Small is better. We seem to think that. Why? In my experience the transistor radio of the early sixties was the first big commodity that capitalized on smallness. That the quality of the sound was akin to pre-wax-cylinder audio didn't seem to phase kids like me. I loved mine with a passion. I suppose the first wrist watches or before that, pocket watches, were a big deal when they first came out. And in the world of travel, small things were long a part of the package. Small bars of soap at the hotel. Little shampoo containers. The airlines in the fifties would serve beer in half-sized bottles. My father would bring unopened samples home from business trips and, man, I really dug them.
The New York World's Fair in 1965. . . I remember the Japan Pavilion. They had an electronics section where little TVs were on display. They worked, even. Wow.
Well we've come quite a ways since then. Now EVERYTHING seems to be small. Yeah, the phones with the little screens and the "apps." You can watch a movie the size of a commemorative postage stamp. And graphic arts: our television screens, stuff on the internet, CD booklet type, all so small I personally have a hard time reading it. My wife and I tune in to the middle of a Mets game, for example, and she asks, "what inning does it say it is?" I can't make it out from where we are sitting. "Either six. . .or nine. Can't tell," I reply. Now there are plenty of graphics designers, I assume, that are 20 years old, getting paid peanuts, and they have 20/20 vision. Maybe if the Art Director was over 35 he or she would make them up the point sizes? But no, anybody over 35 would have to be properly paid, so there isn't anybody left. They are gone. Home squinting at their TVs, or gazing at their phone, trying to figure out what show it is they are watching. "Must be Lucy. I can tell by her voice."
And even the logos for products. . . tiny, so the message seems to be lost. But no, it's in fashion.
Watch a video of an old baseball game. Mickey Mantle comes up. . . on the screen flashes MICKEY MANTLE .322 AVE in a huge typeface. It looks so. . . old fashioned. But you don't have to squint to read it.
It's a small world. Maybe it's getting too small. Are we that cramped for space?
I like to go to the seashore because you can look out at the ocean where the horizon line of sky and sea meet. It's so open, so big. I wonder if there are any plans to shrink it down in the future? It's so passe, isn't it? And the universe. Much too big for modern times. Must do something about that.
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Thursday, May 13, 2010
On Reading and Writing
Is anybody out there?
I know there are some people who read these posts, but right now I don't know how many. I just trust that they are there, and will be there. But today I am thinking of the larger picture.
When I was a kid one of my favorite movies (and later, books) was The Time Machine. When "Million Dollar Movie" aired the adaptation of the book on Channel Nine you could watch it every night for a week and twice on Saturday. And at least at one point I nearly did that. There was a scene far in the future where Rod Taylor asked the refined-to-degeneracy flower children living on the earth's surface whether they had any books. They did. One of them took him to a building filled with them. Rod went to pick one up and it disintegrated into dust. People had forgotten how to read.
That scene seemed unbelievable to me. "That will never happen," I thought to myself. Now I am not sure. Then, my parents read books regularly, though neither went to college. They encouraged us to read. We went to school. We read the books. And we read books for fun too.
I look around the world I am in today and wonder. Many of my friends seem to have stopped reading, books anyway. Sometimes you visit people and see books lined up on a shelf, perhaps unread, and it brings to mind that scene from the movie. If I pick one up will it turn to dust?
The concept of the public library lives on. Imagine, a government pays for a building, a bunch of books, and they allow anyone to read them, for free. Shouldn't that be illegal? Isn't that somehow communist? You perhaps laugh (or not), but the idea that somebody might argue that some day in the near future doesn't seem as impossible as it might have seemed when I was five years old. Benjamin Franklin and his ilk had the right idea. Reading is good. It is a cornerstone of civilization and needs to be encouraged. Yes, and the government at whatever level needs to subsidize it.
That's not in line with the ULTRA-CAPITALIZATION-OF-EVERYTHING the Far Right has been pushing for, the deregulate-and-destroy policy. The lean, mean, and socially suicidal policy. So guess what? We now see where it leads. Ultimately untrammeled Capital, in the escalating extremism of profit at all costs, destroys itself and everything around it, destroys its own ability to exist and do whatever with those profits. So, in the very least, some group of people have to be literate enough to communicate with one another with more than GET BANANA AND EAT icons for the whole game to continue. I do believe, as is obvious, that greed must be regulated and channeled to the public good, though that might mean that profits in the short term are lesser.
