[Photo
by Jay Arnold]<<Stuff I Done Wrote
Mon, 07 Jan 2002
(The splake is a hybrid breed resulting from the fertilisation of lake trout eggs with brook trout sperm.)
A brave brook trout
One day set out
From his home brook
To take a look,
To go exploring,
With no thought of scoring.
He travelled south
And found the mouth
Of his home brook.
And the current took
Him so far from shore
The brook trout swore
He'd found the sea -
But actually
He'd found a lake.
No small mistake.
Meanwhile, about
That time, a trout
(A lady fish)
Did nearby swish
Her shapely fins.
Her stately spins
Soon caught his eye.
He swam up. "Why,"
He said, "do you
Swim as you do?"
She said, "Dear sir,
Do your eyes blur?
Is your head clear?
You're not from here,
Or else you'd know.
I swim to show
My mottled back,
My bulging sac
Of eggs, and tail,
So some bold male
Will pop his eyes
And fertilise
My eggs. That's why,
You stupid guy."
The brook trout said,
"It's not my head.
I've swum and swum
From where I'm from
To get to here -
And I'm lost, I fear.
You ocean fishes
Are so malicious.
Your ways are odd.
Are you a cod?"
"A cod!" she sneered.
"I find it weird
A fellow trout
Would ever doubt
I, too, am one.
I've spun and spun
To draw a mate
And you debate
My very breed.
Alas, I need
To mate right now -
Do you know how?"
"Of course I do,"
Said he. "Do you?"
"I know," said she,
"Instinctively."
With that she bore
Down hard, and swore,
And bit her lip,
And let 'er rip.
Her egg sac swelled
And then expelled
The eggs. She sighed
And smiled with pride
And swam away.
No need to stay.
The lakebed gleamed
With eggs, it seemed.
And our brook trout
Let out a shout
(Perhaps you heard it)
And then he squirted
A milky goo.
And his aim was true.
And he swam away.
And sad to say
The story peters
Out, dear readers;
Our fishes mated,
Separated,
Grew old, died,
And never cried
For true love lost.
Their seed was tossed
Together by chance,
Not by romance.
And from that seed
Sprang a new breed,
And the planet shook -
Not just of the brook,
Not just of the lake -
It's the mighty splake!
--for Jaime.
Steve McQueen.
Two AM. I'm halfway through Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway in "The Thomas
Crown Affair". It's okay. The buzzer buzzes.
I resolve to ignore it. It's probably some drunk buzzing my number by
mistake. A few seconds later, it buzzes again.
I go to the intercom. I press the "listen" button. At first, silence.
Then, the sound of someone breathing heavily. More buzzing noises. More
heavy breathing. Apparently someone is downstairs, indiscriminately buzzing
every apartment. I listen for a few more seconds. More heavy breathing.
I figure, okay, maybe someone has locked him or herself out of the building,
and needs to get back in. I put on my shoes and go downstairs.
I can see a young woman through the glass door. She is leaning against
the door, randomly pushing buttons on the intercom. She isn't wearing a
jacket. She's wearing a sweater and sweatpants and sneakers. What is it,
minus-thirty-two?
I open the door. "Are you alright?" I say.
She kind of staggers away and rolls onto the ground. "You don't even
have to let me in," she says. "Just call 911."
"Come in," I say.
"I'll just wait out here," she says. She's curled up in the foetal position.
She reeks of alcohol.
"Come inside," I say. "It's warmer inside." I offer her my hand and
she takes it and pulls herself to her feet. She lurches inside and slides
down to the floor. "Now, what's wrong?" I ask.
"Just call 911, call an ambulance."
She doesn't look physically hurt, just cold and hysterical and drunk.
But I run upstairs and grab my portable and bring it downstairs again,
dialling as I go. She's still curled up on the floor of the lobby, sobbing
and moaning. A female operator picks up after three or four rings.
"911 emergency, how can I help you?"
I tell the operator there's a young woman in the lobby of my apartment
who says she needs an ambulance.
"Can you tell me what's wrong with her?"
"I can't tell. She seems pretty distressed."
"Can you tell me her name?"
"No, I don't know her."
"Can you tell me how old she is?"
"She looks about...I don't know...maybe twenty-five?"
"I'm twenty!" says the young woman, between moans.
"Would you like to talk to her?" I ask. I hold the phone out. "Would
you like to talk to 911?"
She takes the phone from me. "Hello?...Yes, I need an ambulance...Because
I want to kill myself!...No, I don't have any weapons...Just my fingernails...I
don't want to talk any more." And she drops the phone on the floor. I scoop
it up.
"Hi, it's me again," I say.
The operator asks for my address and telephone number, and says she'll
send an ambulance out right away.
"I'm not sure if she needs an ambulance...maybe a police officer?"
The operator says I should try and keep her there, and to be careful,
in case the woman is dangerous. "Thanks," I say, and hang up. I'm sitting
on the bottom step. The woman is slumped against the wall.
"You know what," she says, "Men suck."
"Yeah, probably," I say.
"I used to live at 1600 Markham Crescent," she says, pointing across
the parking lot, "But I don't live there any more."
"Oh, no?"
"My boyfriend's such an asshole. He's so jealous."
"Yeah?"
"I was gonna kill myself tonight, but you know why I didn't? Because
I didn't know how."
"Well, that's lucky."
"So I just cut off my hair instead."
Her shoulder-length blonde hair is patchy and dishevelled, but it doesn't
look like it's been cut. I nod my head.
"Would you mind if I ask your name?" I say.
"Trina Leveaux," she says. I instantly forget it.
"Can I ask what happened to your jacket?"
"You know, there's a reason I'm not wearing a jacket, but I couldn't
even begin to tell you."
We sit in silence for a few moments. Then she pulls herself to her feet
and pushes open the door. "I'm sorry to bother you," she says. "I'll just
get going."
"No, don't go," I say, grabbing at her shoulder. But she heads out into
the cold and limps across the parking lot, rubbing her shoulders and shaking.
