’s exchange, with which I’ll put this blog post out of its misery:
[NOTE. Every time Letts mentions Oklahoma, I mentally substitute Minnesota; for his point applies exactly to my own lost homeland.]
Marc Maron: I can’t imagine what it’d be like to have a play become a movie.
Tracy Letts: It shouldn’t happen. It really shouldn’t happen.
M.M.: Well then why’d you let Friedkin do two of them?
T.L.: I’ll tell you why. Because I grew up in a small town in Oklahoma. And I didn’t have access to A Streetcar Named Desire and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? or Shakespeare. My access to that shit was through the movies. I wouldn’t have been able to see that stuff [as live plays]. And so, you know, there’s some kid in southeastern Oklahoma right now who’s home watching Killer Joe. And it speaks to him.
M.M.: That’s true.
T.L.: …And Bug, and August: Osage County. They can’t afford to go to New York and pay a hundred dollars for a theater ticket to see it on Broadway…
M.M.: Or wait for it even to come locally…
T.L.: That’s right. And, yeah, Killer Joe and Bug are not “playing locally” in southeastern Oklahoma…
M.M.: And no one’s doing them in high school…
T.L.: So that’s why… I’ve always felt like, it’s not the same experience: When I say it’s complicated, that, for me, is really why: because I don’t think films can be made out of plays.
M.M.: Or they can’t do what theater does.
T.L.: No.
M.M.: But I thought that Friedkin knew that. I think he respected it; you know; and I think he tried to do something.
T.L.: They’re William Friedkin movies [as opposed to plays by Tracy Letts], which is great—I’m thrilled that there are a couple of William Friedkin movies based on my plays! I’m thrilled about that. But they’re not the play.
M.M.: And, you know, [Robert] Altman tried to do that—he tried to do it in a way that would “honor the theater” and it never quite works.
T.L.: It doesn’t work. The experience is different. In the theater you have to lean forward in your seat, you have to pay attention, you have to tune your ear.
M.M.: And shit might happen.
T.L.: You know they’ve done studies recently that show that audiences’ hearts are actually syncing up during live plays.
M.M.: Really? Is that true?
T.L.: Yes, that’s true. That’s an actual thing. ...There’s something about the group experience, watching a play, that’s very different than watching a film—there’s a reason you can watch a movie in your basement… there’s a reason you can eat popcorn and watch a movie. You can’t eat popcorn and watch a play.
M.M.: No, because [the cast] will be mad at you.
T.L.: Well... it also just requires a certain investment on the part of the audience.
M.M.: I’m fascinated—I don’t go to enough [plays], but when I do I’m always immediately emotionally all jangled. Because, like, the whole space of it: you can see [the actors] spitting, and feel them breathing, and hear their feet dragging on the boards…
T.L.: Isn’t it fantastic!
That last description of Maron’s does enchant me; I’m reminded how holy-weird playacting is; henceforth I want to see as many plays as possible.
I disagree, however, with the notion that Altman’s hybridized film-play experimentations did not succeed. By definition, of course, his movies are not live performances – that’s a given, not even worth mentioning – but I chant full-throated praise for his accomplishments.
And I’m in agreement with Letts about the futility of converting stage plays to movies, at least in a way that is faithful to the source work; and I feel similar about the audiovisual adaptation of novels and short stories. Nonetheless, I say that screenwriters and directors should attempt to convert anything they want into a movie: it’s just smart to remember that, no matter what your intention is, the film WILL be its own unique creation. I’m saying it’s a bad idea to try to “fulfill” another artwork, or even to translate it; all you can do is provoke, pervert, misprize. In other words, you can do much good. I devised my own books to be un-filmable, on purpose, so as to lure some genius director to try to film them. (I’m only joking: No matter what you do, I will sue you.)
Now, before I imprison another stupid rap track in the postscript, I must share this picture of an original artwork that is signed by the author and priced at $97,000.00:
P.S.
As promised, here’s another rap demo track from the album that my friend produced with his cheesy hip-hop beatmaker program:
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