-I think I'm coming down, Jeff sits up in the chair, brushes himself off and stares at the floor for a second.
-Yeah. You wanna go downtown?
-Sure.
They take time to remember how to put on extra layers, the temperature has been dropping outside recently and tonight is a full breath of autumn. Stepping outside Jeff looks at Keely, shivers and pulls out a cigarette. He offers one to Keely, she declines, has always declined every time he's asked. Either he has never learned to withhold from her or this offering has become a force of habit. Jeff stands just shy of six feet, a ring of forgettable brown hair sits above his pale face. He's got an army surplus parka on, German flag pasted on the shoulder for authenticity. She starts walking, passing him as he dallies to light up. He rushes ahead to catch up, they step into the back alley (always a shade darker than the rest of the world it seems, even on nights like this where the lack of light seems to transcend itself into a fifth dimension as ineluctable as space or time) shapes darting from car to bush, from fence to hedge.
They are walking side by side, silently. He considers whether the silence makes his feel awkward, she is a holy enigma to him and he leaves her silence in reverence.
-What are your parents like?
-Uh. Haha, I donno...
She asks again
-Well my mom is pretty cool. She works in Olympia, in the capitol doing something, like a secretary or something...
-How old is she?
-Uh let's see, she just turned 39 a few months ago I guess.
-Wait, your mom was 19 when she had you?
-Yeah. He laughs nervously -She was pretty young...
There is an increase in traffic, the lights around them rise in strength and warmth, they are nearing downtown.
-What's your dad like?
-Uh actually, he sort of ditched my mom pretty early on like when I was a bay maybe? or before I was born, so I don't know him.
-Yeah that was the same for me. He looks over at her, probably for the first time tonight. She is easily 7 inches shorter than him, her jacket envelops her, makes her seem even smaller, yet she seems to him to be, somehow very much in control. So composed. The holder of some sort of knowledge, elegance, or form that is fundamentally apart from him. -Yeah I mean my mom was a little older than yours when she had me but I never knew my dad either.
-Yeah I guess my mom has his name and address and stuff and she said she would give it to me if I ever wanted it. They walk on in silence for some time. The activity downtown increases steadily until about 1 am when, inevitably, a handful of cop cars descend on a drunken fight or...
No it's always a drunken fight which seems to clear out the majority of those wandering around, only a few of the most drunk stragglers waiting around, swinging on light poles, stumbling through crosswalks, yelling at bouncers, for something. They so far gone that the earlier diversion of gathering the attention of the meek and female has somehow lost its appeal.
-Whatever I'm never having kids.
-Really? Keely's tone has shifted, she seems surprised, concerned even. -Do you not think you would be a good dad or...They wait at a crosswalk, cars ambling past them toward mysterious goals and unknown destinations. Jeff does not speak until the light turns as if waiting for it to allow their conversation to continue.
-I donno its like, the last conformity right? The last capitulation, the last loss of freedom. But I guess even now there is no rebellion. You have these 'cool dads' going snowboarding or whatever, fuckin' grups hanging around at our shows, talking about how they played with Mudhoney one time and now they come by our place and slam a six pack before slinking home to get yelled at by their wives. He seems mad, or confused, or sad or angry. All the same really, for him, never taught to emote properly, never schooled in the nuance of feelings that one is capable of generating. The opposite set of emotions holding horny, drunk, hungry, excited and novel. The majority of his emotions falling into one of these two categories, and if asked he would name them "un-chill" and "chill" respectively.
-Jeff it's not all about rebellion, it about making yourself happy, its about becoming fulfilled. Her eyes follow the pavement ahead of her, thinking or conditioned by a few years out here (mostly alone those times) to keep meek, to avert her gaze.
-Okay I believe you, but it's more than that. It's that I don't want to follow in the footsteps of those before me. I abhor tradition simply out of curiosity. Like...I want to experiment, I want to see other ways of living. That was what was great about all the subcultures, I think. Not the art, not the drugs...
-Yeah bro! Drugs! This catches him for a second but as he looks up he notices the voice came from a meathead easily twice Jeff's size and anyways he is so caught up in his monologue that a witty quip is simply out of the question. Jeff doesn't realize it but he is getting worked up, his voice rising in volume and pitch.
-But they set out to see if there were better ways to live their lives. Most of them failed, I mean that's why old hippies suck so much, or like these burned out punks are so shitty. But there has to be...His hands start waving wildly in his frustration to find a word. The movement causes him to expel little gasps of air which create awkward noises.
-Another way? His hands drop, How did she know, like she can read my mind almost or is a part of me...
-Yeah. I guess. But it sounds so corny you know...
The city reels on around them oblivious to their miniscule desires. Movement and stasis, consumption and rejection tug at each other and intertwine forming the conversations remembered or forgotten the next day that shoot and whisper through the air around them. There is no morality here, neither good nor evil, simply a machine running through its paces, the cogs turning unaware of themselves, of the whole. Forces drag and burst unevenly following the grid of the streets, concentrating at nodes and dissipating to nothing at the edges.
