My Whole Expanse I Cannot See…

I recently finished Quarantine by Jim Crace, a novel of harsh reality and spiritual surrealism. The novel takes place during the time of Jesus, in the desolate wastes outside of Judea. A merchant, Musa, lies dying of fever in his tent. Despite being abandoned by their caravan, mostly made up of Musa’s uncles and cousins, Musa’s wife couldn’t be happier. Miri’s six months pregnant, left to do “women’s work,” left by the caravan to tend to her husband with the most meager supplies, but for the first time in years she’s filled with hope. She’ll be absolutely glad to be widowed. She’s glad to be rid of his family, she’s happy to dig his grave. This is because Musa is a drunken, disgusting, abusive, poor excuse for a man. He’s abusive in every way possible, verbally, physically, sexually. Miri would rather endure birth alone in the desert than suffer her husband any longer. She does her duty, says her prayers, anoints him with the proper salves, but she knows it’s pointless. She leaves Musa to die alone while she digs his grave. Meanwhile, five travelers walk toward nearby caves for their “quarantine,” forty-days of sun-up till’ sundown fasting. Each has personal reasons for their quarantine, but they’re all seeking spiritual rewards. However, one is far more ambitious than the rest. A young man from Galilee, Jesus. Jesus seeks an audience with God Himself. He’s bound for the most isolated cave, with faith as his only sustenance unless God personally sends angels to feed him. It’s Jesus who stumbles upon the tent while Miri’s away, hoping to find some hospitality and potentially, his last meal for forty-days. He finds stale dates, a water skin. Assuming no one is around, nor that they would mind, he helps himself. Of course, Musa is there, feverish and near-death. Near-death, until Jesus finds him…

While reading, I really wasn’t sure that I liked the book. It’s mainly a book of description and third-person narrative. There’s very little dialogue, which made for a… dense read. It rather reminds me of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, in that it’s short, but the prose are spectacularly lush, and very heavy. Still, he’s ultimately excellent at painting images with words.  While reading, I also found it difficult to “like” any of the characters, especially Musa. Yet, as I’ve had a chance to think about the book, the fact that I feel so strongly about the characters is proof of Crace’s skill as writer. They’re all very real, very flawed and very alive. Jesus is not perfect, the quarantine does not treat him kindly. He might be God made flesh, but he’s just as imperfect as any human being. Crace renders Jesus in a realist’s perspective. In the end, I feel that Quarantine shows that one cannot exist solely on faith, yet we do not survive entirely alone. God exists, but our fate is more our own than we might want to believe. It’s very worth reading.

Something in the world has gone horribly wrong. We barely needed Hostel: Part II, we definitely don’t need a direct-to-DVD Hostel: Part III.

It’s kind of a slow day here in Tampa. I intended a more interesting day, but sometimes schedules break no matter what a fellow does. It’s a little disturbing in an existential kind of way. I have way too much time for idle thought, so when plans and schedules break I always have an hour or so of, Fuck it, things happen no matter what I do. Why bother planning ANYTHING? Then, of course, I stop being ridiculous and I do something else. I get frustrated, more so now, because before I do anything from errands to a movie, I commit everything to paper. The plans go on a calendar, then I write out rather detailed notes about the specific things I want to do. I try to think as far ahead as possible. I don’t write in a rough or demanding tone, I try to write how I would talk. I could be more abrupt, or generic, or short, which could definitely save me typing time, but I just don’t feel right doing so. So, I write things like…

So, today we’re going for a nice breakfast at Pach’s Place. Then, we’re off to PetSmart to buy… a fish!

This is going to seem crazy, but while we’re out, everywhere we go, I want you to take pictures, lots of pictures. Pictures of me at places, the places themselves, food we order, nice people, anything interesting. If we photograph a person, ask if it’s okay, tell them I’d like to potentially use it for a blog and give them my card. The camera’s in my J.Crew bag, the cards are in my wallet.

Speaking of my card, I want to give it out like crazy, especially at places I’m a “regular.” Give it to friendly servers, managers, bartenders, valets, anybody who’s generally nice that we meet.  We’ll start today and refine the process.

In the side pocket of my J.Crew bag is a little black notebook and a pen, I want you to write down the letters when we do the alphabet. 

Before we go, clip my Shuffle to my right wrist and do the headphones in the van. All my iPod stuff is in the Crown Royal Bag in the armoire. Ask me about the volume level, I want it soft enough so we can still talk.  Also ask if the headphones are in right. 

