It was Charles De Gaulle Airport, but the year was 1923. Before commercial air travel was possible. It was the era of large vessels a sea, floating from one coast to another, as it hauled ticketed passengers with luggage case upon luggage case and stowaways with nothing but the clothing on their backs. Yet, somehow, airplanes were taking off and landing at the field.
A Poll
Christine:
FUCK OFF! I don't write about myself, you stupid little bitch. Who said I wrote about myself? Who told you anything about me? Who?
And you call yourself a reporter. It's called fact checking. Now, move along with my daughter and I eat lunch.
Hervé:
I pleaded with him to save me. I asked him repeatedly to put me into the group that was administered the drug. I begged. I cried out. I carried on like a tempestuous child.
I was given only the placebo.
Muzil:
[...] (sic)
Anne was unavailable for comment, but I am sure she would interject something about the Brontë sisters.
* * *
It was autumn, yet again. Just before the winter that ended it all. I didn't retain anything from that time. It was difficult. Nothing happened. Quiet reigned. Silence.
Nelly called. I wasn't going to answer, but did at the last second. She was upset about a client. Someone who knew her father. She was worried that her client would tell her father about her. She knew she was found out. She was scared. She was upset. She told me the client paid her handsomely for her services and winked when he said it would be "their little secret." She called to tell me this. About the father who didn't know, about the mother who was sick and in bed and not moving much these days and didn't have the mental wherewithal to comprehend what she was doing in the first place. And about how she would completely understand if her father were visiting brothels in the red light to ease some sort of pain from his invalid wife - if one can claim that sexuality can ease the pain of life beyond the fleeting time it takes to orgasm. Or perhaps it was only about those fleeting moment.
She was a professional, Nelly. Swept up into something that she knew all about, and then exploited herself and her clients and her profession the way she was exploited. She did it well, both exploiting and being exploited, Nelly. I can't say that she disliked being a whore.
Something about the whole thing suited her well.
I could never say the same of Jennifer.
* * *
The tricky thing about Paris is that the architecture is all relatively the same. From arrondissement to arrondissement there is practically no change is appearance. It is the intangible, the feeling, the vibe, the people that make a difference.
A Lesson In French Grammar - Homonyms and conjugations
S'aimer: s'aime, s'aimes, s'aime, s'aimons, s'aimez, s'aiment
Semer: sème, sèmes, sème, semons, semez, sèment
(La) Seime: Noun, thus invalidated.
None of this is superfluous. There is a reason for everything. It is simple to dismiss that which one does not comprehend.
* * *
Another season has passed. The summer is over.
A reprisal of sorts. A call to action of sorts. A reminder.
|
Labels:
reprisal reminder
It was the season’s beginning. The rainy season. And suddenly, it was humid, then no longer. Dead, crunchy leaves lined the streets and made the Earth look brownish-yellow and burnt. A year had passed, and no one had taken note.
Anne sat silently in the kitchen while Muzil and I played music in the living room. This was before the rest. Going back to before his demise and the unspeakable act. Anne was tired, but she insisted on making tea. I offered to help, but she refused. Instead, she sat silently in the kitchen while the waiting for the water to boil. I turned down the volume. I didn’t want to disturb.
Claire was elsewhere.
Christine was home writing. It was the season before she hit it big. She was on the fringe of being ‘on the scene’. I hated her then. Léonore was never around, but Christine talked about her a lot.
Hervé was gone. At some point, he left Paris to spend several months in Brittany. He came back a changed person.
This was before Dominique and I stopped speaking. She stopped by shortly after the tea had already been steeping.
It was May 1968 all over again. The schools were barricaded, vehicles were ablaze, sirens blared incessantly in the distance. Broken shards from wine bottles crammed the gutters. Services were suspended. The trains stopped running. The President of the Republic was on TV almost every evening pleading for a peaceful night.
Question: And for dialogue?
Answer: There is none. No one said anything of note.
Muzil looked up from his paper. He was wearing head to toe white, as was his custom in those days. He lit a cigarette, glanced toward the kitchen, made a hand gesture to me in Anne’s direction, and went back to reading.
It was a lethargic time. The heat made it impossible to expend energy. I was reading the classics of fatigue literature. The slow stories that lasted forever and never went anywhere. The journeys back home from exotic locations, the inabilities to speak, the inaudibility of words themselves.
I remember the phone ringing incessantly. No one picked up the receiver.
Dominique brought food. Most of the stores were closed, and she had brought us some provisions from her stock to keep us going until the grocers opened again. It was a prison.
I remember the look on his face when I confronted him. It was situated between relief and pain. Perhaps, more the former. He didn’t speak for several hours after that. Silence was communication enough. The very silence that caused it all, the end of the end. The very silence that shouted beyond the dimension of existence and solidified failure.
He wouldn’t look at me after that.
After Christine hit it big, there were parties, and dinners and lunches and cocktails. We were out nearly every night until the sun broke its slumber. After parties in the café. She threw her money around like the nouveau-riche society type she was. No one got it but me. She never talked to me about it, but I knew she understood that I saw beyond her games.
Muzil was appalled by Christine. He felt betrayed and suffered her fame at his expense. This is why Hervé left as well. He couldn’t look her in the face after what she had done.
* * *
Claire and I were walking along the St. Martin Canal. It was a Sunday afternoon during the summer. This is when it all fell apart between us. I can’t recall the words she used, but it wasn’t until much later that I saw her again. And, even then, we didn’t speak significantly for longer still.
In the end, as if resolute from the very beginning, everything falls apart. It just takes getting to that moment when all the factors align to see it all topple. One begins to wonder if our nature is one of destruction as a means to define our own attribute of created being through rebellion.
* * *
When I look back, it is hard to feel anything anymore. To think of all those who tried and failed; to long for a time that was irresolutely flawed. It was one’s own Middle East – bombs going off to the side and a trail etched in the desert ahead.
Memory itself failed.
Anne sat silently in the kitchen while Muzil and I played music in the living room. This was before the rest. Going back to before his demise and the unspeakable act. Anne was tired, but she insisted on making tea. I offered to help, but she refused. Instead, she sat silently in the kitchen while the waiting for the water to boil. I turned down the volume. I didn’t want to disturb.
Claire was elsewhere.
Christine was home writing. It was the season before she hit it big. She was on the fringe of being ‘on the scene’. I hated her then. Léonore was never around, but Christine talked about her a lot.
Hervé was gone. At some point, he left Paris to spend several months in Brittany. He came back a changed person.
This was before Dominique and I stopped speaking. She stopped by shortly after the tea had already been steeping.
It was May 1968 all over again. The schools were barricaded, vehicles were ablaze, sirens blared incessantly in the distance. Broken shards from wine bottles crammed the gutters. Services were suspended. The trains stopped running. The President of the Republic was on TV almost every evening pleading for a peaceful night.
Question: And for dialogue?
Answer: There is none. No one said anything of note.
Muzil looked up from his paper. He was wearing head to toe white, as was his custom in those days. He lit a cigarette, glanced toward the kitchen, made a hand gesture to me in Anne’s direction, and went back to reading.
It was a lethargic time. The heat made it impossible to expend energy. I was reading the classics of fatigue literature. The slow stories that lasted forever and never went anywhere. The journeys back home from exotic locations, the inabilities to speak, the inaudibility of words themselves.
I remember the phone ringing incessantly. No one picked up the receiver.
Dominique brought food. Most of the stores were closed, and she had brought us some provisions from her stock to keep us going until the grocers opened again. It was a prison.
