Damn Thirsty

First
The fish needs to say,

"Something ain't right about this
Camel ride --

And I'm
Feeling so damn

Thirsty."

~ Hafiz, Persian poet and sufi master (c. 1320-1389)

Above the fold

I call my friend Dan Levin my 26-year-old mentor because his attitude reminds me to be fearless in my own pursuits. In just one year of writing Dan has been published over thirteen times in various sections of the New York Times. Dan had a story published on the front page of the International Herald Tribune today. Hurrah! It's a wonderful tale of how a microfranchising business that gets spectacles to the poor has brought myopic Indians back from the brink of dire poverty just by enabling them to see better so that they can resume their work.

Here's the PDF of the front page: http://iht.com/pdfs/frontpagepdf/asiafrontpage.pdf


And here's the link to the piece: http://iht.com/articles/2007/07/23/business/scojo.php

The Inimitable Norman Mailer

Watching Norman Mailer shuffle slowly across a stage at age 84, hunched forward and clutching two canes, is as good a reminder as any to "Dance, dance, dance" while you still can as Dougy (Lawrence Tierney) says in Tough Guys Don't Dance.
I went to one of the evenings of The Mistress and the Muse: The Films of Norman Mailer, a retrospective taking place during the next two weeks at the Film Society of Lincoln Center, the Paley Center for Media and Anthology Film Archives. Sandwiched in between a screening of the adaptation of his 1984 novel Tough Guys Don’t Dance and Maidstone, a film shot in the Hamptons in the summer of 1968 and released in 1971, was Mailer himself.

Maidstone is one of Mailer's earlier films -- improvisatory semifictional cinéma vérité. They're worth seeing, writes A.O. Scott in the New York Times "for the insight they provide into the ideas and ambitions that fueled Mr. Mailer’s writing in the 1960s and ’70s, the wildest, most productive and most contentious period in a career that has never been especially calm or easy to comprehend." With all due respect to Mr Scott, what's not to comprehend? The man liked to fight and he liked to fuck. He also liked to watch others fuck. And of course there were drinks and drugs. But more than that, he liked to share what he liked to do with others. Or, as they say, he liked to live large. In Maidstone his sexual energy is palpable, almost visible emanating off his person. His chest hair, like his sexual appetite, borders on primitive.

"Fame was not only his burden, but also his subject and his method," wrote Mr. Scott.

I watched Mr. Mailer tonight as he strained to hear the questions (he's very deaf now) and worked hard to keep his feet, clad in black sheepskin Ugg boots despite the heat, from shaking. He coughed as he spoke and told the audience that he has respiratory troubles, yet his voice held such enthusiasm as he proudly announced that he'd been married six times, fathered nine children, served time in jail, gotten into fights. This is a man who took his own life by the jugular and got lock jaw as he bit down hard. I picture him, as he was in the final scene in Maidstone bloodied and crazy-eyed, almost tearing off Rip Torn's ear with his teeth [Torn had attempted to assasinate Norman T. Knigsley (Mailer) and Mailer was outraged that he'd dare. Torn's response: “When — when is an assassination ever planned? It’s done, it’s done.” ]

Here, a couple of classic comments that Mr Mailer made this evening:

On why he made Tough Guys Don't Dance: "I made the move to convince other directors and producers to let me make more movies."

On writing scripts: "Movies are more spooky [than novels] because you're taking reality and distorting it. It's very intense."

On directing: "Sometimes when an actor improvises a line [like Lawrence Tierney did with the line "I coulda told him never to call an Italian small potatoes" in Tough Guys] you almost want to say 'no' even though you know it's good. Your authority when directing a film is so tenuous. To those of you out there who want to be directors I say Godspeed. It was certainly one of the most interesting activities I ever undertook."

On terrorism: "America is essentially a Christian country. Americans find it hard to work six days a week and knock over the next guy to get ahead and then go to church on Sunday....We needed to create a villian large enough for the essential spiritual crime of capitalism. For a long time that was communism. Now it's terrorism and none of our politicians have the wit, the grace, or the courage to attack it for what it is. It's bullshit mountain."

On space travel: "Now that I'm 84-years-old I couldn't give a God damn if we ever get to Mars."

On criticism: "If you didn't like the movie, you can find friends."

On bliss

“Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors for you where there were only walls.” ~ Joseph Campbell, American author, editor, philosopher and teacher.

[Your "bliss," said Campbell, are those moments where you feel truly happy -- "not excited, not just thrilled but deeply happy."]

