Here's a bunch of items from an ad that I cut out and placed in an opened envelope.
Dear diary,
Did you ever have something that you needed to do but you just couldn’t bring yourself to do it? That’s where I’m at, with all these house repairs. It’s been a full year since we moved here, and I haven’t gone beyond replacing some lights & switches, the front room floor, and a sink. And those last two jobs aren’t even quite finished.
“You were running so well; who did hinder you?”
—Paul the Apostle (Galatians 5:7)
When we first moved in, it took me a little while to get started on the labors, because I was exhausted from the process of the U.S. housing market, all the work that goes into selling your old apartment & then finding & buying a used shanty; when we at last were able to inhabit this place that we purchased, I just wanted to collapse and sleep for years.
Plus, I get so nervous, being in an unfamiliar environment (I’m not like a cat: I AM a cat); and it takes strength and composure to begin any major renovation.
Moreover, all this work is strange and new to me: I don’t know a thing about carpentry, plumbing, etc. — I have to learn everything from scratch, just like a baby; and that’s no fun either, because no matter how good of a job I do, it’s still a first-timer’s craftsmanship that results. So it’s really hard to keep my spirits up.
But, a month or two after completing our move, I eventually located my bootstraps & rose up & began to confront each thankless task, taking them one by one, learning the ropes, reading instructions or watching tutorials, acquiring the tools and supplies that I need; and soon I found myself in the midst of actual progress, albeit just the beginning stages with respect to the overwhelming totality (for this shanty needs almost every last darn thing replaced)...
Yet right when I got that initial work-stride going, we were hit with many winter-related problems, utterly unexpected; and that really threw me off course. The ice dams on the roof, which I had to do battle with; and I had to purchase and learn to use that roof rake — and the whole time, I was terrified that the snow & ice would soon start weeping thru our ceiling, or that the roof would be damaged irreparably; so that crushed me with stress.
& even worse was the seepage from the great Snow Melt. Every day I woke up fully expecting our whole basement to be flooded; and everything that we were storing down there, I had to heft upstairs to the main level; and I mean pronto: I had to move it ALL. That was before spring; and now it’s the end of summer, but I haven’t moved the stuff back: I can’t motivate myself to begin the chore of dragging all these shelves of stuff back down into the basement. As a result, our main living quarters remain packed full of junk, unattractively, like we’re hoarders. Which is unfair, because my sweetheart and I are actually the OPPOSITE of hoarders: we’re rather unwisely minimalistic; we’re addicted to simplicity. But I keep everything upstairs because there’s something stubborn in my soul that resents all these goofy antics that fate forced me to perform by throwing trouble my way. I feel like I’m the brunt of a slapstick comedy, but it’s a “hidden camera” type of show — a practical joke by the angels; and they’re all doubled over with laughter, up there in heaven, watching my farce.
So, long story short, I gotta get back to work on this place. I need to remember how proud I am when I accomplish something physical. Physical accomplishments are rewarding, unlike mental accomplishments; or at least unlike mine own mental accomplishments — I mean, I could write ninety million excellent entries here on this scroll, and nobody would care, because it’s just a little scroll: no matter how much you write on it, it simply rolls up into a cylinder and you place it in a bin (or rather you hand it to Ezra and he places it in a bin; we authors aren’t allowed access to the knowledge center’s mainframe); what’s more, the writing that one puts on one’s scroll could prove of any quality from lousy to sublime, and it would be met with the same indifference; whereas, on the other hand, physical accomplishments not only command attention and get instantly noticed and praised, but the pride that they garner is lasting:
For instance, let’s say that you replace the flooring in a room: Look at that! that looks wonderful! it’s so much nicer than it was before! And every single day of your life thereafter, when you walk into that newly floored room, your joy is revived for your job well done: the floor continues to shine majestically: it never gets dull or appears worn out: there’s something miraculous about it.
