cinematic sinema

 Sometimes sparks fly, they just do:

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aria / him

That's why I wanted to keep the lights on. Those dark-chestnut eyes, pools of molten lava. And they scared me like lava. Once we started (excuse me, once she started), I swear the temperature in the room went up 8 degrees. When I was hitchhiking, I spotted her eyes before she pulled over.  Her stare fixed me. Magnetized me. You'd think I was a fuckn zombie. None of that mattered once I started tearing off her moth-eaten teal cashmere sweater, no bra under it (if she'd only known my momentary disappointment), and yanked at her jeans like an inexperienced sophomore. All the while kissing but it wasn't kissing, not in any vernacular I had ever learned. The sheer ecstasy of a new language, ok, a new tongue. I was reckless, unsubtle, impatient. Not like me, really. So she tortured me all the more. Which pissed me off, and drove me on. No, it wasn't sportfucking, though we could hardly call it love. My payback torture was not allowing her to take off her panties. Take that. I don't smoke, but I wanted a cigarette afterward. Hilarious. For a person who doesn't sweat that much, it was like the teenage days I caddied in August: the wide expanse of my lower back a swamp.    

aria / her

I knew he wouldn't hurt me. I can tell. But I had the knife anyway, the knife he didn't know about, and still doesn't. His hands. A piano player's, not a plumber's. The long skinny fingers, the veins spidered. His soft palms. How could such delicate masterpieces brutalize? Right. Don't go there. From the second he got in the car, I knew he'd be a sensual kisser, not so much the curvature or fleshiness, more the blend of pout and promise. To be truthful, that's the reason I stopped for him. I'm good at spotting shit like that. Good eyes, better intuition. The roughness surpised me a little, not that I minded. It didn't hurt because I was ready. And I made him wait. God, I love torturing him. I made him a beggar, a hungry vulture. A pauper and a prince on a stallion. Squeezing shut my eyes in the well-lighted room, I became a tawdry cliche in a cheap novel: scouring my memory for a forgetten vocabulary, saying fuckit: stir fry lavender musk mint saliva sweat an unnamed deodorant faintly feminine unisex deaf almost deaf for a second faint-fear full fuller deep deeper more coriander Clorox bang bang over for him but not for me, no not me. 

Still. 

But I should've paid attention to those eyes.

 

tempest

The mewling and growling of cats. The howling of ravenous wolves. Barking. Shriek screeches of owls and snipes. Snake slitherings dancing tangos with oysters. And the scratches, ripped sheets, fallen drapes, and ripped rug. Grunts. Climbing up from the storm cellar surveying the carnage. Clearing. Calm.

Room 22, first night.

 

The Yellow Tiger Inn

It was tourist season. We blended in. Sure, the crowds were pandemic-thin, but visitors stood out: Hawaiian shirts, ballcaps, sundresses, shorts, Birkenstocks, poodles, Audis, Teslas, gray, more gray, and tides of pale-skinned ex-urbanites. Folks on the large wrap-around verenda: knives gently sawing salmon or steak, forks overturned Euro-style, chilled Chablis, tea, coffee, tiramisu, chatter, clatter, laughter. We were just some anonymous passers-by.

I had never seen so many rooms before. Correct that. I had, in skyscrapered Vegas-style mega-hotels. Pictures of them. Here it was a surprise. Four stories high and a full block deep. Hundreds of rooms, though we didn't count them.

We ambled through long musty hallways with ancient carpets, paintings from the 19th and 20th century, sconces, majestic weighty drapes, ocean-liner beds, bookshelves with classics and never-made-its.

-- C'mon, let's go in here.

-- What?

-- C'mon. Don't be scared. Let's ...

-- You kiddin'?! Really? No.

I took him by the elbow and ushered him into The Clemenceau. Cavernous. To be honest, I did not usher him; I gently persuaded him with a hand grazing his thigh, wandering into his Life Valley. I led him like a lamb, his doe eyes wide and his teenage heart racing.

