It's CA time

Luckily roughly half of every song that has ever been written is about CA, which makes this much easier.

Southern CA love




Northern CA love



Slow music CA love



Santa Barbara

We spent that winter trying to find beauty. In the morning, we'd place green tinted glasses of water on the table and wait for the light to come in the window and illuminate it like Orthodox art, or make rainbows on the surface. We had decided that winter that we were going to live off art, off words, rather than the prosaic and unrelenting requests of our the shallow vessels we call bodies. We were determined to follow in the footsteps of art, the painter Renoir said, "The pain passes--but the beauty remains." 

On weekends we'd travel to the coast, admire steep hillsides draped in yellow sunflowers that plunged to the turquoise water below. We'd marvel at the rakish hair of the sage, the old costal live oaks, roots growing from shale, trunks silvered, bent but not broken by the wind. In the evenings we'd drive up dark roads, slithering up the mountains until we reached remote places. There, we'd climb on granite rocks and sit with our legs crossed, listening to the Santa Ana winds melting the white alders and Manzanitas, mimickign the sound of the ocean that we'd left behind. 

We'd walk through cemeteries veiled in early morning fog, run our fingers across the rough names of the dead. We'd marvel at the light on stained glass in old churches, the white bellies of gulls against pale blue sky. At dusk we'd sit with the graves behind us, on a small sea cliff, the voices of the dead but memories of lives misspent. Below us, the ocean, beating its same old tune, always on message, at our backs, the dusky arms of fig tree, slivered by light. We drank beauty in as easily as if it were water. 

We left behind, for those few somber months, all the things that we'd failed to be: good lovers, good friends, hard workers, the children our parents had dreamt that we'd be. Our dreams were no longer rimmed like an old cup with regret. We remembered fondly those who had loved us. We imagined the fingers of our mothers, our lovers, pulling softly through our hair; a child' rake across the sand. We forgot the places we'd left behind, and didn't bother imagining the places we'd be. We were here, or there, in a cobble stone courtyard with artists drawing pictures of children in bright colored chalk, in the balconies at ballets, on cold walls at midnight, admiring the shape and pull of the moon. 

Towards the end of that season, we saw humpback whales near sunrise, their bodies, like gargantuan brass dressers we had left behind in the houses of our youth, slipping through the water like rain through the sky. It was that morning, my body chilled by the sea, with those leviathans playing some indecipherable game at our feet, that I remember acutely from that lovely and bizarre winter. It's the last clear memory I have of you, standing next to me on sandstone cliffs, bare foot and windblown, looking out across that steely water as if we were explorers bound for some new valley. It is not the precise image of that morning that I remember so well that my heart briefly leaps, even now, years later. No. It is the reflection of that morning through your eyes. Just look at them! Look! They are on fire. Only beauty remains.

Making a collage of the people I have known

At church this morning I passed around a collection plate to gather up the scraps of all the people I have known. The bowl was silver and its size was like that of space. Inside, I found: a hike through a hailstorm in Colorado where blue jays where eating other bird’s babies; I found an evening spent from midnight till morning talking about the way that I dreamed of divinity; I found a piece of a tetherball string, still wound tightly around a silver pole; I found a pocket of gummi worms, unopened, thrown in the trash can at recess; I found a small side yard where I dug for dinosaur bones; I found a picture with the words I love you written across the top; I found tears and tears, until I was swimming through all the tears, trying to remember why we are all such bizarre puzzles; I found a slip of paper with someone’s e-mail on it that I threw in the trash; I found a cabin in the woods with a couch and a blanket; I found a picture of you standing with me in the same shirt I wore only two weeks ago, but it was more than a decade ago; I found that the years start to run together like water that you can’t separate out the moments that you used to; I found pictures of people in wedding dresses and tuxedos, people that I used to know, and I smiled at their happy faces, because they made me happy when I knew them; I found a picture of San Francisco, stiff breezes off the bay, always so damn cold, and inside the picture was another picture of a hospital, and inside that hospital a memory of people who are now dust; I found an evening in the mountains of Santa Barbara, and a sunrise too; I found a picture of five of us sitting in a room talking about the ways in which we had failed, the ways in which we’d like to succeed; I found a picture of a piano and green couches; I found a picture of a mountain trail, pine trees and old bear scat; I found a picture of the ocean, of your hand in mine, before we glided together. I found a picture of a tower in Italy, a winding staircase leading to a view of some ancient city.

I spent the evening afterward, sorting all these pictures into specific piles.

Afternoons that could have lasted forever.

Times I went to the ocean.

Women that I have loved.

Women that I did not have the time to get around to loving.

People that I once knew.

People that I used to know and wish I still knew.

Avenues that I have walked down.

Avenues that I wish I had walked down.

Pictures of places that I am not remembering properly.

Times I drank wine in the afternoon and watched rain fall on cobble stones. 

Times I drank wine and danced until 2 A.M. 

Times I spent a few hours with the many people that I have loved. 

After I was done organizing these moments, I wrote them all down on the computer screen, which flickered, in and out just like memory does. The thing is, I know that thousands, millions, far more numerous than the stars, are still missing. I want you to know that I’m trying to remember all of you, despite the futility of it. I’m reaching out to the people I have known and the people I will know. I miss all of you already, so the next time you see me, let’s meet, not was if we were strangers, but as people who have, for longer than they can remember, been very much in love. 

Tuesday with Sadie..and Ian & me watching an episode of Girls to understand the plight of the modern woman

But first, nothing fills me with more murderous rage than someone driving fifteen miles an hour in a 25 and 30 zone, which happened today on the way to work. I want you to know that when I say murderous rage, I mean contentment. I want you to know that I intentionally changed the song to something by Joe Purdy that said, "I got troubles Lord, but not today," and I did deep yogic type breathing to calm myself. After all, the only thing that was happening was that I was driving fifteen in a thirty. Life goes on. And yet, despite my yogic breathing, which would have inspired a class all on its own, I still kept having to fight back the urge to jam around the double yellow line and pass this person. I had to resist the temptation on at least eight occasions and remind myself that I am not the type of person who speeds past slow cars. I am the type of person who shakes his head and marvels at the stupidity of people who pass on double lines. In the end, I think I made the right decision. Maybe. 

Now I'm going to intersperse some dialogue between me and my children today with my impression of season 1 episode 1 of the hit television show Girls. 

M: Be gentle. He's a sweet boy. 

s: He's not a sweet boy. 

M: You're lucky to have such a sweet brother. 

s: I'm not lucky. I'm Sadie Kay. 

Later in the day: 

s: I'm lucky. I'm lucky. 

M: So you're allowed to call yourself that. 

s: I have a book. 

M: When I look at both of you, a Coldplay song plays in my heart.

M: Joy Lynn knows Photoshop. 

M: Okay, but we're going to read with Julian Russell. He likes to read. 

s: He likes to grab. 

M: Okay, that's probably closer to the truth. 

s: (Plaintively) I want to read this one. 

M: Enough books. Reading books is boring. 

s: No! It's not boring!

M: We need to go outside and play. Don't you want to go outside and play. 

s: Read! 

Observation: That guy is in good shape, but he is not good for her.

Observation: Some of these plot twists are hard to follow through the blinding light of white privilege. 

 M: I hear you on the lake house lady. We'll get there. 

s: These vegetables make me big and strong. 

M: Yup. 

s: And this makes me big and strong (holds up milk) 

M: Yup. 

s: I don't like these green beans. Daddy will eat them. 

Later: I ate all the good for me and you, which is cute, because it's a story from her Little Critter Book about eating healthy foods. 

M: Stealing from the housekeeping? No wonder Time had that cover of you kids. You're better than that Tiny Furniture. You just don't know it yet. 

 Later, we’re having one of those conversations that are almost inestimably sweet, where she’s saying, “I can touch the handle?” With this little lift in her voice that is heart melting. She’s really dialed in, not just running around in her own head like most of the time, I blame the internet, even though she doesn’t use it, and I’m thinking how sweet it is. And then she tells me that she needs to changer her diaper, and I realized that she was hanging out in the corner being sweet because she was pooping. Good times.