NOTE. When I mentioned Ezra above, I meant the one from the biblical book that bears his name: “Ezra the priest, a scribe of the law of the God of heaven” (7:12). I just wanted to be clear about that. I wasn’t talking about your uncle.
11 comments:
I'm putting this at the top of your recent entries. Your procrastination ties in perfectly with the Shandyism I just mentioned on my blog (where's Sir Ryan Baldwin's handyman services when ya need them?) & I especially love your thoughts on The Scroll of Indifference and the obligatory pass off to Ezra. I have known that feeling for years and I often get the feeling that whatever we say in the digital landscape is just more words to be lost in the masses and masses of words out there. Oh well. I guess we chose to live in this time when we chose our lives in the Underworld Disco Room & Pizza Parlor all those years ago.
[The following is part 1 of 2 — Blogger forced me to fragmentize my enthusiasm]
O thanks for ranking this one favorably — I have confidence in it now! I was worried at first that it wasn't flashy enough, cuz it's rooted in the daily necessities, which I've carped about so often before... but I gotta remember that those simple personal wrestlings-with-necessity are what I love to hear from others, therefore I shouldn't sell myself short.
Yes & I had just read that most recent comment of yours on your last "Italian Journey" entry and when you mentioned Walter Shandy's door-hinge, I thot to myself: EXACTLY! And what a coincidence, that's just what I was writing about this morning! That really is a lovely and perfect reference... And I relate 100% when you explain your own habit, saying: "I procrastinate, and then something else comes along to divert, and I end up feeling guilty about something I could’ve fixed, and still can fix in 3 minutes, but don’t" — I know that your context was the realm of communication (e-mails, phone calls) but also in the literal realm of old Shandy's squeaky hinge, I'm the same sorry dharma-shirker. (Probably I’m misusing the term "dharma" here: I intend it to mean something like "duty"; I couldn't resist venturing that compound, even if the sense suffers in consequence; I just like how it sounds... For me, it’s always style over substance.) ...And then, after the above, you add "I blame my Irish ancestors." This made me think: if that type of behavior comes from Irish ancestry, then I hereby officially prove myself FULL IRISH. (I still don't know exactly what I am, by the way, even tho you urged me long ago to research my lineage — so chalk that up as another point for proud procrastination.)
& re "where's Sir Ryan Baldwin's handyman services when ya need them?" — I gotta say: he's been consistently very kind to me about this repair stuff: he's offered to help with anything I need, so I wanna underscore his generosity: I will definitely be asking him first about any problems I have, if I can ever resurrect myself and begin the work!! ...Also it's funny: I met Baldwin on Facebook — we got along, cuz we were both fans of the art movement Dada and the philosopher Diogenes (those two topics go well together, now that I think of it), that's why we always kept up with each other — but I didn't have a clue about his handyman skills until recently, when he began posting pics and vids on the Bluebird (Twitter), displaying his projects: it surprised me that he and I were working on some of the same stuff, at the very same time (his stuff being of the highest quality and mine of the lowest, of course: cuz he's a pro and I'm a newbie), yet we were exchanging zany messages online that had nothing to do with handywork. I just think it's fitting, in a Dadaistic sense, that we never before spoke about his forte; I just assumed all along that he was, as I am, another Intellectual Infidel (two more words that are practically begging to be merged as a single coinage).
By the way, something really needs to be done with your "Underworld Disco Room & Pizza Parlor" — that is a hilariously sacred concept: that title must not go to waste! I hope you write a short story or poem or make a cartoon strip or a miniseries or film or SOMEthing, like: "The Underworld Disco Room & Pizza Parlor: a role-playing video game, based on the bestselling novel by M.P. Powers" — that could be the blurb.