So what to do? It seems that people think that the new generation must be "computer literate" if we are to survive. We need to develop more scientists and technological workers so we can innovate, solve the energy crises, revive the economy and all of that. Fine. But reading and writing, literacy, is the basis for it all. And not texting. Not cell phones with lots of "apps" that take the place of literacy. See picture of dog. Click on it. Click on the send arrow. Friend gets picture of dog. Anybody can do it. (And actually, I believe apes probably already know how and are out there sending each other pictures of dogs even as I write this.)
Our survival depends upon our literacy. Sounds simple and obvious, but are we forgetting it anyway, little by little? We cannot afford that.
I know there are some people who read these posts, but right now I don't know how many. I just trust that they are there, and will be there. But today I am thinking of the larger picture.
When I was a kid one of my favorite movies (and later, books) was The Time Machine. When "Million Dollar Movie" aired the adaptation of the book on Channel Nine you could watch it every night for a week and twice on Saturday. And at least at one point I nearly did that. There was a scene far in the future where Rod Taylor asked the refined-to-degeneracy flower children living on the earth's surface whether they had any books. They did. One of them took him to a building filled with them. Rod went to pick one up and it disintegrated into dust. People had forgotten how to read.
That scene seemed unbelievable to me. "That will never happen," I thought to myself. Now I am not sure. Then, my parents read books regularly, though neither went to college. They encouraged us to read. We went to school. We read the books. And we read books for fun too.
I look around the world I am in today and wonder. Many of my friends seem to have stopped reading, books anyway. Sometimes you visit people and see books lined up on a shelf, perhaps unread, and it brings to mind that scene from the movie. If I pick one up will it turn to dust?
The concept of the public library lives on. Imagine, a government pays for a building, a bunch of books, and they allow anyone to read them, for free. Shouldn't that be illegal? Isn't that somehow communist? You perhaps laugh (or not), but the idea that somebody might argue that some day in the near future doesn't seem as impossible as it might have seemed when I was five years old. Benjamin Franklin and his ilk had the right idea. Reading is good. It is a cornerstone of civilization and needs to be encouraged. Yes, and the government at whatever level needs to subsidize it.
That's not in line with the ULTRA-CAPITALIZATION-OF-EVERYTHING the Far Right has been pushing for, the deregulate-and-destroy policy. The lean, mean, and socially suicidal policy. So guess what? We now see where it leads. Ultimately untrammeled Capital, in the escalating extremism of profit at all costs, destroys itself and everything around it, destroys its own ability to exist and do whatever with those profits. So, in the very least, some group of people have to be literate enough to communicate with one another with more than GET BANANA AND EAT icons for the whole game to continue. I do believe, as is obvious, that greed must be regulated and channeled to the public good, though that might mean that profits in the short term are lesser.
So what to do? It seems that people think that the new generation must be "computer literate" if we are to survive. We need to develop more scientists and technological workers so we can innovate, solve the energy crises, revive the economy and all of that. Fine. But reading and writing, literacy, is the basis for it all. And not texting. Not cell phones with lots of "apps" that take the place of literacy. See picture of dog. Click on it. Click on the send arrow. Friend gets picture of dog. Anybody can do it. (And actually, I believe apes probably already know how and are out there sending each other pictures of dogs even as I write this.)
Our survival depends upon our literacy. Sounds simple and obvious, but are we forgetting it anyway, little by little? We cannot afford that.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Some Big Apple Moments
At the beginning of the many years I worked in Manhattan (or went to school there) it took me a little effort to get in synch with the anarchy of the rhythm of events. Everything has always happening, nothing was happening too. There was no telling.
The first time I went into the city alone with my friends, it was right about the time the Fugs were starting to hit it "big" in the area. Now Tuli Kupferberg is ill, I hear. I am sorry. At the same time Manhattan was at the height of its influence on the hyper-normal American music scene. Brill Building Jingle-Pop ruled the airwaves, though the British Invasion was cutting great swatches into their piece of the action.
Anyway we were tooling around the streets, not exactly knowing what we were after, when we came upon a fellow with a wild look in his eyes. He was gesticulating animatedly at a garbage truck and saying "I understand this machine. . . " Being naive kids we just started laughing at him. He didn't like it. He ran across the street to us and shouted, "Have you ever heard of HELL???" We had. "Well you *&@$s are IN it."