I’d tell you about Ian, but he spent the morning grabbing his toes and smiling. I’d like to pretend that second children aren’t forgotten, but I’d be lying. He needs to start being much more of a troublemaker if he wants to be written about. Right now he’s just a sweet boy. 

Game of Thrones Season Three Episode 8: Second Sons

                You may not be aware of this but Tyrion is a second son, as is the Hound. Oh, and also the group of soldiers massing to defend the city against Daenerys are also called Second Sons. Anyhow, that’s what that was about.

                On the whole, this episode continued the theme of movement that was established in episode seven. It also jettisoned the painful, in more ways than one, Theon story line, and abandoned everyone in the North, save the final scene, in favor of developing some continuity. And though Jaime and Brienne has been the strongest relationship of the season, I think it was wise of the show’s writers to ditch them for an episode in favor of developing some scenes. In fact, perhaps some story lines should be dropped more often to focus on the task at hand. If we’re only checking in with Theon to make sure he’s still on the rack and with Robb to make sure he’s still mastering the game of chess, (My prediction is that he travels through a portal into our world and becomes Gary Kasparov) then perhaps a two minute scene with them will do.

I’m bullish on the Hound and Arya traipsing through the wilderness. Primarily because when this show is at its best, people are traipsing through the wilderness. This is where we go to watch Tyrion and Bronn form their amazing bond, where we watched Jaime and Brienne learn to respect one another, and I hope that it’s where Arya learns to gain some perspective, or she’s going to end up adorning a pike like her father in short order. The Hound’s rebuke of her attempted murder and misunderstanding of his intentions gives a glimmer of hope that she might learn something.

Two stories take up the primary portion of the episode. The first, involves Daenerys trying to win over the Second Sons with politics, though they seem more interested in sleeping with her, which, when will these men learn. This is the same mistake that the leader of the unsullied made. It’s a pretty sure bet that if you wind up harassing Daenerys, you’ll wind up dead. Look at what happened to Khol Drogo? After some cute back and forth with the lovely general, we meet a man with long flowing blond hair. When you meet a man with long flowing blond hair and it’s a piece set in the middle ages/fantasy world, it’s a good bet that he’ll be a love interest. And, when this man begins talking it’s clear that he is a lone wolf, and that he has some long flowing hair.

Mero, the leader of the Second Sons, offers to mull her offer over with some mulled wine. Did you see what I did there? He offers a brief discourse on love, but he is soon topped by the man with flowing golden hair who says something about having sex with women and killing men, which is precisely the sort of thing that you should be saying in the GOT universe, though Mero points out that even with his flowing blond hair, he’ll be dead soon, which seems like it’s true since he’s destined to be with Daenrys for a while. He cuts of the heads of his fellow generals and presents them to Daenrys. What woman isn’t wooed by decapitation? She steps out of the bath, and I can’t help but remember the behind the scenes where Emilia Clarke said she was happy not to have done any nudity in season two, well, this man has some amazing hair, and the two of them decide to join forces. At this point it seems like Daenrys is going to have an army big enough to fight some ice zombies, or Lords of Light, or whatever.

A brief interlude reminds us of the presence of Sir Davos. Always a welcome voice for the sane watcher of GOT. He tends to council against things like killing innocents and birthing the smoke monster from Lost. Also, he has Stannis’ daughter teaching him how to read. It’s like an episode of a much sweeter show every time he’s on screen. Naturally, he’s proved wrong time and again, because the GOT universe isn’t about insanity, it’s about seducing blacksmiths, putting leeches on their nether regions and then burning the leeches while chanting the names of enemies. We all had that night in college.

Also, it’s becoming clear in the last two episodes that if a random woman suddenly decides to seduce you, it’s not really because she finds you attractive. It’s because she wants something bad to happen to your nether region. A strange part of me was a little disappointed that Gendry lived. Not that I have anything against Gendry. However, after the shock at the end of Season 1, I’ve been waiting for more characters to disappear but they multiply like the bodies of the second richest family in Westeros after Tywin is done with them.

The other large storyline of the episode is the wedding of Sansa and Tyrion, which, after a season in which Robb can’t actually get out of a tent playing chess, seemed to come quickly. Not too quickly though as it provided ample opportunity for Peter Dinklage to remind us of how good he is as an actor, and for Joffrey to remind us why his death will be one of the most celebrated in the history of television. Dinklage has managed to make the drunken lech Tyrion turn into a sympathetic figure, washed about by the tide of fate. The writer’s crafted two wonderful moments, one before Tyrion and Sansa enter the throne room in which he promises never to hurt her, and a second when he says that he won’t sleep with her until she wants him to. In each case, we see the contrast with his nephew, Joffrey, her original intended, who threatens to rape her and tries to embarrass her as well before Tyrion threatens to Theon him.

I like how quickly the wedding came and went. I like the complexity that it brings to the story and the protector it gives to Sansa, who, not blessed with brains or brawn, is sorely in need of it. The only other subplot is Cersei belittling, with much style. She first tells Margaery that she will have her strangled in her bed if she ever calls her sister, and follows that up with a nice moment, overlooking the glimmering sea  at moonlight, a mood set for romance that is ruined when Loras starts talking, which she makes him immediately aware of. If Cersei were a man she seems like she’d be the best successor Tywin.

The episode concludes with Samuel Tarly finally making good by stabbing the king of the (far less scary than they were in season one) white walkers in the back as he tries to take Gilly’s child. As usual, when we near the end of the season, the looming spectacle of the White Walkers is reintroduced. They were on the move in the first episode of the season, the general was pushing them forward at the beginning of season 2, and now, well, we don’t know where they are. Apparently we’ve George RR Martin to thank for that. I think they are off in the woods and have just discovered a backgammon board and are trying to figure out what the hell you’re supposed to do to win. However, I haven’t read the books. I might be wrong.

In short, the episode had the propulsive quality that the concluding episodes in the first two seasons have had as well. It feels as though things are starting to come together. In the prior two seasons the ninth episode has been the one where the most happens, and the season finale is setting up what is to come. It will be interesting to see if that is the case this season as well. This season has been a bit rockier than the first two. The pacing, Theon, Robb, Arya sitting in a cave for six weeks, has been a bit off at times. However, there is still hope that everything is going to come good. There is still hope that Samuel Tarly will become the king of the ice zombies himself and lead them to slaughter all of the people south of the wall with little Craster the 2nd at his side.  A boy can dream, can’t he? 

Summer Movie Blockbuster Excitement Level!

Iron Man 3-I’d go see this movie if I really wanted to hang out with the person who wanted to see it. Otherwise, I’m fine watching it when it comes available on Netflix. I’m guessing Tony Stark has some moments where he questions himself followed eventually by some cool action scenes and pithy dialogue. The problem with almost any action movie is that I’ve seen it before. There is nothing new under the sun. I might as well just save myself the money and read Ecclesiastes. General excitement level: I’ll go see this movie with you, but you better be charming. 

Great Gatsby-I’m excited. And if you’re not excited then you don’t love F. Scott Fitzgerald, and, by extension, America. Toby Keith and I have something to say about that. I would go see this movie on a weekend if I didn’t have children. However, this is not the sort of movie that I’m paying a babysitter in order to be able to see. I’d go see this movie, but I’d want to get a Margarita afterward. I mean, do we all remember Moulin Rouge and Come What May? This was almost my wedding song. Let’s all just remember how great it was to hear me singing that song off key for portions of my early twenties. I’ll go see Gatsby with you, but you have to pay the babysitter. 