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Lastly (I allow myself to go full windbag on my own comments, cuz no one usually comes here or sees this place, so I must find some way to make my desolation amusing; thus forgive this drone) when you write "I often get the feeling that whatever we say in the digital landscape is just more words to be lost in the masses & masses of words out there" — of course we're on the same page of despair with this; after all, you're compassionately joining my complaint above, because misery loves company; yet I strongly wish I could argue against our own pessimism here, but the truth is that the seeming impossibility of the task is part of the draw: it's like a highest-stakes gamble, "going in for my chances, spending for vast returns" (Whitman’s “Song of Myself”) — also consider that when Blake was sharing our mood, he wrote the following lines (among my favorites ever) from The Four Zoas:
What is the price of experience? Do men buy it for a song,
Or wisdom for a dance in the street? No, it is bought with the price
Of all that a man hath—his wife, his house, his children.
Wisdom is sold in the desolate market where none comes to buy,
And in the withered fields where the farmer ploughs for bread in vain.
Again, I wish there were a pick-me-up argument to counter this; but I’m convinced it’s the wall that we’re up against. Nonetheless, I hope that we both keep tossing our words into the abyss, and, as we do so, that we remember to save copies of our efforts in physical scrolls! cuz yeah I don't trust the Internet one iota, but Blake (who was virtually hid to his own generation — also, like ours, a generation of vipers) grows in importance every year, at least among The Happy Few, because he committed his visions to text: so oblivion is not absolutely & necessarily a certainty, tho recognition may be posthumous.
Quote rhe accomplishment!! Y am lost now since my self described journeyman of all master of none died. He was a masrer at many. My house is in need of many repaits. I am lost
It's funny that you mention dharma. I am currently reading Kerouac's Dharma Bums. Really liking it which is strange because when I was 22 a girlfriend gave me On the Road and I read half of it, thought it way overrated and have been slamming Kerouac ever since. Now I see I was perhaps mistaken and just reordered it (lost the original copy and the last I heard of the girl she was cut in half by moving freight in the Pacific Northwest but that might just be hearsay. Another rumor was that she erected a 3000 square foot bird aviary in Texas and married a bulkhead fitting manufacturer).
Love those Blake lines. I usually try to stay positive about the chances of my stuff seeing daylight in or after my lifetime, but the older I get the more I have to prepare myself for being passed over, which may not be so bad. In the end, there's no difference between Shakespeare and the first face you see when you walk out into the street. The efforts of both will ultimately be swallowed up by Oblivion, proving that nothing temporal is real, and as a matter of fact, I'm still not 100% positive that Ryan Baldwin isn't some glitch or bot that some gorgeous basement-dwelling Roman God didn't invent in the tubes of the ENIAC in 1943.
Dear "Not there", I empathize about your loss because the equivalent person in my own life (my dad) died a couple years ago (tho you seem to have truly loved your journeyman; whereas I must admit that I'd rather face the resulting hardships than further endure my dad's base temperament), so that's kinda also why I'm in a fix, or rather an un-fix, with regard to home repair; and when you say "I am lost" all I can say is "I am too"; so at least maybe we can draw strength from being lost in tandem.
[1 of 2 to M.P. Powers]
Ah that's very interesting to me about Kerouac, because I read On the Road in my twenties too; I might have been exactly the same age as when you were reading it; and altho I did reach the end, I might as well have abandoned it, because I didn't like it much either, and at a certain point I was just half-reading, barely paying attention, cuz it felt like a chore. So the fact that you are liking Dharma Bums makes me wanna check out both books and give em a second try — I'm sure I can just take them off the library shelf, so I might as well.
I know a lot of people who really admire the Beat writers; and I feel that I haven't given the Beats a proper chance, but if the appeal of the Beats is that they offer a subversive side of literature in opposition to traditional stuff, then I am more naturally attracted to the movements of Surrealism and Dada, which I think do that same thing better; tho surely the worth of these things is in the eye of the beholder. And I tend to like a lot of the work that came after the Beats: in fact, I like the stuff that was influenced by the Beat writers more than I like the Beat writers themselves. One of my favorite modern authors, Thomas Pynchon, claims to have admired the Beats in general — and, in the introduction to his collection of early works called Slow Learner, Pynchon specifically mentions Kerouac's On the Road and says that it's "a book I still believe is one of the great American novels". This makes me feel ashamed for having dismissed it so flippantly.