We did it. More than once. I lost count. That was predictable and easy. And gales of fun. I didn't know until a year and a half later that that was his inaugural romp, his Clemenceau Originale. Father of Victory. The Tiger. My own feline conquest.

As evening fell, we strolled the other floors. On the second floor, we found a darkened room, closed the creaking door, creaked the bedsprings with our raucous youth, and fell asleep like it was nobody's business.

What could be more natural? Easy come, easy go.

Except we didn't go.

We played Stowaway.

Again and again.

First it was daring, then a habit, then a routine.

No one ever questioned us.

Housekeeping, porters, chefs, maitre d's, janitors, maintenance, painters, plumbers. front desk, back desk, security. no one.

Why would they? We were part of the family. "Always had been," they'd whisper to each other.

The first year, I took a few steps off the veranda and tripped, fell flat on my face. Road rash, bruises, and sore forearms. Thought nothing of it.

A few months later, he wanted to go out for an evening stroll, shake off cabin fever. When he put his hand on the brass door handle he was jolted by a shock so fierce he fell backward.

We experimented.

Exit by window, the old prisoner tied-sheets bit. We kept bouncing back up, as if the sheets were bungee cords. It was funny, until it wasn't.

Climb to the roof. Try the ancient rusty fire escape. Another bout of electroshock "therapy."

Burrow into the basement. Find a subterranean route to the sewer. Nope.

Nothing worked. It wasn't hard to figure out. Why frustrate ourselves? No sense succumbing to futile, impotent gestures.

I write letters.

Nearly every day.

I post them in the house mailboxes: by the lobby, the gift shop, by the elevator on each floor (the old-fashioned mail chutes).

I write to friends (though the addresses in my address book are likely obsolete; and the friends may not be alive), my parents, sisters, bothers, aunts, uncles, cousins, old classmates, even a few enemies.

I am waiting for an answer.

Just one. 

Pardon Me

We exchanged formalities and banalities.

It's a pleasure to meet you.

Likewise.

Nothing about the weather, more along the lines of how was your trip, your accommodations, how are you enjoying the conference and our pastoral tourists-attracting environs.

From his side, very little, holding his cards close to the vest.

Are you from here originally?

Tell me your role again.

And then, I stopped parrying and went for the heart of the matter. His heart.

What do fellow bishops call you? How about fellow priests? How does your secretary address you? Your excellency? Father Theodore? Theodore? Is that as far as the informal reaches: first-name basis?

Then: What did they call you as a kid?

He halted. He sat back in the ancient two-armed paisley, upholstered chair. He closed his eyes, took in a long breath. I waited.

Teddy.

He opened his eyes. A curtain lifted. His face softened, its pallor lightened.

May I call you Teddy?

The ancient grandfather clock, its pendulum swaying. His dolorous eyes pleading, fixed on my eyes. Hands folded in his lap. 

You may.

We had opened a door and entered a room, a dark one with sagging purple velvet drapes and the fragrance of burning candles and stale wine.

Teddy.

May I call you Paul?

Of course.

And I entered a confessional with the same velvet curtain, a kneeler, and a sliding screened door in the window.

How many times, son?

I lost count, Father.

How many times, Paul?

Self-abuse? I tried to count. Mortal sins. I didn't want to commit a sacrilege of the sacrament by leaving out a mortal sin. 

I don't know. It's only been two weeks, Father. Fourteen. Give or take.

Fourteen?

Maybe fifteen. Let's say seventeen, just to be safe. (Safe from what? Eternal flames.)

I'm not coming back, Teddy. How many times for you, Teddy?

I lost count.

But more than fourteen, give or take, right, Teddy?

I lost count.

Teddy.

Paul.

May I call you Paulie?

I prefer not.

Teddy, what are we talking about here?

I prefer not to say.

Is it safe to say it ain't the same as my fourteen-year-old's transgressions, the ones they labeled mortal sins, the Inquisition's torture chamber of shame and remorse for the normal tides of testosterone, Teddy?

You're quite the poet, Paul.

And you're quite evasive, Theodore.