He was right about hell and the garbage truck. But we didn't really get it.
I used to thumb through the Manhattan Yellow Pages when I had a spare moment where I worked. It was a thick bugger. I am sure it still is, even though i phones and the net have made it less indispensable. I remember under "Auto Towing Services" there was a group of listings that started with the A's. There was A1 Auto Towing, AAAA1 Auto Towing and, not to be outdone, there was something like an AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA1 Auto Towing company listed. That's NYC for you. Everybody is scrambling to get on top, one way or another.
When I was about to graduate from New York University I went out to the University of Chicago to see about their graduate program. I met with the professor who was to become my main mentor. We were talking and I asked about other professors in the department who might be good to study with as well. She hesitated. Then I asked, "well, who do you speak to?" "That's very New York," she replied.
I didn't think it was at the time. In retrospect, she was right. It was.
The first time I went into the city alone with my friends, it was right about the time the Fugs were starting to hit it "big" in the area. Now Tuli Kupferberg is ill, I hear. I am sorry. At the same time Manhattan was at the height of its influence on the hyper-normal American music scene. Brill Building Jingle-Pop ruled the airwaves, though the British Invasion was cutting great swatches into their piece of the action.
Anyway we were tooling around the streets, not exactly knowing what we were after, when we came upon a fellow with a wild look in his eyes. He was gesticulating animatedly at a garbage truck and saying "I understand this machine. . . " Being naive kids we just started laughing at him. He didn't like it. He ran across the street to us and shouted, "Have you ever heard of HELL???" We had. "Well you *&@$s are IN it."
He was right about hell and the garbage truck. But we didn't really get it.
I used to thumb through the Manhattan Yellow Pages when I had a spare moment where I worked. It was a thick bugger. I am sure it still is, even though i phones and the net have made it less indispensable. I remember under "Auto Towing Services" there was a group of listings that started with the A's. There was A1 Auto Towing, AAAA1 Auto Towing and, not to be outdone, there was something like an AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA1 Auto Towing company listed. That's NYC for you. Everybody is scrambling to get on top, one way or another.
When I was about to graduate from New York University I went out to the University of Chicago to see about their graduate program. I met with the professor who was to become my main mentor. We were talking and I asked about other professors in the department who might be good to study with as well. She hesitated. Then I asked, "well, who do you speak to?" "That's very New York," she replied.
I didn't think it was at the time. In retrospect, she was right. It was.
Friday, February 19, 2010
Writing and Memory
When I recollect my early writing experiments and what went with them, I realize it was a product of mutually influential creative interactions with people close to me, starting in seventh grade. I've carried what I gained beginning then through my life without thinking about it much. It hit me around 30 years ago when I first started writing as a livelihood.
I never thought my memory was anything unusual. When I started telling my brothers and sister about things which happened when I was two that they didn’t remember, I took some notice. There are things I remember all the time without trying; not all of them great memories either, of course. If there is something I want to call up, I usually start with the objects and the faces of those involved. Once you dig out the object world and the visuals of people, the incidents follow. It’s visual and it’s also aural—the sound of a friend's voice in telephone conversations we had in 1966, for example. I can conjure it up right now. Not that that makes me different. But it is an important part of what makes me a writer.
It relates to music. Musical-memory and writing-memory are related. It has to do with the sound of life, your life.
Like sometimes I’d be talking a mile a minute on the phone about something and I’d stop and ask the other person something and that person would blurt out the answer in a low-high, two toned answer. That, like music, stays in my memory and always will. And when I write I hear my past, like that two-toned phrase, and it's part of what prefigures my excursion into words.
I can remember just about everything outside of the classroom from 7th grade on—activity wise—what movies, what plays, and you name it. That is true of my interactions with all my friends, and every Christmas. I remember and can conjure up in my head every record I ever had and what it sounded like. It’s the visual and aural memories that are especially vivid. I’ll remember distinctly conversations with certain college girlfriends but wont always recall their names straight off, sometimes.
That is not to say I remember everything about everything, just those things that somehow were important experientially in my life. I think it really became more active when I started writing the first novel 15 years ago. I needed to create a fictional world out of pieces of my life and so started conjuring up in contemplation all sorts of pieces of my memory life from which I picked and chose in constructing my scene and plot.
