"provided that he sticks out his tongue

like a bellrope that you yank out
to the hilt."

Benjamin Péret, To Sleep Standing Up

Sheheryar is obsessed with Mexican artists. Diego Rivera; Frida Kahlo; Manuel Alvarez Bravo. Right now he is reading everything he can find about Remedios Varo. I am sitting on the couch reading Benjamin Péret. He shows me pictures and makes me read snippets. Suddenly, I come across Péret's name. I read closer. What? Varo and Péret were married? Talk about synchronicity! Now I am reading his book and he is reading mine.

"Souls burning in hell,

How exceedingly modest your eternal torments
Appear to me in comparison
To that of a firebombed city."

~Charles Simic, Medieval Miniature

I just got back from a reading by Charles Simic, held downtown at the Chicago Public Library. I am stupid with wonder. Wonderstruck. Frankly gaga. I was sort of hoping for a more intimate venue, but in retrospect, I think the basement auditorium was the right way to go. Every 10 minutes of so, another homeless guy would shuffle in with his bags and take a seat. It seemed fitting, somehow - like a Simic poem: part parody, part tragedy.

Misadventure

An instance of misfortune; a mishap. From Old French mes (badly) + avenir (to turn out) [from the Latin avenire (to come to)].

What a strange and wonderful little word. An adventure that went awry. Death by misadventure; it feels nobler than an accident, doesn't it? As if you were out there, carpe-ing the diem, when, woops! Misadventure. And really, it's a nice reminder that every adventure has a "mis" out there, waiting for it.

What happens when we read

Very Like A Whale has a neat post on " Your favorite un-PC children's books." What do you do when you re-read an old favorite, only to find that it's, well, pretty problematic? Weak female characters, racist stereotypes, religious propaganda. Do we let our kids read this? And how did we survive it?

I, for one, am grateful my parents didn't censor my reading. Anything and everything was allowed, however grown-up, or, frankly, objectionable. Maybe that's why I don't worry too much about stereotypes and problematic politics in the literature my kids read. I'm holding out hope that what we learn from reading great books is not so much "manners and customs" or "social norms" as it is, well, empathy - that intangible thing that happens when we step into someone else's story and try to make sense of it. From what I understand, readers tend to identify with the main character of a story, regardless of race, gender, etc. Just as we are the subjects of our own self-narratives, so we place ourselves in the subject position when we read (that's why Indian children watching westerns identify with the cowboys). Our ability to switch between social categories in this process of identification is actually very interesting.

What I would like to spare my kids is the plethora of insipid literature written in the name of social change - those clumsily written stories that have nothing more going for them than that the princess rescues the prince. When it comes to change or progress, I'd wager that politically correct plot-lines have had way less impact on the world than, say, female literacy.

Still holding

My poem "Chair, Formerly Red," is up at qarrtsiluni.

Yay!

A Walking Fleetwood Mac Song

A few years ago, Sheheryar and I were playing Trivial Pursuit - the 90's version. He got the following question (and I'm paraphrasing here): "What Fleetwood Mac song did Bill Clinton use to great effect during his campaign?" The correct answer: "Don't stop thinking about tomorrow."

Okay. Makes sense. But frankly, I like Sheheryar's answer better:

"You make loving fun."

Don't you just miss Bill Clinton?

I wish all candidates had been required to use a Fleetwood Mac song in their presidential campaigns. I've got the perfect one for George W.:

"Over my head."

"You get kewpie doll notions

I bathe them in my blood
Dress them in the rags of my skin"

~Vasko Popa

I am reading Homage to the Lame Wolf, thanks to a recommendation from Sarah. Now I am reading it again. I eat it too fast, like an ice cream cone. I get brain freeze. Now I am reading it again. Small bites. I chew each bite twenty times.

I am agog. Also objects have attitudes.

Another thing I was wrong about

Texans are polite; they give you the benefit of the doubt. They get your coat and bag from the overhead compartment; they tell you the names of birds, like the white-winged dove, who says “Too wet to plow,” which means it’s a liar, at least most of the time, in dry-as-dust San Jose Mission, with the acequia a rusty trickle and the pockmarked millstone dead still.

Texans are hospitable; they steer you away from the vegetables and towards the rib-eye. Some Texans have a weight problem. Did you know that they also pull over and let you pass if you’re in a hurry? Most people would rather speed up and stay in front, even if they’ve got no place to go.

Texans don’t like littering. They have a slogan: Don’t mess with Texas. When I first heard it, I thought it meant don’t let the queers or the Jews or the uppity women in here, but it really means don’t throw your trash out the car window.

Sigh

The Memory Keeper's Daughter
The Bonesetter's Daughter
The Communist's Daughter
The Cantor's Daughter
The Parson's Daughter
The Horse Dealer's Daughter
The Gravedigger's Daughter
The Monk and the Hangman's Daughter
The Marsh King's Daughter
The Tiger's Daughter
Burger's Daughter
The General's Daughter
The Miller's Daughter
The Abortionist's Daughter
The Pirate's Daughter
The Captain's Daughter
The Ringmaster's Daughter
The Winemaker's Daughter

Somehow, it makes me sad.

Mood Music

Tonight, S and I went to the Harris Theatre for the final MusicNow concert of the season. It featured film music - Golijov's suite from Youth without Youth, and Philip Glass's suite from The Hours. There is something strange about a concert based on film scores; the music is hitched to some action, some narrative arc, that is oppressively absent. It reminded me of a ride I suffered through at a nearby water park. You're sitting on an innertube, pushed down a slide that is itself a tube - a pitch dark tunnel. There's no way of anticipating the myriad twists and turns, the changes of direction. It's absolutely nauseating. Not to say that the concert was nauseating, just, I felt manipulated. Film music is all about creating a mood, so there we sat, drenched in pathos, bleeding from the heartlace, not really sure why.

e.g. Fabio

I know why the cat lady had so many cats: she liked naming things.

Names are fun. Poe, Minor, Elias; Chuzzlewit and Pecksniff; the Captain and Tenille; Linwood, Hazel, Sprague. My grandmother's name, Mary Estelle, means "rebel star." (That is so cool). Then there are the Pakistani names that end in "ish," like Daanish, Naazish, and Beenish. (Beenish; that's a neat one). Bronwen, Cormac, Nicola; Xochitl (pronounced So-cheel), Santiago, and ooh, Alberto.

Novelists have it good. Yeah, that's the life - doling out names left and right. Romance novelists in particular, since they don't seem to be hindered by probability or good taste.