The screen closed.

I parted the curtains. I walked out, to the pews. Or was it the communion railing? It was an odd feeling. I had been give no absolution and therefore no penance.

The silence shrouded me. I longed for the cloudy fragrance of incense. All I got was unlit candles.

modern life

A few days ago, at Target, in Fairmount, a suburb of Syracuse, I saw a young woman, maybe in her young twenties, wheeling one of those red plastic carts, wearing a T-shirt, maybe it was a sweatshirt, which said this in script letters on her back: "TRUST NO DICK." The phrasing may have differed slightly, but that was definitely the gist of the point being expressed, however blaringly, imprudently, clearly, confidently, or coarsely. That was its core marketing message. Don't censor the messenger here. I mean, here we are in Target, not far from where I bought Simply Balanced organic black tea, plastic storage crates, and tissues; amidst toddlers in carts and senior citizens like me, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, grandparents, sales associates, and babies too young to talk or read.

I am not a prude. I won't pretend I was offended by this declaration via vulgarity. In fact, I mused somewhat amusingly to myself: "Well, that's true. No self-aware man would even argue the point himself, upon honest reflection." There's a multitude of locker room sayings endorsing the same viewpoint toward male anatomy and its sway over the psyche, from the male perspective. I won't bore you with them. 

I always have questions, though, and this time they are:

-- Did the wearer of the article of clothing in question sport this out of anger or hurt?
-- Was she whimsical or serious?
-- Was it essentially anti-male or pro-female or neither or both?
-- Was anyone shocked or offended to see this level of discourse in the public square?
-- What would be the reactions and responses if the anatomical reference were switched to one of the female variety, using a crude term?
-- Does anyone care?
-- Am I an old scold for even thinking about this?

Ooops! They Did It Again (and Again and Again)

You must have heard about the couples -- married, no less -- who did

I t

every day again and again and again and again and again and again and again and agai -- you get the point. . . consecutively 365 days (more or less) in one case; 101 days in the other.

Yow!

And of course they kissed (insert a more lubricious verb here) and told. In book form.

Natch, this was, and is, one of the most e-mailed articles at the New York Times website.

A few items gleaned (or should I say glanced, or maybe glans?) from the article:

-- American marrieds do The Deed on average 66 times a year (that's skewed by younger couples who score on average 84 times a year).

-- These were two independent projects; the two couples didn't know each other; one couple was evangelical Christian; the other was granola lefty.

-- One couple persisted, even after the husband had a bout of, um, um, vertigo.

-- The big question among sex therapists and others: does more sex make you closer? Or do those who are closer have more sex?

-- The article makes no mention of Kama Sutra gymnastics the couples resorted to in order to stay awake.

If you read the linked article, you'll find the expected array of clever wordplay and innuendos.

Innuendo. Isn't that a word that just begs for a sexual joke? (Small world: I see that innuendo relates etymologically to numen, which I blogged about recently.)

As for lubricious, I love that word.

Maybe it will become my new fave word, replacing solipsistic and its various forms.

I even like the audible for lubricious over at Merriam-Webster.

Harpooning Happiness

Ah yes, harping on happiness. That's what we do; we harp on the subject, plucking that one string, over and over, in the hope we will hit the perfectly right note, get the right vibration, usually never even considering to harp on another string, perhaps on the other end of the scale.

Or maybe it's harpooning happiness, vigorously attacking the object of our desire -- even if it kills it, or us, in the process.

I gather this makes me sound like a Midwestern Methodist minister, to mumble alliteratively, but here's what got me thinking about all this. In last Saturday's New York Times I spied a banner advertisement (advert, as the Brits say; ad, as we say) anchoring (can a banner anchor?) the bottom of a page. It was red and white and featured an overturned bowl of cherries [obvious cliched metaphor of sledgehammer weight and proportions for "happiness"].

The ad announced the arrival in paperback of a book called Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert. It looked interesting enough, so I unevenly tore the ad away from the rest of the paper, discarded the day's dreary news and kept the sloppily torn-out shred for future reference. Days later (today), I Yahooed a search of the book title and got this.