I start to follow her, then I realise that I haven't got my keys. If I
let the door close, we'll both be locked out.
She's halfway to the street. "Why don't you come back inside where it's
warm," I yell.
She doesn't need much convincing. She turns around and limps back to
the building. As she reaches the door, she stumbles into me, and I drop
the telephone. It hits the ground and the battery cover flies off.
The woman sprawls onto the floor inside, and I pick up the telephone
and close the door. She pulls herself into a sitting position. We sit in
silence for a few seconds. "I need a hug," she finally says.
So I get down on my knees and kind of rest my arms on her shoulders.
She curls up into my chest. She smells like booze and hairspray.
"He pushed me into the wall," she says, "And my head really hurts. Okay,
that's enough." She shrugs my arms off her shoulders. I move away and sit
on the bottom step again. "I think my toe is broken, too."
Without untying it, she pulls off her left sneaker, wincing, and feels
her little toe. "Ow," she says. "I can't move it."
"You shouldn't try to move it," I say, like I know anything about broken
bones. She pulls the shoe on again, still wincing.
"Your little plastic piece is still outside," she says. She means the
battery cover to my telephone. It's about six feet outside the door.
"I'll get it later," I say.
"Can you bring me a glass of water?"
"Uh...why don't you come up to my apartment and I'll get you some water?"
"I'd better not," she says. "I might try and hurt you."
"Why would you try and hurt me?"
"It's better if you just bring it down."
"See," I say, cautiously, "I'm a little worried if I leave you down
here you might try and run off."
She doesn't say anything.
"Come on," I say, offering her my hand again. "Let's go up to my apartment."
"But your little plastic piece is still outside."
"I'll get it later."
"You'd better get it now."
She's standing up now. I open the door. The battery cover is just out
of reach. I'm reluctant to ask her to hold the door for me - what if she
decides to pull it shut, and I'm locked out? The ambulance might not get
here for who knows how long.
I discover that if I hold the door open with my heel, and stretch out
as far as I can, I can reach the battery cover. I pick it up and go back
inside. The woman is leaning against the railing of the stairs, paying
no attention to me.
"Let's go up," I say. "Do you need any help?"
She shakes her head, and starts pulling herself up the stairs by the
railing. When we reach the landing, she looks up. "All the way up there?"
she asks.
"Afraid so," I answer.
So we go upstairs to my apartment. "I'm so sorry," says the woman, "You've
probably got your girlfriend over, or your boyfriend."
"No," I say. "I was just sitting there."
So we go into my apartment and she seats herself on the little stool
by the door. I go into the kitchen. "Would you like cold water or warm
water?" I ask.
"A little warm," she says. So I run some warm water into a glass. When
I come back into the hall, I find that she is pulling out clumps of her
own hair. She's got a thick lock wadded up in her hand. I hand her the
glass of water and she sips from it.
"You know," she says, staring at her handful of hair, "I was really
very pretty, before I cut off all my hair."
"It doesn't look that bad," I say, which is true.
"My boyfriend is so jealous, he wouldn't even let me go visit my own
grandmother!"
"Did he, uh, hit you?" I say.
"Yeah." She shows me a little red mark on her hand, like a fingernail
scratch. "And he did this."
"Ouch," I say.
"I went out drinking tonight. I had thirty dollars. I go out every Wednesday.
There's a pool tournament. It cost twelve dollars to enter. The rest I
spent on booze."
"Uh-huh."
"My boyfriend is such an asshole," she says. "But I still like him a
lot."
For something to do, I go into the bathroom and take the garbage can
out from under the sink. I hold it out for her. She drops in the clumps
of hair. "There you go," she says. "You can have that to remember me by."
The buzzer buzzes. It's the ambulance guys. "We'll be right down," I
tell them.
I help the woman to her feet again and we go out into the hall. "I'm
so sorry to bother you," she says.
"It's alright. I was just sitting there watching a movie," I say.
"What movie?"
"Did you ever see 'The Thomas Crown Affair'?" I ask. I start to add
that it's the original version, with Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway, but
the ambulance guys meet us at the top of the stairs. Two of them take her
gently by the shoulders and lead her down. The other one stays behind to
ask me questions.
"What's her name?" he asks.
"She told me, but I've forgotten," I say.
"How do you know her?"
"She just randomly buzzed my buzzer."
"What's wrong with her?"
"I'm not sure. She'll probably tell you all about it."
"Okay. That's all we need to know." And the ambulance guy runs downstairs.
"You know how to reach me," I call after him, as he follows the others
out the door and, I don't know, they all hop into the ambulance, I guess.
I linger at the top of the stairs, wondering if I should go down to watch,
or wave goodbye, or something. Instead I just go back to my apartment and
flop onto the couch.
A few minutes later, a policeman buzzes my apartment. I let him in.
He asks me what the woman's name is. I tell him I can't remember. How
do I know her? - She just randomly buzzed my buzzer. What's wrong with
her? - I'm not really sure. Then he asks my phone number and how to spell
my last name. I offer him a root beer, because it's all I have, and it
seems like I should offer him something. He declines.
He's a big Indian guy. His radio hums and crackles and speaks in a diversity
of voices. Every once in a while, he leans away from me to whisper something
into it. He's scribbling in his notepad. "Nice building, man," he says,
as he scribbles.
"Yeah, it's alright."
"How much is rent?"
"Three hundred."
"That's pretty good."
"Yup."
"So what do you do, man?"
"I'm, uh, unemployed right now, actually."
"Too bad. What did you do before?"
"Worked in a video store."
"Uh-huh." I hear his radio say something about 'Trina Leveaux'.
"That's it, that's what she told me her name was," I say.
"Uh-huh," he says, and caps his pen. "Well, I guess I got everything
I need from you, man," he says.
"You know how to reach me, if you need anything else," I say.
"Seeya, Matt," he says, as he goes out the door. I realise he's been
calling me Matt all along. It just sounded like "man".
"My name's Michael," I say.