The main house involved in the first novel (Pineapple Still-Life) is a cross between the house I grew up in Pompton Plains until 1956, parts of the Kinnelon house, a few apartments (Boston, Chicago) and very strangely enough (I am not kidding) the house my wife and I live in now that we bought only after I finished the novel and had not seen before in my life!! The main characters in the novel are pieces of people—the two female leads are part my mother, my sister, old girlfriends, my wife, some friends I knew at the time, my cat of childhood, etc. In constructing these situations and people I started really being able to conjure up near totalities and then play with the combinations of them in imagining this world of 1955 Butler and an artist couple who lived there.
So writing is memory transfigured. It also is crafting. The first two chapters for example I rewrote about 10 or 11 times, at least. There is the additive way to go about things and that's one way—you string something together and add on; then of course subtractive, what you end up erasing.
Just a few thoughts. . .
All sort of in the light of Shakespeare:
“Look what is best, that best I wish in thee:
This wish I have; ten times happy me!”
I never thought my memory was anything unusual. When I started telling my brothers and sister about things which happened when I was two that they didn’t remember, I took some notice. There are things I remember all the time without trying; not all of them great memories either, of course. If there is something I want to call up, I usually start with the objects and the faces of those involved. Once you dig out the object world and the visuals of people, the incidents follow. It’s visual and it’s also aural—the sound of a friend's voice in telephone conversations we had in 1966, for example. I can conjure it up right now. Not that that makes me different. But it is an important part of what makes me a writer.
It relates to music. Musical-memory and writing-memory are related. It has to do with the sound of life, your life.
Like sometimes I’d be talking a mile a minute on the phone about something and I’d stop and ask the other person something and that person would blurt out the answer in a low-high, two toned answer. That, like music, stays in my memory and always will. And when I write I hear my past, like that two-toned phrase, and it's part of what prefigures my excursion into words.
I can remember just about everything outside of the classroom from 7th grade on—activity wise—what movies, what plays, and you name it. That is true of my interactions with all my friends, and every Christmas. I remember and can conjure up in my head every record I ever had and what it sounded like. It’s the visual and aural memories that are especially vivid. I’ll remember distinctly conversations with certain college girlfriends but wont always recall their names straight off, sometimes.
That is not to say I remember everything about everything, just those things that somehow were important experientially in my life. I think it really became more active when I started writing the first novel 15 years ago. I needed to create a fictional world out of pieces of my life and so started conjuring up in contemplation all sorts of pieces of my memory life from which I picked and chose in constructing my scene and plot.
The main house involved in the first novel (Pineapple Still-Life) is a cross between the house I grew up in Pompton Plains until 1956, parts of the Kinnelon house, a few apartments (Boston, Chicago) and very strangely enough (I am not kidding) the house my wife and I live in now that we bought only after I finished the novel and had not seen before in my life!! The main characters in the novel are pieces of people—the two female leads are part my mother, my sister, old girlfriends, my wife, some friends I knew at the time, my cat of childhood, etc. In constructing these situations and people I started really being able to conjure up near totalities and then play with the combinations of them in imagining this world of 1955 Butler and an artist couple who lived there.
So writing is memory transfigured. It also is crafting. The first two chapters for example I rewrote about 10 or 11 times, at least. There is the additive way to go about things and that's one way—you string something together and add on; then of course subtractive, what you end up erasing.
Just a few thoughts. . .
All sort of in the light of Shakespeare:
“Look what is best, that best I wish in thee:
This wish I have; ten times happy me!”
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Excerpt from Unpublished, Still-In-Progress Novel "Cows"
Tommy is a bowling ball salesman who's not meeting his sales quotas. It's the late '50s. He's alone in the office one night when he gets a visit from some people out of another book.
The Salesman with A Dream in His. . .
Oh, Tommy's seen some tough days. And he's seen her. And she's just over the horizon, in the same field, walking towards the cows. She's the dream of a bowling ball salesman. And she has a dream, too. Any relation between the dreams? Oh, there's always some relation, one supposes. Futures loom widely, wildly, at any age, if it is springtime. His dreams fix on objects, human objects mostly, in various guises and life situations. One object, really. He thinks of her as "her." Out there with the cows, like when he knew of her.
He's at work again. And he's been going at the job like mad, trying to reach his quota. So far, not so good. Never mind how hard he tries. He's been putting in long hours--mostly pondering, strategizing, practicing different sales pitches. He's worn himself to a frazzle such that he goes limp on the phone when it comes time to produce a coherently persuasive argument for a batch of A. King balls.