Reviews of contemporary, transgressive, avant, post-modern, extreme, minimalist, modern-classic literature. original poetry and short stories κατακατα καδεμα Lions got to jump through a couple of hoops before it eats the trainer. thisis.fryou@gmail.com
Wednesday, September 5, 2012
Tuesday, September 4, 2012
Review of "Chromos" by Felipe Alfau
The nameless narrator and his friends, one nicknamed "Dr. Jesucristo", one "The Moor", another "The Chink" wander around their predominantly Spanish New York neighborhood drinking at their homes or a bar known as "El Telescopio" after all the drunk Spaniards gazing up into their empty wine bottles as if peering into the heavens. These wanderings never sink into monotony: Alfau's descriptions of the city are lively and imaginative, his depiction of the 40's refreshingly natural and subdued. At various points the narrative dips into various stories and novels written by the narrator's friend Garcia: one a casi (corny) epic family drama involving the rise and tragic fall of a Madrid jewelry shop. Members of the family which run the shop commit incest, engage in BDSM and other frowned upon conduct. Another of Garcia's novels follows the life of a man given the power to skip ahead in his life over the "boring" parts without waiting. A classical "you get what you wish for" story. He similarly rises to great heights: becoming a wealthy businessman, then is sent to jail and loses everything over petty jealousy. Garcia recounts meeting him in his old age, destitute forced to live through all the memories he skipped over. It is a chilling scene. Both of these stories are dramatic almost to the point of absurdity but Garcia insists again and again that they are true. These were no doubt manuscripts which Alfau wrote and was highly self-critical of. The narrator often breaks in and comments on the absurdity of certain passages and begs Garcia to skip over the erotic content rendering the soap opera like sections immune from outside criticism form the reader. The stories play no major role in the overarching plot, or better said: there is little outside plot and these embedded stories provide a structure to a novel which is otherwise predominantly philosophical and aesthetic.
One section which takes place in New York concerns the narrator reading some notes his friend had written regarding his theory of space-time. These notes (and subsequent dialogue) argue that time is actually a fourth spatial dimension, light a fifth. Keep in mind Alfau was writing this less than 30 years after the theory of general relativity was published so his interest is notable. Alfau conveys the theory well and the skeptical narrator acts as the reader's avatar, poking holes in the theory at every turn. In another noteworthy series of sections the narrator sees into the mind of a strange, distinctly assimilated man. This results in bizarre, tortured scenes, one of which is almost identical to a scene in Sadegh Hedayat's Blind Owl. The scenes are by far the darkest and funniest in the novel and the dream like air lends a nice contrast to the bare realism of the New York meta-narrative.
Alfau was a music critic by trade and this is totally evident in the novel. Music plays a large role in Chromos and his descriptions of music and musicians are amazing:
"He was playing again from Chopin, something sad, sorrowful to the point of lugubriousness: "He was a sick man, no doubt of that," he said half to himself, "but in other things he showed tremendous force and rebellion-vitality. Berlioz made a mistake in judging him with a banal cruelty induced by the desire, fashionable at the time, of making one more phrase. Chopin was not dead all his life. He has not died yet"
The finale of Chromos is a perfectly paced slow crescendo of scenes and ideas that build in intensity of movement and thought into a swirl of dream and reality which then bursts at the seams leaving the narrator and the reader wandering the streets of New York dazed and spent. This is unlike the ending of any novel I've come across in strength and mastery aside from perhaps Gately's story at the end of Infinite Jest. This is one of the few 20th century novels (that I've read) that allows itself to finish with a bang and does it really well.
The writing, and Alfau's grasp of language is excellent. The prose flows easily, is crisp and imaginative and is punctuated every now and then by "tough words" which is to say the novel will gently expand your vocabulary. The novel as well moves along at an easy, enjoyable, castizo pace and never drags. Alfau protested that there was no reason to publish Chromos as it did not "make sense". The book is interesting as the gap between when it was written and when it was published means it had no impact on the literature of its time and Alfau was out of the scene by the time anyone had time to interact with him and his work. Chromos stands as a sort of lacuna in the progression of fiction, while retaining even yet the potential for great impact. If you are at all interested in Spanish culture, New York during the 1940's, or post-modernism I could not recommend this novel enough.
Thursday, August 30, 2012
Review: "Last Week" by Giles Ruffer
Read it here for free
When I picked up Last Week I expected a pretty standard Lin-school alt-lit deadpan romance with all the attendant stilted dialogues and awkward public moments. I was pleasantly surprised that, while this is a partially accurate reading of Last Week, Giles Ruffer does go above and beyond this overused style and displays at least the beginnings of a unique voice. Last Week winds the story of a relationship between two young characters: U. and I. with scenes from the life of a mysterious man referred to only by his "short black hair". The names alone provide some unusual moments as when I. (I) is talking to U. (you) etc. There are only a few other named characters in the novel, though because of their unusual names I. and U. retain a certain amount of anonymity, even though we get to witness the most intimate moments of their life. We see them go out to eat with friends, walk around a train station and exchange short statements, I. flirts with another girl from his past, but we never get to know them or their thoughts, if they even have any. Giles captures the comfortable/awkward, necessary/superfluous situation of a relationship for relationship's sake well: they make you cringe slightly, you want to grab them and shake them out of their rut.
Inserted more or less between each vignette involving U. and I. there is a section following a man described only by his short black hair and scruffiness. Giles depicts him in the grainy closed circuit tape of any one of millions of suburban department stores and like U. and I. he is always kept at a mysterious distance. We are never aware of his motive or drive but he seems to have some vitally important mission that requires him to hang out in department stores inspecting dinnerware and harassing young female clerks. He sometimes attaches minuscule machines (recorders, transmitters, hallucinations..?) to people but their purpose is never revealed. The juxtaposition of the fairly transparent and facile relationship drama with the dark obscured wanderings of the man with black hair is a strange but good choice on Giles' part and provides some depth, some bite, a unique touch in the sea of awkward alt-lit romances.
Giles' prose is unremarkable though this is sort of like faulting ice cream for not being nutritious, which is to say: that's not really it's job, ice cream's job is to be delicious, and Last Week's job is to paint a portrait of two young people in relationship in England. Giles' is English (as in from England) and this shows in his writing and adds something extra in a genre dominated by the New York and Chicago voice. My final criticism, and this is an aesthetically minor though professionally major one, is that there are what appear to be a few typos in the PDF. Giles writes infrequently on his blog so if you enjoy Last Week there is plenty more from him there. Giles has the beginnings of a unique voice and I would like to see it develop beyond the meandering relationship drama in the future. Last Week is a good start and a quick, free, enjoyable read
When I picked up Last Week I expected a pretty standard Lin-school alt-lit deadpan romance with all the attendant stilted dialogues and awkward public moments. I was pleasantly surprised that, while this is a partially accurate reading of Last Week, Giles Ruffer does go above and beyond this overused style and displays at least the beginnings of a unique voice. Last Week winds the story of a relationship between two young characters: U. and I. with scenes from the life of a mysterious man referred to only by his "short black hair". The names alone provide some unusual moments as when I. (I) is talking to U. (you) etc. There are only a few other named characters in the novel, though because of their unusual names I. and U. retain a certain amount of anonymity, even though we get to witness the most intimate moments of their life. We see them go out to eat with friends, walk around a train station and exchange short statements, I. flirts with another girl from his past, but we never get to know them or their thoughts, if they even have any. Giles captures the comfortable/awkward, necessary/superfluous situation of a relationship for relationship's sake well: they make you cringe slightly, you want to grab them and shake them out of their rut.