I remember the look on his face when I confronted him. It was situated between relief and pain. Perhaps, more the former. He didn’t speak for several hours after that. Silence was communication enough. The very silence that caused it all, the end of the end. The very silence that shouted beyond the dimension of existence and solidified failure.
He wouldn’t look at me after that.
After Christine hit it big, there were parties, and dinners and lunches and cocktails. We were out nearly every night until the sun broke its slumber. After parties in the café. She threw her money around like the nouveau-riche society type she was. No one got it but me. She never talked to me about it, but I knew she understood that I saw beyond her games.
Muzil was appalled by Christine. He felt betrayed and suffered her fame at his expense. This is why Hervé left as well. He couldn’t look her in the face after what she had done.
* * *
Claire and I were walking along the St. Martin Canal. It was a Sunday afternoon during the summer. This is when it all fell apart between us. I can’t recall the words she used, but it wasn’t until much later that I saw her again. And, even then, we didn’t speak significantly for longer still.
In the end, as if resolute from the very beginning, everything falls apart. It just takes getting to that moment when all the factors align to see it all topple. One begins to wonder if our nature is one of destruction as a means to define our own attribute of created being through rebellion.
* * *
When I look back, it is hard to feel anything anymore. To think of all those who tried and failed; to long for a time that was irresolutely flawed. It was one’s own Middle East – bombs going off to the side and a trail etched in the desert ahead.
Memory itself failed.
Searching for self in the possibility of a possibility
|
Labels:
Possibility of Self
This work talks about itself. And, with every word, it explores the impossibility of its own existence.
“Won’t do no good to hold no séance,
What’s gone is gone and you can’t bring it back around.
Won’t do no good to hold no searchlight,
You can’t illuminate what time has anchored down.
[…]
Won’t do no good to sing no love song,
No sound could simulate the presence of a man.”
- “Carrion”
Meta-textualism is dead. It is a dead art. One that has died even before it began. The hands of many people contributed to its demise. And, we mourn you with every passing day.
Anne Carson has secretly become my hero, though I would never admit this publicly. It would mean loss. Harboring an obsession for Anne Carson is like harboring an obsession for death. For shame!
(The true path to creation is, at its essence, a hubristic challenge. The creator toils time and time again to prove to himself that he is still capable. He has chosen to rival the Supreme Creator. He will never prevail. At least not entirely.)
(Man is fundamentally impotent.)
The above is called an incipit. Used to set the mental stage, so to speak, of where I begin, and where I intend on ending.
* * *
The walk along the coast of The Sleeve is treacherous. The craggy wall of rock is high, the wind blows incessantly. One false step. One step.
Intention is a whirlwind of brain chemical and desire. I wonder, at times, if it weren’t intentional. It would be easy to convince myself otherwise from what really happened. To tell myself a story that would make it sound better. A story that would make it palatable.
“On the edge of love,
Like on the edge of a cliff
It doesn’t take much
For me to become
One woman like another
One woman amongst others
Or worse, like all the others.”
- Patricia Kaas
What do they have to say about it?
A life according to the liar: Clones will rule the world. Get the fuck out.
A life according to the plagiarist: This is not my life, fuck you.
A life according to the absurdist: Fuck fuck fuck! Pass me a carrot.
A life according to the pacifist: I don’t remember it that way, for fuck’s sake
A life according to the warrior: Jump!
Nobel Laureate in Literature and Pacifist Harold Pinter (1930 – 2008), The Bombs:
There are no more words to be said
All we have left are the bombs
Which burst out of our head
All that is left are the bombs
Which suck out the last of our blood
All we have left are the bombs
Which polish the skulls of the dead
Where my story picks up: It was after the inappropriate love, after the walk along the Seine, before Normandy, and before traversing the Ocean. The moment in between. (This is where every story takes place.)
It was a Tuesday. Claire called me out of the blue. She was at a café (L’Étoile Manquante) down the street (Rue Vieille du Temple). He was there. She was there. I went. Drinks were consumed, introductions were made, plans solidified. Thursday. Out. The scene as it always had been for us. Plus one.
Much later: He saw “Goodbye, My Warrior” and thought it to be about him. His name meant “warrior”.
Thursday. And then, there was one. That was the beginning of the end. Saturday also holds a special significance in this story. Or, the idea of Saturday, in a different time and a different place. I don’t think I saw Claire for some time after Thursday. She left without a word that night. No one knew where she was for at least a few days.
Then, there was the rest of it all. Fourth, fifteenth, moving, the sushi place, the movie theater, the apartment in the third, working in the tenth, the train up North, travelling all directions, calling back and forth. It all moved so fast. In a final streak of desperation, there was the Mairie du 15e. It took all of ten minutes. Papers signed. Fate sealed. There was no party. No celebration. Only silence. It had already become purely administrative.
Much much later: I received a letter from The Sailor. I was to blame. It was my fault. I ran away. I caused it all. I never responded, my words stifled.
* * *
Flash-forward to the Impossible City. In the concrete jungle: a life of penciled-in brunches, cocktail drinking, dinner plans in the Village (East and West) and outer boroughs, weekends in the parks, tea sipping, book reading, subway riding.
It is supposed to eat you alive, the Impossible City. It is supposed to spit you out. Only your own personal resolve and dedication can persevere. Take heed, be warned: The meek will not survive. It can be an extremely lonely place, and one of abundant decadence.
This part has yet to be written. But, I know why I did it. I know that I had to prove to myself I could survive, that I had something left, that the skeleton of myself could rise. Resurrection. That is why I did it.
* * *
What I have left from my other life: Books. Mostly books. Some clothes. Music. End of list.
At the end of Water Drops on Burning Rocks, a film by François Ozon based on a play by Fassbinder, the fabulous Anna Thomson (Levine) places her hands on the frame of a window of the apartment she is in. The camera, for the first time in the film, passes through the wall to the exterior of the apartment. The shot shows her shadow in the window, with her hands on the glass as she struggles to open the window which won’t budge. Quietly at first, then in full volume, Träume (Dreams) is heard. This German song is interpreted by Françoise Hardy with her strong, smoky, brooding voice. It is one of the best examples of cinematic allegory. It is the visual representation of the need to run away, the desire to flee, and the confrontation of these with the impossibility of fulfilling such a primal need.
“Won’t do no good to hold no séance,
What’s gone is gone and you can’t bring it back around.
Won’t do no good to hold no searchlight,
You can’t illuminate what time has anchored down.
[…]
Won’t do no good to sing no love song,
No sound could simulate the presence of a man.”
- “Carrion”
Meta-textualism is dead. It is a dead art. One that has died even before it began. The hands of many people contributed to its demise. And, we mourn you with every passing day.
Anne Carson has secretly become my hero, though I would never admit this publicly. It would mean loss. Harboring an obsession for Anne Carson is like harboring an obsession for death. For shame!
(The true path to creation is, at its essence, a hubristic challenge. The creator toils time and time again to prove to himself that he is still capable. He has chosen to rival the Supreme Creator. He will never prevail. At least not entirely.)
(Man is fundamentally impotent.)
The above is called an incipit. Used to set the mental stage, so to speak, of where I begin, and where I intend on ending.
* * *
The walk along the coast of The Sleeve is treacherous. The craggy wall of rock is high, the wind blows incessantly. One false step. One step.
Intention is a whirlwind of brain chemical and desire. I wonder, at times, if it weren’t intentional. It would be easy to convince myself otherwise from what really happened. To tell myself a story that would make it sound better. A story that would make it palatable.
“On the edge of love,
Like on the edge of a cliff
It doesn’t take much
For me to become
One woman like another
One woman amongst others
Or worse, like all the others.”