What more can be done?
Go get drunk. It's 8:10 and no one is left in the office but me. I 've got my strategy for tomorrow. Humor. It used to work. Why not now? It will.
The front door creaks open. Who's coming in at this hour?
"Doggone it!" Chet Morton exclaims. "No more sleuthing until we eat."
The fat, happy-old boy stands halfway between Frank and Joe Hardy as they walk through the door.
Dark-haired, eighteen-year-old Frank Hardy takes the lead in the purposeful walk through the reception area of A. King Holes.
Meanwhile, his blond-haired younger brother Joe says, "There used to be some reason for our existence. See this place? It's a sign we no longer matter."
He points to the bowling balls and photos of happy families chucking them down alleys.
Chet Morton opens an eye as they move past a rack of balls. Then a few photos. “What are they?” he asks.
“Bowlers,” Joe tells him. “Supposed to be having fun. Makes this company some money.”
"Bowlers!” The plump boy straightens up, looking worried. “Today?”
"Sure,” Joe Hardy goes on teasingly. "If a bowler puts a spell on your cow, she won't give milk. These pictures keep off the curse.”
Nervously Chet looks at the next two photos, and the balls over to the left, and then once all around him.
"Aw, nobody believes in that kind of stuff anymore. This is the twentieth century. Stop kidding me, will you, fellows? This is a novel. All I'm going to do is sleep and eat. Let's not have any mysteries!”
While their friend settles down and closes his eyes once more, Frank and Joe exchange knowing grins. As sons of the internationally famous detective, Fenton Hardy, they have many times been drawn into baffling and dangerous mysteries, where their brilliant sleuthing has earned them fine reputations of their own. Easygoing Chet Morton, the Hardy's best friend, always seems to become involved.
"Hey, who the hell, is there?” calls out Tommy.
“It’s us, the Hardy Boys, and we're working on The Mystery of the Atomic Toilet.”
“Hey!” Chet yells, “I thought we were looking for food.”
"Not in this novel, you're not!" Tommy warns. "Not food, not toilets. I'm about to be shitcanned and there's no space for your adolescent authority fantasies.”
"Uh, OK. I guess we've got the wrong book." Frank says, puzzled. "Comon you guys. We've got a mystery to solve."
They go out the front door.
The Salesman with A Dream in His. . .
Oh, Tommy's seen some tough days. And he's seen her. And she's just over the horizon, in the same field, walking towards the cows. She's the dream of a bowling ball salesman. And she has a dream, too. Any relation between the dreams? Oh, there's always some relation, one supposes. Futures loom widely, wildly, at any age, if it is springtime. His dreams fix on objects, human objects mostly, in various guises and life situations. One object, really. He thinks of her as "her." Out there with the cows, like when he knew of her.
He's at work again. And he's been going at the job like mad, trying to reach his quota. So far, not so good. Never mind how hard he tries. He's been putting in long hours--mostly pondering, strategizing, practicing different sales pitches. He's worn himself to a frazzle such that he goes limp on the phone when it comes time to produce a coherently persuasive argument for a batch of A. King balls.
What more can be done?
Go get drunk. It's 8:10 and no one is left in the office but me. I 've got my strategy for tomorrow. Humor. It used to work. Why not now? It will.
The front door creaks open. Who's coming in at this hour?
"Doggone it!" Chet Morton exclaims. "No more sleuthing until we eat."
The fat, happy-old boy stands halfway between Frank and Joe Hardy as they walk through the door.
Dark-haired, eighteen-year-old Frank Hardy takes the lead in the purposeful walk through the reception area of A. King Holes.
Meanwhile, his blond-haired younger brother Joe says, "There used to be some reason for our existence. See this place? It's a sign we no longer matter."
He points to the bowling balls and photos of happy families chucking them down alleys.
Chet Morton opens an eye as they move past a rack of balls. Then a few photos. “What are they?” he asks.
“Bowlers,” Joe tells him. “Supposed to be having fun. Makes this company some money.”
"Bowlers!” The plump boy straightens up, looking worried. “Today?”
"Sure,” Joe Hardy goes on teasingly. "If a bowler puts a spell on your cow, she won't give milk. These pictures keep off the curse.”