Inserted more or less between each vignette involving U. and I. there is a section following a man described only by his short black hair and scruffiness. Giles depicts him in the grainy closed circuit tape of any one of millions of suburban department stores and like U. and I. he is always kept at a mysterious distance. We are never aware of his motive or drive but he seems to have some vitally important mission that requires him to hang out in department stores inspecting dinnerware and harassing young female clerks. He sometimes attaches minuscule machines (recorders, transmitters, hallucinations..?) to people but their purpose is never revealed. The juxtaposition of the fairly transparent and facile relationship drama with the dark obscured wanderings of the man with black hair is a strange but good choice on Giles' part and provides some depth, some bite, a unique touch in the sea of awkward alt-lit romances.
Giles' prose is unremarkable though this is sort of like faulting ice cream for not being nutritious, which is to say: that's not really it's job, ice cream's job is to be delicious, and Last Week's job is to paint a portrait of two young people in relationship in England. Giles' is English (as in from England) and this shows in his writing and adds something extra in a genre dominated by the New York and Chicago voice. My final criticism, and this is an aesthetically minor though professionally major one, is that there are what appear to be a few typos in the PDF. Giles writes infrequently on his blog so if you enjoy Last Week there is plenty more from him there. Giles has the beginnings of a unique voice and I would like to see it develop beyond the meandering relationship drama in the future. Last Week is a good start and a quick, free, enjoyable read
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
And in the middle of the night...
there is only yourself
basking in the ever present dark
and you only have your mirror to speak to
as it is now and as it always will be
and there is not pleasure and no pain
no facts or distortion
and memories seem like fiction
and you wander within yourself
and outside yourself
and they slowly begin
to meld into one
and fuse
basking in the ever present dark
and you only have your mirror to speak to
as it is now and as it always will be
and there is not pleasure and no pain
no facts or distortion
and memories seem like fiction
and you wander within yourself
and outside yourself
and they slowly begin
to meld into one
and fuse
Sunday, August 19, 2012
Reviews of "I am Going to Clone Myself Then Kill the Clone and Eat it" by Sam Pink and "The Collected Works vol.1" by Scott McClanahan
Two collections of short stories I got the other day:
Sam Pink is quickly becoming one of my favorite contemporary writers: his easy flowing, ultrapersonal sometimes surreal writing style is everything I like in writing: simultaneously funny and sad, apparently mundane yet touching on what makes us human. Plus he makes the art for his covers which I highly recommend checking out (and potentially buying, he's quite friendly). I am Going to Clone Myself Then Kill the Clone and Eat it is a collection of some short and very short stories from 2007 to 2009. They are rawer than the stories in Hurt Others or the second person narrative of No Hellos Diet. This is a very good thing for Pink. His manic highs are more grandiosely intense, the sporadic visions of violence more grotesque and absurd. Not as sad or introspective as the other works most of the chapters seem written off in a few moments, spare thoughts that came to Pink out of the blue. A few provide the instant gratification and cleverness which is so often attempted now (and usually failed at) in twitter posts. My favorite story was "Thing That Details a Trip to the Supermarket" where Pink describes an agonizing trip to buy food, his neuroses and obsessions constantly rising to the surface of his thoughts while he maintains a calm and ordered demeanor. There is also a little play between two family men discussing their lives while holding knives to eachother's throats. It reminded me of something that would come from some Franch Avant writer in the 20's or 60's and I would love to see it staged somewhere.
Scott McClanahan busts out these really touching stories from his life in West Virginia with all the painful, funny, jarring events that come along with living in postcoal Appalachian. The stories look at events that occur to McClanahan or the burnouts that live in his town, where decades of poverty and crushed dreams seem to warp logic and reason: when a friend accidentally hits a deer (and it survives) it comes completely naturally to run it over again, then mash its head in with a thermos, and when McClanahan witnesses two car crashes he assumes he has the power to cause these crashes. There is a considerable amount of violence in these stories and McClanaham can switch from absurd hilarity to gore in the blink of an eye. He navigates the changes masterfully. McClanahan has this tendency to end a lot of his stories with one sentence that has "impact". This has a hit or miss quality that can make good stories great but after three or four instances of these I was left scratching my head and wondering if it was really necessary every time. McClanahan often addresses the reader directly and does it well. He makes you think, asks you questions, gives you his phone number...He writes like he's having a conversation and this brings you in, makes you care about the characters and his life. The first few stories have a particularly moral bent, not preachy but McClanahan seems genuinely concerned with and explores what makes an action "good": one's intent? the eventual outcome? He never suggests a right or wrong path but does ask that we look at our actions more carefully, and seems to be suggesting a jaded pessimism. At least toward the inhabitants of his town. He also touches on the modern taboo of religion, though ambiguously. It is hard to tell whether he is religious or not (it hardly matters) but it works in his writing and simply to have the balls to write what he does for a predominantly atheist audience is respectable in itself.