Then I browsed around and got this very cool video. Very intriguing.

In short, it appears the gist of the findings of Gilbert's lab at Harvard, and of others who study affective forecasting, is that we don't quite know what makes us happy or why. He seems to be saying two things:

a) that which we think makes us miserable may not, not quite -- at least not in the way we imagined or predicted

b) the same for happiness.

Some of these heavy-duty techno geek psychology experts call this, er, the Big Wombassa.

Why didn't someone tell that to me when I was salivating over all those centerfolds in, um, my earlier years?

There's some solace in this, too (not that I've read the book yet, but I think I will): namely, after dreaming of my Giants' winning the World Series since 1955, and not having that dream come true (tantalizingly and agonizingly close in 2002) I can now imagine nothing could ever live up to what I've imagined that "happiness" to be, not now. Just ask Red Sox fans. Was it really that fulfilling? Maybe.

Speaking of bats and balls, is sex, for example, usually as thrilling and as fulfilling as imagined?

In his TED lecture at Oxford, Gilbert says something like this: studies show that a year after either winning the lottery or being paralyzed, people are about equally happy! Does that mean both events are equally desirable? Of course not. But he does provide scientific, and entertaining, data on the human ability to synthesize, create, happiness. And I guess that's why I've got to read more about this subject, this so-called happiness.

I'll be in Berlin for a week, so you may be happy (or unhappy) (or unharpy) to know I'll be out of pocket, more or less.

Tschuss!

Lent-ills, and Other Beens

A deliciously ascetic season, Lent was characterized by an iconic "giving up" of some treat, typically food, announced to family and friends. Such as, "I'm giving up Wise potato chips this year," which was a common refrain of my brothers and me over the years. We loved potato chips (called "crisps," I believe, abroad), addictively and rapturously and unhealthily. (Still do.) This addiction was anointed at any early age when my older brother and I, in the 1950s, would have an evening snack of potato chips in a little imitation copper bowl, which, emptied of chips, we irreverently placed on our heads, like a prelate's skullcap, as our parents watched the television sermons of fierce-eyed Bishop Fulton J. Sheen. One year, we learned that Sundays, as "little Easters," did not count as part of the forty days apportioned to Lent, so we felt that gave us a tremendous loophole. And so we binged on chips galore on Sundays. (Was Chips Galore the once and future husband of Pussy, the siren in the James Bond movies?) But, to be honest, that took some of the fun (if that's the word) out of it all; it was kind of wimpy; not up to the challenge. Exercising the loophole induced a guilt for not being guilty enough, if that makes any sense at all (as if this makes any sense at all to the postmodern mind).

One year, I forswore sugar in my daily tea. The habit was to have two heaping teaspoons of sugar in my morning tea, this from the earliest age I can recall. When Lent ended, I never went back to the sugar in my tea, and that's probably more than thirty years ago. What, if anything, does that tell me about human character (mine), and habits, and change? If anything, it tells me that the permanent change was barely intended, was almost imperceptible, almost accidental; mostly effortless; certainly not any result of rolled-up-sleeves willfulness. (Don't you just salivate over those semicolons? Could I ever abstain from employing semicolons, even if I tried? Not likely; not this year.)

The years of attempting to swear off booze, I guess I managed it, or nearly so. But by Easter it was off to the wild races (so, surely, I could not have opted for the loophole each week, because the brakes would not work by Monday morning) without a doubt.

