Pie in the (Not) Sky

The surprise of it all. The look on their faces. The initial suspicions. The relief. Simple and radical.

We started on Jamar Drive, just down the block from the church. Someone had suggested it as a gesture of radical hospitality. So, on the preceding Saturday, the Saturday before Thanksgiving, a group of older and younger members made a bunch of pumpkin pies, more than 20, I'm told. Then we distributed them Tuesday night. Jim drove slowly in his car, stopping as Win and I knocked on doors or rang doorbells on opposite sides of the street. Jim crossed off names of families who were home and made notes of those who did not answer the door in the darkness of an early November evening.

I can only report on what I saw and heard and felt.

People not showing fear or apprehensiveness toward a stranger ringing a doorbell or rapping on a door in the dark, though I surmised fear, or at least practical safety considerations. The flickering light of a television screen in a distant room; television sets: America's new-found hearths, as John Updike once put it.

If I recall correctly, I saw not one male answer a door. Is that possible? Is it only women who answer the door in suburban America? Has Dad, if he is there, popped upon a stereotypical beer or is he living out a cliche by watching a sporting event? Would it be different on Tipp Hill?

Three young girls. I told them I'd understand if they could not accept a pumpkin pie from a stranger, but, see, here's a card from the kids in church school. Then a few minutes later Mom came home, in a van, into the driveway, with another girl, and as I stood in the driveway I surprised the mother, telling her that was the last thing I wanted to do, scare her, and I just want to tell you, I gave a pie to your daughters a few minutes ago. We're just saying Happy Thanksgiving and thanks for being good neighbors all year round.

That was the message.

What?

Oh, how nice of you! Happy Thanksgiving to you, too.

What was your name again?

No strings attached.

No Bible or prayer card or schedule of services or "Come, join us" or encyclical or chapter and verse. None of that.

A gift is freely given, with no conditions.

Stopped them in their tracks, faces transformed from puzzlement to wonder and gratitude and delight.

What a blast.

Then Kurt and Jack joined us.

Four men, huddled in the dark.

Almost a quorum.

As if giving thanks had legislative requisites.

We knew without saying the motion, the movement, the tidal pulse, was carried.

Unanimously.

"Rabbit Remembered"

I finished the novella "Rabbit Remembered" by John Updike and found it rewarding if for no other reason than the light it shone on familial denial and the persistence of genetic traits. Oddly, this time (I had read this work years ago but in my old age or sleep-time reading of it forgot much) brought to mind some comparisons with Tony Soprano. Both Tony Soprano and Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom are pathological in their solipsism -- and yet, and yet, we somehow root for them, at least some of the time. Then we shake our heads and wonder how or why. And both the Soprano and Angstrom clans collectively collaborate in the pathological relationships that interweave; sometimes we even see glimmers of hope, new beginnings seemingly free of the tired strands of misery. And then those strands get restrung and interwoven once again. (Which is not to say the others, the lives that these people touch, are any better; often worse.)

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say this is the very first instance of someone showing similarities between Tony Soprano and Rabbit Angstrom. Calling all academics! Here's a great topic for a dissertation!

I like to dog-ear the pages of a book as I am reading it, to remember juicy quotes. (In this case, I have to de-canine-ear the marked pages, since it is a library book.)

Some tidbits from John Updike's "Rabbit Remembered":

Nobody wants war but men don't want only peace either.

If society is the prison, families are the cells, with no time off for good behavior. Good behavior in fact tends to lengthen the sentence.

At thirty-nine, everybody's their own problem.

A grin is held on his face like a firecracker ready to go off.

Being adult, it seems, consists of not paying much attention.

Updike Redux

Reading "Rabbit Remembered."

Actually, I'm re-reading it, as if I hadn't remembered reading it.

Such are the perils of either age or reading late at night, or both.

One does not hear much about this novella-length sequel to the four Rabbit books.

Worth the journey.

Perfection Wasted

I remember loving this John Updike poem when I first read it (1990?); so true. A gem.

Perfection Wasted

by

John Updike

And another regrettable thing about death
is the ceasing of your own brand of magic,
which took a whole life to develop and market —
the quips, the witticisms, the slant
adjusted to a few, those loved ones nearest
the lip of the stage, their soft faces blanched
in the footlight glow, their laughter close to tears,
their tears confused with their diamond earrings,
their warm pooled breath in and out with your heartbeat,
their response and your performance twinned.
The jokes over the phone. The memories packed
in the rapid-access file. The whole act.
Who will do it again? That's it: no one;
imitators and descendants aren't the same.