Sam Pink is quickly becoming one of my favorite contemporary writers: his easy flowing, ultrapersonal sometimes surreal writing style is everything I like in writing: simultaneously funny and sad, apparently mundane yet touching on what makes us human. Plus he makes the art for his covers which I highly recommend checking out (and potentially buying, he's quite friendly). I am Going to Clone Myself Then Kill the Clone and Eat it is a collection of some short and very short stories from 2007 to 2009. They are rawer than the stories in Hurt Others or the second person narrative of No Hellos Diet. This is a very good thing for Pink. His manic highs are more grandiosely intense, the sporadic visions of violence more grotesque and absurd. Not as sad or introspective as the other works most of the chapters seem written off in a few moments, spare thoughts that came to Pink out of the blue. A few provide the instant gratification and cleverness which is so often attempted now (and usually failed at) in twitter posts. My favorite story was "Thing That Details a Trip to the Supermarket" where Pink describes an agonizing trip to buy food, his neuroses and obsessions constantly rising to the surface of his thoughts while he maintains a calm and ordered demeanor. There is also a little play between two family men discussing their lives while holding knives to eachother's throats. It reminded me of something that would come from some Franch Avant writer in the 20's or 60's and I would love to see it staged somewhere.
In other news:
Scott McClanahan busts out these really touching stories from his life in West Virginia with all the painful, funny, jarring events that come along with living in postcoal Appalachian. The stories look at events that occur to McClanahan or the burnouts that live in his town, where decades of poverty and crushed dreams seem to warp logic and reason: when a friend accidentally hits a deer (and it survives) it comes completely naturally to run it over again, then mash its head in with a thermos, and when McClanahan witnesses two car crashes he assumes he has the power to cause these crashes. There is a considerable amount of violence in these stories and McClanaham can switch from absurd hilarity to gore in the blink of an eye. He navigates the changes masterfully. McClanahan has this tendency to end a lot of his stories with one sentence that has "impact". This has a hit or miss quality that can make good stories great but after three or four instances of these I was left scratching my head and wondering if it was really necessary every time. McClanahan often addresses the reader directly and does it well. He makes you think, asks you questions, gives you his phone number...He writes like he's having a conversation and this brings you in, makes you care about the characters and his life. The first few stories have a particularly moral bent, not preachy but McClanahan seems genuinely concerned with and explores what makes an action "good": one's intent? the eventual outcome? He never suggests a right or wrong path but does ask that we look at our actions more carefully, and seems to be suggesting a jaded pessimism. At least toward the inhabitants of his town. He also touches on the modern taboo of religion, though ambiguously. It is hard to tell whether he is religious or not (it hardly matters) but it works in his writing and simply to have the balls to write what he does for a predominantly atheist audience is respectable in itself.
One story stood out particularity in which he explores those around him that have committed suicide, and posits that the drive to kill one's self is contagious like a fever and that by writing about it he has transferred the "fever" to the reader. I honestly found myself a little freaked out after reading this story but after a few minutes realized that this was simply due to the power of his writing. Anyone that convince you that you might kill yourself in the course of a short story is powerful writer indeed. He's got at least three books out now and has two more coming out next year. Rejoice.
Finally I just got on the boat of Keep this Bag Away from Children which is sort of the Journal of Alt Lit and has a print issue out which (among many fascinating things) has a great piece from Noah Cicero which I couldn't praise enough. Get it while it exists: this may be the holy grail of Alt-litana one day. Or perhaps just toilet paper, who can ever tell?
Thursday, August 16, 2012
City on a hill (Keith and Lana)
She shoots through the door with a flourish, a tall girl in a striped dress and heels, her short brown hair curly and dissheveled. Slams it behind her and presses up against it in mock fear and excitement.
-Oh my god Keith you are not going to guess what just happened...
On the floor a shaggy haired male hunches around an oversized graphic novel. He rocks back and forth imperceptibly. He has on an oversized sweater, paint stained, and a pair of thin grey sweatpants. It is obvious that he has been wearing these for at least a few days and has nothing on underneath. He is sitting on the floor at one end of the long attic room, its musty air lays thick around the floor and is sloshed to and fro by a small oscillating fan. He looks at her with indifference and mumbles out a,
-What? This a mere formality, really, he knowing full well that if he outright ignored her (what he would have preferred to do, really) her drawn out, indignant response would have simply ruined his night. She scuttles over, her heels pulling up the carpet as she drags her feet. There is a half drank bottle of cheap white wine beside him, at least one fiesta-ware cup filled to the brim with cigarette detritus is perched on every flat surface in view. Track nine of "Day Dream" plays on a stereo in the corner. She stops midway to the floor as she begins to sit, considers for a long moment, and pulls over a relatively unsoiled old copy of playboy, slides it under her adjusting her skirt so that as little as possible touches the floor. She has chosen a spot mere inches away from his body and he has begun to noticeably lean away from her, the unsolicited human contact causing extreme discomfort even through the cushion of the Reisling. Her eyes are wide.
.she open her mouth too much.
-Okay you know Trent, that guy from Orion house that always wears those cheesy suits?
-Uh, sure.
-Okay well he was fucking this girl Tanya, you know she has like that half shaved head and looks like a horse. So you remember the "Marriage Party"?
-No I wasn't there but I...
-Ohmygod it was amazing everyone got fake married so we like totally tore down the institution of marriage plus we got super wasted afterwards and lit a couch on fire.
-Yeah I heard it...
-Anyways he was there in this fucking grotesque blue suit and with Tanya and they were just fucking...making out all over the place and he was wasted of course, and then, can you believe this I walked into the kitchen and saw them in the corner and he has the fucking nerve to like, LOOK at me while he's sucking her face. Can you believe it?
The fan finishes a circuit and returns, the gust of air it pushes spins an empty chip bag whose exterior of silver and orange whirls together and briefly form a metallic neon blossom on the carpet.
The air passes.
The bag slows and
returns again to its natural state.
-Um
-And then tonight he comes and tries to talk to me and be like "Hey how are you feeling?", When imitating him she lowers her voice, pulls her chin back and bobbles her head back and forth, -And "Why aren't you talking to me?" Which it should be completely obvious you fucking idiot why I'm not talking to you. God. Fucking chauvinist.