Nervously Chet looks at the next two photos, and the balls over to the left, and then once all around him.
"Aw, nobody believes in that kind of stuff anymore. This is the twentieth century. Stop kidding me, will you, fellows? This is a novel. All I'm going to do is sleep and eat. Let's not have any mysteries!”
While their friend settles down and closes his eyes once more, Frank and Joe exchange knowing grins. As sons of the internationally famous detective, Fenton Hardy, they have many times been drawn into baffling and dangerous mysteries, where their brilliant sleuthing has earned them fine reputations of their own. Easygoing Chet Morton, the Hardy's best friend, always seems to become involved.
"Hey, who the hell, is there?” calls out Tommy.
“It’s us, the Hardy Boys, and we're working on The Mystery of the Atomic Toilet.”
“Hey!” Chet yells, “I thought we were looking for food.”
"Not in this novel, you're not!" Tommy warns. "Not food, not toilets. I'm about to be shitcanned and there's no space for your adolescent authority fantasies.”
"Uh, OK. I guess we've got the wrong book." Frank says, puzzled. "Comon you guys. We've got a mystery to solve."
They go out the front door.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Another Referential Misfire: On Vishvington
As in the last posting, I would like to recount an example of a language flub that I experienced not so long ago.
Like I wrote last time, we pride ourselves as superior to the apes for our use of language, among other things. And we are so accustomed to assuming we understand each other that when we do not, it throws us well off our pace. At least that happens to me sometimes.
Ten years ago, around 2000, I was in the thick of another publishing project that to me was very illuminating but onerous in its workload and responsibility. So there were times when I felt an exhaustion that had some effect on my reception of certain communications.
It was sometime in January-February of that millennial year. My ‘86 Nissan pickup was parked in the front lot of the building where I worked, in a section of New Jersey not far from Manhattan. It had begun snowing and sleeting rather heavily about 5:30 PM that night. By 6:30 I thought it was time to get back home before the roads got worse. So I jumped in the truck, started it, put it in reverse and let the clutch go. Nothing happened. I increased the gas to the engine. The truck barely moved. Uh-oh. Well I belonged to an auto club that was supposed to cover me in these situations. So I went back inside and called them to have them tow my truck to the auto repair placed I used, about ten miles from where I was.
“Is your truck parked and out of the way of traffic?” the lady on the other end of the phone asked. “Because we are keeping our trucks off the streets as much as we can in this weather tonight.” Great! When I need them, they don’t want to go out because it’s snowing. Well, the hell with them, I thought. I’m going to get this truck to the repair place if it kills me.
So I went back to my truck, got in, put it in reverse, floored it and let the clutch out. The truck began moving backwards very slowly. I finally got it into position to go forward, and it did . . . barely. By flooring it I managed to get going about two miles an hour. I barely made it up the slight incline to a stop light at the corner of the street whose name I forgot, but the light was red and I had to stop. By the time it turned green, the incline made it impossible to turn left like I needed to. I had to turn right, where the incline tilted downwards. So I did. It was a two-lane highway and cars were speeding past me in the fast lane, honking their horns while I plodded along at two miles an hour, the engine straining at full throttle, smoke beginning to come out of the hood. The sleet and snow had begun coming down even harder and visibility was bad. The road was very slippery. I was going the opposite direction from where I wanted to be. It was bad. I swore to myself.
Finally after an agonizing amount of time I managed to cover a half mile. There was a gas station on the right! It was a concrete island with two pumps and a little shack-like building where the cash register was. That was it. As I slowly pulled into the area to the side of the pumps, engine straining to the max, smoke coming out of the hood in billows, crawling along at a snail’s pace, the gas station attendant, a fellow in a turban and a longish gray beard, looked at me with some kind of perplexity and hostility combined.
I stopped the truck and got out.
He motioned to the truck,
“No service!
Gas only!
No parking!”
I tried to explain to him that my truck was in trouble and I needed to at least use the phone.
“No phone!” he shot back at me.
Then he motioned to a phone booth about 100 yards away, at the corner of the wide empty paved expanse.
“Pay phone!” he shouted, a kind of crazy look in his eyes.
I wasn’t going to argue. The sleet was falling in buckets. Luckily I had a lot of quarters in my truck’s ash tray. I got them and schlepped over to the booth, called the automobile club again and explained to them that I had tried to get the truck to the repair place but that it was disabled now in a spot where I was not permitted to remain.