Updike & Me

I had joked about it, had joked with colleagues that I would see him on the elevator. And what would I say? What would I do? Judy K., my manager, had seen John Updike, with a briefcase, one morning on the subway as she, and presumably he, traveled to Random House (Alfred A. Knopf, for him) from uptown Manhattan. She related to the rest of us that she said nothing to him. Joseph Heller was on the elevator one day. I said nothing. But on a hot sunny day, circa 1987, I spotted John Updike as I was leaving the building at lunchtime. Something about his gangly stride confirmed my suspicion. (Did he wear a jacket and tie? Seersucker?) I changed course and returned to the building, awaiting his entrance. What would I say, if anything? (Everything I relate now is washed over by waves and waves of memory and bleached by the selective sanitizing of lapsed years.) "Mr. Updike?" "Yes?" He (as with other authors I have encountered in public, such as Mona Simpson, at Scribner's on Fifth Avenue in the same era) seemed pleasantly surprised that anyone would recognize him. After all, he may have felt, I'm an author, not a rock star or an athlete; this is America, where authors garner a degree of anonymity. Or perhaps his reaction merely exhibited his courtly kindness. "I really love so much of what you've written," I stammered. (I hope my words were at least that positive. I did not want to be a phony liar, but I also did not want to be a rude idiot.) "Well, thank you. Thank you very much." I sheepishly said, "Do you mind if I ask you for an autograph?" as I fumbled for a piece of paper and writing instrument. I found a piece of Random House notepaper with my name imprinted on it (a cool thing to have while working there; made one look and feel important, even if you were a factotum). I must have mumbled to him that I worked at Random House (in the now-defunct School Division, where Toni Morrison once worked, I'm told, and a division that elicited a "Huh?" while I once fielded softballs in the outfield at Central Park with the likes of Ashbel Green and other Knopf editors). He asked me my name so that on the back of this memo notepaper he could address his autograph personally "here in the lobby of 201 E. 50th John Updike." In black ink. And thank you for that and for all the delicious volumes of your words and works. And for your twinkling delight in this life. May you rest and peace and may light perpetual shine upon you.

The Luminous Numina of the Ordinary

We wonder, what to write about?

Whatever is at hand.

John Updike's story, "The Full Glass," in the current New Yorker is a meditation inspired by a full glass of water.

There is a luminousness to numinous reality.

They say, count the stars.

This evening, I couldn't even begin to count the countless dandelions, their white orbs of seeds bobbing like the poppies on World War I Flanders fields, their yellowness shriveled or sleeping.

Numina.

Ah.

What We Talk About When We Talk About Writing

Any fan of Raymond Carver knows the title of this post is taken from one of his signature stories, "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love."

Or is it his story? Or his title?

I just got around to delving into a December issue of The New Yorker that explores this.

Fascinating stuff.

The article prints a series of heart-wrenching letters between Carver and his editor at Alfred A. Knopf, Gordon Lish.

Lish suggested the famous title. He also evidently cut up to 40% of some of Carver's early stories. The stories were critically acclaimed and famous for being minimalist ("Kmart realism"). But it appears the minimalism came from Lish. Later, Carver began to insist on something more expansive, and the letters chronicle this struggle between writer and beloved editor (and an editor who was instrumental in success); between authenticity and artifice.

The New Yorker elicits an intriguing literary debate by printing the expanded version, you might say the unedited version, of the now-classic "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love," as urged by Carver's widow, the poet Tess Gallagher. The expanded story is called "Beginners" (Carver's title). Let's just say the story is markedly different. I don't quite know what I feel, or think, since I'd have to re-read the edited, famous version, and I haven't yet done that. (It would make for a challenging lit class to compare the two versions.) [BULLETIN: After initially posting this, I discovered The New Yorker provides the two versions, complete with edits! Here it is. Very cool! Decide for yourself.]

A few personal connections and observations:

1. Carver wrote many of the letters while he was here in Syracuse, while on the faculty of Syracuse University.
2. During this time, the 1980s, I was living in New Jersey. Around 1984 or -85, I met Gordon Lish by the copier, while I was working for the Random House School Division (no longer exists). My boss and publisher, Charlie Selden, knew Lish pretty well, so I used that as an excuse to introduce myself.
3. I wrote a memoir-essay piece about baseball, fathers, and sons and shared it with Gordon. He was very positive about it and encouraged me to send it to The New York Times Magazine, for a column they ran in those days, called About Men. (The piece wasn't accepted; they had already selected something similar, but the rejection was also very supportive.) Charlie Selden assured me that Gordon Lish would not have said such good words about my writing if he didn't mean it. Cool.
4. Once, several years later, I spied John Updike coming into the building at 201 East 50th Street. I engaged him in conversation and got his autograph in the lobby. It was Gordon Lish who interrupted me and Updike, whereupon I bowed out.

Editing is intimacy. Carver says frequently that Lish was closer to him than a blood brother.

Alas, blogging lacks editing, lacks that other eye, that elbow-to-elbow challenging, critiquing, and nurturing.

For that, we are all the poorer.

'Um. . . The Book' Reviewed

Um...The Book entertained and educated me. Anytime you can do both at the same time (soixante-neufing, so to speak, your learning) is an accomplishment. Fortunately, this very readable book by Michael Erard does not come off as stuffy in any way. And it doesn't make one self-conscious, as in the nervous equivalent of crossing and uncrossing one's legs or readjusting one's posture in front of a psychoanalyst. (I can report that seeing a shrink is not really like that anyway, not after the first 877 visits.)