- Patricia Kaas
What do they have to say about it?
A life according to the liar: Clones will rule the world. Get the fuck out.
A life according to the plagiarist: This is not my life, fuck you.
A life according to the absurdist: Fuck fuck fuck! Pass me a carrot.
A life according to the pacifist: I don’t remember it that way, for fuck’s sake
A life according to the warrior: Jump!
Nobel Laureate in Literature and Pacifist Harold Pinter (1930 – 2008), The Bombs:
There are no more words to be said
All we have left are the bombs
Which burst out of our head
All that is left are the bombs
Which suck out the last of our blood
All we have left are the bombs
Which polish the skulls of the dead
Where my story picks up: It was after the inappropriate love, after the walk along the Seine, before Normandy, and before traversing the Ocean. The moment in between. (This is where every story takes place.)
It was a Tuesday. Claire called me out of the blue. She was at a café (L’Étoile Manquante) down the street (Rue Vieille du Temple). He was there. She was there. I went. Drinks were consumed, introductions were made, plans solidified. Thursday. Out. The scene as it always had been for us. Plus one.
Much later: He saw “Goodbye, My Warrior” and thought it to be about him. His name meant “warrior”.
Thursday. And then, there was one. That was the beginning of the end. Saturday also holds a special significance in this story. Or, the idea of Saturday, in a different time and a different place. I don’t think I saw Claire for some time after Thursday. She left without a word that night. No one knew where she was for at least a few days.
Then, there was the rest of it all. Fourth, fifteenth, moving, the sushi place, the movie theater, the apartment in the third, working in the tenth, the train up North, travelling all directions, calling back and forth. It all moved so fast. In a final streak of desperation, there was the Mairie du 15e. It took all of ten minutes. Papers signed. Fate sealed. There was no party. No celebration. Only silence. It had already become purely administrative.
Much much later: I received a letter from The Sailor. I was to blame. It was my fault. I ran away. I caused it all. I never responded, my words stifled.
* * *
Flash-forward to the Impossible City. In the concrete jungle: a life of penciled-in brunches, cocktail drinking, dinner plans in the Village (East and West) and outer boroughs, weekends in the parks, tea sipping, book reading, subway riding.
It is supposed to eat you alive, the Impossible City. It is supposed to spit you out. Only your own personal resolve and dedication can persevere. Take heed, be warned: The meek will not survive. It can be an extremely lonely place, and one of abundant decadence.
This part has yet to be written. But, I know why I did it. I know that I had to prove to myself I could survive, that I had something left, that the skeleton of myself could rise. Resurrection. That is why I did it.
* * *
What I have left from my other life: Books. Mostly books. Some clothes. Music. End of list.
At the end of Water Drops on Burning Rocks, a film by François Ozon based on a play by Fassbinder, the fabulous Anna Thomson (Levine) places her hands on the frame of a window of the apartment she is in. The camera, for the first time in the film, passes through the wall to the exterior of the apartment. The shot shows her shadow in the window, with her hands on the glass as she struggles to open the window which won’t budge. Quietly at first, then in full volume, Träume (Dreams) is heard. This German song is interpreted by Françoise Hardy with her strong, smoky, brooding voice. It is one of the best examples of cinematic allegory. It is the visual representation of the need to run away, the desire to flee, and the confrontation of these with the impossibility of fulfilling such a primal need.
Anne Carson, the destruction of art and an inventory of space
|
Labels:
Anne Carson,
creation,
destruction
"... the most exciting poet writing in English today."
- Michael Ondaatje
The entirety of art serves to tell one story, the story of loss. The story of destruction. The irony (read: what makes it art) is that the story of loss is inevitably told by means of creation.
Everything was fine until Anne Carson ruined it. She is a destroyer of art and dreams and integrity. For once, I had thought I was original (really, I hadn't) and unique (perhaps, I didn't) and singular (still true). The story: her story, and her (that of another) story and her (another, yet again) story told, interwoven, collected through perhaps nefarious means. The asexualization of sexuality by written word; the inevitable (because, by definition, inadequate) translation of three dimensions into two.
What you would see: A blue striped polo shirt (base color darker than that of the stripes), black slacks, orange socks, brown shoes.
What else you would see: A desk, a keyboard, a computer, two telephones, a book thrown to the side, a glass of water.
And beyond that?: Concrete, steel, glass, pavement, asphalt, cold biting wind, clouded skies.
Her story (Anne Carson) is one that we've all lived. At least in our own interpretations of events. The violence of sexuality and the endless road of trying to please one's mother despite the obvious impossibility.
This part is important: The city of New York comprises 468.9 square miles, located at a latitude of 40° 43′ 0″ N and a longitude of 74° 0′ 0″ W. It was officially settled in 1624 and contains 165.6 square miles of water. As of July 1, 2007, the population of the city of New York was 8,274,527, with a density of 27,147 people per square mile spread across five boroughs.
She (Anne Carson) is a literary demagogue. A destroyer of art and dreams. I don't think I had any artistic integrity before Anne Carson, Christine killed that long ago.
Her (Anne Carson) story is my story. The loss, the moor, pleasing one's mother. I do draw the line at the Brontë sisters, but she (Anne Carson) seems to understand them to the point of integration. I won't go so far as to call it appropriation, but one could successfully argue that point, I suppose. Obviously, plagiarism is out (citations are given at times, quotation marks used).
"She is one the few writers writing in English that I would read anything she wrote. If there's a magazine that has something of hers in it, I buy it automatically."
- Susan Sontag
Strong, eloquent words, Susan. (Not really.)
Here's what I see: Why do Susan Sontag and Michael Ondaatje both qualify/objectify her (Anne Carson) by means of labeling her (Anne Carson) a writer working in the English language? Is there a writer writing in French that Susan Sontag would read anything she wrote? Is there a most exciting poet writing in Japanese that Michael Ondaatje would care to recommend?
Here is why she (Anne Carson) is truly a destroyer: She does as they all do. She know what she is doing. She is using creation to close the doors on the past. When one writes about it, it becomes fiction; the brain can accept the non-reality of the written word much better than the (verisimilitude of the) reality of memory.
Here is why she (Anne Carson) ruined everything: I am forced to confront my own process, and admit that I am nothing.
* * *
When the sun came up on that day (if it came up on that day; I am ignorant of the weather of that day) there was one less. Only scraps of debris, of artifact and memory remained. These things lay scattered across two continents and traversed an ocean.
There wasn't much to see, which is why I never went back. Everything was sold or destroyed, I presume. Pieces of myself that I had already left behind, lost forever. Space empty, tidied, cleaned, scrubbed, shown, resold. The view for another to see. The cathedral and lights of the lower city peppering the nightly view so few times for us.
I lived on a mountain top. If I had wanted to be destructive, I could have watched it all from the heights and laughed an evil laugh as pandemonium set in and rioting occurred. From the top of it all.
Fred was the first to call anyone. Then, the chain continued. Over and over and over. I was called early in the chain. I called no one.
Things I wouldn't express: guilt, shame. (Just like the turning of one's back to an uninterested lover, as she (Anne Carson) did on page 12.)
I'd like to think it was cold that day. The wind was tumultuous. The sun, perhaps showing its face, even if slightly. Although, I would wish it a very sunny day, with the perfection of azure skies.
"Perhaps the hardest thing about losing a lover is
to watch the year repeat its days."
- Anne Carson
* * *
Those who understand, as I do, do the same thing over and over again. They tell the same story. They relay the same information. I know this because Dominique Barbéris told me as much. It is a struggle of repetition and self-censure. It is the reflective nature of the writing process.