“Where are you located?” asked the lady.
I named the town, and then realized I had never really memorized the name of the road I was on, even though I travelled down it every weekday. I told her to hold on, and walked the hundred yards back to the pumps, where the guy in the turban eyed me suspiciously.
“What’s the name of this road?” I asked.
“Vishvington!” he shot back loudly and angrily.
I plodded back to the booth, explained to the lady on the phone “I’m on Vishvington.”
“How do you spell that?” she asked.
“I’m not sure. Hold on again,” I answered and walked back the 100 yards to the guy. He was looking increasingly infuriated with me and I wasn’t sure why.
"How do you spell 'Vishvington?'” I asked.
That was the last straw. He flipped his veritable lid and screamed “VISHVINGTON!!! VISHVINGTON!!! DEEE PRESIDENT!!!!!”
Oh, shit. I was on Washington Avenue! I went back to the phone booth and told the lady. And you know what? We both started laughing uproariously. It was funny!! I had sooo misunderstood the guy. And it all just seemed so ridiculous, in the middle of this God-forsaken blizzard.
So I waited an hour over to the side in my truck and the tow truck finally came. It turned out the driver still wasn’t allowed to take me the ten miles to the repair place. So he ended up towing me back the ½ mile to my original spot, in the parking lot where I worked!!! After all that.
I had to call a cab and the next day the tow truck came back after work and took me to the repair service place. Turns out the clutch had failed all at once. That was what was wrong. They fixed it in a few days and I was back in action.
But to this day I still laugh when I think of that guy and the look on his face when he screamed at me “VISHVINGTON!! VISHVINGTON!!! DEE PRESIDENT!!!”
Like I wrote last time, we pride ourselves as superior to the apes for our use of language, among other things. And we are so accustomed to assuming we understand each other that when we do not, it throws us well off our pace. At least that happens to me sometimes.
Ten years ago, around 2000, I was in the thick of another publishing project that to me was very illuminating but onerous in its workload and responsibility. So there were times when I felt an exhaustion that had some effect on my reception of certain communications.
It was sometime in January-February of that millennial year. My ‘86 Nissan pickup was parked in the front lot of the building where I worked, in a section of New Jersey not far from Manhattan. It had begun snowing and sleeting rather heavily about 5:30 PM that night. By 6:30 I thought it was time to get back home before the roads got worse. So I jumped in the truck, started it, put it in reverse and let the clutch go. Nothing happened. I increased the gas to the engine. The truck barely moved. Uh-oh. Well I belonged to an auto club that was supposed to cover me in these situations. So I went back inside and called them to have them tow my truck to the auto repair placed I used, about ten miles from where I was.
“Is your truck parked and out of the way of traffic?” the lady on the other end of the phone asked. “Because we are keeping our trucks off the streets as much as we can in this weather tonight.” Great! When I need them, they don’t want to go out because it’s snowing. Well, the hell with them, I thought. I’m going to get this truck to the repair place if it kills me.
So I went back to my truck, got in, put it in reverse, floored it and let the clutch out. The truck began moving backwards very slowly. I finally got it into position to go forward, and it did . . . barely. By flooring it I managed to get going about two miles an hour. I barely made it up the slight incline to a stop light at the corner of the street whose name I forgot, but the light was red and I had to stop. By the time it turned green, the incline made it impossible to turn left like I needed to. I had to turn right, where the incline tilted downwards. So I did. It was a two-lane highway and cars were speeding past me in the fast lane, honking their horns while I plodded along at two miles an hour, the engine straining at full throttle, smoke beginning to come out of the hood. The sleet and snow had begun coming down even harder and visibility was bad. The road was very slippery. I was going the opposite direction from where I wanted to be. It was bad. I swore to myself.
Finally after an agonizing amount of time I managed to cover a half mile. There was a gas station on the right! It was a concrete island with two pumps and a little shack-like building where the cash register was. That was it. As I slowly pulled into the area to the side of the pumps, engine straining to the max, smoke coming out of the hood in billows, crawling along at a snail’s pace, the gas station attendant, a fellow in a turban and a longish gray beard, looked at me with some kind of perplexity and hostility combined.
I stopped the truck and got out.
He motioned to the truck,
“No service!
Gas only!
No parking!”
I tried to explain to him that my truck was in trouble and I needed to at least use the phone.