When I was a copy editor at a newspaper, I remember an editor telling me, after I corrected someone's spoken solecism, "Don't edit speech." Wise advice.

Um...The Book takes the reader through a pleasurable stroll through several leafy jungles you wouldn't think had connecting paths: pop culture, anthropology, linguistics, epistemology, psychology, history (...and more! as copywriters shout). (As I have noted before, the book's subtitle, "Slips, Stumbles, and Verbal Blunders, and What They Mean," embraces the serial comma, as does the narrative. Merci, Mr. Erard and editors.)

The book's website invites examples from readers. I dare not submit this one of my own, because it's more dementia than blunder: I once introduced myself at a serious business function, in front of a large crowd, with the prefatory "His Lord and Eminence" before my name. I don't know what came over me. Curiously, I still have the same job, and more curiously, one of the people who had been in that audience, as a competitor, now works with me. No, I've never brought the subject up.

I like the fact that the author takes on Herr Dr. Freud and explains how the term "Freudian slip" has taken on a life all its own never intended.

I learned about spoonerisms, powerless vs. powerful speaking, and tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon. (Medical update: I seem to have some sort of TMJ problem, and yesterday the ENT/dentist specialist prescribed an exercise of putting the tip of my tongue onto the roof of my mouth, pausing, repeating, et cetera, ad infinitum. I can think of better things to do avec ma langue.)

I'm, um, thinking that at the office holiday gala, with my bow tie on and pinkie out, I'll try to impress someone (well, someone with ample cleavage, of course) by breezily dropping terms like parapraxis (or parapraxes, plural) or Fehlleistung (Fehlleistungen). The German is literally "faulty performance." The hope is I'll be referring conversationally to language or memory, not some other kind of, um, "performance."

Before signing off, two things.

One, I've had a fussy awareness of these things even before I read the book (evidently, that's why my friend from WebPros sent it to me), so today it was amusing to hear a public official say at a forum several times: "flush it out" instead of "flesh it out." (Well, he was referring to an aqueduct.) (I once knew a colleague who thought "flesh it out" was too meaty and gross an expression, and she wasn't even a vegan!)

Second, a slight disclaimer: as I was reading the book, I contacted the author. He was gracious in replying. In my experience, most authors are very gracious, just as John Updike was admirably kind when I met him in the lobby of Random House in the 1980s.

Saving Face

Did you know some people find it difficult to remember or identify faces? It's called prosopagnosia, or "face blindness." Here's a simple test you can take to see if you have it. (Hint: you have to guess whether it's Bush or Blair. Yuck! Why not Jennifer Lopez vs. Salma Hayek? Or Brad Pitt vs. George Clooney? Whatever.)

Not having one's face recognized is especially onerous in the Age of Celebrity. Imagine how slighted the glitterati feel.

It turns out authors are frequently among the unrecognized faces. But I'm alert to such sightings, probably because they are what I am not. Years ago I worked at Random House in New York. I saw Joseph Heller on the elevator. I approached John Updike in the lobby, asked for his autograph, and he chatted with me amiably. Kurt Vonnegut was often seen in the neighborhood. I saw Norman Mailer strutting up Second Avenue. (Before all that, I even met the satirist Peter DeVries at his house.) I saw James Baldwin sitting alone in a hotel lobby in Chicago in the 1980s, shook his hand (somewhat cold and feeble), and asked for his autograph. He pleasantly obliged, and his face warmed with a smile seemingly at the fact someone recognized his face.

(As you can see, I am a shameless name-dropper. Is it a sign of poor self-esteem? Or just living vicariously?)

I shouldn't joke about this face blindness phenomenon; it is considered a real neurological impairment. It's not that I think I have it, but I do find it difficult to describe a face to someone. It's hard for me to draw that picture with words. And I have no talent as a visual artist beyond the creation of stick figures.

I remember the youthful thrill of trying to rivet into my brain the image of the visage of someone I liked. (Typically, of course, I was unable to articulate such affection.) Must be what Lennon and McCartney had in mind with "I've Just Seen a Face."

Then there are the images of those I feared or loathed: a kid who bullied me, a teacher who smacked me to the ground. I wish I had no memory of their faces. Prosopagnosia for the antagonisti, call it.

Whether visually or otherwise, we seek to save face. In domestic quarrels, each participant tries to save face.

Barry Bonds held out on signing a $15.8 million contract with the San Francisco Giants, just to save face.

Nations and sects and rivals also fight to save face, even if it means destroying the whole body, the whole body politic, the whole soul, in the process.

I wonder if there is such a thing as mammogagnosia, "the forgetting of breasts"? I think I'm afflicted with whatever the opposite of that is. And let me tell you, Braille may not help but who cares!

There's even a romantic comedy film called Saving Face by Alice Wu. It concerns a Chinese-American lesbian.

Maybe right about now, some of you are wishing I'd do an about face (which is also the title of a work by Dario Fo, but not by Dario Marquez)!

Does all this make me a facist? (Read that last word carefully. Remember, spelling counts.)