"Oh, yeah?" he says. "I thought it was Matt."
He goes out. I lock the door behind him. It's about two-thirty.
Dendrochronology - A Boon To Archaeology!
Dendrochronology!
Dendrochronology!
Dendrochronology!
Dendrochronology!
Dendrochronology!
Dendrochronology!
--for Carolyn.
Ta-ta, y'all.
Our guitarist Jason has a run-of-the-mill Canadian accent but uses fancy-pants
English expressions all the time. My favourite is "chuffed". (Which sounds
like it means something bad, but doesn't.) And he pronounces "algae" with
a hard "G". I find it quite entertaining. He has the excuse that both his
parents are British, and he lived in the UK throughout his formative teenage
years.
I relate this by way of defending Dean, who, though neither of his parents
is British, and though he's only lived in the U.K. a little less than two
years, employs his British slang with great relish, and therefore has as
much right to it as the most tea-soaked Cheapside football hooligan. (Is
Cheapside still there? I only know it from Dickens.) Why shouldn't one
use the slang one favours? Why be bound by custom to the vernacular of
one's birth? People adapt their manner of speech all the time, for all
kinds of reasons - to fit in, to social-climb, to make a political statement.
"Just cos I like it" is as good a reason as any.
The thought of Dean stridin' around London in his big boxy shoes with
his big honkin' Saskatchewan accent amuses me greatly. I like to imagine
him hailing his workmates as he arrives to work each morning, brolly in
one hand, mobile phone in the other: "I seen this awesome show last night
on the telly," he tells them, "And I'm right chuffed!"
Crossroads.
I was walking north along Meewasin trail, on the east side of the river,
where it runs by the university campus. It was a little after midnight.
I'd been walking for an hour or so. I'd left my car parked near the greenhouses
and walked in a big loop; over the river on the train bridge, through downtown,
and back over the river again on the Broadway Bridge. Now I was getting
tired.
As I walked through a shady, overgrown part of the path, I saw a large
man sitting on a bench up ahead. He was covered entirely in a heavy black
cloak. His head, too, was cloaked. He was about nine feet tall. As he heard
me approaching, he turned his head toward me. "How do you do," he said.
"'Lo," I mumbled, and continued to walk by.
"Fine evening," he said. His voice was low and mellifluous. He had a
slightly antique-sounding middle-American accent, like a bit player in
an old Frank Capra movie.
"Mmm, yes," I said, slowing down.
"Come sit with me," he said, sweeping the folds of his cloak away from
a section of the bench. I slowed down still further. I was almost past
him.
"I..." I said.
"Come, come," he said, patting the bench beside him. There was no way
to refuse without seeming rude. I smiled at him and sat down on the bench
beside him. My head came up almost to his shoulder.
As I sat I looked at his face for the first time. It was as flat and
broad as a stop sign. His skin was perfectly white, and perfectly smooth,
and almost featureless, except for the abrupt black slash of his mouth,
which was apparently toothless, and which, when he opened it, seemed not
to lead down into his stomach, but rather into empty space. He had no eyeballs,
only sockets, which at first I took to be empty, but as I sat down I noticed
that his empty sockets weren't empty at all; his left eye socket contained
a giant bullfrog, waiting patiently for a tasty bug to fly by, and his
right eye socket contained a troupe of pea-sized tragedians acting out
the death scene from "Hamlet".
"Thank you," I said, settling comfortably onto the bench. I was tired
from my walk.
"How do you do," he said, extending a cool, white hand as large as a
tennis racket. I wrapped my whole hand around two of his fingers and shook
them. "Now, young man, what shall I call you?" he asked.
"My name's Michael," I said.
"And I am Esperzak," he said. "It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance."
"Likewise."
"I was just sitting here enjoying the view," he said, gesturing toward
the tangled mass of weeds and trees that lay just across the path from
us. A few moths and night-bugs fluttered faintly in what little moonlight
filtered through. It was cool and comfortable.
"I was walking," I said.
"Would you like some tea?" he said. I saw that he was delicately holding
a tiny teacup between the thumb and index finger of his left hand.
"That would be lovely," I said.
"Excuse me," he said, and placed his teacup on the bench between us.
Then he reached down to the ground and lifted his heavy black cloak up
above his waist. I saw that his legs, too, were white and smooth, and tapered
down to little pink hooves, like pig's feet. He continued lifting his cloak,
and I saw that he had a spigot where his genitals would be. Holding his
cloak up with his left hand, he reached down between his legs with his
right, and turned the spigot. A stream of steaming black tea poured out.
"Hurry, catch it," he said. "It'll stain my cloak."
"I didn't bring a cup," I said.
"Use your hands."
So I cupped my hands and held them under the spigot. The tea was piping
hot, but somehow it didn't burn my hands. When my cupped hands were full
to the brim, he turned off the spigot and let his cloak fall over his legs
again. "Would you like milk and sugar?" he asked.
"Yes, please."
He removed several packets of non-dairy creamer and Nutri-sweet from
a pocket of his cloak, and emptied them into my cupped hands. When he'd
stirred my tea using his pinky finger, I took a sip, awkwardly, spilling
a great deal down my chin. It was alright. A little sweet for my taste.
He took up his teacup again, and we sat in silence for a few moments,
watching the night-bugs, sipping our tea. I noticed that he swished the
tea around in his mouth after each sip, and swallowed with great relish.
I tried to sip quietly, but it was difficult to drink from my cupped hands,
and I'm afraid I slurped a great deal.
"Fine evening," he said, after a while.
"Yes, isn't it."
"Do you mind, Michael, if I ask what you do?"
"Not at all, Esperzak," I replied. "The truth is, I'm unemployed."
"Really? That seems a shame. A well-dressed, polite young man like you."
"I'm not really cut out for the working world."
"No? No, neither am I, I'm afraid." He turned toward me and I saw the
planet Uranus in his right eye socket, spinning on its horizontal axis.