Her fury is so great that she has failed to notice that his attention has been pulled back and sucked into the book. The page he gazes upon is without frames, a chiaroscuro mess where action bleeds from the top left right, then down to the bottom. There is no dialogue, the characters have no faces. A distorted dog picks up a knife and runs to the bottom of a page where he threatens a large breasted woman. Behind him a bottle labeled triple X lies on its side, a small puddle forming at its mouth. The dog lunges at the woman and stabs her, a pool of blood erupts which runs and mingles with the alcohol from the bottle. The liquids swirl, congeals and a lump forms. This solidifies into a small body, the form of a man which steps put of the muck and bolts away. He enters a small brush nearby which, as he enters, becomes to him a forest. Thorns surround him as he travels deeper, they cut him, sabers relative to his size. He finds a small pool formed in the hollow of an earthbound branch. He stoops to it and drinks, catching his reflection for a moment. He pauses struck by something we cannot see. The page turns. He looks around, apparently wary of a a threat. What is it that lurks in the thicket? Has it caught the scent of his blood? He pulls a thorn off of vine, grasps it like a knife. Behind a stalk he notices a shape. Malevolent, surely. He rushes towards it, leaps off a branch his foot splashing the puddle. He comes down on the shadow driving the thorn through its body. The shape however is none other that a miniature of the murdered woman, lovely and untouched, her face bare but beautiful. Her blood leaks out, combines with water spilled from the puddle. He sits on the trunk of a bramble, stunned, holding his head in his hands. His head fills the page, black streaks, ersatz eyes. These few marks are enough to convey the sense of this strange creature. The liquids mingle and congeal, form a small lump...
The Page turns. All is white.
-..And so I came over here because I can't even...stand her. She looks over at him, at the last second he had brought his gaze away from the book and met hers. -Well anyways, I got some coke so you wanna do that tonight? The shift is wrenching. He drops the book. While his eyes, his mouth, betray nothing, a subtle shift in the tension of his forehead relays his excitement.
-Sure yeah. Here. he hands her the wine bottle. -Have some of this.
-There's a party at Hayley's, we should go.
She picks up the case of an Enya album.-Can I use this? He hesitates.
-Yeah, I guess.. She taps out a molehill of powder from a baggy printed with red inverted crucifixes, cuts out two lines (one noticeably larger than the other) with a library card. Keith places the graphic novel and a sweater into a stained green Jansport, frayed at the seams, slings it around his shoulder and looks over at Lana presenting him with the plastic platter and a rolled up bill.
No one has done the dishes in days, a plastic sheet that would protect the ceiling's recessed fluorescent lights is hanging down halfway to the floor and a bag of flour is snowdriftspilledout along the length of a countertop. As in Keith's room most of the horizontal surfaces hold a cup or plate filled to the brim with ash.
-Haha! CHILLLL. Jeff is sitting in a ripped mustard yellow recliner lodged in the corner of the kitchen, Keely is atop a pile of newspapers with a tallboy in her hand. Keely is giggling to herself, Jeff's laugh bounces through the kitchen, fractures and rushes into the rest of the small house, seeming to reverberate back: the tines of sounds converging back in the kitchen so that he seems to laugh for two at once. Keely looks to the side, hides her face in her hand and continues to laugh. Keith and Lana descend the stairs, avoiding a full grown Siberian husky curled up on a small landing who tracks them with a dreadfully bored look, .
-...Then I'm like, well fuck you, AND fuck your plastic abortion. Lana snorts out a manic laugh, too loud.
-What up chillerrrrrs? Jeff pulls out the final syllable, gives Keith a cockeyed look, his eyes glazed over slightly. Keely looks up. squinting and unfocused, lets out a soft
-Chillerssssssss...
-We're going to Hayley's. I donno, there are a bunch of people over there...
-Haha. Sounds chill. I guess. Jeff stops, -Wait a minute! Looks around as if coming to a profound realization.-...Hayley's not chill. Why...She isn't chill at all. Keely becomes very serious.
-Most definitely not chill. They both laugh.
Keith and Lana turn to leave, Jeff has shifted to picking a string off the arm of the recliner, Keely turns as they go.
-Byeeee.
Over many years of trampling feet this hallway has taken on that characteristic attic smell which is surely as revolting to other species as the scent of a barn, or mouse nest is to a well bred city girl. Reminiscent of old photographs and furniture, though this hall is mostly bare. Lana and Keith burst through the entryway laughing to themselves. Outside the roiling foam of drunken society burbles about, eternally attention starved and seeking validation, the alcohol uncovering oral stage insecurities which, when processed through the factory of a man in heat comes out (inevitably) as obscenity. Keith and Lana were apparently both asking for attention as, on the way over, they were stopped and yelled at numerous times. Keith ignoring the attention or laughing it off, Lana (militantly conscious of her status as a woman) provided impromptu
S.C.U.M Manifesto thumping sermons right there on the street before the unwashed and unsaved. This resulted in stunned silence or a flurry of nervous backtracking so embarrassingly common in a man confronted. Lana once (though not tonight) almost came to blows with a quite adamant (and quite drunk) gentleman hailing from out in the county before being dragged away bodily. She was livid for the rest of the week, telling the story with exponential embellishment to anyone within earshot. All this to say that downtown Westham is a cyclone of pent up id, frustrated drives, amplified egos and superabundant alcohol to which an undying crowd flocks, out of some unfathomable urge, on a weekly basis.
They are looking for room 201 which one would assume would be a simple task though the drugs would say otherwise. After much frantic scrambling and running up and down the same staircase repeatedly Lana finally opens an unmarked door which reveals a mezzanine staircase which leads to an ancient part of the building. 201 is a rusty nail in the hall, the door has been painted black and a steady measured pulse leaks out into the rest of the building. Lana knocks, looks at Keith, vigorously rubs her nose. They laugh at her. The air pulses.