Star Trek Into Darkness-I’ll go see this movie in an excited and happy group of people, probably family. That way, after the movie we can ignore the fact that every J.J. Abrams movie is kind of well executed but doesn’t really have a soul, which is fine, if you’re in to that sort of thing. It’s like a grilled cheese sandwich, it’s good for what it is, but it’s not all that good for you. But those piercing blue eyes are. Sigh.  Anyhow, I’ll be overwhelmed by the groupthink, and the entertainment value, and I’ll leave happy. General excitement level: I’ll go with you in a group, and we should probably be related. 

Fast and Furious ?-I’m looking into getting a second Master’s Degree, so…..This is the point where intellectual snobbery begins to overtake my excitement for the actual product. I’m sure that watching people drive cars really fast and out of airplanes is awesome, but lots of things are awesome, like playing Frisbee in the park or going for a hike, or buying some local meat and grilling. As an aside, I want this series to last forever. Whenever we switch to flying cars, I want fast and furiroriestest 97 to be leading the way into the future. General excitement level: I’ll go see this movie with you if you pay for tickets, the popcorn, and dessert afterward. 

The Hangover-Part 3-Unlike Fast and furiroriester, this is a series that I wouldn’t mind seeing come to an end…two movies ago. Remember how funny Ace Ventura was, and then, by the third one, if they made a third one, which they probably did those money grubbing bas-ards, we’d grown weary of everything in life. We were suffering ennui and it was brought on by this movie. That’s how I feel about seeing The Hangover Part three. General Excitement Level: I’ll go see this movie if you put me in a time machine and turn me into a sixteen year old boy, or if we drink a lot beforehand and narrate mystery science theater style.

After Earth-I wasn’t all that fond of the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. I don’t know. I spent a large swath of my teens watching sports, and at other times, sports. Or maybe I was watching the Disney afternoon, or maybe I was watching Friends, what I didn’t really watch was the FPOBA. I suppose that’s why I’ve never really understood Will Smith, or Jaden Smith, or any of the Smith’s. Like, what the hell are these people up to that makes us want to throw so much money at them. That said, I’m at least mildly excited about After Earth, because I am excited about nearly any science fiction movie and then I get let down. But wait, Ender’s Game is going to be amazing! Right? Right? General Excitement Level: I’ll go this movie with you if you are my brother, and we happen to be in the same state, and no space ships fly through hell #Eventhorizonnightmarecomingtonight#DavidI'llbesleepinginyourroomtonight

Man of Steel-Finally, a superhero movie. I get it. Superman isn’t as interesting as anyone else because he’s virtually invincible but for Kryptonite. So, while I can imagine myself growing adamantium claws and living indefinitely, I cannot imagine myself being from another planet and showing up to work every day to write ad copy. Am I the only one who hopes that in this rewrite he’s working as a banker on Wall Street? Or maybe he uses his powers for good and works as Big Bird on Sesame Street and suddenly Big Bird is actually flying on set and kids are learning their ABC’s and the whole world becomes an educated and unified whole because Superman stopped fighting evil and did something useful? I hear you. These people need to give me a call. General Excitement Level: I might actually see this movie. I wouldn’t go see it by myself, but I’m actually kind of excited. Oh wait, it’s about Superman? Forget it. I’m going to go check and see if the last season of 30 Rock has been added to Netflix streaming. 

World War Z-Finally, a movie about zombies. Wait. I’m being told that zombie movies have become such a trope that they actually made a romantic comedy about zombies and produced a book called: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. However, I think the cultural zeitgeist is telling me that zombies are going to last. They’re going to be around forever like global warming and people like me just need to suck it up and start watching 28 days later, 28 hours later, 28 seconds later, 28 zombies go to a dinner party in which they discuss Proust etc. and like it. General Excitement Level: I’m willing to see this movie with you if you pay for the ticket, cover my eyes at the scary parts, and narrate the entire movie, pointing out all the flaws and inaccuracies when compared with the book. 

White House Down-Finally, oh, I’m being told that joke has already been used. There is a version of me, somewhere deep down that just wants to go back and watch Patriot Games, Clear and Present Danger,  and The Hunt for  Red October, (okay maybe that one in fast forward), and feel good about Harrison Ford’s career arc and America in general. I don’t want to watch White House Down and have modern Andrew say, why are we expropriating this crap, is it to prop up the sort of jingoistic bullshi- that we’ve been involved in for years? Is it to assuage our own national conscience? And what is a nation anyway? Christian or non-believer, either way, nationalism is just a completely arbitrary system, lines on  a map that don’t exist in reality. They are human constructs, and they are pretty much bullshi0. And yet, they exist, and so we must work within them, but please, please don’t tell me that you believe in them? General Excitement Level: If Harrison Ford were starring, through the roof. As is, I’ll be rewatching Patriot Games with the thirteen year old version of myself and patting him on the head. 

The Wolverine-Fin….I’m infinity billion dollars excited about this movie. What’s that you say? The previous Wolverine movies have been kind of terrible? You’re right. But it’s the law of averages. Eventually, they are going to hit it out of the park with this character, and we’re all going to spend the evening wishing we had adamantium claws and a fancy yellow suit to wear around town. They can’t all be terrible? I’m being told they can. Listen, when I was a kid, they ran a cartoon series that involved multiple time travelers, altering history, a character who’s existence was infinite, though he was evil, this was some deep shi-. You’re telling me they can get it right in a cartoon but not in Hollywood? Okay, you’re right. It’s probably going to suck. Let’s go see it together. 

Thinking

I’ve been told by a few people of late that I think too much. Which, now that I’ve thought about it for a while could possibly be true. Of course, it could also be untrue. You’d have to consider it from both angles to even begin to consider the problem. Although, perhaps thinking about whether you’re thinking too much is a sign that you’re thinking too much. On the other hand, it is also possible that a lot of other people are just thinking too little. It’s worth a thought or two. Though it seems like precisely the sort of conclusion that a person who thinks too much would draw. I think, in general, that I think the exact right amount, like when Goldilocks finally finds the right kind of porridge. Although, what is that story about anyway. Is it allegorical? A lesson book? Is the lesson that you’re not supposed to enter a stranger’s house, especially if they are a bear? Is the lesson that you need to try new things in order to find what works best for you? Is it a story about the dominance of humans over animals vis a vi what terrible carpenters bears would make? This last one seems unlikely, but I’d submit that you need to consider the story from a variety of angles before even beginning to analyze it. I guess, now that I’m considering the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears, maybe it’ s the sort of thing that we should have just let go. Like, I get the Pieta and the Duomo and Les Miserables, but I’m not sure why we held on to this one. I’ll have to think about it.

The purple Columbine in our yard is in full bloom, looking like nothing so much as a very pretty tall woman going out in an evening gown. That is untrue. It looks like a large green plant with long stems rising from the base, and, at its zenith, are purple flowers. No wait, that’s wrong. What it looks like is the water at dusk, just after a bird has passed by, when it makes a soft v that ripples out to the shore. That’s wrong too. Language is inadequate, especially in the hands and minds of amateurs. I’ll take a picture instead, and I’ll replace all these words with an image, and you’ll say to yourself that it’s nice, but probably not worth a thousand words.

On Friday’s, it often feels like enough just to have gotten home. After reading books with Sadie and closing the door I’ll usually walk straight into our bedroom and lie down to sleep. I am always tired on Fridays, tired of a myriad of things, and I know it is just because I have not been looking. I know that I am missing nearly everything that the world is made up of beautiful things. Look at the flowers by the window, the fruit in the basket, if I was Georgia O’Keefe I’d paint both of them and leave everyone speculating about what I was really painting. I have books on the shelves, a hundred or so, and I know, having read almost all of them that the words inside them are beautiful, that they say things like:

I knew he believed in something that none of us ever do anymore. He believed in the nastiest word in the world. He believed in KINDNESS. Please tell me that you remember kindness. Please tell me you remember kindness and joy, you cool motherfu—ers.

Or

“I am not sure that I exist, actually. I am all the writers that I have read, all the people that I have met, all the women that I have loved; all the cities I have visited.”