In his left socket, I saw the building of the Great Pyramid; a thousand
slaves straining to raise a stone block into position, while the Pharaoh
lounged on a sedan chair suckling the adolescent breasts of a favourite
niece. Esperzak leaned back on the bench and stretched out his legs. "I
used to be in advertising," he said.
"Really?"
"I did that one with the Toyota, with the family, driving down the highway,
with the dog? Remember that one? I did that one."
"Really."
"Yes, I was big in the advertising field. At one time, mind you. At
one time." He sighed. A few seconds passed.
"I'm afraid I haven't had that kind of success," I finally said.
"I'm sure you will, Michael. I'm sure you will."
I had slurped down the last of my tea, and was busily licking my palms
clean. Esperzak now swallowed what little was remaining in his teacup.
After swishing it around in his mouth and noisily swallowing, he popped
the teacup into his mouth. "Well, that's that," he said. For an instant
as he spoke, I could see the teacup in his open mouth, receding into the
endless void. I resisted a strong and inexplicable urge to reach into his
open mouth and try to retrieve the teacup before it fell away forever.
But I'm glad I didn't try.
Now Esperzak was sitting with his hands upon his knees, as if he were
about to rise up and leave me. I thought maybe he was waiting for me to
get up first. "Well..." I said, and began to rise.
"Michael," he said, turning upon me with eyes of cream of mushroom soup
and Picasso's "Guernica", respectively. "Michael, I just wanted to thank
you for stopping to have tea with me."
"It was my pleasure," I replied sincerely.
"I know you're a busy man," he said.
I am no such thing, and I think he knew it, too. "Well," I said.
"No, no. It was kind of you to sit and have tea with me. Who else would?"
"Many people. Many people would."
"Ah," he said, dismissively. "Are you headed home right now?"
"As soon as I walk to my car," I said.
"Do you think you could possibly give me a lift?"
"Of course. Anywhere you'd like to go."
"Anywhere you're going is fine," he said, and with that stepped neatly
into the breast pocket of my shirt. I sat on the bench a few moments longer
to collect myself, then got to my feet and walked to my car, which was
just around the next bend. There was an enormous black iguana perched on
the hood of my car, but I didn't pay it any mind. I flew directly home.
RIP 1984-2002.
So my newts died late last week. During the heatwave. I'm ashamed to
say that I didn't find their remains - covered already with a fine layer
of furry white mould - until Saturday morning, just as I was about to depart
for Kurt & Jenn's cabin. I didn't have time to conduct a proper burial,
so I fished them out of the aquarium using a pair of kitchen tongs - which,
however many times I wash them, I will never be comfortable using to handle
food again, so I might as well throw them away - wrapped my dead newts
in tinfoil, and stuck them in the freezer, where they remain. I guess they'll
keep for a few days longer, while I try and figure out how and where to
lay them to rest. Meanwhile, my aquarium is still bubbling away. Does anyone
want it? I'm not planning to bring any more aquatic animals into my home.
Obviously I'm too irresponsible to be allowed to take care of them.
My newts' names, by the way, were Micro (the little one) and Macro (the
big one). I named them when I was eight years old, in Prince Albert. They
were a Christmas gift from my mother. There was a third newt at that time,
halfway in size between the other two - even less ingeniously, I christened
him "Newtie" - but within a few months, I left the aquarium lid open overnight,
and Newtie scrambled up the glass to freedom. We found him much later,
mummified, beneath the oven. I cried at the loss of Newtie. I can't say
I've cried yet over Micro and Macro. I guess I've outgrown the promiscuous
emotionalism of childhood.
Still, I will miss them. True, these last few years, I rarely paid attention
to them, except for the few minutes every other morning that it took me
to break a few sticks of TetraReptoMin Turtle & Newt Food into their
tank. But now and then I would sit down on the floor beside the aquarium
and watch Micro and Macro going about their business - climbing onto the
rock, climbing off the rock, hiding in the algae-covered skull in the corner
of the tank, snapping up chunks of TetraReptoMin, snapping at each other's
tails and feet when they swam near. Sometimes I would press my finger against
the glass and wiggle it, to see if I could get their attention. I was never
really certain if they were conscious of the world outside the aquarium.
Could they even tell when I walked by, or when I was watching them? - But
when I pressed my finger against the glass, they would swim closer to examine
it, and we would watch each other through the glass, my newts and I, each
wondering, in our own limited way, what the other was up to. That was really
the extent of my interaction with my pets. Not quite as satisfying as scratching
a dog behind the ears, I suppose, but it's all I had.
If I'd been a more hands-on newt owner - if I'd been the kind of guy
who reached into the tank every morning to greet them with a pinky finger
dragged down the spine - my newts probably would've survived the heat.
As it was, I merely glanced in each morning, saw them reposing on the bottom
of the tank in their usual newtish postures, dumped a few chunks of food
into the water, and got back to the much more important business of keeping
myself cool. It didn't occur to me that when the temperature was over a
hundred degrees in my apartment, the newts must be suffering too. So they
boiled to death, while I lay ignorantly, cooling under my fan, just a few
feet away. I hope it was a peaceful death. At least I didn't find them
coiled up into poses of agony, their mouths open, their eyes bulging out.
They looked comfortable enough. If it weren't for the mould, I wouldn't
even have known they were dead.
So, farewell, Micro and Macro. Go thee to the coolest, scummiest, stagnantest
pond thy tiny minds can conceive, and lie there in the mud contentedly,
while I remain in this tiny, overheated apartment, with nobody to keep
me company. I promise to think about you every now and then, and occasionally
to press my metaphorical finger against the metaphorical glass that separates
us, and wiggle it. I hope you'll still take notice.
A sacrilegious dream.