Speaking of doubts, I doubt I ever gave up "impure thoughts" for Lent. How could I, or anyone else? After all, such thoughts invaded my brain unbidden, like gamma rays or rain or oxygen or incense; the charge was not to "indulge" them, though, alas, the glossy pages of porn or a lingerie ad in a Sears catalog (pre-Victoria's Secret), or a fellow teenager getting off the bus downtown in a plaid skirt galvanized my own charged-up psyche -- and made me look like a minor character in a James Joyce short story, call it "Portrait of the Hardest as a Young Man." (To you less innocent than me: yes, a Victorian term: impure thoughts. The actual deeds? You gotta be effin' kidding! [Speaking of "effin' I sort of promised myself I'd try to drop the F word during this year's practice. I can report I have not been successful even before evening. This practice is not as puritanical as it sounds; it makes for an intriguing self-auditory analysis, especially in traffic. My other goal is to avoid conversational interruptions. That may be more impossible than resisting so-called impure thoughts. As I've blogged before, I can't even stop myself from interrupting myself!]).

In later years, it's been toast without butter or some other things I can't even recall. In fact, recently it's been less and less of that youthful melodrama, a drama all about me. And why not? Who's youthful? Not moi.

Naturally, "giving up," or self-denial, has its place in the universe (though not particularly in the postmodern Western Hemisphere), but not if it's all about self.

No, not if it's all about the self, despite proud postures of solipsism proclaimed in one's blog banner.

The inventory of Lenten acts over the years is unfortunately not filled with visits to hospices, jails, or homeless shelters; such are the exception, not the rule.

So, forehead smudged with mortality-reminding ash this evening, I close with this commentary from my Zen Calendar for this day:


sin and evil

are not to be got rid of

just blindly.

look at the astringent persimmons!

they turn into the sweet dried ones.


P.S. After drafting the above post, and revising it several times, I went upstairs, got a washcloth, wet it, soaped it, and set about cleaning the ashes off my forehead. Successive rubbings did indeed clean my forehead, but a redness remained where the ashes were. Then I found that the icon of mortality stubbornly remained on the washcloth, the "human stain" (to use a Philip Roth phrase), which even more stubbornly clung to the sink, as one last black ember refused to be swallowed down the drain, finally yielding to my incessant pouring of water, as if I were some guilty murderer in an Edgar Allan Poe or Stephen King story.

P.P.S. Annual visit to a certain type of medical specialist today. PSA results normal. This is one situation where The Laughorist likes to be "normal."

The Inquisition, or "We Need to Talk"

For several days now, the most frequently emailed article from The New York Times website has involved Questions Couples Should Ask (Or Wish They Had) Before Marrying. It's smart stuff. You know, things about children, sex, finances, work, chores. Exactly the kinds of topics many of us diligently avoided as we dashed toward Nuptial Nirvana.

One excellent fellow blogger, Dr. Andrew, devotes his whole blog more or less to such topics at To Love, Honor and Dismay.

As a veteran of more than one domestic war and occasional, almost-accidental tranquillity, The Laughorist hereby offers some important prenuptial or postnuptial questions of his own:


1. Do you snore?

2. Do you ever get the feeling you are a man trapped inside a woman's body, or vice versa, or some combination thereof?

3. Whom do you think of while we're having sex?

4. Do you leave the cap off the toothpaste? Why? (Or why not?)

5. Does it bother you if someone pees in the shower even if you will never find out, and is the asking of this question really going to scotch the whole thing?

6. Where were you on the night of January 28, 1993?

7. How many sporting events (or soap operas) will you watch weekly?

8. Who are your favorite authors? (A response such as "Well, I don't know; I don't read much" should set off gongs in your head.)

9. What would Kierkegaard say (WWKS)?

10. How do you spell o-r-g-a-s-m?

11. Does size matter to you?

12. Do you leave the toilet seat up or down, and why?

13. Do you wash your hands with soap after using the toilet? How many times?

14. What are you most afraid of (see question 11)?

15. Do you mind if I run a credit check and background check on you?

16. Do you hear voices? If so, what do they say about me?

17. Paper or plastic? Or neither?

18. What are your greatest shortcomings? What are mine, if any?

19. In your own words, what does it mean if somebody (in the words of the comedian Robert Klein) "dreams of a hot dog chasing a donut in the Lincoln Tunnel"?

20. Would you mind if I just have some time alone and think things over a little bit right now; I'm reconsidering a whole bunch of things in my life after all these questions, okay?

Laugh. Or....

Else.