Or

“Being with you and not being with you is the only way I have to measure time.”

And, for a moment, an instant, the infinite space of time that it takes Achilles to reach the tortoise, I think to myself, there it is. How could I have missed so much beauty? And then it’s slips away again, a wave slipping back out into the near infinite sea, and I do not know if I am listening to the sound of the water arriving or leaving.

Cheesecake time

Mock Catalog: 8 Signs You Might be a Peacock Person

1)      You are sitting outside with some friends, having some alcoholic beverages on your patio, which someone else put in, because who the hell does things for themselves? And it occurs to you that the only thing that would turn this party from good to awesome, in the way that beer does in amazing beer commercials is a peacock, and you start telling everyone around you about how pretty they look when their tails are all fluffed up. And at first, people are uncomfortable and try to turn the conversation to Newcastle or some local distillery, but you keep steering the conversation back to peacocks, to just how grand they are, until people start trickling away from the party leaving their imported beers behind and you with the capacious feeling of being alone.

2)      You’re at the zoo looking at some amazing animals, a lemur, or a snow leopard, or snow mist mountain cat, or river fishing cat with a hat, or a cat from the Andes who can ride a bike and whistle and catches its prey with fables and you are trying to pretend to be as interested as everyone else in watching this animal sleep away the afternoon. But suddenly, you can’t control yourself anymore. You track down the nearest zoo employee and say, “Where are the peacocks?” And then you bend their ear for twenty minutes talking about the various uses of peacocks in the courts of Egyptian Pharaohs.

3)       When your significant other is leaving the house you constantly suggest that they wear the peacock earrings that you bought them, and if they refuse, you ask if they’d at least wear the necklace. And if they refuse that you ask why they don’t love you anymore, and then ignore their response because animal planet is running a five minute special on peacocks.

4)      You find yourself reading the umpteenth article about achieving happiness, or not achieving happiness, or achieving happiness through a means that was previously unknown to this person, or redefining what happiness is, or defining what happiness is, or making balloon animals in order to find happiness, or what cloud shapes make people the happiest, and suddenly, it occurs to you that what would make you happy is a peacock.

5)      Any time you find yourself standing on, or looking at a large space of lawn, you immediately find yourself thinking about croquet and how awesome croquet is, and wouldn’t life be better if you just had a set of wickets? But why send someone? Why do that to someone else who is playing a nice game of croquet? Why does croquet have to be so cruel and like life? And then suddenly you realize that a giant peacock would probably soothe everyone playing a game of croquet with all of its beauty, and you’d all spend your time talking about how beautiful it was and forget to send each other’s croquet ball flying across the park, because who could hold on to any rancor in the face of such beauty?

6)      You find yourself watching NBC, which is terrible.

7)      Sometimes you lay awake at night and wonder if the peacock that you’re yearning for is a real peacock, or whether it’s something else, a symbol for something missing. You wonder if you ever really wanted a peacock, or whether you just wanted things to change, and whether that peacock was less a flesh and blood animal and more an emblem of change, a symbol of the sort of life that you might have lived. You try and remember if you’ve ever seen a real peacock. You know that you have but the image is now gone to you. You think of the women that you have loved, hair, eyes, etc., and you realize that even they are gone to you, who once seemed so essential. You think to yourself that if the peacock is anything, it is death, because that is the only thing that is not a symbol, a mirage, an eyelash, a brushing of lips under a canopy of trees in early spring, but a certainty. But you are sleepy, and these are the sort of thoughts that leave you near the edge of dreams.

8)      In your dreams you are walking a peacock on a leash as though it were a dog, if dogs were aesthetic marvels. The grass near the sidewalk is a burning emerald only achievable through the use of heavy, environmentally unfriendly, fertilizers. The sun overhead is not an abstraction. It is piece of heavy machinery building the architecture of your day. Everyone you walk past, regardless of race or age or political view is stunned by the perfected beauty of your peacock, which is, it is clear, a microcosm of the epic grandeur of God made manifest in the rest of the universe, but made real here, now, walking along at the edge of a short leash, splaying its tail feathers wide and shitting voluminously on the sidewalk. This evening, as the sun sets in the west, some golden ball dropping into the infinity of space, you will not wonder at the strangeness of the cosmos, the molecules that must come together to make Hydrogen, Oxygen, and you. Instead, you will slip deeper and deeper into the moment, holding a thin leash between your index and middle fingers, until you are submerged in it, everything around you, silent, present, and it will remind you of childhood, that moment when you dipped your whole head into the warm water and felt gloriously alone.

Game of Thrones: The Bear and the Maiden

Let’s begin, as all things should begin, with the problems we’ve been facing this season. The Theon torture fest continues despite the obvious disinterest in both the character and the scenes. You see, the problem with anonymous torture of a person you don’t care about is that you don’t care. Think how much more despicable Joffry is for having cut off Ned Stark’s head. And yes, this guy does seem to be more of a specialist than Joffry, but I think if they could recut the season they’d have left much of this storyline on the floor. As if it wasn’t bad enough that the torture scenes had become plodding, they introduced a couple of naked women pretending to seduce Theon before, it appears, chopping off his manhood. (My only hope is that Theon ends up taking the place of Varus in Season Five and that he’s keeping his torturer in a box in his living room). It’s not aberrant for this show to use sex as a vehicle for the plot, but arriving as it did, gratuitously, amidst gratuity, was not one of the show’s creators finer moments. Full disclosure, I’m not a person who takes any pleasure in horror or torture movies like Saw.

What struck me during this brief interlude was just how much starch is taken out of the show with the Theon story. Its been made apparent that nothing is happening to him, beyond a few body parts removed, let’s move on then.

The Theon problem, which will be, at least in part how I remember season three may pale in comparison to the Jon Snow problem. As a casual watcher of the show, (no book spoilers, reading is for people who don’t have the Internet) it’s rather clear to me that Danerys and Jon Snow are the two people not embroiled in the mess of King’s Landing. They are the bastard and the freer of slaves. Jon Snow, more than anyone seems to be the heir to the goodness in Ned Stark. And yet, the problem is that up to this point the actor playing Jon snow has hovered between mediocre to just not very good. I was speaking with a colleague today who indicated that the internal monologue provided a lot of assistance to the development of his character. Certainly they’ve not given him many lines. His main job appears to be standing around looking befuddled or kind of sad. And yet, I wonder whether he’s earned more lines, and I certainly know he could get a hell of a lot more out of his time spent on screen. My favorite scene with him was in the first episode when Tyrion provided all of the monologue for him while he chipped away at a paper soldier. If Jon and Danerys are to remain the two characters of interest for the casual fan, we’re going to need to see more of Jon Snow than looking kind of befuddled. But oh that hair. Swoons.

The third problem is the Bran story line, which appears to be sitting around a campfire and talking quietly about three eyed ravens. Listen, it sounds like an awesome thing to do for a sleepover, can a brother get some smores in a shot? But it isn’t exactly working as riveting television. The characters seem stuck in their roles, and I don’t have much hope that things will change soon.

Now let’s talk about what was working in this episode, bears, boats and beguiling wenches. Okay, the third one was just to rhyme. The overriding theme of this episode seemed to be movement, or at least the suggestion of movement, of change. And I can’t complain because the first two seasons have seemd to meander in the middle only to have things build and pay off in the final episodes. The pacing in this episode was better, grand shots of boats moving over water, slavers being marched between lines of men, Jaime riding away on his horse, a woman in a dress fighting a bear with a wooden sword (that’s just good television), the episode didn’t just feel like it was moving more quickly, it physically showed us that movement, which is always a nice touch after the middle part of the show’s run.

The show begins North of the wall, on the march, with Gareth, from the British office, delivering some well earned wisdom to Jon Snow, reminding him that people are all about climbing the ladder, being kings of convenience etc. This dynamic continues for the rest of the episode with  Gareth confessing his love for Jon’s girl, which leads to Jon putting his stapler in a jello mold, which is just the type of thing that they don’t go in for North of the Wall.