My therapist is making faces at me

Posted without the permission of Cary Tennis from salon.com (but it was just so damn funny, I couldn't resist. To read more Cary Tennis, go to http://dir.salon.com/topics/since_you_asked/)

Hi, Cary,

I started seeing a new therapist lately. And she does this thing that annoys me no end.

Whenever I tell her something emotionally important, she'll squint her eyes, lean forward, and act like she's really listening.

Now, I am sure she really is intently listening to me, but the squinting and the leaning in really distract me and make me think she is acting.

I want to tell her, but don't know how. Should I? Thanks.

Unnerved,

Dear Unnerved,

Yes, I think you should tell her. But that's the difference between me and a therapist: I will actually tell you what I think you should do.

Doesn't it drive you crazy the way a therapist will never tell you what to do? You'd think every now and then she could just tell you the answer.

It's like, what should I do here?

Well, what do you want to do?

Well, I want to avoid the fucking DMV.

Is there any reason in particular why you want to avoid the DMV?

Yes. Those fluorescent bulbs! It's like a military induction center. It makes me feel sad.

So you want to avoid going to the DMV because it makes you feel sad?

Yes. Sort of.

And what will happen if you avoid going to the DMV?

Well, my license will expire.

Uh huh.

And I'll get pulled over.

Uh huh.

But but fuck the DMV!

Uh huh.

Because the DMV sucks!

Uh huh.

I am hoping the therapist will say, Just go to the goddamned DMV, you moron, and get your license renewed. But I've never had a therapist do that. They're always interested in whatever fucked-up reason I have. But isn't that why I'm there in the first place? Don't they already know that I'm full of fucked-up reasons for not doing stuff I'm supposed to do?

So then I thought, what if I brought an extra hundred bucks?

Here's an extra hundred. I won't tell anybody. Just between you and me: What the fuck do I do now?!

But they turn it back on you and ask about your feelings.

OK, but face it: Isn't that what we really want -- to have somebody ask us about our feelings?

I mean, therapy is probably the only place in the universe where for a few moments you can confront, in a novel and concentrated way, the actual "you" that is causing so much grief, and get a good look at it from all sides -- prompted, of course, by the therapist, who keeps encouraging you to observe and investigate this troubling, chaotic self that is causing you so much trouble. It is a somber and high honor, actually, to confront this self so thoroughly. It is often as though you are seeing it for the first time, and it occurs to you that without all that infuriating and seemingly idiotic prodding, maybe you would never really see this self that is at the root of so many of your problems. Maybe you would never really see it, that is. So maybe it's worth it, even if confronting your true self requires you to cross a certain line you are not used to crossing: To say clearly what you see before you.

In many ways, saying clearly what you see before you is taboo. You are not supposed to do that.

But what if, for instance, the therapist were to pull out a gun and point it at you? Would you say clearly what you see before you?

And the therapist says, how do you feel about that?

Well, it puts me in mind of the possibility of dying, actually.

And what is this encounter between you and the therapist anyway, if not a life-and-death encounter? Why are you there, anyway, if not to face your deepest fears?

I'm not saying your therapist should pull a gun on you.

I'm saying this: It is taboo to say what we see.

It is unbearably intimate.

We are not supposed to tell anyone what we see when we look at them. So I suggest you break the taboo and tell her.

After all, you buy an expensive ticket when you enter the therapist's waiting room. Where does this ticket take you? It takes you across the gulf of taboo. It is an expensive crossing. Make it worth it.

A woman too...

"Every writing career starts as a personal quest for sainthood, for self-betterment. Sooner or later, and as a rule quite soon, a man discovers that his pen accomplishes a lot more than his soul." -- Joseph Brodsky, Jew, Russian poet, English essayist

Beggar’s Composure

These porcelain Pinschers.
Life-size, larger even
than your living room
(and my composure)
should bear.
I swear I see teeth.

Clever.
When you come down
you’re already one up.

My hand stretched to itching,
my rent-paying smile,
is how it will be.
“Good to see you,
Colin, I love your place.”

A line to keep me
plunging all night.

But what if: my pockets
hauled them down
(my beggar hands)
and my smile was submerged,
stashed in reserve,
for that maniac fern
on its pink-marble perch?

I could meet you with an eyebrow,
say: “Class, Colin, pure class.”

Knowing full-well that irony
gets on fine without you

like your money
without me.


Kevin Bloom, South African poet, editor, award-winning journalist and soon-to-be-published author

Posted with permission of the author