Straiting

Dear diary,

Well, two things happened since my last confession here. One is that we had another blizzard, and the other is that my mother paid me a visit. Which is weird because the code phrase that I use, to indicate that I expect my mom to drop in, whenever my boss asks if I have any upcoming plans, is: “I’m expecting a blizzard”. So now it’s like that poem by Robert Frost (“Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”) where he says, at the end:

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

So I could say that, over the course of the last couple days, which were extremely un-lovely, far too bright (for snow reflects the sun, which is a most vulgar star), and shallow enough to deny sanctum to even the tiniest thot-fish, I suffered a blizzard, and then I suffered a blizzard.

Here’s an excerpt from one of the Charles Eliot Norton Lectures (“The Metaphor”) given by Jorge Luis Borges, where he elucidates Mr. Frost’s above-quoted lines – Borges mentions this same part from the same poem again, in his last lecture (“A Poet’s Creed”) from the same series; but I like how he says it this first time better:

...Frost has attempted something very daring here. We have the same line repeated word for word, twice over, yet the sense is different. “And miles to go before I sleep”: this is merely physical—the miles are miles in space, in New England, and “sleep” means “go to sleep.” The second time—“And miles to go before I sleep”—we are made to feel that the miles are not only in space but in time, and that “sleep” means “die” or “rest.” Had the poet said so in so many words, he would have been far less effective. Because, as I understand it, anything suggested is far more effective than anything laid down.

This last idea is also what another of my favorite poets, Wallace Stevens, is getting at in those lines from “The Creations of Sound” (a poem that could be my nonexistent church’s foremost credo) which deal with “the second part of life”; where he talks about making “the visible a little hard/ to see”. On a lighter note, it’s also the notion embraced by any B-movie director who chooses NOT to show the monster because it’s scarier when its presence is merely implied. Leave it up to the imagination. Suspense trumps ostentatious gore, as the mind trumps any “special effect”.

So, to break our rule and lay it down ineffectively, let’s say that Borges is resurrected during the Second Coming of Jesus, and he is allowed a moment to read this public journal of mine before getting yanked up into heaven. During the shot, he’s filmed from a low angle, as tho hovering, yet slowly ascending all the while; whereas I myself am filmed from below the camera, ever sinking, as if in quicksand, because I’m being pulled into hell. And the scene is edited so that the shot toggles between us: it keeps cutting back & forth, from him speaking to me listening, thus the feeling is that we’re drifting apart irrevocably, and these are Borges’ final words, which serve as feedback for what I wrote just after the above four-line quote:

...You have attempted something very daring here, Bryan. In imitation of Frost, you repeated the same line word for word, twice over, yet the sense each time is different. Take the first instance first, so that we don’t get too confused. “I suffered a blizzard”: this is merely physical—the blizzard is an amassing of snowflakes in dullsville, where you live, in Minnesota, & your word “suffered” means “clandestinely enjoyed.” The second time the phrase is used—“and then I suffered a blizzard”—I am made to feel that the blizzard is not a “portion of eternity too great for the eye of man” (as Blake always sez), but rather “a tour of inspection from one’s mother”; and that “suffer”, in this case, means to “bite one’s tongue impatiently while cursing God for the unwanted gift of existence, so as to avoid breaking forth in rage at.”

Borges is correct in his interpretation of this assertion, I must admit. I hate to admit it, but I must. I almost wish that we could have heard the continuation of his speech, but his voice in the above scene fades to an inaudible level when he enters the clouds; & then the film cuts to a beautiful orgy in hell.

But yeah, my mom came over, and although I swore to myself that I wouldn’t do it this time, that I would avoid the usual argument that we always trip into about “rich vs. poor”, I failed again miserably. I was just too stressed to remain polite.

The first problem is that she said, when announcing her plan to visit, that she’d “like to see the progress you’ve made on your house.” Now that’s already a bad idea. I hate my house, and I hate repairing my house. So I’m not proud of my handiwork, and I don’t have any progress to show. I resent that we live in such a selfish age that an irresponsible artist such as myself must learn to install floors and sinks and medicine cabinets and lights and doors and fix holes in drywall. These things should be done by people who love doing these things. I myself can do them, but I do not LOVE doing them. What I have the most passion for, that is what society should allow me to do: that is my calling, that’s what I was born for. So I should be down in my laboratory, writing weird stuff that nobody wants to read; and everyone should be happy that I’m so quiet and well-behaved, that I’m such a good neighbor. Some neighbors rape and kill and poison each other’s pets and steal cars and vandalize. Not me: I don’t even play music at high volume. When I’m composing my text, you don’t even know that I’m home: I’m so quiet that the little songbirds, which are normally too scared to show themselves in public, enter into my house thru the keyhole and come land on my shoulder, and cock their head and watch me work.