Things to bring:

• J.Crew bag

• Suction

• A glass syringe

• Battery (a fresh one)

• A wash-room device (keep it in the J.Crew bag just in case)

• Nirvana beanie cap

• iPod Shuffle+Headphones

Pach’s Place:

• Bowl of grits with maple syrup and an empty bowl

• Cup of hot water

• Cup of black decaf

• Tell me their juices

• Anything you like

Just take some grits and mix them in the empty bowl with some hot water.

PetSmart:

• Betta fish kit

• Betta fish

Let’s put the fish somewhere by my tv.

When we’re all done, just rinse the suction and syringe, put stuff away, and charge the battery.  Make sure that you don’t forget to bring in the hose, they get squishy in the summer heat.  You totally rule!

The general events go on a printed and online calendar, then I write the specific notes and print those. Two things tend to vex me, probably a little more than they should. Obviously, big things like today are troubling, “Oh, I didn’t realize you’d need the van so early. I didn’t read everything you wrote.” That’s… frustrating. It also drives me crazy when I write these missives and people flat out miss things on the list. My assistants are definitely better about the lists (hi assistants!), but others… I could write, “and I definitely want to wear my Nirvana baseball cap,” fifty times and that cap wouldn’t end up on my head. On the other hand, I’m absolutely elated when what I write gets followed, I get such a bang out of it. It quells my existential fear that nothing I do really matters.

I recently finished one of my audio books, Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen. It’s not quite my usual fare, but I did enjoy it. The story is narrated by Jake Jankowski during two points in his life, age ninety-one, or ninety-three (he’s lost track), and as a young man of twenty-one. At ninety-one, or ninety-three, Jake’s relegated to finish things out in a nursing home and he’s not particularly happy about it. Jake’s not content to eat pureed goop and stare passively at the world outside his window. In his younger days, Jake led a rather interesting life. Just before college graduation at the age of twenty-one his parents are killed in a tragic car accident. This is bad enough, until Jake discovers that his parents took on a massive amount of debt to pay his college tuition at the Cornell University school of veterinary medicine. Jake has no family, no money and no home. The car accident and the bank claimed everything respectively. Devastated, and absolutely flat broke, he drops out just before exams and, not quite thinking clearly, hops a train bound for God knows where. The train belongs to a rather dubious depression era traveling circus, full of shady characters and cheap booze. A traveling circus that just so happens to need a vet.

Water for Elephants isn’t a complicated tale. It’s a story of loss and romance, of misfits down on their luck with no place to go. Gruen does a spectacular job at painting vivid images with her prose. One can see the dingy train cars, the raucous midway, Jake’s lonely nursing home bed. Though dark quite often, the book isn’t totally bereft of hope. Jake might not be entirely lost, not quite knowing how many years are behind him. It’s definitely worth a read.

I’m fairly behind on things I mean to write, thoughts back up fairly quickly.

Apparently, I blacked out or something because Aimee Mann released a new album at the beginning of June and I totally missed it! Sara and I were hanging out and listening to music during which she asked, “hey, have you heard Aimee’s new stuff?” To which I typed, “omg! is it out???” Her new album, @#%&*! Smilers, is out and it’s fucking awesome. It’s full of pianos and keyboards, incredibly sad songs that often sound very happy. I kind of can’t stop listening to it, for a few reasons. First, it’s just amazing. It also makes me feel a little closer to my Sara. I haven’t written about it, I don’t really feel like writing about it. Sara’s in Boston for work, I’m here in Tampa until I can go North. It’s weird being so far apart, it’s definitely not something I like. I miss her more than Fentanyl, more than my own voice. I’m not exaggerating for affect, I mean it entirely. At some point, every single day, I miss the spectacular emptiness found in Fentanyl and I miss talking. Not all day, mind you. Just a moment or two. I just miss Sara more. We broke up once, which was bad, but it wasn’t because we didn’t love each other, and she still lived five minutes away. We weren’t “together,” but she wasn’t so far away that geography kept us apart. This is very different. Anyway, she visited last week, it was great. We laid in bed, listening to Aimee, just like I’m listening right now.

Wanted was an astonishingly bad movie. I mourn for my $9, I mourn for my 2 hours, I mourn that the movie exists at all. Honestly, I like crazy over-the-top violence. I loved Shoot’Em Up! I just could not buy Wanted. The dialogue was flat, the characters boring, and the film’s world was NOT conceived well enough to make me believe that bullets can curve. I don’t give a fuck how you flick your wrist, a bullet will not travel in a 360 degree angle outside The Matrix.