In the retelling of Anaïs Nin by Christine Angot (L'Inceste) and the retelling of the Heights by Anne Carson, one notes that interplay of reality, non-reality, and fictitious reality. Acquaintances are made, bond of friendship bonded, lovers exalted. Then, destroyed. Once over and again until the a new resolution is formed. This is called "conflict". Making the knot, then comes the dénouement.
In comedy, the formula is union, désunion, réunion. Hence, the preponderance of weddings at the ending. Tragedy does not allow for this. Fiction writing, devoid of such rigid schematics, can have any ending possible. It is up to the creator to determine the ending. The ending comes solely through the imaginative powers of he who blackens the page with words. The ending, so long as it is not a carbon copy of the beginning (which it could never be due to the journey in between), is valid either way.
- Michael Ondaatje
The entirety of art serves to tell one story, the story of loss. The story of destruction. The irony (read: what makes it art) is that the story of loss is inevitably told by means of creation.
Everything was fine until Anne Carson ruined it. She is a destroyer of art and dreams and integrity. For once, I had thought I was original (really, I hadn't) and unique (perhaps, I didn't) and singular (still true). The story: her story, and her (that of another) story and her (another, yet again) story told, interwoven, collected through perhaps nefarious means. The asexualization of sexuality by written word; the inevitable (because, by definition, inadequate) translation of three dimensions into two.
What you would see: A blue striped polo shirt (base color darker than that of the stripes), black slacks, orange socks, brown shoes.
What else you would see: A desk, a keyboard, a computer, two telephones, a book thrown to the side, a glass of water.
And beyond that?: Concrete, steel, glass, pavement, asphalt, cold biting wind, clouded skies.
Her story (Anne Carson) is one that we've all lived. At least in our own interpretations of events. The violence of sexuality and the endless road of trying to please one's mother despite the obvious impossibility.
This part is important: The city of New York comprises 468.9 square miles, located at a latitude of 40° 43′ 0″ N and a longitude of 74° 0′ 0″ W. It was officially settled in 1624 and contains 165.6 square miles of water. As of July 1, 2007, the population of the city of New York was 8,274,527, with a density of 27,147 people per square mile spread across five boroughs.
She (Anne Carson) is a literary demagogue. A destroyer of art and dreams. I don't think I had any artistic integrity before Anne Carson, Christine killed that long ago.
Her (Anne Carson) story is my story. The loss, the moor, pleasing one's mother. I do draw the line at the Brontë sisters, but she (Anne Carson) seems to understand them to the point of integration. I won't go so far as to call it appropriation, but one could successfully argue that point, I suppose. Obviously, plagiarism is out (citations are given at times, quotation marks used).
"She is one the few writers writing in English that I would read anything she wrote. If there's a magazine that has something of hers in it, I buy it automatically."
- Susan Sontag
Strong, eloquent words, Susan. (Not really.)
Here's what I see: Why do Susan Sontag and Michael Ondaatje both qualify/objectify her (Anne Carson) by means of labeling her (Anne Carson) a writer working in the English language? Is there a writer writing in French that Susan Sontag would read anything she wrote? Is there a most exciting poet writing in Japanese that Michael Ondaatje would care to recommend?
Here is why she (Anne Carson) is truly a destroyer: She does as they all do. She know what she is doing. She is using creation to close the doors on the past. When one writes about it, it becomes fiction; the brain can accept the non-reality of the written word much better than the (verisimilitude of the) reality of memory.
Here is why she (Anne Carson) ruined everything: I am forced to confront my own process, and admit that I am nothing.
* * *
When the sun came up on that day (if it came up on that day; I am ignorant of the weather of that day) there was one less. Only scraps of debris, of artifact and memory remained. These things lay scattered across two continents and traversed an ocean.
There wasn't much to see, which is why I never went back. Everything was sold or destroyed, I presume. Pieces of myself that I had already left behind, lost forever. Space empty, tidied, cleaned, scrubbed, shown, resold. The view for another to see. The cathedral and lights of the lower city peppering the nightly view so few times for us.
I lived on a mountain top. If I had wanted to be destructive, I could have watched it all from the heights and laughed an evil laugh as pandemonium set in and rioting occurred. From the top of it all.
Fred was the first to call anyone. Then, the chain continued. Over and over and over. I was called early in the chain. I called no one.
Things I wouldn't express: guilt, shame. (Just like the turning of one's back to an uninterested lover, as she (Anne Carson) did on page 12.)
I'd like to think it was cold that day. The wind was tumultuous. The sun, perhaps showing its face, even if slightly. Although, I would wish it a very sunny day, with the perfection of azure skies.
"Perhaps the hardest thing about losing a lover is
to watch the year repeat its days."
- Anne Carson
* * *
Those who understand, as I do, do the same thing over and over again. They tell the same story. They relay the same information. I know this because Dominique Barbéris told me as much. It is a struggle of repetition and self-censure. It is the reflective nature of the writing process.
In the retelling of Anaïs Nin by Christine Angot (L'Inceste) and the retelling of the Heights by Anne Carson, one notes that interplay of reality, non-reality, and fictitious reality. Acquaintances are made, bond of friendship bonded, lovers exalted. Then, destroyed. Once over and again until the a new resolution is formed. This is called "conflict". Making the knot, then comes the dénouement.
In comedy, the formula is union, désunion, réunion. Hence, the preponderance of weddings at the ending. Tragedy does not allow for this. Fiction writing, devoid of such rigid schematics, can have any ending possible. It is up to the creator to determine the ending. The ending comes solely through the imaginative powers of he who blackens the page with words. The ending, so long as it is not a carbon copy of the beginning (which it could never be due to the journey in between), is valid either way.
The digital novella, a shot of whiskey, and a concise history of the Alphabet
|
Labels:
alphabet
“I hope you can S-P-E-L-L
Nigga please you don't know me that well
I got a truck sittin’ on sprewells
My flow tight as H-E-L-L”
Missy Elliott
"When I dare to remember, I can share my deepest wishes …”
Nourith
“The world is Sound. The world is Sound. The world is Sound. The world is Sound. The world is Sound.”
Talvin Singh
Let’s just delve in, as if there were nothing else to do. Let’s just begin as if there were no end. Let’s just pretend for one minute that this moment will last forever. That the pleasure will not subside. That the intensity will remain. That your teeth will stay clenched, your face distorted, your muscles tight. Let’s just pretend.
Channeling the only thing I can channel. Hearkening the only thing I can hearken. Trying. Trying. Trying. Vainly trying.
The end of winter. March. Beginning of March. That’s when it all happened. In a town whose name I will never mention aloud. In a town on the coast. In that sleepy town on the mother fucking coast whose name shall remain tacit.
I’m sure the waters were cold. I often wonder what happened just before that. What could one possibly think of just moments before the cold waters of the Sleeve? Could you regret it? Could you rethink it? Could you, perhaps, reaffirm?
I can almost see it in my mind. The night, the scene. The film rolls and rolls and rolls. In super-8. That would be the aesthetic.
I can only (re-)collect. That is all I am left with. The end has already happened, and the beginning has risen anew. One too many times in a life.
A, b, cC, d, EFFFFFFFFFFG, H, I, JKLMNOP. QrSTUVWXXXYZ. The alphabet. Next time won’t you sing with me?
When the news hit, it was all over for good. Two minutes on the phone and …
She was it. The real deal. This, I am sure of. Dominique Barbéris. She was the one that told me everything I needed to know. In reality, she told me the things I should have never known. The difficult things that any writer should never know. She told me the secrets to it all. Dominique. In her sleek dresses day after day.