Last night I dreamt that I was Jesus Christ. I was waiting in line to
see the Pope. All the other people waiting knew who I was, and they admired
that I was humbly standing in line, when I could have just cut in front
of everybody. At the same time, there was a certain amount of consternation
that I wasn't performing any miracles - I was just standing there. But
I wasn't altogether convinced of my own divinity, so I didn't want to try
any miracles and fail, and make a fool of myself. Finally, as we passed
under the arch that led into the Pope's chambers, I felt obliged to attempt
some kind of miracle. So I tried to pull my legs up into the lotus position
and levitate. Of course, I just fell over. At this point, the Pope himself
came out to see me. He was a youngish Pope, and stern. He told me to sit
cross-legged on the floor and attempt to levitate again. I did as he told
me, and I floated up to about three feet above the ground. I was levitating,
but I couldn't move through space - all I could do was bob there in mid-air,
leaning slightly to one side or another. The Pope was disappointed in me.
Lest anyone think that my dream is symptomatic of some kind of megalomania,
I should mention that later last night, I dreamt that I was a giant rhododendron,
tended by a groundskeeper who fertilised me with his own excrement.
No sense of history.
I read all the way through Thucydides' history of the Peloponnesian
War wishing that the book contained a map, so that I could figure out where
Platea lay in relation to Thebes, for instance; and I got to the end and
discovered that the maps were after the appendices.
I've spent the last two months reading Thucydides, a couple chapters
every night just before bedtime, finally finishing it around three this
afternoon. I've already forgotten everything about it. I think there might
have been a war in there somewhere. I believe I could pick up the book
and start again at the top and the early chapters would seem only vaguely
familiar to me. Is my memory unusually short? I'm astounded by people who
are able to recite dialogue and discuss plot points from stories they've
absorbed months before. I saw "Attack of the Clones" less than two hours
ago and the only thing about it that comes clearly to mind is that R2D2
has apparently been able to fly all along, go fucking figure.
I asked Warren how his memory was, and he said he had trouble recalling
differential equations sometimes. That's comforting. Still, I suspect that
a truly deep appreciation of literature will forever elude me, because
I can't retain a complete enough picture of any story I read long enough
to begin to understand it. Why bother reading, then, if my mind is as empty
when I'm done as it was when I began? I can be diverted just as easily
by sitcoms or by People Magazine. Am I only reading the classics out of
some self-punishing delusion that I'm improving myself? What if I truly
enjoy reading Thucydides (and I do)? - whom am I disrespecting if I read
him as I would a free in-flight magazine? Isn't it a pity that I'm just
smart enough to recognise great writing, but not quite smart enough to
appreciate it?
When I finished making my way through Herodotus, a couple months ago,
I made a point of going back to the beginning and reading it again, skipping
back and forth in the story, with my thumb in the index, to follow the
arrivals and departures of various key figures in the narrative. And I
still can't remember a goddamn thing about the Persian War. I'm not sure
if there's any point doing the same thing with Thucydides. It would be
nice to feel like I've come away having learned something. But it would
also be nice to have something new on my bedtime table, for the first time
in two months.
Yes, I am going to hell.
...while I was there I saw this fantastic rapping priest from the
States, Father Stan - he was amazing...
Apologies beforehand to Carolyn, Father Stan, Pope John Paul II, and
God.
Givin' props to my man, J.P. the Pope
Word up!
DJ CARDINAL FUNKY G:
MC RAPPIN' FATHER STAN:
Now he sleeps by hisself, he don't need no ho's
DJ CARDINAL FUNKY G:
CROWD:
MC RAPPIN' FATHER STAN:
He got Matthew and John and Luke and Mark
MC RAPPIN' FATHER STAN:
POPE JOHN PAUL II: (mumbling)
Rewriting Steinbeck.
I guess this makes me a bastard, but I found "The Grapes of Wrath"
kind of irritating.
***
Night grazed hungrily on prairie grass, dry and yellow. A coyote howled.
A field mouse pushed its way among the dry stalks, first this way then
back, one way then the other, searching, hunting, following its pink twitching
nose through a maze of stalks, lit by the low-hanging moon, lit by the
melancholy laughing stars, lit only by the moon and the stars. The mouse
stopped and sniffed, nose twitching. A pill-bug waddled by, bouncing off
the dry stalks, tumbling among the dry stalks, rolling tank-like over the
crumbly earth. The mouse nose twitched. The pill-bug waddled along. The
pill-bug butted up against a fair-sized stone sitting right in its path.
The pill-bug blundered to its left and then to its right, searching for
a way around the stone. Finally it found a clear path around, and it waddled
on its way. The mouse watched it waddle by. The mouse nose twitched. The
mouse scuttled forward and sniffed the pill-bug's smooth carapace. The
pill-bug froze. The mouse sniffed again, and the pill-bug instantly curled
up, pulled its legs and head inside its carapace, rolled up into a smooth
ball, smooth as a pebble. The mouse sniffed again, then took a bite. Its
sharp little teeth, fine and sharp as bee's stingers, scratched for purchase
on the pill-bug's smooth shell. The pill-bug didn't move. The mouse dug
for purchase with its little bee's stinger teeth, found none, sniffed around
a bit with its little pink nose, and moved on. The pill-bug stayed rolled
up. It was in no hurry. The moon slipped off its veil of cloud and sank
toward the horizon. Morning approached.
In huts and shacks and little clapboard houses, women and men, eyes
still closed, asleep together on their firm beds, their modest, hard little
beds, their tattered blankets pulled up under their chins, felt the moon
sink toward the horizon. They felt the moon sinking and they felt the sun
rising. Their minds worried away at a day's supply of small victories and
small defeats, worried them into dreams of larger victories, of larger
defeats, and still they felt the moon sinking, and still they felt the
sun rising. Morning approached. And even as they dreamed, the women and
the men were aware that morning approached, and their work-hardened muscles
twitched in anticipation of the day's work to come. The women's forearms
twitched in anticipation of laundry to be scrubbed, and of pots to be scrubbed,
and of mush to be stirred. The men's thicker forearms twitched in anticipation
of axes to be swung, and of flies to be swatted, and of sticks to be whittled.
They twitched and they dreamed, the men and the women, and all the time
the moon still sank, and the sun still rose, and morning came on, relentless.