[2 of 2 to M.P. Powers]
& one small thing that came to mind when I read your words here about the chances of one's writing getting noticed by the world: "the older I get the more I have to prepare myself for being passed over" — of course I relate to this wholly, as we're at relatively the same point in life; and I don't want to offer up any cheap easy motivational sentiments of the kind that people repeat to themselves to shield themselves from the harshness of reality; I prefer the truth, as long as it doesn't kill me; but I think it's worth noting that much great work has been done by older souls. I know that your point was more like "I don't trust that our great works will be discovered" and also that "Even the best are lost to time eventually"; but let me respond as if you said something like "I worry that the pursuit of literature is a sport like boxing, where, to avoid making a fool of oneself, one should retire and not continue past one's prime"; because there's nothing we can do (beyond flailing our arms) about whether the world finds out about us, whereas it's good to keep motivated to continue the action of MAKING. (I was once told that "poet" simply means "maker", and that seemed right to me, so I accepted it without question.) — Out of contemporary poets, John Ashbery meant more to me than most, and it's worth noting that his work that won me over was published in the latter half of his life: I like everything from the book-length poem Flow Chart forward; and he wrote THAT work when he was in his mid 50s. Then he kept publishing till he died, at 90; and I think his writing remained consistently excellent. Now, after I fell in love with the latter half of his bibliography, of course I returned to the first half and learned to love that stuff too; but it was a little more of an acquired taste — my point is that if it weren't for the stuff that he made after the age of 55, I would never have become a fanatic. The work of his that I'm most jealous of, Girls on the Run, was written when he was in his 70s. Therefore I am in agreement with Tennyson's Ulysses:
Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;
Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
And you say "In the end, there's no difference between Shakespeare and the first face you see when you walk out into the street." I agree with this way of thinking. And, tho with fear and sadness, I also agree with your next statement "The efforts of both will ultimately be swallowed up by Oblivion". Nevertheless I'm still fascinated by the fact that certain poems last longer than others, and it's precisely this certainty that the abyss is inescapable which makes longevity so attractive to me. If it's true that "what goes up must come down" then I yearn to remain airborne as long as possible.
I just yesterday finished The Dharma Bums and have nothing but praise for it, which surprises me more than anyone I think. Like I say, for years I thought Kerouac was overrated and a sham, but as it turns out The Dharma Bums is one of the most poetically-written and subtly comical novels I've read in recent years, and not long-winded at all. Most novels I read these days I get the impression the author is getting paid per word, and when I read them I often feel someone has slipped me a sleeping pill. With Kerouac every word seems to count, even when he doubles and triples up in the adjectives, ex. "vast eternity bridges," or "big mild pipesmoking Buddha," etc. Judging by this book, there is definitely more to Kerouac than a subversive alternative to the traditional; it stands on its own, and he also created a number of lovable characters, including himself, which isn't easy. Also, being a pessimist by nature, I really enjoy reading the optimistic flipside (as long as it doesn't devolve into naivete). Saroyan was similarly optimistic, so I'm not surprised to read that he was one of Kerouac's chief influences. One time I was eating dinner at a ramen restaurant here and Berlin and I overheard the guy across the table say something like, "an artist must be open and humble." I remembered it because it says so much in so few words and is so true, and that the exaxt impression that I get from Kerouac in this book. Open and humble all the way through.
As for the dada and surrealists, I am ridiculously out of touch with them as I'm sure you know, but hopefully that changes soon.
Re: great writing in older years. I am in full agreement with what you say. There are a lot of writers who are like fine wine and keep getting better with age (I count myself one of them - my early stuff was crap and I keep learning). My only argument against working for postmortem fame and honor is you won't be around to see the results, and even if you could see them from some distant heavenly abode, the world and humanity would probably seem so small and inconsequential by then it wouldn't even matter. It has lately been my conviction that there are so many earths or earth-like planets in the universe or multi-verse that everyone has a chance to die and be reborn as Bryan Ray on one planet, Cleopatra or Ted Bundy or Buddha on another, etc. In other words, we all have to take our turns being everyone.