I met Dominique shortly after I had met Muzil properly for the first time. (And there I go, again, stealing identities.) Muzil had long been around in those circles. The literary circles of Paris. The BDSM clubs in the neighborhoods few went to. He was as he was. Spoke little to those he didn’t know. I should never have met him, I’m sure. That is, at least, what Christine would have wanted. She didn’t want anyone else to know Muzil. But, one day, Hervé told me all about it. He let me in on the secret. I never forgave Christine for that. I had so much esteem for her until I heard that. I began to hate her. I wanted to kill her. I wanted to ruin her.
Really, it was Hervé who had known Muzil the best. And to think, he didn’t live long enough to do what she did to him. He just didn’t have it in him.
Nuit Blanche. White night. I didn’t sleep that night. I went to the Palais de Tokyo to see Muzil. The walls were covered in gay smut. Grandmothers, little old ladies, parents with children all saw it but pretended they hadn’t.
(You see, Christine, in order ruin you, I have To Be you. You fucking bitch. That is the only way. Houellebecq the liar and David were there for a while, by the way. But, I feel badly for Anaïs mostly. Long gone. Long, long gone, and you just couldn’t help yourself, could you?)
Dominique saw all of this in my. She knew what I was up to. She ran into me with Muzil one day. Away from our normal spot. She said very little, a quiet greeting, but I saw it in her eyes that she knew what was going on. The next time I saw her, she told me the things she was not supposed to tell. I know she told me as a lesson.
In the post-Derrida world there is (Re-)(De-)Construction.
At the end of White Night, I almost bought a T-shirt. It had electrical tape on it with the letters MF.
(I hope you read this, Christine. I hope you see what you are making me do. I hope you know that it is your fault. The whole thing. The beginning the end the middle in between. I hope you tell Léonore about how you’ve ruined me. I hope she sees you for what you are.)
In November of that year, I met Claire. That’s when it all started, the entire trail of events. I wonder, at times, how my life would be different without her. The running, the constant running. The sleepless nights, hopping turnstiles in the Metro, countless whiskey-soaked parties, the château near Vichy, fucking in the streets of Paris, the night I had a knife to my throat, hitchhiking throughout the country, taking the train North, then South. And of course, that month. The beginning of a new year in the arms of an inappropriate lover. Those are the things that I remember.
When I finally awoke, much later, I had nothing left. Muzil was gone forever. It was the unspeakable disease. Christine was indifferent, she had moved on. I didn’t speak to Dominique any longer. Hervé, Guillaume, Joël, Sébastien, Michael and the others were elsewhere. And what of the rest? I don’t think I care to know.
In the world of digital literary iteration, there is no form, no structure, there is only a chaotic web. A woven network made of thought and binary. Chronology has no place. Prose, even, is lost. There is no longer a need for anything but the word. The simple word. Back to the root of it all. This is how it all comes together. Read on. Read on. There is much to be found.
“Oh, shit!” was all I could muster when she rang.
Harlequin
It was already two in the afternoon when I emerged from my alcohol induced sleep. The window in Claire’s bedroom had been left open all night and the slightly sharp winter air penetrated into her Parisian apartment. She was still asleep. Deeply. I watched her chest rise and fall with each breath, her face as it calmly grimaced, perhaps wincing from a bad dream, her eyelids fluttered without ever opening. Her nipples were hard from the invading chill. I remained still, not wanted to disrupt her, fearful that she would wake up and notice me staring. I moved my left hand close to her face, never touching, never feeling her skin, my hand approached as close as possible without ever making contact. I was approaching infinity and felt the warmth that was emanating from her body as I continued to follow the curves of her entire face with my hand. I followed every curve, every nuance, perhaps every detour, in her nearly flawless skin. There was a thin film of morning oil that covered parts, around her nose, on her forehead near the hairline.
Claire was not my lover.
And it goes on …
There are three things of which I am highly doubtful: love, money and memory. The Pinter-esque reconstitution of memory leaves for an open-ended conversation. An epic battle of yeses and nos, of acquiescence and denial. Herein lays the verisimilitude that we have collectively agreed upon to call existence.
Opera
The back story to the story. This is where we are. The music behind the writing. The sound that engulfs the writer. The inspiration, even, of the word. The blank page filling up with situation. In Medias Res.
The last time I saw Dominique, it was at a cocktail party. The book had been finished and she toasted me for it. A few months later, her book came out as well. Something about running, about running away. I never read it. I couldn’t read it. I already knew it by heart.
Nigga please you don't know me that well
I got a truck sittin’ on sprewells
My flow tight as H-E-L-L”
Missy Elliott
"When I dare to remember, I can share my deepest wishes …”
Nourith
“The world is Sound. The world is Sound. The world is Sound. The world is Sound. The world is Sound.”
Talvin Singh
Let’s just delve in, as if there were nothing else to do. Let’s just begin as if there were no end. Let’s just pretend for one minute that this moment will last forever. That the pleasure will not subside. That the intensity will remain. That your teeth will stay clenched, your face distorted, your muscles tight. Let’s just pretend.
Channeling the only thing I can channel. Hearkening the only thing I can hearken. Trying. Trying. Trying. Vainly trying.
The end of winter. March. Beginning of March. That’s when it all happened. In a town whose name I will never mention aloud. In a town on the coast. In that sleepy town on the mother fucking coast whose name shall remain tacit.
I’m sure the waters were cold. I often wonder what happened just before that. What could one possibly think of just moments before the cold waters of the Sleeve? Could you regret it? Could you rethink it? Could you, perhaps, reaffirm?
I can almost see it in my mind. The night, the scene. The film rolls and rolls and rolls. In super-8. That would be the aesthetic.
I can only (re-)collect. That is all I am left with. The end has already happened, and the beginning has risen anew. One too many times in a life.
A, b, cC, d, EFFFFFFFFFFG, H, I, JKLMNOP. QrSTUVWXXXYZ. The alphabet. Next time won’t you sing with me?
When the news hit, it was all over for good. Two minutes on the phone and …
She was it. The real deal. This, I am sure of. Dominique Barbéris. She was the one that told me everything I needed to know. In reality, she told me the things I should have never known. The difficult things that any writer should never know. She told me the secrets to it all. Dominique. In her sleek dresses day after day.
I met Dominique shortly after I had met Muzil properly for the first time. (And there I go, again, stealing identities.) Muzil had long been around in those circles. The literary circles of Paris. The BDSM clubs in the neighborhoods few went to. He was as he was. Spoke little to those he didn’t know. I should never have met him, I’m sure. That is, at least, what Christine would have wanted. She didn’t want anyone else to know Muzil. But, one day, Hervé told me all about it. He let me in on the secret. I never forgave Christine for that. I had so much esteem for her until I heard that. I began to hate her. I wanted to kill her. I wanted to ruin her.
Really, it was Hervé who had known Muzil the best. And to think, he didn’t live long enough to do what she did to him. He just didn’t have it in him.
Nuit Blanche. White night. I didn’t sleep that night. I went to the Palais de Tokyo to see Muzil. The walls were covered in gay smut. Grandmothers, little old ladies, parents with children all saw it but pretended they hadn’t.
(You see, Christine, in order ruin you, I have To Be you. You fucking bitch. That is the only way. Houellebecq the liar and David were there for a while, by the way. But, I feel badly for Anaïs mostly. Long gone. Long, long gone, and you just couldn’t help yourself, could you?)