What’s interesting, and perhaps hopeful for Jon Snow, is how foolish the wildlings are. For all their talk of bravery, it is Jon who knows they’ve been thrown back six times before and that a windmill is not a castle. It’s a  nice counterpoint to what we’ve been hearing about and from these people, and a fact which has to have occurred to Mansraider as he came from South of the Wall. In Jon’s brief speech to Ygritte, he lets her know that they’ll have to be more organized if they want to win this time, and you could almost see a glimmer of hope for him, that he would be the one to lead them to victory. Sadly, he just gets pushed up against a rock and kissed by Ygritte, which is pretty much the theme of this episode. Someone is trying to get something done, a marriage, a war plan, a good speech, and then sex gets in the way.

The love between Robb and his wife is revealed, after some time spent chatting in the buff, and why not these are some young beautiful people, that they are having a son. I’m sure that it changes the succession lines or something, making Sansa a less useful piece, but I’ve no hope that everyone’s head isn’t ending up on a pike somewhere, so I’m less concerned about who is going to rule thirty years from now than the characters seem to be. Just try surviving the week guys. We’ll worry about the succession plans after we beat back dragons and ice zombies.

The relationship between Margery and Sansa continues to develop, with Margery indicating that she didn’t spend all of her time mending quilts in High Garden, though the innuendo is missed by Sansa, who has the brain of a very unwise sheep. The relationship is charmingly covered from the other angle where a bewildered Tyrion tries to explain how he’ll put Shea up in the city as his mistress. Prior to this Tyrion has a brief conversation with Bron about his desires and wishes in regards to Sansa, and it made me long for more interactions between them. Books be damned. Their relationship is always providing a bit of levity in this grim bathless world.

Tywin Lannister also takes a break from brow beating his children to brow beat his nephew, the sadistic king. And though Tywin has spent most to the season subduing everyone from his seat, he climbs the stairs to tower over Joffry to make his point this round. And it is becoming very clear that Tywin is the strongest force in king’s landing, though maybe not the smartest, and I look forward to more Olenna.

Relatedly, the unexpectedly charming relationship between Jaime and Brienne continued, with Jaime riding back to save her from Lord Bolthon’s (sp) right hand man. Joke. Only to find that she’s engaged in a fight with a bear, because, why not. Jaime jumping down into the pit to save her was par for the course this season as he began his run trying to murder a child, he might as well continue on this season saving a damsel in distress. The acting has always been top notch, and though I’m certain we have the books to thank for the transition, it has been the best part of season three thus far, besides Theon being tortured obviously. I hope an extra DVD exists in which I can watch the young lad walking around for an extra hour or two talking about cutting off pinkie toes.

The interesting part in the context of the show is that Jaime has promised to bring back, Sansa, who is currently engaged to his brother. We know from season one that Jaime can also be browbeaten by his father. And yet, it feels near inevitable that with all of his children arrayed against him when Jaime returns to King’s Landing, Tywin may be in for a bit of a fall from grace.

Danerys makes a brief appearance, threatening some local villages with rack and ruin via dragons and merciless soldiers in less they give up all of their slaves, continuing her Shermanesque march along the coast of wherever the hell she is while the two older men in her party smile on knowingly while secretly wondering why she has to burn everything. It’s in their blood, the Targeryons (sp). I’ve been told that her story begins to stall out, but this was a satisfying little piece of action, threatening dragons, turning down gold and ships to free the slaves. She continues her meteoric and slow rise to power.

The red woman, who has the worst accent of anyone on the show, not really sure what they were going for there, tells Gendry that he’s the bastard son of Robert Baratheon. Gendry, nonplussed, mentions that he’s still a bastard, but I think I foresee a Gendry vs. Jon Snow battle in the future, just so we can hear all these English actors say Baasturd roughly one thousand more times.

The other Stark that I keep trying to love, Arya, met with a fortuitous end when she ran away from the brotherhood without banners and into the loving arms of the Hound. Sure he’s got a burnt face, but remember how nice he was to Sansa? I do. And if Arya has a failing right now it’s that she has let her rage consume her. She’s not seeing nuance, which is a great way to get yourself offed in the GOT universe. I’m hoping that some time spent with the Hound will not only improve her swordplay, but her perspective. I suppose either that or she finds some way to kill him or calls on her assassin buddy. However, that feels like a cheap out. It’s time to grow up.

All in all this was a better episode than the last one. And, despite some of the plots being in stasis, a great deal more actually moved in this episode, and, above all else, ships moving over pretty water, bears fighting women in dresses, naked war council meetings, dragons etc. The show’s budget shows itself off now and again, and the visual spectacle is still what makes GOT the most interesting, not the best, show on television. 

I made this

I am writing an essay with the possibility of returning to graduate school. I am not sure if I should return to graduate school or not. I do not think it is wise to say in the essay of admission that I am not sure if I should be seeking admission. In fact, I think it is highly unlikely that I should include the fact that I’m not sure about the whole admission process. This reminds me of the summer in college when I wound up working at JC Penny’s. During the interview, when asked how long I’d like to stay at my summer job, I said, “I’d like to be managing this department store one day!” I did not say that. The man interviewing me was named, Bruce. He had a mustache that made him look like a walrus, or maybe he just looked like a walrus, or maybe walruses looked like him. It’s not really my place to say.

The score in the OKC vs. Grizzlies game is still 87-81. Sometimes, I’ll click over to make sure that the final score was 87-81 and has remained 87-81. I don’t know why I keep looking. It is unlikely, given our current experience of time that the score of the game will ever be anything but 87-81. I think I’m not looking for a tear in the space time continuum. I might be though. Who’s to say?

I am editing an essay that I’ve written about trains, wedding trains, trains traveling through Europe, the train that Einstein used to prove his special theory of relativity. I think that the editing is almost done and then I am reading some old comments from a professor, reminding me about compression and then I am sure that I am not done, but that I might still be close to done, and I think about the space time continuum and the kind of compression that went on at the point of the Big Bang, and I decide that I will never be done compressing this essay as much as it could be. This essay is unlikely to create space and time, though it’s likely to move through them.

It is now 8:25 P.M. Time moves on like the obscenity it is.

I’m working on an essay that is supposed to lead me into the future. Though, at present, not much is going on. It’s strange, yes, to write down one’s personal and professional goals? It’s the sort of exercise that we expect to take on in a workshop. It is my goal to figure out the meaning of life, to stamp out poverty and nationalism and find a renewable source of energy. It’s hard to get that all down in 1200 words. The geo-political implication and things that would need to change would take sixteen hundred words at least.

Observation after seeing pictures of people I haven’t seen in ten years. The internet is a weird place man. Aside: Perhaps I should consider a bottle of wine before continuing if the observations are going to be so incredibly incisive.

The Pacers now have a 32-22 lead on the New York Knicks. This game is still taking place in the present time. The score will not, barring some catastrophe, remain as 32-22 for an indefinite period of time. It is extremely unlikely, though not impossible, that neither time will score another basket.

In the bathroom mirror, I am doubled, and the ghostly shape of a spider slides down from the ceiling. And now we are both doubled, looking, I’d imagine, not at one another, but at reflections of ourselves, the reverse of the way we actually appear. It is disorienting, I know, so I wipe him away with a Kleenex, this contingent arachnid, as if I am not also a contingent creature, capable of being wiped clean against the mirror of time.

I explain this all to arachnid as I walk back upstairs, how the mere fact that I’m able to consider myself in the mirror, and things like the Big Bang, compression, the feeling of silk, soft as that passing rain. He is no longer listening though, and possibly never was.

As we sit in certain postures, amidst the smell of wet asphalt from a passing rain, I say to you that I’d like to compress all of these moments down into a single paragraph, a single sentence, a single word, a single letter, I’d like to tell you everything that I’ve been thinking and trying to say without having to say anything at all. I want the quiet compression of things before there was any space at all, before there was any time, only these billions and billions of moments, unborn. 