A coyote howled one last time, and that was that. Morning was here.
All across the countryside, in huts and shacks and little clapboard
houses, the men and the women arose, and the children arose, and the old
folks, too, rolled over and saw that morning had arrived, and they pressed
their feet down flat upon the morning-cold floor. The women slipped into
their Mother Hubbards and set to work preparing the breakfast, and the
men climbed into their overalls and emerged into the morning and looked
off to the east, nodding at the rising sun, thinking of the day's work
to come, squatted on their haunches and found sticks on the ground and
drew patterns in the dirt with the sticks, looking off to the east and
then to the west, thinking, always thinking, always thinking. And the women
stood in the doorways of their little clapboard houses, and the children
crowded around the women's bare legs, and the women and the children watched
the men squatting on their haunches in the dirt, scratching in the dirt
with their sticks, and the women and the children knew not to interrupt
the men when there was thinking to be done. The women stirred flour and
eggs together in metal pans, stirred quietly, and watched the men from
the doorstep, and together they knew that a new day was upon them. The
children knew too.
Up where the dirt road met the main highway, a car turned off the highway
and onto the dirt road. The man scratching in the dirt turned and saw the
car coming along the dirt road, raising a cloud of dust as high as the
roof of a clapboard house. The car crunched along the dirt road, and turned
off the dirt road where there was a break in the fence, and now the car
was in the dooryard, pulling to a stop just yards from where the man squatted.
The car was new, ten years old maybe, and white, with only a little rust
down along the bottom of the door. The car pulled to a stop in the dooryard
and the man rose stiffly to his feet, released the stick to fall where
it may among the scratches he'd made in the dirt. The woman herded the
children inside to sit around the table, but they peered from their chairs
out the open door and wondered at this unexpected visitor arriving in their
dooryard. The woman beat her flour and her eggs in the metal pan, and watched
out the window. She knew to let her man do the talking.
The door of the white car opened. A city man stepped out. He wore tight
black jeans and a yellow shirt. His hair was combed straight back. Sweat
beaded above his well-groomed eyebrows. He blinked away some sweat and
drummed on the roof of the car with soft fingers, soft pink fingers, fingers
that had never gripped an axe handle or whittled a stick or felt the warm
rush of blood flowing down from the throat of a freshly slaughtered sow.
Soft, pink, sluggish fingers that had held pencils, perhaps, or pushed
elevator buttons, but that had never squeezed the trigger of a .22 rifle
to blow the head off a prairie chicken. With his soft, pink, sluggish little
city man fingers, he drummed away. And he gazed around at the dooryard,
at the chickens scratching at the side of the house, at the old black dog
panting under the edge of the porch, at the clapboard house, at the man
in his crusty overalls and bare feet standing just in front of the house.
The city man took this all in, and squinted, and felt down in his throat
a sense of something he didn't want to acknowledge. It rose up in his throat
like the taste of sour cherries, but he didn't want to acknowledge it,
and it stayed there. He wiped the sweat off his brow and smiled a soft
little smile. "Uh, hi," he said.
The man in the overalls said nothing, just looked at the city man in
his yellow shirt. He looked for something in the city man's face, something
to give him confidence, but he could find nothing there. He scratched in
the dirt with his bare toe.
"Sorry to bother you so early," said the city man. "Um...I'm lost. I've
been driving down this highway all night, and I haven't seen a town since,
well, last night. And...uh...I was going to keep on driving, but I thought
I'd better make sure I'm on the right highway...so...I saw you standing
out there and I thought I'd, you know, stop. Hope you don't mind."
The man in the overalls reached down the front of his overalls and jumbled
his testicles in his right hand. He scratched thoughtfully in the dirt
with his big toe, scratching unnameable letters there in the dirt, and
jumbled his testicles, and looked over the city man in his yellow shirt,
and waited for the city man to say something more.
"Uh...my name's Michael," said the city man. "I was just...you know,
wondering...just wondering where this highway goes. Uh, does this highway
go anywhere? I thought it was supposed to go to the I-40, but I stopped
last night to get some food at a little diner...and, uh, when I turned
back onto the road I must've got on the wrong one, but I didn't notice...and
by the time I did, there was nowhere to pull over to find out where I was
going. So...sorry to bother you...but..."
The man in the overalls jumbled his testicles in his right hand and
scratched another alphabet in the dirt with his toe. A black ant making
its way across the dooryard marched down into the trenches created by the
man's scratching toe, and got briefly lost in them, and finally wandered
out and back to its anthill, to carry the memory of the strange new alphabet
in its marching feet. The man in the overalls reached his other hand down
the back of his overalls and scratched his asshole.
"Um. I guess I just thought maybe you could tell me what's the nearest
town, or...you know, which way to the nearest main highway, or...I don't
even know how I got onto this highway in the first place...sort of weird...anyway,
I'm sorry to bother you. My name's, uh, Michael, by the way." The city
man rapped his knuckle four gentle times on the roof of his white car.
"Uh, and you are?"
"Jodson," said the man in the overalls, jumbling his testicles and scratching
his asshole. "I'm Pa Jodson, that there's Ma in the window, Abelmay an'
Floricarn back in the house, Preacher Willie laid out over there in that
there hammock, Uncle Boogly sleepin' off a drunk in the boughs of yarn
tree, and Grampy and Grammy is comin' up behin' you from the barn where
they sleep cos they bladders isn't so good no more."
A bristly old man in long underwear was hopping along the path from
the barn to the house. A halo of wispy white hair stood up behind his head.
An open sore on his lip oozed yellow pus. His chin whiskers were stained
yellow from pus and tobacco. Behind him was a leathery crooked old woman
in a thin cotton shift. Bits of straw were stuck in the flesh of her knobbly
knees. "Praise be and Jesus love ya!" said the old woman, and lifted her
shift above her leathery hips, and squatted there on the path, and urinated
there while the city man looked on, squinting, rapping his knuckles on
the roof of his car. The old man hopped up to the city man and looked up
into his eyes.