Dominique saw all of this in my. She knew what I was up to. She ran into me with Muzil one day. Away from our normal spot. She said very little, a quiet greeting, but I saw it in her eyes that she knew what was going on. The next time I saw her, she told me the things she was not supposed to tell. I know she told me as a lesson.
In the post-Derrida world there is (Re-)(De-)Construction.
At the end of White Night, I almost bought a T-shirt. It had electrical tape on it with the letters MF.
(I hope you read this, Christine. I hope you see what you are making me do. I hope you know that it is your fault. The whole thing. The beginning the end the middle in between. I hope you tell Léonore about how you’ve ruined me. I hope she sees you for what you are.)
In November of that year, I met Claire. That’s when it all started, the entire trail of events. I wonder, at times, how my life would be different without her. The running, the constant running. The sleepless nights, hopping turnstiles in the Metro, countless whiskey-soaked parties, the château near Vichy, fucking in the streets of Paris, the night I had a knife to my throat, hitchhiking throughout the country, taking the train North, then South. And of course, that month. The beginning of a new year in the arms of an inappropriate lover. Those are the things that I remember.
When I finally awoke, much later, I had nothing left. Muzil was gone forever. It was the unspeakable disease. Christine was indifferent, she had moved on. I didn’t speak to Dominique any longer. Hervé, Guillaume, Joël, Sébastien, Michael and the others were elsewhere. And what of the rest? I don’t think I care to know.
In the world of digital literary iteration, there is no form, no structure, there is only a chaotic web. A woven network made of thought and binary. Chronology has no place. Prose, even, is lost. There is no longer a need for anything but the word. The simple word. Back to the root of it all. This is how it all comes together. Read on. Read on. There is much to be found.
“Oh, shit!” was all I could muster when she rang.
Harlequin
It was already two in the afternoon when I emerged from my alcohol induced sleep. The window in Claire’s bedroom had been left open all night and the slightly sharp winter air penetrated into her Parisian apartment. She was still asleep. Deeply. I watched her chest rise and fall with each breath, her face as it calmly grimaced, perhaps wincing from a bad dream, her eyelids fluttered without ever opening. Her nipples were hard from the invading chill. I remained still, not wanted to disrupt her, fearful that she would wake up and notice me staring. I moved my left hand close to her face, never touching, never feeling her skin, my hand approached as close as possible without ever making contact. I was approaching infinity and felt the warmth that was emanating from her body as I continued to follow the curves of her entire face with my hand. I followed every curve, every nuance, perhaps every detour, in her nearly flawless skin. There was a thin film of morning oil that covered parts, around her nose, on her forehead near the hairline.
Claire was not my lover.
And it goes on …
There are three things of which I am highly doubtful: love, money and memory. The Pinter-esque reconstitution of memory leaves for an open-ended conversation. An epic battle of yeses and nos, of acquiescence and denial. Herein lays the verisimilitude that we have collectively agreed upon to call existence.
Opera
The back story to the story. This is where we are. The music behind the writing. The sound that engulfs the writer. The inspiration, even, of the word. The blank page filling up with situation. In Medias Res.
The last time I saw Dominique, it was at a cocktail party. The book had been finished and she toasted me for it. A few months later, her book came out as well. Something about running, about running away. I never read it. I couldn’t read it. I already knew it by heart.
A retelling, the beginning of a non-novel and the story of collective memory
“Now I don’t. I used to love him. Now I don’t.”
Lauryn Hill
It’s simple really. I just tell and retell the same story over and over again. Piece by minute piece. Moments at a time until something sticks. Until something becomes etched. And once I’m done, I pick a different piece and start over.
Pieces of oneself sometimes come together at just the right moment in the right configuration. These moments are called happiness.
I was in the 14th at the time. Windows open. The sun still shining. The same song playing on repeat as it is now. She stood in the square in front of the Hôtel de Ville, spinning, dancing. In the middle of wolves, just like the singer says.
It was an easy time then.
Story within a story:
“On n’y comprend rien, et on comprend tout.”
Christine Angot
After Angot
Christine Angot lives in Paris. I know because I passed her in the street last night. It was just around the corner from the Pompidou Center, rue Rambuteau. She was standing in front of a bookstore. I did not speak to her, but I am sure that it was her. Almost every one of her books has her photo on the cover, and I have seen enough photos to be able to recognize her. I have even dreamt about her before.
I had been at the library at the Pompidou Center before I saw her. It was a cold winter night. She was wearing a long black winter coat, white gloves, and was carrying a black Prada bag. I stopped when I saw her. I was sure that it was her, and I stopped in the street to watch her. She was trying to make a phone call. I, too, took out my cell phone and pretended to make a call. I was really just watching her. A moment later, she entered the bookstore, Les Cahiers de Colette, and spoke with the woman at the counter. I stayed outside and pretended to look at the window display as I surveyed her every move.
Christine Angot is a writer. I know her personally from reading her books. She writes about Christine Angot. I know her daughter’s name, her ex-husband’s name, where she has lived, who she has dated. Everything. I know that she changed her family name from Schwartz to Angot when she was a teenager. I know that her father abused her sexually. I know that she is an insomniac, that she has trouble relieving herself because of her past sexual abuse. I know that she had a three month relationship with a lesbian. I know that she has a psychologist, a masseur, and an agent.
Standing at the counter of the bookstore, Christine’s back was to me. I could not see her face, but I was sure that it was her because I had already seen her face. When she was outside. She was smaller than I imagined, but she talks about that in her books. Before last night, I had never heard her voice. It, too, was not as I had imagined. Before last night, I was only sure about her appearance. Now, I know everything.
There was a book by her in the store’s window. I should have gone in, quickly picked up one of her books and stood behind her, seemingly unaware that she was in the store. I should have acted surprised, and asked her to sign the book I was about to purchase. I should have stood behind her and pretended to receive a phone call from a friend. I would have told my friend that I was in a bookstore, rue Rambuteau, and that I was going to buy a book by Christine Angot. Then, perhaps, she would have turned around and I would have had an in.
A few months ago, there was a literary salon at the city hall. I was supposed to meet Angot there. Actually, there were two hundred well-known writers at the salon, but the only one that I wanted to meet was Christine. She did not show up.
I walked around the salon for hours. Unlike Christine, the covers of most writers’ books do not have a photo of themselves. With the others, I put faces to names. With Christine, I was going to put a voice to the face. A personality. Although, I already knew her personality. It was more the voice.
I know more about Christine Angot than anyone else. Herself not included, of course. I take notes when I read her books. I can trace her life all the way back to 1969, the year she was born at Châteauroux. I know that she speaks English, and where she got her education. I once wrote her a letter. I told her that I appreciated her writing and that I wanted to be her, but I would never steal her identity. I lied.
I got the idea to steal her identity from a Canadian writer, Roch Carrier. It was two years ago at a literary conference that I first met Roch Carrier, who is currently the director of the National Library of Canada. He told me of how he published his first book, under an assumed name. Actually, the story is more involved than that. Roch Carrier told me how, due to the numerous rejection letters he received from various publishing houses, he sent his manuscript, one last time, to be published. This time, he used the name of a prominent Canadian writer at the time instead of his own. The manuscript was accepted without hesitation. Apparently, the writer, whose identity has not yet been discovered, never said a word. Roch told me this story with a certain insistence in his eyes. Whether he was trying to challenge me to figure out who the author was, or he was giving me a hint on how to dupe the literary world, I still do not know. I do know, however, that his advice was well received.
There is, however, one crucial difference in what he did and what I did: Roch Carrier passed his own work off as that of another.