Lives and mothers

The unexamined life is not worth living. Or is it, isn’t worth living? What was it in the original Greek? Plato said it, or Socrates, or Aristotle. I think it was Socrates. These men were forever saying quotable things. One feels it would have been near kingly to have lived in that time as an amanuensis, recording thoughts for the future.

At times, I want to remind Plato that the examined life is not entirely all it’s cracked up to be. It was Swift in Gulliver’s Travels who elucidates this point so finely, where an increased visual aptitude leads to the discovery of flaws in what Gulliver thought was a flaweless woman.

Sometimes I’ll watch a television show and wonder about the lives of the characters, and I’ll have to stop myself from going much further, and instead, I’ll wonder about the lives of the people playing the characters, whether they’re happy, if acting on this show is everything they dreamed it could be, if they have a dog, or children, or a drinking habit. Examining the lives of others is not worth doing.

A beautiful thing happened on the way to work today. Okay, a beautiful thing did not happen on the way to work today. However, what if it had? Imagine how much better my day might have been? In fact, in retrospect, as life is always expertly lived in hindsight, something beautiful did happen on the way to work. I was standing on the sidewalk, near puddles on the garden path, and my daughter asked me to smell a pink azalea with her. It didn’t smell like anything, and in fact, all she asked me to do was touch it, and it was not beautiful, because I was thinking about the traffic coming, and the sunlight, and the hour of the day, but when looked at from some distance, you could see how it could be thought of as beautiful.

Today is the sort of day that a person should be reflecting on their mother. My mother was young once and lived in the Midwest. Later, when I knew her better, she was my mother. I remember her near boundless capacity for reading books to her three eager children, of Lions and Witches and Wardrobes and Taran wandering towards becoming the High King. I also remember my boundless capacity for sleep. And later, as we aged, I remember her boundless capacity for falling asleep while reading, the words starting to slur together, and our, or perhaps just my gentle nudges, trying to remind her to stay awake.

I blame her for my own interest in reading. Live long enough and you’ll be able to blame your parents for all your failings. I wish she’d have been teaching me to use an abacus or learn microfinance, but I fear that sleep may have taken both of us too soon had that been the case.

I remember too, walking during the evening with my mother, the wind just beginning to rise, to life the veil of oppressive heat from our home in the valley. We’d walk by small culverts where the frogs were serenading one another, towards the foothills, blue at the end of the day. We’d talk about the things that were important to me back then, school, girls, God, and she’d listen. She’d listen.  And sometimes, many times, that’s all that a son could ask for. 

Mock Catalog: 7 Reasons why everything should be in a list

1. When I see something that is not in list form, it tells me two things immediately, 1) I do not have time to read it. 2) It was probably constructed by someone over the age of 25, which means I probably don’t want to read it. 3) I just created a list within a list to show how amazing lists are.

2. Quite frankly, even if someone made a grocery list I’d probably read it. Did they really put bananas at number three? Number three for bananas? I mean, what about when they get kind of mushy and nobody wants to eat them? Is it okay to break off bananas, I always do, but I feel a little guilty. Like, is someone watching who is going to make you pay for the bananas? Is there a preferred number?

3. Sometimes I’ll see something that is not in list form, like a paragraph or something, and I’ll just wonder why such antiquated means of communication existed for such a long time, and why it’s so hard to make paradigm shifts like we’re making right now, and I’ll feel sad for a minute or two, and maybe make a list of songs that make me sad, which makes me feel better.

4. Lists are a way of creating a kind of structure. And though being young is about living an unstructured life, it’s also about identifying the structures like sexism and were clowns ever not scary, like, did a time exist when people weren’t just scared shi-less by them. And list making allows us to both identify structure, and yet, by appropriating the form of the dominant social group, soccer mom making grocery, we are recreating it in a manner that subverts its original intent. I mean really, when is putting makeup on and jumping out at people not scary? Olden days are crazy.

5. Lists are just inherently fun, because you can say things like: 23 ways to enjoy your summer break. And really, who picks 23, what a crazy number. But that’s the crazy thing about lists, you can shoot for the stars with them. Hell, make a list with 100 things on it. Just don’t expect me to read it.

6. Imagine if someone came up to you and said, “It’s really great to be young.” And then someone else came up to you and said, “Here are the ten reasons that it’s great to be young.” Be honest, it sounds like that second guy really has his shi- together. And yeah, maybe he’s underemployed and floating around with some friends before heading up to Portland, Oregon to make his way, but look, he’s got a list. He’s got a plan. It just isn’t your plan. Also, he doesn’t have a car and needs a ride to Portland, and then to and from work once he gets there.

7. It’s a religious thing. Look at the Ten Commandments. God, like us, knew that if you really want people to pay attention to something you do it in list form. But like, as an aside, how long was he gone? How did people wind up worshipping a golden calf? How long did they wait? I mean, I hope they at least let him get out of sight and up the mountain. Awkward. The point is, the list, has, was, is, and always will be the highest form of human communication. Now I’m going to go make a list of the seven things that make lists awful. 

Here is a picture of a dog. This dog has just pooped on your carpet. 

Writing

My chief problem with writing is that I’m lazy, indiscriminately, fantastically, lazy. I’m always “working” on things. The term work is not in quotes accidentally. After I’ve been working on something for a while, I’ll want it be done, and so I’ll stop working on it, or, on the off chanc

e that I finish it, I’ll ignore all of the obvious errors in logic or continuity in favor of calling it done.

  I believe the agreed upon answer is no, though I think everyone would be a whole hell of a lot happier if they could just answer yes. Of course, I answer yes all the time, and then go back and look at something I’ve written, realizing immediately that the proper answer was no. I suppose the object lesson is that the right answer to most questions in life is no. It’s safer that way.

Conclusion: Maybe I just need to write very short stories, set very modest goals.

Example:

I want to write a story about a dog.

Story:
The dog had brown fur. He liked to play tug of war. The dog was happy. He liked to sleep.

Am I done writing a story about a dog? I think so. I think the story is complete. Sure you could add some portions about the light falling diagonally through the panes of dirty windows, or give the dog some texture by providing some information about the dog’s owners etc, but then I think you’re just wandering down a labyrinth. If no story is ever truly done then every story should go on for thousands and thousands of pages. I think this is what Robert Musil was attempting in The Man Without Qualities. Or perhaps, if every story is only complete when it’s kept on a small scale, every story should be only one sentence.

Example:

The day that she died was a good one for reasons I can’t get into right now.

Okay, so we have a death, a character responding to the death in an interesting manner and then forestalling any future communication about the death. I’m happy.

Example:

He was delighted the first time one of his sculptures came to life, though, by Autumn, he’d concluded that they were as drab as everyone else he knew.

Example:

That was the summer all the adults turned into fish and swam upriver.

Example:

In September, all the leaves turned golden, and we smoked pipes on covered porches, overlooking tiny square yards, reminiscing on what failures we’d all become.

Example:

It was less a matter of me shooting the bird than of a profound failure of imagination on his part, taking the bullet when he could soar to the heavens. 

Game of Thrones Season 3 Episode 6: The Climb

The GOT universe has many recurrent themes, most borderline nihilistic, one of which is that love or desiring someone else is probably going to result in abject failure. A person in this universe must always be scheming, not loving, sex is a distraction, not a means of enjoyment. And yet, I found it interesting that this episode was bookended by two love stories. The voice over goes to Littlefinger, reminding the viewers that life in the GOT universe is a relentless climb through the chaos of life to gain more power. And though a voice over, and a 700 foot climb up a sheet of ice, make it seem like the theme of the episode, strangely, what I took away was love.