WALL•E was a beautiful movie. I thought Pixar might have peaked after Finding Nemo, but I was wrong. WALL•E is gorgeous and melancholy, but hopeful at heart. That pretty much sums me up, melancholy and hopeful.

I’m reading quite a lot lately, e-books always preferable to audio books. Unfortunately, many of the books I want to read most aren’t available as e-books, or even audio books. So, last week I started e-mailing my favorite authors to see about getting ahold of their works that aren’t currently available. One such author is Jeff VanderMeer, the fellow behind one of my top 5 favorite novels, Veniss Underground. Veniss is published in multiple e-book formats, but the same isn’t true of any of his other work. Well, it turns out that Jeff had already seen me on This American Life and was more than happy to send me City of Saints and Madmen and Shriek: An Afterword, his other two novels. He also asked if I might be interested in doing an interview with Omnivoracious, an Amazon.com book blog…

So, I recently finished reading Choke by Chuck Palahniuk and it totally reminded me again how brilliantly Palahniuk can write. Though, it being one of his earlier works, I also worry that his best stuff is behind him. Palahniuk has an amazing knack for creating complete lunatic, fuck up, low-life characters who are still likable and relatable. At least, I find them relatable. Choke’s protag is Victor Mancini, a sex-addicted liar who may or may not be the Second Coming of Christ. Victor’s a med-school dropout working as an indentured servant at an historical theme park. His mother’s a senile social anarchist who spent most of his childhood in and out of prison, kidnapping him from various foster homes. If Victor’s not busy having sex with women from sex addicts anonymous, he’s pretending to choke at local restaurants. His saviors befriend him, hear his troubles, they send him money. Victor needs the money, indentured servant, sex addict, med-school dropouts don’t pull down enough to keep their moms in high-end nursing facilities. Victor also likes the idea that he gives people a story to tell, that he creates heroes one meal at a time. At the nursing home, the demented old women mistake Victor for men who wronged them in the past and he cops to every sin from incest to dog murder. It’s much easier for Victor to be someone else, with each confession providing closure until senility reopens the wounds. Victor’s best friend, Denny, another sex addict, collects rocks for every-day he doesn’t masturbate. He says he wants his life to about something rather than be about not doing something one day at a time. Still, the rocks are just a fix for a fix.

Palahniuk likes to write certain themes into every novel, like, losing everything to truly appreciate anything, or how hitting absolute rock bottom simply means there’s nothing left to fear, both of which I love. He also writes a great deal about things being just a fix for a fix. One addiction to fix another. Denny and the rocks. Victor taking responsibility for so many sins just to feel needed. I really understand such themes and I feel better knowing that other people have that same understanding. I think about the idea of a fix for a fix quite a lot, ever since the hole in my throat and and the tube in my stomach. The trache fixes my breathing and takes away my voice leaving thoughts and worries to fill my head until I can’t sleep, until I miss every drug I ever had. Brandy to slow everything down. Reading, watching movies, writing as much as possible so the brandy doesn’t feel necessary. Amazingly hot soup, astonishingly hot coffee, fantastically cold cereal go into my feeding tube because eating has become more about sensation than taste. The oral pleasure of sweet cocoa replaced by the sensual pleasure of heat from steamed soy milk as it passes through a tube to my stomach, to my chest, to my face. Fixes for fixes. Palahniuk’s writing, especially in Choke, Survivor and Invisible Monsters is so spot on as to make things that I think about more clear and less frightening. I feel less alone. 

Definitely read Choke, it’s darkly hilarious and quite provocative.

She’s so beautiful, I can’t type, or think. I’d forget to breathe if I didn’t have a machine to remind me. In that moment, looking at her looking at me, there’s no fear or reverie. Melancholy doesn’t exist. She’s brandy, she’s morphine, she’s everything. She’s divinity on earth, her gaze is utterly too much to bear. In that moment, dying for another person makes perfect sense. Let the zombies take me, my throat for hers. She’s my fix for every fix. I love her more than I have the skill to write.

I’ve become a little addicted to and fairly good at backgammon and chess, particularly the versions found in Freeverse Software’s Big Bang Board Games. So, any Mac users interested in throwing down for a game or two should download the games and send me a message. 

Oh, by the way, you can now Digg my entries.