-bitch. Lana pounds on the door
-Open up bitch!, she sings. Giant smile plastered on her face. Keith sags, looks nervous. He hikes up his bag and cinches down the straps. The door cracks open a small girl wearing bright paint over her pointed nose and pleasing eyes pokes her head out, Justice dumps out of the room.
-Yesss. What?
-Hey! Ohmygod how how are you? Lana open her arms and steps forward but the door remains steady.
-Can I help you? Lana lets her arms fall, the smile remains but is tarnished.
-Uh we heard you were having a party. Hayley stares for a moment as if asked to compute an enormous sum. She glances at Keith briefly, no sign of recognition upon her face.
-No. A man totally nude emerges from the darkness, painted in swirls from lascivious ankle to shaggy dome, and puts his arms around Hayley's neck.
-FUUUUUUUUCK, Hayley shoves him off with surprising strength, he stumbles backwards and disappears into the constant movement behind her, movement which is cocooned fully in the threads of the darkness and is assures no human source.
-Sorry! She slams the door, damming the music and leaving Keith and Lana in the humm of the hall lights.
-fucking whore, Lana looks over at Keith who is tight lipped and clenched fists . -Well... She looks around, stunned, as if bereft of an intimate article -I mean, where else are we gonna finish off this coke?
-Oh my god Keith you are not going to guess what just happened...
On the floor a shaggy haired male hunches around an oversized graphic novel. He rocks back and forth imperceptibly. He has on an oversized sweater, paint stained, and a pair of thin grey sweatpants. It is obvious that he has been wearing these for at least a few days and has nothing on underneath. He is sitting on the floor at one end of the long attic room, its musty air lays thick around the floor and is sloshed to and fro by a small oscillating fan. He looks at her with indifference and mumbles out a,
-What? This a mere formality, really, he knowing full well that if he outright ignored her (what he would have preferred to do, really) her drawn out, indignant response would have simply ruined his night. She scuttles over, her heels pulling up the carpet as she drags her feet. There is a half drank bottle of cheap white wine beside him, at least one fiesta-ware cup filled to the brim with cigarette detritus is perched on every flat surface in view. Track nine of "Day Dream" plays on a stereo in the corner. She stops midway to the floor as she begins to sit, considers for a long moment, and pulls over a relatively unsoiled old copy of playboy, slides it under her adjusting her skirt so that as little as possible touches the floor. She has chosen a spot mere inches away from his body and he has begun to noticeably lean away from her, the unsolicited human contact causing extreme discomfort even through the cushion of the Reisling. Her eyes are wide.
.she open her mouth too much.
-Okay you know Trent, that guy from Orion house that always wears those cheesy suits?
-Uh, sure.
-Okay well he was fucking this girl Tanya, you know she has like that half shaved head and looks like a horse. So you remember the "Marriage Party"?
-No I wasn't there but I...
-Ohmygod it was amazing everyone got fake married so we like totally tore down the institution of marriage plus we got super wasted afterwards and lit a couch on fire.
-Yeah I heard it...
-Anyways he was there in this fucking grotesque blue suit and with Tanya and they were just fucking...making out all over the place and he was wasted of course, and then, can you believe this I walked into the kitchen and saw them in the corner and he has the fucking nerve to like, LOOK at me while he's sucking her face. Can you believe it?
The fan finishes a circuit and returns, the gust of air it pushes spins an empty chip bag whose exterior of silver and orange whirls together and briefly form a metallic neon blossom on the carpet.
The air passes.
The bag slows and
returns again to its natural state.
-Um
-And then tonight he comes and tries to talk to me and be like "Hey how are you feeling?", When imitating him she lowers her voice, pulls her chin back and bobbles her head back and forth, -And "Why aren't you talking to me?" Which it should be completely obvious you fucking idiot why I'm not talking to you. God. Fucking chauvinist.
Her fury is so great that she has failed to notice that his attention has been pulled back and sucked into the book. The page he gazes upon is without frames, a chiaroscuro mess where action bleeds from the top left right, then down to the bottom. There is no dialogue, the characters have no faces. A distorted dog picks up a knife and runs to the bottom of a page where he threatens a large breasted woman. Behind him a bottle labeled triple X lies on its side, a small puddle forming at its mouth. The dog lunges at the woman and stabs her, a pool of blood erupts which runs and mingles with the alcohol from the bottle. The liquids swirl, congeals and a lump forms. This solidifies into a small body, the form of a man which steps put of the muck and bolts away. He enters a small brush nearby which, as he enters, becomes to him a forest. Thorns surround him as he travels deeper, they cut him, sabers relative to his size. He finds a small pool formed in the hollow of an earthbound branch. He stoops to it and drinks, catching his reflection for a moment. He pauses struck by something we cannot see. The page turns. He looks around, apparently wary of a a threat. What is it that lurks in the thicket? Has it caught the scent of his blood? He pulls a thorn off of vine, grasps it like a knife. Behind a stalk he notices a shape. Malevolent, surely. He rushes towards it, leaps off a branch his foot splashing the puddle. He comes down on the shadow driving the thorn through its body. The shape however is none other that a miniature of the murdered woman, lovely and untouched, her face bare but beautiful. Her blood leaks out, combines with water spilled from the puddle. He sits on the trunk of a bramble, stunned, holding his head in his hands. His head fills the page, black streaks, ersatz eyes. These few marks are enough to convey the sense of this strange creature. The liquids mingle and congeal, form a small lump...
The Page turns. All is white.
-..And so I came over here because I can't even...stand her. She looks over at him, at the last second he had brought his gaze away from the book and met hers. -Well anyways, I got some coke so you wanna do that tonight? The shift is wrenching. He drops the book. While his eyes, his mouth, betray nothing, a subtle shift in the tension of his forehead relays his excitement.
-Sure yeah. Here. he hands her the wine bottle. -Have some of this.