There was a certain verisimilitude to the two love stories that began and ended this episode of GOT, though juxtaposed against one another it’s rather easy to point out the differences. The episode begins with Samwell and Tarley sitting in the darkness, miles from the wall, attempting to make a fire while the baby sleeps in her arms. Naturally the camera pans away to a longer shot, revealing the woods, the darkness, the snow, the not so subtle reminder that the song Samwell is singing about the father loving the baby and taking care of him must be taking place in some other world. It was an important moment though, one that should give a viewer pause, because it stands out like a beacon in the night, two people enjoying one another’s company and trying to convince each other that everything will be all right. Granted they’ll probably get eaten alive by White Walkers and then the dragons will come along, burn the walkers and roast their bones, but they had a nice moment in the dark there didn’t they? Aren’t we all just like that, sitting in the dark and the cold reminding one another, trying to convince each other that it’s going to be okay?

The latter love story, which takes place at the top of the wall is a GOT first. Jon Snow and Ygritte’s relationship was culminated last week in sex, but the real test of their relationship happens before they begin to climb the wall, when Ygritte tells him that she knows he’s lying about not being a crow. Jon Snow, not the consummate liar, looks like a little boy caught with his hand in the cookie jar, but just as surely as a forgiving mother, Ygritte immediately tells him that his secret is safe, but she reminds him to be loyal to her or risk castration. Juxtpaosed with Samwell singing against the night, the threat seems violent and real, and thus, more in keeping with the GOT universe. Jon and Ygritte are the first real couple that we’ve seen develop on the show, and though their relationship is built on love caves and threats of castration, it’s about as good as we’re going to get. As Sam and Gilly remain at the bottom of the wall, Jon and Ygritte, spend the episode climbing to the top, barely surviving after old crazy eyes tries to cut them loose. And, in a scene reminiscent of any good romance, they kiss fiercely and take in the view from the wall. Heart swells, kind of. Unlike Sam and Gilly whom the night seems to be watching like a hungry wolf, Jon and Ygritte have the sun shining down on them at the conclusion of the episode, and though they’ll probably also end up roasted by dragons and reaten by white walkers, at least they’ll do it together.

The real question of the episode seems to be whether love and loyalty will work in GOT. The answer seems to be, maybe, but it helps to be able to cut some people with a sword. Ros, who’s smarts at playing various games have brought her from prostitute way up north to trusted companion of Littlefinger in King’s Landing, makes one false step and winds up spending the evening being riddled with arrows by King Joffry. Though it was not surprising to see Joffry at the other end of the crossbow, it certainly gave the audience more fodder, as if they could have possibly needed any, to look forward to his death. This is also an episode in which we learn that he tried to have Tyrion killed by a member of the King’s guard. And, the only lesson to be drawn is that it’s good to be king, because otherwise, he’d be off in a dungeon somewhere having his finger split in two like Theon.

Whatever retribution is being carved out of Theon will need to start paying off rather soon. If I’ve had a concern with the season thus far, it’s that some of the scenes are moving too slowly because of the surfeit of characters. I think it was an intelligent decision by the directors to get something beyond slogging through the ice happening north of the wall. Granted, the White Walkers remain a silent partner, the obvious enemy to untie the people, but I can forgive the directors, and Martin, for not playing their hand too early. These guys have last battle written all over them. And yet, it was time for something to happen to the people north of the wall and sticking with Jon and Ygritte as they climbed the wall was a nice tough. Theon, on the other hand, continues to be tortured in a way that we’ve seen in movies before, by some merciless fellow, which generates some sympathy for him, however, we’re more than halfway through the season and his situation remains exactly the same. It’s a test of the audiences patience, and if I hadn’t come across a couple of articles saying that Danerys was at a dead end for a bit, plot wise, I’d be clamoring to have Theon cut altogether (pun intended) in favor of seeing more CGI budget expended.

The bonds of love and loyalty are also being tested with Robb Stark’s army, and though he fell codpiece first over an exotic foreign woman, he has to virtually insist that his uncle take his place by marrying the daughter of Lord Walder Frey. The uncle does briefly try and barter for at least getting the pretty daughter, but he’s immediately shouted down by his comrades, who then go home and sleep with their pretty wives.

Ironically, the bonds that are strengthened in this episode are those of the Lannister children. Tyrion learns that Cersei didn’t try and have him killed at Blackwater, and though they seem entirely unaware that they could say no to their father, at least they point out that they’ll be united in their misery. If love is happening north of the wall, down south, it’s being conducted as it always has been, as a means of fortifying power. Sansa bawls her eyes out watching Littlefinger sail away, once again proving that all the Stark brains were spent on the other children and Tyrion has to break the news that he’ll be marrying her in front of his current girlfriend. It is unclear at this point whether the Lannister children will ever break free of their father, or what the outcome would be. Perhaps the lots have already been thrown and it’s best to ride out the rest of the bet

 Jaime Lannister continues his quest to be the character who changes the most during the course of the season, attempting to save Brienne, only to be told that she’ll be tried for treason. The other interesting piece to consider is what value Jaime will have to his father now that he’s missing his sword hand. Jaime is now somewhere between the Samwell and Gilly’s and the Jon and Ygritte’s. A good portion of his power was beholden to him via his ability to fight. It will be interesting to see if King’s Landing has room for two clever, wounded Lannister children.

Lest we forget the last reminder that loyalty doesn’t always pay off, the band of brothers agrees to sell of Gendry to Melisandre. Though, to be fair, it sounds like she intends to make him a kind or high priest or something, which is the sort of thing they should explain to Arya as it would probably clear up some misconceptions. I mean, if being taken away in a cart in chains means you get to return breathing fire and conquering kingdoms, maybe it’s best that he goes.

In the end, this episode, like many episodes before, seemed intent on telling two stories. One, loyalty, family, honor, the other, be loyal to the right people, family might marry you off to an ugly sister, and honor is useful when it suits you. I suppose we’ll see which view winds up winning out in the end. Though, as far as we are into this show, I fear that the most likely thing we’ll get is everything descending into Littlefinger’s chaos and everybody reaching for a ladder. 

The movement of things through time

             

   We were talking of pretty things and clinking ice in our glasses. I had spent the previous summer painting: staying in a small studio, studying lines and shades of color, learning that red has thirty six different iterations, none of which perfectly matched the contours and hues of her lips. “That’s the trouble with looking, with anything,” I said to you. “Once you begin a search in earnest there is no chance of finding what you’re looking for.”

You shook your head. “Are we talking about keys?”

“I’m speaking abstractedly here. The search for something abstract, like a perfect shade of red, an idea, the moment when the sun breaks over the horizon, a pair of perfect lips, these things are all essentially unattainable. They live in the mind’s eye. They have no real corollary in the physical world. It is the pursuit of these things that either drives us, to drink, to be mad, to fire rockets off towards the moon. And that is why we will never be satisfied in any lasting sense, because the things we desire are not real, they are phantoms, shadows, pictures of things that have never happened.

The other night, I was lying in bed, feeling half-dead from lack of sleep when it occurred to me that one day I would be thirty six. Not tomorrow, not even all that soon, but that one day, at some point in the future I would be thirty six, and I sprang up from bed and rushed to the studio and painted for hours. None of it was good. The colors were all wrong. I was trying to paint the sunset in Paris on a certain day from my youth when I was at the top of the tower in Sacre Couer, alone, beautifully alone, but I messed the whole damn thing up. And yet, if I’m honest with you, I felt so much more content as the morning light started coming in the window, touching off slivers of light that looked like small schools of fish swimming across the oak boards.

It’s absurd yes, to worry that one day you’ll be thirty six? I believe the more common date to worry over is that of one’s death, but, my God, death is an abstraction, aging a certainty. You see what I’m saying. After I’m gone who will care what I’ve done? Certainly not me, but while I live, well, the painting was terrible anyway. I don’t know why it brought me peace.

Myself, she responded, technically I’ve never been good at anything. That is not entirely true. As a child, third or fourth grade or so, I was amazing at the times tables. I could spit out the answers to anything in the 1 to twelve range as if they were emblazoned on my brain. It struck me, and everyone else, as a sign that I was intelligent, one to watch out for. What this “skill” turned out to be was just proof that I was a fairly substandard computer. I mean, drill it into me enough, and I can compute quickly, but it turns out that I was born in the wrong era, all that work is done by computers now, not by some strange girl with a knack for numbers.