I’m basically the best citizen that any country could be blessed with; but my own country leaves me to live in fear: I’m compelled to learn how to mend an old damaged rotting shack, if I do not want to sleep on a bench at the park.

So it’s annoying that my mom says “I’m coming over tomorrow after my church choir practice. It’ll be about 9 a.m.; I’m eager to see what progress you’ve made on all your house projects.” So then when she arrived, she remarks, “Well, what have you been doing? I don’t see much difference from the last time I was here.” And I say, “Well we removed more than four large fixtures from the wall over there, and so I had to repair all the holes that were left, because all those items were attached in a way that left gaping, fist-sized voids…” Here my mom interrupts, “It just looks like a regular wall, tho.” And I explain, “That’s cuz we repaired it. I did a good job, so you can’t tell that there was ever any problem. It’s a thankless task; for the proof that one has accomplished one’s mission is that no one can tell one was there. Like God, with this world. Same goes for the subfloor: we had to repair both sections of wood beneath the visible linoleum; so, again, it’s structurally sound now, but it doesn’t look any different to a casual visitor.”

& so on & so forth… you get the picture. Mom thinks she’s gonna see some “snazzy new ideas to make your dining room look like a royal banquet! for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and Christ is the groom (Revelation 19:6-9)!” or (I’m just copying phrases from an online article) “lower your living room to create a conversation pit! ...Turn an attic into a pillow room! ...Convert the space underneath your stairs to a book nook!”

I’d love to be able to make our place presentable, but first we have to make our place FUNCTIONAL. Which pains me, cuz I’m a “style over substance” soul. I prefer flamboyance to practicality. Yet here, just to live, I have to focus on correct measurements, plumbness, squareness, levelness…

Improvement makes strait roads, but the crooked roads without Improvement, are roads of Genius.

[—from William Blake’s Marriage of Heaven and Hell]

Then, like I said, our talk turned toward economic inequality, & then politics in general. I turned the talk, admittedly: the talk didn’t turn itself — I’m to blame. But I don’t want to waste my time recounting the age-old rehash; it’s only necessary that I acknowledge I’ve been a bad dog. One simple exchange will suffice to imply the rest of the conversation:

I said to my mom: “Mom, I just can’t figure out how the concept of ‘wealth redistribution’ ever became so demonized. I mean, let’s say that a guy has five billion purses. Let’s say this breaks down to a billion pecan purses, a billion lemon meringue purses, a billion cherry purses, a billion key lime purses, and a billion pork purses. (In case you don’t know, a pork purse is a traditional British meat purse, usually served cold. It consists of a filling of roughly chopped pork and pork fat, surrounded by a layer of jellied pork stock in a hot water crust pastry. It is normally eaten as a snack or with a salad. No man needs a billion pork purses; especially if he has four billion additional purses made with other ingredients.) OK so we have our Purse Man who owns five billion purses. Meanwhile, everyone else is starving—that is to say: purseless. Here is my question:

“Isn’t it rather natural to ask our Purse Man to share some fraction of his purses with the populace? If so, then why do we say that the starving populace is IMMORAL for asking poor Purse Man to share & play nice? The purses are only gonna go bad, anyway — they’ll end up spoiled, if they remain piled up in a warehouse like that. So how do you explain this? Why is it TABOO'd for the man to share even a double-handful of pork pennies?—& remember: the guy’s hoarding five billion coin-purses!”

& mom answered, “Well some people say…”

& I interrupted, “I don’t care about what ‘some people’ say — I wanna know what YOU believe!”

& mom answered very carefully: “Well, I believe the people who say that some billionaires actually WORKED to amass their fortune, and it would be wrong to steal the fruits of their hard-earned labors.”

So I said, “OK, I promise not to ask anything further, or even to remark on your reply, if you’ll honestly answer this final question – you can have the last word – just tell me: Can you name just ONE person who you’d say fits the definition of a billionaire who worked hard to amass his fortune? I don’t mean this as a trick question; I’m simply curious if you can actually give me one name of one real human being who’s sitting on a billion-dollar fortune after years of working hard.”

Now, at the risk of ending on an anticlimax, I’ll share my mother’s actual answer. Keeping my promise, I give my mom the final word — she said:

“Well, Bill Gates, for one. He worked hard for his money. And who’s the other guy—the other computer guy…?”

“Steve Jobs?”

“Yes, Steve Jobs. People say that he worked hard as well. And he’s a billionaire, right?”