When Christine was in the bookstore, I stayed outside. I looked at her book in the window then at her. I stared at her. I watched her body movements, her manner of holding herself. I watched her interact with the woman that was standing at the counter. I watched a man approach her. A few minutes later, she walked out of the bookstore, a few steps away from where I was standing. I still had my cell phone in my hand and began to pretend to send a text message to a friend. This time, the man from inside the bookstore was with her. I am not sure who he was, but they seemed to be on a date.
As she walked past me, towards the Pompidou Center, our gazes met for a fleeting moment. It was one of those meaningful gazes, when everything that would have been said was, just without words. She smiled towards me, for a split second, as I looked her in the eyes. Through that gaze, I seemed to say, ‘I admire you.’ Her eyes replied, ‘I know.’
I turned and watched Christine Angot walk away, into the night.
* * *
She called me on a Tuesday. The phone rang only once before I picked it up. The writer, a woman, a feminist, a researcher. I knew it was her before I heard her voice. We only spoke for two minutes. Then, it was over.
Women (of letters) in my life: Marguerite Duras, Marguerite Yourcenar, Anaïs Nin, Dominique Barbéris, Simone de Beauvoir, Assia Djebar (Fatima-Zohra Imalayen), Nelly Arcan, Christine Angot.
Why?: (Re-)Collections of memories leading to an attempt at discovering self. However flawed it may be.
How do I feel about it?: … (See above)
Music: Irish, Celtic
Language(s): French, English.
What really happened: The end of it all. A new beginning of sorts. A stop before a start. A moment of hesitation. Shame. Undying something. Loss of self in a deeper way than ever before. Reinvention of new self. Reinvention of different self. Movement.
Who?: Harold Pinter, Samuel Beckett, Tom Stoppard. Mostly Harold Pinter.
Manifesto: The reinvention of the word, a coincidence with reinvention of self.
Words: In the right order, everything can have meaning.
Towards the nearing of the end of her life, I sat and watched her. Little was said aloud. We mostly whispered in her presence. When I was alone with her, for but a moment, I leaned in closely and whispered in her ear. “Please remember me. Please remember me. Please remember me. Please remember me. Please remember me.”
Lauryn Hill
It’s simple really. I just tell and retell the same story over and over again. Piece by minute piece. Moments at a time until something sticks. Until something becomes etched. And once I’m done, I pick a different piece and start over.
Pieces of oneself sometimes come together at just the right moment in the right configuration. These moments are called happiness.
I was in the 14th at the time. Windows open. The sun still shining. The same song playing on repeat as it is now. She stood in the square in front of the Hôtel de Ville, spinning, dancing. In the middle of wolves, just like the singer says.
It was an easy time then.
Story within a story:
“On n’y comprend rien, et on comprend tout.”
Christine Angot
After Angot
Christine Angot lives in Paris. I know because I passed her in the street last night. It was just around the corner from the Pompidou Center, rue Rambuteau. She was standing in front of a bookstore. I did not speak to her, but I am sure that it was her. Almost every one of her books has her photo on the cover, and I have seen enough photos to be able to recognize her. I have even dreamt about her before.
I had been at the library at the Pompidou Center before I saw her. It was a cold winter night. She was wearing a long black winter coat, white gloves, and was carrying a black Prada bag. I stopped when I saw her. I was sure that it was her, and I stopped in the street to watch her. She was trying to make a phone call. I, too, took out my cell phone and pretended to make a call. I was really just watching her. A moment later, she entered the bookstore, Les Cahiers de Colette, and spoke with the woman at the counter. I stayed outside and pretended to look at the window display as I surveyed her every move.
Christine Angot is a writer. I know her personally from reading her books. She writes about Christine Angot. I know her daughter’s name, her ex-husband’s name, where she has lived, who she has dated. Everything. I know that she changed her family name from Schwartz to Angot when she was a teenager. I know that her father abused her sexually. I know that she is an insomniac, that she has trouble relieving herself because of her past sexual abuse. I know that she had a three month relationship with a lesbian. I know that she has a psychologist, a masseur, and an agent.
Standing at the counter of the bookstore, Christine’s back was to me. I could not see her face, but I was sure that it was her because I had already seen her face. When she was outside. She was smaller than I imagined, but she talks about that in her books. Before last night, I had never heard her voice. It, too, was not as I had imagined. Before last night, I was only sure about her appearance. Now, I know everything.
There was a book by her in the store’s window. I should have gone in, quickly picked up one of her books and stood behind her, seemingly unaware that she was in the store. I should have acted surprised, and asked her to sign the book I was about to purchase. I should have stood behind her and pretended to receive a phone call from a friend. I would have told my friend that I was in a bookstore, rue Rambuteau, and that I was going to buy a book by Christine Angot. Then, perhaps, she would have turned around and I would have had an in.
A few months ago, there was a literary salon at the city hall. I was supposed to meet Angot there. Actually, there were two hundred well-known writers at the salon, but the only one that I wanted to meet was Christine. She did not show up.
I walked around the salon for hours. Unlike Christine, the covers of most writers’ books do not have a photo of themselves. With the others, I put faces to names. With Christine, I was going to put a voice to the face. A personality. Although, I already knew her personality. It was more the voice.
I know more about Christine Angot than anyone else. Herself not included, of course. I take notes when I read her books. I can trace her life all the way back to 1969, the year she was born at Châteauroux. I know that she speaks English, and where she got her education. I once wrote her a letter. I told her that I appreciated her writing and that I wanted to be her, but I would never steal her identity. I lied.
I got the idea to steal her identity from a Canadian writer, Roch Carrier. It was two years ago at a literary conference that I first met Roch Carrier, who is currently the director of the National Library of Canada. He told me of how he published his first book, under an assumed name. Actually, the story is more involved than that. Roch Carrier told me how, due to the numerous rejection letters he received from various publishing houses, he sent his manuscript, one last time, to be published. This time, he used the name of a prominent Canadian writer at the time instead of his own. The manuscript was accepted without hesitation. Apparently, the writer, whose identity has not yet been discovered, never said a word. Roch told me this story with a certain insistence in his eyes. Whether he was trying to challenge me to figure out who the author was, or he was giving me a hint on how to dupe the literary world, I still do not know. I do know, however, that his advice was well received.
There is, however, one crucial difference in what he did and what I did: Roch Carrier passed his own work off as that of another.
When Christine was in the bookstore, I stayed outside. I looked at her book in the window then at her. I stared at her. I watched her body movements, her manner of holding herself. I watched her interact with the woman that was standing at the counter. I watched a man approach her. A few minutes later, she walked out of the bookstore, a few steps away from where I was standing. I still had my cell phone in my hand and began to pretend to send a text message to a friend. This time, the man from inside the bookstore was with her. I am not sure who he was, but they seemed to be on a date.
As she walked past me, towards the Pompidou Center, our gazes met for a fleeting moment. It was one of those meaningful gazes, when everything that would have been said was, just without words. She smiled towards me, for a split second, as I looked her in the eyes. Through that gaze, I seemed to say, ‘I admire you.’ Her eyes replied, ‘I know.’
I turned and watched Christine Angot walk away, into the night.
* * *
She called me on a Tuesday. The phone rang only once before I picked it up. The writer, a woman, a feminist, a researcher. I knew it was her before I heard her voice. We only spoke for two minutes. Then, it was over.
Women (of letters) in my life: Marguerite Duras, Marguerite Yourcenar, Anaïs Nin, Dominique Barbéris, Simone de Beauvoir, Assia Djebar (Fatima-Zohra Imalayen), Nelly Arcan, Christine Angot.
Why?: (Re-)Collections of memories leading to an attempt at discovering self. However flawed it may be.