-There's a party at Hayley's, we should go.
She picks up the case of an Enya album.-Can I use this? He hesitates.
-Yeah, I guess.. She taps out a molehill of powder from a baggy printed with red inverted crucifixes, cuts out two lines (one noticeably larger than the other) with a library card. Keith places the graphic novel and a sweater into a stained green Jansport, frayed at the seams, slings it around his shoulder and looks over at Lana presenting him with the plastic platter and a rolled up bill.
No one has done the dishes in days, a plastic sheet that would protect the ceiling's recessed fluorescent lights is hanging down halfway to the floor and a bag of flour is snowdriftspilledout along the length of a countertop. As in Keith's room most of the horizontal surfaces hold a cup or plate filled to the brim with ash.
-Haha! CHILLLL. Jeff is sitting in a ripped mustard yellow recliner lodged in the corner of the kitchen, Keely is atop a pile of newspapers with a tallboy in her hand. Keely is giggling to herself, Jeff's laugh bounces through the kitchen, fractures and rushes into the rest of the small house, seeming to reverberate back: the tines of sounds converging back in the kitchen so that he seems to laugh for two at once. Keely looks to the side, hides her face in her hand and continues to laugh. Keith and Lana descend the stairs, avoiding a full grown Siberian husky curled up on a small landing who tracks them with a dreadfully bored look, .
-...Then I'm like, well fuck you, AND fuck your plastic abortion. Lana snorts out a manic laugh, too loud.
-What up chillerrrrrs? Jeff pulls out the final syllable, gives Keith a cockeyed look, his eyes glazed over slightly. Keely looks up. squinting and unfocused, lets out a soft
-Chillerssssssss...
-We're going to Hayley's. I donno, there are a bunch of people over there...
-Haha. Sounds chill. I guess. Jeff stops, -Wait a minute! Looks around as if coming to a profound realization.-...Hayley's not chill. Why...She isn't chill at all. Keely becomes very serious.
-Most definitely not chill. They both laugh.
Keith and Lana turn to leave, Jeff has shifted to picking a string off the arm of the recliner, Keely turns as they go.
-Byeeee.
Over many years of trampling feet this hallway has taken on that characteristic attic smell which is surely as revolting to other species as the scent of a barn, or mouse nest is to a well bred city girl. Reminiscent of old photographs and furniture, though this hall is mostly bare. Lana and Keith burst through the entryway laughing to themselves. Outside the roiling foam of drunken society burbles about, eternally attention starved and seeking validation, the alcohol uncovering oral stage insecurities which, when processed through the factory of a man in heat comes out (inevitably) as obscenity. Keith and Lana were apparently both asking for attention as, on the way over, they were stopped and yelled at numerous times. Keith ignoring the attention or laughing it off, Lana (militantly conscious of her status as a woman) provided impromptu
S.C.U.M Manifesto thumping sermons right there on the street before the unwashed and unsaved. This resulted in stunned silence or a flurry of nervous backtracking so embarrassingly common in a man confronted. Lana once (though not tonight) almost came to blows with a quite adamant (and quite drunk) gentleman hailing from out in the county before being dragged away bodily. She was livid for the rest of the week, telling the story with exponential embellishment to anyone within earshot. All this to say that downtown Westham is a cyclone of pent up id, frustrated drives, amplified egos and superabundant alcohol to which an undying crowd flocks, out of some unfathomable urge, on a weekly basis.
They are looking for room 201 which one would assume would be a simple task though the drugs would say otherwise. After much frantic scrambling and running up and down the same staircase repeatedly Lana finally opens an unmarked door which reveals a mezzanine staircase which leads to an ancient part of the building. 201 is a rusty nail in the hall, the door has been painted black and a steady measured pulse leaks out into the rest of the building. Lana knocks, looks at Keith, vigorously rubs her nose. They laugh at her. The air pulses.
-bitch. Lana pounds on the door
-Open up bitch!, she sings. Giant smile plastered on her face. Keith sags, looks nervous. He hikes up his bag and cinches down the straps. The door cracks open a small girl wearing bright paint over her pointed nose and pleasing eyes pokes her head out, Justice dumps out of the room.
-Yesss. What?
-Hey! Ohmygod how how are you? Lana open her arms and steps forward but the door remains steady.
-Can I help you? Lana lets her arms fall, the smile remains but is tarnished.
-Uh we heard you were having a party. Hayley stares for a moment as if asked to compute an enormous sum. She glances at Keith briefly, no sign of recognition upon her face.
-No. A man totally nude emerges from the darkness, painted in swirls from lascivious ankle to shaggy dome, and puts his arms around Hayley's neck.
-FUUUUUUUUCK, Hayley shoves him off with surprising strength, he stumbles backwards and disappears into the constant movement behind her, movement which is cocooned fully in the threads of the darkness and is assures no human source.
-Sorry! She slams the door, damming the music and leaving Keith and Lana in the humm of the hall lights.
-fucking whore, Lana looks over at Keith who is tight lipped and clenched fists . -Well... She looks around, stunned, as if bereft of an intimate article -I mean, where else are we gonna finish off this coke?
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
In case you were interested in why people read Proust
From the ending (pg.582-594) of Guermantes Way, vol.3 of A la Recherche du Temps Perdu (In Search of Lost Time) by Marcel Proust translated by Mark Treharne
Background: As they are leaving a dinner party hosted at her house (for another dinner party) the Duchess Oriane Guermantes offers to take Monseiur Swann on a trip to Italy but he repeatedly rejects her offer...
"Very well. Will you tell me in one word why you can't come to Italy?" the Duchesse challenged Swann as she rose to take leave of us.
"But, my dear friend, it's because I shall have been dead for several months by then. According to the doctors I've consulted, by the end of the year my present illness-and as far as that goes it could carry me off at any time- will leave me three or four months to live at the most, and even that is an optimistic estimate," replied Swann with a smile, as the footman opened the glass door of the hall for the Duchesse to leave.