"What you want here?" said the old man.
"Uh..." said the city man. He was trying not to stare at the old woman
urinating just a few yards from his car. The old man continued to look
into the city man's eyes, to examine his face, searching for a kind of
understanding that he didn't expect to find there. The old man narrowed
his gaze and focussed on the white skin visible at the base of the city
man's neck, a white scrawny chicken-flesh neck, where his collar was open.
There the old man searched for understanding. Finding none, he shrugged,
turned around, and hopped up to the front porch, where he collapsed and
lay on his back, wheezing shrilly.
The woman came out, still stirring in her metal pan, and got on her
knees beside the old man. She looked at his face. His eyes were wide open,
staring up at the sky, still searching for understanding. His mouth opened.
His tongue rolled out. It rolled back in. He shivered and spat, like a
cut of fatty sidemeat in a frying pan. The woman beat her flour and her
eggs. "Grampy's havin' 'nother ep'lepsy," she announced. The children ran
out and crowded around the shaking old man.
"Nyah, nyah, Grampy's dyin' agin," chanted Abelmay and Floricarn.
"Hush, children. Abelmay, go get Grampy a glass of warm milk. And pour
a little bacon grease in, for strength." Abelmay ran back inside the house.
Floricarn stuck out his tongue and patted his head and reached down his
overalls to jumble his immature testicles. The woman beat her flour and
her eggs, and her eyes were set hard with a look of unshakeable patience.
This was her lot, to oversee the births and the deaths and the ep'lepsies,
to stir the mush and to salt the pork, to scrub the laundry and to scrub
the pots. Her eyes scanned over the horizon, and the eyes anticipated nothing,
and made no demands.
In the dooryard, Pa had turned his back on the city man. Pa had found
another stick, and inserted it down the front of his pants, and he was
frantically scratching. His other hand worked away at his asshole. He hopped
up and down on one foot, drawing ever-more complicated patterns in the
dirt with the big toe of his other foot. The city man thought he could
make out a few words in the scratches Pa left in the dirt with his toe.
The city man craned his neck to read. "All is vanity," said the scratches
in the dirt. The city man gave this a little thought, and then, not wanting
to intrude further, he ducked back into his car and closed the door.
As the city man drove out of the dooryard and turned onto the dirt road,
he looked back and saw that Grammy, too, had collapsed, and was now twisting
and jerking in a puddle of her own urine there in the path, her shift still
hiked above her hips, foaming at the mouth and praising Jesus with every
raspy breath. Ma was still kneeling on the porch beside Grampy, still beating
her flour and her eggs, still looking out over the land with an expression
of infinite patience and hard-won wisdom. Abelmay came out onto the porch
with Grampy's milk, proudly thrusting her young developing breasts ahead
of her. Preacher Willie was preaching a sermon. Floricarn turned white
with a sudden attack of the skitters. The city man drummed his soft fingers
on the steering wheel and turned onto the highway.
Pa watched the white car as it turned west onto the highway, joining
the row of cars already crawling west, heading for California. There were
oranges in California, Pa thought, and green grapes growing wild in every
gully, and peaches to be plucked from the overhanging trees. Pa thought
about joining the row of cars, thought of giving up the farm, thought of
heading west. "Times is rough," he thought. "Gettin' so a man cain't hardly
enjoy his mornin' asshole-scratch no more." A land turtle crawled across
the dooryard. Afternoon suddenly arrived.
Rezkallah and Bergstrom and Sumner and Bugg
Rezkallah and Bergstrom and Sumner and Bugg
Rezkallah and Bergstrom and Bugg all got drunk
Rezkallah and Bergstrom said Bugg was a pest
Rezkallah said Bergstrom was too cute by half,
Sumner peeked out from the trunk just in time
Bugg saw Rezkallah whack off Sumner's head
If you're looking for Bergstrom and Sumner and Bugg,
--for the engineers.
M. Night Shyamalan.
My negative reaction to "The Sixth Sense" probably derives in part from
my feeling that it has been wildly overpraised. I know it's not fair to
think less of a movie because other people think too much of it, but I'm
afraid it's a prejudice I succumb to from time to time - I still haven't
been able to watch "Braveheart" in its entirety, because I'm so irritated
by the fact it won that Best Picture Oscar when it's clear to me, from
the handful of scenes I've seen, that it is ham-fistedly directed and has
all the moral complexity of a Hardy Boys novel. I have the same prejudice
against "Gladiator" and "Titanic" - which I have to admit, notwithstanding
their undeserved Oscars, are okay movies - and "A Beautiful Mind" - which
I will consider watching only if Ron Howard personally apologises to me
for making "The Grinch".
Perhaps, to get back to "Sixth Sense" and Shyamalan, my objection to
his movies is that he never quite makes the movie I want him to make. "Sixth
Sense" has a terrific, scary-as-all-hell ending which is neutered by the
drippy stuff about Bruce Willis having completed his business on earth
and now he's free to move on into the light, or whatever - would've been
a better, spookier movie if Shyamalan hadn't felt the need to drop that
note of religious reassurance in there. "Unbreakable" I kept expecting
to explode from sombre contemplation into full-on comic-book muscularity,
complete with death rays and a guy in tights flying through the air - could've
been the greatest superhero movie ever made, like a brainy version of the
original "Superman" - but instead it stayed sombre and contemplative and
sort of fizzled out.
As for "Signs", which I still haven't seen, you said something in your
email to the effect that "you can't fault a guy for believing in a higher
power and wanting to convey that belief in film". Well, no, I can't fault
him for his beliefs - but I can fault him for shoehorning a cameo by God
Almighty into what sounds like a perfectly entertaining alien invasion
flick. You compared Shyamalan to Hitchcock, but Hitchcock never felt the
need to uplift his audiences with hokey spirituality - look at the bleak
endings of "Vertigo" or "The Birds" or, by contrast, the upbeat final scene
of "Rear Window" - any of his endings, really - what Hitchcock's endings
have in common is that they leave the audience to work out the moral of
the story for themselves. One can't say for certain, but I suspect if Hitchcock
had made "Sixth Sense", it would've ended with a shot of Bruce Willis'
face as he realised that he was a ghost - and it would've been the scariest
fucking movie ever.