How do I feel about it?: … (See above)
Music: Irish, Celtic
Language(s): French, English.
What really happened: The end of it all. A new beginning of sorts. A stop before a start. A moment of hesitation. Shame. Undying something. Loss of self in a deeper way than ever before. Reinvention of new self. Reinvention of different self. Movement.
Who?: Harold Pinter, Samuel Beckett, Tom Stoppard. Mostly Harold Pinter.
Manifesto: The reinvention of the word, a coincidence with reinvention of self.
Words: In the right order, everything can have meaning.
Towards the nearing of the end of her life, I sat and watched her. Little was said aloud. We mostly whispered in her presence. When I was alone with her, for but a moment, I leaned in closely and whispered in her ear. “Please remember me. Please remember me. Please remember me. Please remember me. Please remember me.”
(Parenthetical Thoughts) on Love and the Passive Voice
|
When The Supreme One created the universe, He did so with a series of verbal invocations, enunciating each one a nanosecond before the creation process began. (e.g. “Let there be light.”) In the Hebrew text, these are written as commands, fact which begs the question: Who was he commanding? No other beings had yet been spoken into existence.
I was brought to the place of execution only minutes before my sentence was to be rendered. I was offered nothing in the way of hood or face covering. I saw the man who had the pleasure of killing me. I looked into his eyes. I knew what he thought of me. I knew that he believed in his own moral authority, his dominion, so to speak. His eyes were a rich blue, bloodshot. His left eyelid drooped. He spoke in harsh tones. These, my friends, were my last words ...
Traveling at a hundred can make your head spin, but traveling at two will set your body a-shake. Now, back to the beginning of it all. The place that I didn't want to go to. The thing I didn't want to talk about. The end of time in the backwards direction. Traveling at two hundred, shaking the whole way.
When the music hits just right, the high gets better. And, you can feel it, stronger, coursing through your body as your head begins to tingle and your legs keep going going going, breaking through the pain and the exhaustion of it all. The sun beats down on your shoulders, and you realize your place in this world. A small, quiet place.
Tears rolled down her face. Mine, too. It suddenly felt cramped in my apartment. I had never felt that way with her nearby before.
We walked along the quais de la Seine. Notre-Dame eyeing us as we turned our backs to her. The boats, docked, and little kids skipping rocks off in the distance. At least, I imagine they were. Blinded. Aveugle. There were no word remembered, and nothing unsaid.
"The use of the passive voice is not a grammatical error. It is a stylistic issue that pertains to clarity—that is, there are times when using the passive voice can prevent a reader from understanding what you mean. [...] While the passive voice can weaken the clarity of your writing, there are times when the passive voice is OK and even preferable."
(Relating to the world through literary concepts is not for those who are not intrigued by what the written word has to offer to the greater good of our own human existence.)
Run-on sentence: I want to go back to where I was at another time when I thought I was strong before he said anything to me before I lost it all forever when I thought I was invincible and could conquer the entirety of the world with a few words and a writing pad and a dream and perhaps some coffee with sugar cubes.
Fragment: In Rouen, France.
Metaphor: The whole of a thunderous storm came on quickly and I was caught in the eye of a mighty whirlwind.
Simile: It was like the end of time before it ever got the chance to begin.
Hyperbole: The world came crashing down, killing all those in stead, no survivors to be heard of. No one, even, to listen for them.
Quotation:
"It was me on that road
But you couldn't see me
Too many lights out, but nowhere near here
It was me on that road
Still you couldn't see me
And then flashlights and explosions"
Interrogative sentence(s): Where did that time of my life go? Did I lose it forever?
(My legs pain me after the run.)
At first, she didn't want us to know each other. She was weary of introducing us. She didn't want her friends dating. She didn't like the idea of seeing us together. She called each of us separately. She compartmentalized us. One plus one. Minus another. One and one. One next to one. One behind one. All of these things. We were not. Denied. Closed.
And then we were. She only saw us a few times, though. We had moved. We had become "old friends". The ones you see for dinner or coffee when you're both in town. 'Tis all, my dear, 'tis all.
(The train: everymorningeverydayeveryeveningRouenParisRouen. I slept, mostly. And I still associate that song with the gentle rocking of the train. "Ici, Paris-St. Lazare." "Ici, Rouen-Rive Droite." Same river.)
I left everything behind when he said: "I thought you were stronger."
He had left much earlier.
I was brought to the place of execution only minutes before my sentence was to be rendered. I was offered nothing in the way of hood or face covering. I saw the man who had the pleasure of killing me. I looked into his eyes. I knew what he thought of me. I knew that he believed in his own moral authority, his dominion, so to speak. His eyes were a rich blue, bloodshot. His left eyelid drooped. He spoke in harsh tones. These, my friends, were my last words ...
Traveling at a hundred can make your head spin, but traveling at two will set your body a-shake. Now, back to the beginning of it all. The place that I didn't want to go to. The thing I didn't want to talk about. The end of time in the backwards direction. Traveling at two hundred, shaking the whole way.
When the music hits just right, the high gets better. And, you can feel it, stronger, coursing through your body as your head begins to tingle and your legs keep going going going, breaking through the pain and the exhaustion of it all. The sun beats down on your shoulders, and you realize your place in this world. A small, quiet place.
Tears rolled down her face. Mine, too. It suddenly felt cramped in my apartment. I had never felt that way with her nearby before.
We walked along the quais de la Seine. Notre-Dame eyeing us as we turned our backs to her. The boats, docked, and little kids skipping rocks off in the distance. At least, I imagine they were. Blinded. Aveugle. There were no word remembered, and nothing unsaid.
"The use of the passive voice is not a grammatical error. It is a stylistic issue that pertains to clarity—that is, there are times when using the passive voice can prevent a reader from understanding what you mean. [...] While the passive voice can weaken the clarity of your writing, there are times when the passive voice is OK and even preferable."
(Relating to the world through literary concepts is not for those who are not intrigued by what the written word has to offer to the greater good of our own human existence.)
Run-on sentence: I want to go back to where I was at another time when I thought I was strong before he said anything to me before I lost it all forever when I thought I was invincible and could conquer the entirety of the world with a few words and a writing pad and a dream and perhaps some coffee with sugar cubes.
Fragment: In Rouen, France.
Metaphor: The whole of a thunderous storm came on quickly and I was caught in the eye of a mighty whirlwind.
Simile: It was like the end of time before it ever got the chance to begin.
Hyperbole: The world came crashing down, killing all those in stead, no survivors to be heard of. No one, even, to listen for them.
Quotation:
"It was me on that road
But you couldn't see me
Too many lights out, but nowhere near here
It was me on that road
Still you couldn't see me
And then flashlights and explosions"
Interrogative sentence(s): Where did that time of my life go? Did I lose it forever?
(My legs pain me after the run.)
At first, she didn't want us to know each other. She was weary of introducing us. She didn't want her friends dating. She didn't like the idea of seeing us together. She called each of us separately. She compartmentalized us. One plus one. Minus another. One and one. One next to one. One behind one. All of these things. We were not. Denied. Closed.
And then we were. She only saw us a few times, though. We had moved. We had become "old friends". The ones you see for dinner or coffee when you're both in town. 'Tis all, my dear, 'tis all.
(The train: everymorningeverydayeveryeveningRouenParisRouen. I slept, mostly. And I still associate that song with the gentle rocking of the train. "Ici, Paris-St. Lazare." "Ici, Rouen-Rive Droite." Same river.)
I left everything behind when he said: "I thought you were stronger."
He had left much earlier.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