It was a kind of relief though. I don’t understand the sort of fear of not achieving perfection that you’re speaking of. I’ve never imagined myself to be the paragon or paramour or parawhatever of anything. Consequently, my life isn’t dictated by the sorts of pressures that you’re speaking of. I wonder sometimes, after leaving a room, if the people I’ve been talking with have found me pleasant, or if I’ve said something slightly dopey, but beyond that, no, nothing like what you’re describing. It sounds like an exhausting way to live and probably not worth the trouble.

At that point of time in my life the two of us were in love for no discernible reason. I’d have pointed to some of her more noteworthy traits but the truth of the matter is that the whole thing was strange, a happenstance that seemed more born out of the two of us being so constantly thrown together during the previous three years than something we’d freely chosen.  We were getting together now, three of four times a week and having these ridiculous conversations in which we could agree on nothing, just waiting for the feeling to pass, hoping that we’d catch a glimmer on the way to get another whiskey in the eye of the other that would say, “it has passed.” Barring that, I suppose we’ll just keep meeting in the evening, exchanging pleasantries until one of us finds another city to move too, or another person to love.

For now I am listening to her talk about her cousin’s sister, something about the cut of a dress in an upcoming wedding. I tell her that I need to leave soon, but I can see through the lattices and bars of the old window that snow has begun falling, heavy, thick, and wet. I mean to be leaving soon, but I can see that we’ll be together for at least the remainder of this night. I catch her hand in my own, and tell her that I love her. No. That was someone else. I am watching the wisteria climb the large clock in the courtyard. Time, it moves so slowly, this moment so quickly. 

Friday Nights: Language

I look for beauty in the strangest of places. As if, life, my life in particular, was somehow wedded to beauty. As though the world was designed to be aesthetically pleasing, full not of being, but of moments, concrete things that a person can hang a day on. I don’t know where I came by this idea. I think that the images I’m trying to recreate are from old commercials or movies, in which the texture of the scene is enriched by music playing in the background.

And suddenly I am listening to a song by Lyle Lovett after catching snippets of it in the background of a show.  

And three things are happening at once. I’m thinking of Steven Pinker, how he said that music is, “auditory cheesecake.” And I can’t remember exactly why I should believe Steven Pinker, though I often think that music is auditory cheesecake. But, I like cheesecake. I suppose his point is that I should eat cheesecake less frequently, or that I should only listen to music at a party, or when I am feeling blue, or if I am having good coffee. But then again, I do not remember who he is.

I am also feeling moved by the music and thinking that it would be odd if I started crying here, sitting alone near midnight listening to a song, and how that isn’t the sort of way that a person should spend a Friday night. A person should spend a Friday in bed, in laughter, drinking, watching a movie, doing a puzzle, dancing until 2 A.M., a person should not be almost crying while listening to a song they have just heard. And yet, I am a person almost crying to a song that I’ve only just heard. And it occurs to me that maybe I'm not all that sad about the song, but sad that its been so long that I listened to something so quiet. And that maybe, I didn't almost cry, but thought that I almost cried because it happened an hour ago. Maybe what I did was felt something. I couldn't say for sure. 

I am also remembering that Lyle Lovett was once married to Julia Roberts, and how everyone was confounded by their marriage years ago, and how much worse it would be now. But really, really I’m wondering what I’m supposed to do with all the ephemera piling up in my brain like so much useless dust, or cheesecake or music lyrics. And I wonder why my brain has stored so many odds and ends. I wonder why it couldn’t have grasped Geometry, perhaps it was too busy remembering the part in Anna Begins when rain starts to fall or she begins to fade away. And instead I’m remembering that night, years and years ago, when we stood twenty feet from the stage listening to songs from my first ever cassette tape, and how it’s okay, that that evening is still lodged there. How we were all there listening together, how maybe music doesn’t always have to be auditory cheesecake, how sometimes it can make us stand in the dark and feel something.

And now I am listening to music and thinking of cheesecake, which is, if I understand Steven Pinker correctly, exactly the way a person is supposed to spend their time. Though I’ve been guilty often of misunderstanding people when it suits me, for three months in college I pretended my girlfriend spoke Chinese because I didn’t like what she was saying to me. I covered her room in Chinese characters, decorated the mirrors and the walls with words I found in the library that said things like “trust” and “love.” I built a series of origami swans that showed a time lapse type scene of being born, growing up, and then failing in love and put them on her dresser with a note that said, “This.” I trained a parrot to speak, and put it up in her room. Whenever she looked out the window he would say that he loved her. After a week, when I’d enter, he’d just mumble “bastard.” And I could see then, looking at that failed parrot just what Flaubert meant when he said,” “Language is a cracked kettle on which we beat out tunes for bears to dance to, while all the time we long to move the stars to pity.”

But the part that moved me to pity was that he’d already said it, and so I couldn’t say it after him, or couldn’t say it as well. I could say: language is an inadequate medium in which to show our true selves, but that is clunky. I could say:

Language is a dead horse that we beat senselessly when we intend to wake it up. (And though it has the virtue of including the animal, the animal is not dancing, but dead, which seems like  a step down. And don't even get me started about the stars). 

Language is like a sand dollar that you find on the shore as a young lad, and you take it back and show it to your mother, and she tells you that it is perfect, and you hold it in your small fingers, feeling its rough edges, and then you see the shell that she has, stored behind glass, this perfect shell, the very shell you’d intended to find, and you realize that the shell in your hand is a pale imitation of what you’d intended it be. ( Not as pithy at the kettle thing).  

Language is me sitting across from you and intending or meaning things, but not saying them, just looking off instead at bits of the sky and saying how we’re having nice weather this spring. (Closer, but that’s not nearly eloquent enough).

Wait, I once wrote an entire essay about conversation. Certainly I must have said something that will make Flaubert roll over in his grave. (Checking).

“Beneath it is all dark, it is all spreading, it is unfathomably deep; but now and again we rise to the surface and that is what you see us by.” (Nope, that’s Virginia Woolf, and she doesn’t even include anything about language or bears).

You know, I believe if there's any kind of God, it wouldn't be in any of us. Not you, or me...but just this little space in between. If there's any kind of magic in this world, it must be in the attempt of understanding someone, sharing something.” (Nope, that’s from the script of Before Sunrise).  

Language is a maze with no entrance or exit. Language is the lovechild of a Borges and Kafka story. And why shouldn’t it be? Everything is confusing. Although, the more I think about it, the more I wish I was Gustave Flaubert and had said that thing about the kettles and the bears. Maybe I should just say, Language is kind of like a cracked kettle on which we beat out a tune for trained bears to dance to, while all the time we’re intending to move the stars to something resembling pity.

“Language was invented for one reason, boys - to woo women - and, in that endeavor, laziness will not do.” Dead Poet’s society.( It has the virtue of including the word language, which I like and that makes me think that it, like the quote by Flaubert is about language, though it appears the dancing bears have been replaced by women and the stars by laziness).

Instead, perhaps language is like this:

And in that fairy tale land of childhood we understood that we were not traveling through a hole in a fence into waist high patches of grass to stand near the train tracks that cut like a black scar behind those suburban fences. We knew instead that we were traveling from the safe land of mother’s skirts, of milk and cookies and bed times, and into a foreign and dangerous land. And parts of ourselves that we didn’t know existed wanted to court that danger. Parts that we’d rediscover later in life, courting strange lovers, girls with gaps in their teeth who smoked unfiltered cigarettes near the beach, where we’d watch them against a blue horizon, blowing smoke into that same blue, on long afternoons and evenings spent by the sea. We’d stare at these women for hours, losing ourselves in them, when all we’d intended to do was pass time reading about epistemology.