[1 of 2 — by the way, I’m embarrassed that my comments keep proving too longwinded for the reply box… Take it as a compliment that your conversation keeps intriguing me so much that I can’t shut up!]
I love what you say about Kerouac so much that I requested a copy of The Dharma Bums immediately — my local library, which is just two blocks away from our house, says there are copies readily available; so I should be able to begin reading that within a day or two… I’m interested no matter what, and your enthusiasm will propel me into the book much better than if I’d attempted it cold... I’ve long wanted to learn to love Kerouac and the Beats, and perhaps this is my magic door in…
I’m jealous that in Berlin you can overhear such great remarks as “An artist must be open and humble”. That reminds me of Oscar Wilde’s title “The Importance of Being Earnest”, which is a touchstone for me (both the play and the sentiment). And I was going to add a humorous gathering of remarks that are liable to be overheard in Minnesota, but I stopped myself — NOT because it would contradict the above saying, but because I sincerely drew a blank: at the moment, I can’t remember any of the silly, vapid things that I’ve overheard while walking thru the park these recent days! So I say: it’s for the best. And my attempt at a refraction of the above is also my constant personal aim: Have the courage to be vulnerable.
Just a tiny note on dada & surrealism: I mention these movements frequently because they played a large part in my intellectual development. You know that I didn’t attend college: so these imaginative movements were my unofficial college. That’s why I love them; in a way, they usurped my biological parents — thus, instead of my dad, I have André Breton; and instead of my mom, I have Tristan Tzara. (The early poetry and Surrealist Manifestos of Breton, and the Seven Dada Manifestos of Tzara, are the two movements in their nutshells.) There is much garbage associated with each group, and members of both surrealism and dada made awful stuff that I loathe; plus I hate groups in general; so it’s a tricky business to tout only what I think is of real worth… (here I’m reacting to your admission “I am ridiculously out of touch with them […] but hopefully that changes soon”) — I’d say: if you’re not naturally drawn to either movement, you’re simply fine how you are. Turgenev beats both, I assure you. What you currently know is already equal to or better than anything you’ll find in these modern cliques. I value them for their weirdness and invention; and yet neither is weirder or more inventive than Shakespeare. Even if you’ve read Hamlet a thousand times, I say it’d be more worth your energy, and it would offer superior fire, to re-read Hamlet for the thousand-and-first time, than to read even the best work of either of those past-fashions in question. (I hope I’m not going to the point of disparaging dada or surrealism: I only mean to admit that they offer wonders to whoever intuitively harbors curiosity about their style, and whoever is allured by their freedom — yes, that’s maybe the best way to explain what they’ve taught me in the realm of art: a type of super-freedom — but if you already know the great human-centered giants, like Goethe, Chekhov, Hugo, Dickens, etc., then you’re already striding ahead of all the dadaists or surrealists who’ve ever existed.)
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And I’m totally in agreement with your “only argument against working for postmortem fame”, which is that “you won't be around to see the results” — and I love even more your envisioning of multiple worlds, and your idea that we’ll all “take our turns being everyone”: this is something that I’m both excited and frightened about! (To use your examples: I’m excited to be reborn as Cleopatra or Buddha, yet frightened to be reborn as Ted Bundy or Bryan Ray!) I feel fully convinced of this way of thinking; and I also feel convinced that our imaginative creations somehow matter, if only as building blocks or segments in an ongoing oversoul, a higher power that is ever in the process of manifesting: I can’t explain how or why our fancy could have value to the beyond, or even guess the amount of influence our attempts might have upon the “big picture”; but I’m content with doing my best; and whenever I begin to feel sad about my fragmentary & ephemeral state in light of omni-devouring flux, I call to mind Blake’s Proverb of Hell: “Eternity is in love with the productions of time.”
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