Carfree.
My car's in the shop. Today will be my day of the escalating cost estimate
phone calls:
"Mr. Charles, we found the problem. Gonna have to replace your starter
switch. Cost you eighty-eight dollars plus labour."
"Mr. Charles, while we were replacing your starter switch, we noticed
your ignition ring bearing case was worn out. Have to put in a new one.
That'll be forty-seven fifty plus labour."
"Mr. Charles, while we were working on the ring bearing we noticed your
gazoinker valve was in need of lubrication. Gazoinker lubrication fluid
is twelve eighty a bottle."
"Mr. Charles, I'm afraid we dripped some gazoinker fluid on your driver-side
floormat. No, no, we'll pay for the new floormat. But while we were replacing
the floormat we noticed that the ashtray was in need of alignment. Now,
I can't let you drive out of here with a misaligned ashtray. That'll be
seventy-six dollars for labour."
"Mr. Charles, we had to change all your radio presets to country music
stations. Can't let you drive out of here with faulty radio settings, that'd
be a fire hazard. So that'll be another seven dollars for the labour, plus
the ten dollar instruction manual interpretation fee, five dollar gazoinker
fluid enviro tax, four ninety-five for the copy of Stuff Magazine that
the technician was reading on his coffee break, and parts and labour...now,
Mr. Charles, would you like me to give you the total all at once, or would
you like me to read it to you slowly, one decimal place at a time, with
a drumroll in the background? The drumroll will cost you fourteen thirty-five..."
Fri, 31 Jan 2002
Wed, 20 Mar 2002
To count the rings within a tree
That grew in Pontius Pilate's day,
Or was cut down by Nez-Percé,
Or marks the spot that Kublai Khan
Decreed his Pleasure-Dome upon.
To take core samples and to see
Which rings are narrow, which are broad,
And which show signs of being gnawed
By insects; and in doing so
To date events of long ago.
And so with great accuracy
We know how balmy was the shore
That Vikings trod in Labrador;
Did oceans rise one centimetre
Then fall again? Just ask a cedar.
It's good for you, it's good for me.
Without it how would we determine
If fluctuations in the German
Climate drove the Goths to burn
And pillage Rome? No small concern!
Aeons of living history
Entombed within its knobby hide,
An olive tree, when looked inside,
Can tell the tale of ancient Crete,
Of Greece's rise, of Troy's defeat.
A boon to archaeology!
Let no-one ever dare impugn it.
Let no-one smear the people doin' it.
Now let us all fall to our knees
And thank our ancient friends, the trees!
Mon, 03 Jun 2002
Wed, 26 Jun 2002
Tue, 02 Jul 2002
Mon, 29 Jul 2002
Fri, 02 Aug 2002
Sat, 03 Aug 2002
Carolyn wrote:
YO! BUM RUSH THE POPE!
a scene from World Youth Day celebrations, 2002
as imagined by Michael A. Charles
(SCENE: Downsview Park, Toronto. An outdoor stage. The curtain rises
on MC Rappin' Father Stan and his posse.)
MC RAPPIN' FATHER STAN:
Well, I'm Rappin' Father Stan from the USA
Sometimes I like to get a little funky when I pray
All them sucka MCs gonna be in deep-freeze
When they see me with the rosary down on my knees
He a smooth mack daddy and his word is dope
Well he got the call, took the name John Paul
Now he spends his days spreadin' the good word to y'all
Word!
Well he drive a phat car called the Popemobile
And that sucka flies faster than Ezekiel's wheel
Got the bullet-proof platin', gonna take down Satan
Can't stop him when he starts transubstantiatin'
In a room decked out with Michelangelos
He an evil fighter, he a real low rider
He an old-school gangsta and he wears a miter
Give it up for the Sisters of Immaculate Virtue Fly Girls!
(The Fly Girls dance.)
Yo! Yo! Here we go!
Yo! Yo! Here we go!
Well, he's waitin' offstage, but any minute he
Is gonna hit you with the whole Holy Trinity
He a bad-ass mutha from the Polish nation
Quotin' chapter and verse outta Revelation
And he brought 'em all together here at Downsview Park
He got a homily straight outta 1 Thessalonians
To keep it real with all you funky Torontonians
(Father Stan receives a discreet signal from offstage.)
Yo yo yo, give it up Toronto, for my main man, John Paul hisself!
(The Pope is pushed onstage in a wheelchair. He weakly raises his hands
above his head.)
Raise your hands in the air!
Wave them around like you (unintelligible)!
(The crowd goes wild.)
Mon, 23 Sep 2002
Mon, 23 Sep 2002
Met out by the graveyard at midnight, and dug
A pit; and they guzzled moonshine from a jug -
Rezkallah and Bergstrom and Sumner and Bugg!
And took off their belts, and called Sumner a punk,
And Sumner got scared, and he hid in a trunk;
Cos Rezkallah and Bergstrom and Bugg were so drunk.
And, waving their shovels, said it would be best
If Bugg caught the first Greyhound bus going west;
Cos Rezkallah and Bergstrom thought he was a pest.
And beat him to death with a plastic giraffe,
And threw him down into the pit with a laugh;
Cos Rezkallah thought Bergstrom was too cute by half.
To witness Rezkallah's unspeakable crime,
And ran to the phone booth, and searched for a dime;
And Rezkallah caught up to him just in time.
With a shovel, and Bugg came up running, and said,
"Rezkallah! Oh, no! I think Sumner is dead!"
And Rezkallah cackled, and whacked off Bugg's head.
You'll find their remains in the pit that they dug
By the graveyard, wrapped up in a fine Persian rug -
And where is Rezkallah? Asleep with the jug!
Tue, 01 Oct 2002
Tue, 08 Oct 2002