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.

Words, Words, Words, Swords, Words

I just love this 'Oaf of Office' column.

Enough said.

It Once Was Lost But Now Is Found

"It once was lost but now is found," to mimic the words of "Amazing Grace," first encountered by me via Judy Collins. I thought it was a folk song, not a hymn. What did I know? The "it" here refers to my Obama '08 campaign button, whose loss was lamented in the preceding post.

I found "it" today by reaching into the right pocket of my black dress pants.

Bingo.

I thought I had already looked there.

"It" appears when one is ready, or not at all.

Can't create coincidence.

Or was "it" here all along?

Next.

Letting Go of Letting Go

I've posted before of losing things. Things like what? Objects, objets d'art, detritus, money, talismans, omens, flotsam, jetsam, effluvia, phylacteries, memorabilia, memory, vice, virtue, navel lint, connection, magnetism, mass, thinness, agility, and gravity; not to mention love and loved ones.

I can't find my Obama campaign button.

Bothers the hell out of me.

For weeks and weeks, I know precisely where I had kept it: on my bureau (actually my wife's but I've been using part of the top of it since I've lived here), right next to my deodorant. That is a rock-solid certainty.

Then several days ago, I retrieved the button. Why? I guess to wear it for the inaugural events. A badge of pride.

But I didn't wear it. I kept it in my coat pocket, the pocket of my winter coat, fingering it like a novitiate telling his beads, keeping track of the button's whereabouts so I would not misplace it.

Then I extracted it at some point out of my coat pocket for, um, safekeeping.

Gawd!

Right.

Where?

God knows (presumably) (is it not presumptuous of us to assign the metaphysical boundaries of omnipotent knowledge? Maybe I've placed this mere object beyond the verge?).

It's not just the fetshistic and ritualistic attachments I am prone to, not just the neurotic-obsessive -compulsive mania; it's also the abject despair of: This Is It. This Is What the Sunset Years Will Consist Of. This And So Much Painfully More.

Plus, the shame of knowing that no one believes me when I say I know exactly where it was (past tense being operative here).

Spare us, O Lord.

Isn't that the refrain of many a litany?

The Litany of the Lost?

Sparkling Words of Wintry Inaugural

I was a bit harsh on myself yesterday. I can see now the ambivalence in the phrase "winter of our discontent." It can conceivably mean not only the ebb, the terminus of a time of discontent, but also a winter consisting of discontent. The latter meaning was ignored when Mr. Kokonuts called himself a "simple mind" or some such yesterday.

It turns out that Pawlie Kokonuts was a bit of a prescient pundit in using this wintry metaphor. Barack Obama closed his inauguration speech with rich winter symbolism, drawing on words of George Washington.

Here's the excerpt:

In the year of America's birth, in the coldest of months, a small band of patriots huddled by dying campfires on the shores of an icy river. The capital was abandoned. The enemy was advancing. The snow was stained with blood. At a moment when the outcome of our revolution was most in doubt, the father of our nation ordered these words be read to the people:

"Let it be told to the future world...that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive ... that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet [it]."

America. In the face of our common dangers, in this winter of our hardship, let us remember these timeless words. With hope and virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents, and endure what storms may come. Let it be said by our children's children that when we were tested we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back nor did we falter; and with eyes fixed on the horizon and God's grace upon us, we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations.

The Winter of Our Discontent?

Being an English major (LeMoyne College, 1970), I know that "Now is the winter of our discontent" are the opening words to William Shakespeare's play Richard III, a tragedy whose eponymous cinematic portrayal by Sir Laurence Olivier I still remember.

I confess my simple mind has sometimes been confused by those lines. Um, let me see: if it's the winter of the discontent, then it must equal the season of content, right? Huh? Yeah, Pawlie.

I am taking these lines terribly out of context -- and Richard III is a villain -- but my prayer is that it may indeed be the winter of our discontent and that it may indeed be true that "grim-visaged war hath smooth'd his wrinkled front."

God bless Barack Obama on his journey, on our journey.

And here's some majestic footage to enjoy.

The Ice, Man, Cometh -- and Goeth

The houses on Tipperary Hill are snuggled very close together. (Question to Mark Murphy and other editors: "very closely together"?) I was going to say: "which has its advantages," but then I could not think of any such advantages. There are drawbacks, though, to the proximity of domicile structures each to each (notice I did not use the loathsome redundancy "close proximity"?). In the winter, the icicles hanging from roofs of adjacent buildings pose a threat. Well, they don't pose a threat per se, but the potential of falling icicles poses a threat. A grave threat. I casually observed today that the downhill sides of houses seem to have the larger icicles. (Makes sense. Gravity and all that.) Yes, yes, I know that formations of icicles are indications of improperly heated houses, or so I am told. You do what you can, just to pay the monthly National Grid bill. About 30 years ago in downtown Syracuse someone died from a falling icicle. Ironically enough, it was a huge icicle that fell from a cathedral during the installation of a new bishop. A neighbor of mine at the time, a recently deceased former arson investigator, used to say an icicle is the perfect weapon: no fingerprints, no weapon, once it melts. Which brings me to my point: it is possible, hypothetically speaking, that one year a huge icicle just may have plunged from one house and crashed into the house of a nearby neighbor, cascading right through the tenant's dining room window, through the blinds and all. Theoretically speaking, that is. I mean, how is one supposed to control one's icicles, anyway, metaphorically speaking? No injuries reported or alleged.