"What on earth are you telling me?" the Duchesse burst out, stopping short for a second[...] Poised for the first time in her life between two duties as far removed from each other as getting into her carriage to go to a dinner party and showing compassion for a man who was about to die, she could find no appropriate precedent to follow in the code of conventions, and, not knowing which duty to honor, she felt she had no choice but to pretend to believe that the second alternative needed to be raised, thus enabling her to comply with the first, which at the moment required less effort, and thought that the best way of settling the conflict would by to deny that there was one. "You must be joking," she said to Swann[...]
"I've never mentioned my illness to you before. But since you asked me, and since now I may die at any moment...But, please, the last thing I want to do is to hold you up, you've got a dinner party to go to," he added, because he knew that for other people their own social obligations mattered more that the death of a friend, as a man of considerate politeness he put himself in their place[...] And so, while still moving toward her carriage, she said with a droop of her shoulders, "Don't worry about the dinner party it's of no importance!" But her words put the Duc [her husband] in a bad mood "Come along, Oriane, don't just stand their with your chatter, whining away to Swann, when you know very well that Mme de Saint-Euverte [the hostess of the dinner party they are going to] makes a point of having her guests sit down at the table at eight o'clock sharp. We need you to make up your mind. The horses have been waiting for a good five minutes now. Forgive me, Charles," he said, turning to Swann, "but it's ten minutes to eight. Oriane is always late, and it will take up more than five minutes to get to old Mother Saint-Euverte."
Mme de Guermantes made a decisive move toward the carriage and said a last farewell to Swann[...]And, lifting her skirt, she set her foot on the carriage step. She was about to get into in when the Duc caught sight of her foot and thundered out: "Oriane, you wretched woman, what are you thinking of? You're still wearing your black shoes! With a red dress! Go up quickly and change into your red ones. No, wait," he said, turning to the footman, "go and tell Madame's maid to bring down a pair of red shoes at once."
"But my dear" said the Duchesse softly, embarrassed to see that Swann, who was leaving the house with me but had stepped back to let the carriage pass out in front of us, had heard this, "given that we're late..."
"No, no, we have plenty of time. It's only ten too. It won't take us ten minutes to get to Parc Monceau. And anyway what does it matter? Even if we arrive at half past eight, they'll still wait for us, but you simply can't go there in a red dress and black shoes. Besides, we won't be the last to arrive, believe me. The Sassensages are coming. You know that they never turn up before twenty to nine."
The Duchesse went up to her room.
"Huh!" said M. de Guermantes to Swann and me. People laugh at us poor husbands, but we're not completely useless. If it weren't for me, Oriane would have gone out to dinner in black shoes."
Background: As they are leaving a dinner party hosted at her house (for another dinner party) the Duchess Oriane Guermantes offers to take Monseiur Swann on a trip to Italy but he repeatedly rejects her offer...
"Very well. Will you tell me in one word why you can't come to Italy?" the Duchesse challenged Swann as she rose to take leave of us.
"But, my dear friend, it's because I shall have been dead for several months by then. According to the doctors I've consulted, by the end of the year my present illness-and as far as that goes it could carry me off at any time- will leave me three or four months to live at the most, and even that is an optimistic estimate," replied Swann with a smile, as the footman opened the glass door of the hall for the Duchesse to leave.
"What on earth are you telling me?" the Duchesse burst out, stopping short for a second[...] Poised for the first time in her life between two duties as far removed from each other as getting into her carriage to go to a dinner party and showing compassion for a man who was about to die, she could find no appropriate precedent to follow in the code of conventions, and, not knowing which duty to honor, she felt she had no choice but to pretend to believe that the second alternative needed to be raised, thus enabling her to comply with the first, which at the moment required less effort, and thought that the best way of settling the conflict would by to deny that there was one. "You must be joking," she said to Swann[...]
"I've never mentioned my illness to you before. But since you asked me, and since now I may die at any moment...But, please, the last thing I want to do is to hold you up, you've got a dinner party to go to," he added, because he knew that for other people their own social obligations mattered more that the death of a friend, as a man of considerate politeness he put himself in their place[...] And so, while still moving toward her carriage, she said with a droop of her shoulders, "Don't worry about the dinner party it's of no importance!" But her words put the Duc [her husband] in a bad mood "Come along, Oriane, don't just stand their with your chatter, whining away to Swann, when you know very well that Mme de Saint-Euverte [the hostess of the dinner party they are going to] makes a point of having her guests sit down at the table at eight o'clock sharp. We need you to make up your mind. The horses have been waiting for a good five minutes now. Forgive me, Charles," he said, turning to Swann, "but it's ten minutes to eight. Oriane is always late, and it will take up more than five minutes to get to old Mother Saint-Euverte."
Mme de Guermantes made a decisive move toward the carriage and said a last farewell to Swann[...]And, lifting her skirt, she set her foot on the carriage step. She was about to get into in when the Duc caught sight of her foot and thundered out: "Oriane, you wretched woman, what are you thinking of? You're still wearing your black shoes! With a red dress! Go up quickly and change into your red ones. No, wait," he said, turning to the footman, "go and tell Madame's maid to bring down a pair of red shoes at once."
"But my dear" said the Duchesse softly, embarrassed to see that Swann, who was leaving the house with me but had stepped back to let the carriage pass out in front of us, had heard this, "given that we're late..."
"No, no, we have plenty of time. It's only ten too. It won't take us ten minutes to get to Parc Monceau. And anyway what does it matter? Even if we arrive at half past eight, they'll still wait for us, but you simply can't go there in a red dress and black shoes. Besides, we won't be the last to arrive, believe me. The Sassensages are coming. You know that they never turn up before twenty to nine."
The Duchesse went up to her room.
"Huh!" said M. de Guermantes to Swann and me. People laugh at us poor husbands, but we're not completely useless. If it weren't for me, Oriane would have gone out to dinner in black shoes."
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