“No phone!” he shot back at me.
Then he motioned to a phone booth about 100 yards away, at the corner of the wide empty paved expanse.
“Pay phone!” he shouted, a kind of crazy look in his eyes.
I wasn’t going to argue. The sleet was falling in buckets. Luckily I had a lot of quarters in my truck’s ash tray. I got them and schlepped over to the booth, called the automobile club again and explained to them that I had tried to get the truck to the repair place but that it was disabled now in a spot where I was not permitted to remain.
“Where are you located?” asked the lady.
I named the town, and then realized I had never really memorized the name of the road I was on, even though I travelled down it every weekday. I told her to hold on, and walked the hundred yards back to the pumps, where the guy in the turban eyed me suspiciously.
“What’s the name of this road?” I asked.
“Vishvington!” he shot back loudly and angrily.
I plodded back to the booth, explained to the lady on the phone “I’m on Vishvington.”
“How do you spell that?” she asked.
“I’m not sure. Hold on again,” I answered and walked back the 100 yards to the guy. He was looking increasingly infuriated with me and I wasn’t sure why.
"How do you spell 'Vishvington?'” I asked.
That was the last straw. He flipped his veritable lid and screamed “VISHVINGTON!!! VISHVINGTON!!! DEEE PRESIDENT!!!!!”
Oh, shit. I was on Washington Avenue! I went back to the phone booth and told the lady. And you know what? We both started laughing uproariously. It was funny!! I had sooo misunderstood the guy. And it all just seemed so ridiculous, in the middle of this God-forsaken blizzard.
So I waited an hour over to the side in my truck and the tow truck finally came. It turned out the driver still wasn’t allowed to take me the ten miles to the repair place. So he ended up towing me back the ½ mile to my original spot, in the parking lot where I worked!!! After all that.
I had to call a cab and the next day the tow truck came back after work and took me to the repair service place. Turns out the clutch had failed all at once. That was what was wrong. They fixed it in a few days and I was back in action.
But to this day I still laugh when I think of that guy and the look on his face when he screamed at me “VISHVINGTON!! VISHVINGTON!!! DEE PRESIDENT!!!”
Monday, January 11, 2010
A Referential Misfire
Language is what makes us better than apes. One of the things, anyway. And when language goes wrong, when we say the wrong thing or we mishear what is said, it can teach us something about who we are. And it can make us laugh. I have two referential misfires that occurred in my recent past that can still get me chuckling to myself. Here is one of them. The other next time.
It was a Monday morning in February, I believe. The year was 1991, I think. I was working for the book publishing division of a prominent science publishing company. They were located on Madison Avenue in New York and at the time I was living at a suburban apartment complex in New Jersey. I had been working for this company for around two years and the commute was a killer. If I drove to and from the Park and Ride lot in North Bergen during regular rush hours, my combined trip lasted as much as three to five hours, a huge chunk of daily life. I had recently been promoted and needed to put in long hours to keep things hopping.
I decided that, in order to beat traffic and to give myself the office time I really needed to get everything in order, I would arrive at the Park and Ride depot for the first bus into the city, which was 6:00 AM. Then I’d leave the office around 8:00 PM and catch the 8:30 bus back to North Bergen.
So it was a Monday morning in the middle of winter. I got up around 4:30, shaved and showered in a foul mood and left the apartment building on my way to my truck, which was parked in the lot outside. It turned out it had been sleeting all night and there were huge patches of black ice lurking on all the paved surfaces. The building superintendent was still sleeping and had not put down any sand or salt. The moment I left the sidewalk and stepped into the lot, I slipped and bashed my left knee painfully onto the asphalt. Man, it hurt! I was seeing stars! Nothing seemed seriously amiss, except for the throbbing pain, so I got into my truck and hot-foot-it down Route 23 and eventually to North Bergen.
I had worked in the city in 1975-76, then went to New York University, and now had made the commute for several years to Madison Avenue. I had used the Park and Ride lot off and on during all these times. At the entrance to the lot was a booth where you paid your $6 and received the round-trip bus ticket from the guy that was manning the post. Now over the years there was a fellow who had worked there since ancient times and I had gotten on a familiar basis with him.
Because I always tried to be creative in my life, and thought spontaneity was a good thing, I made a point of trying never to say the same thing to the ticket booth guy when we met every day. Because of the icy conditions that morning I arrived right at 6:00. I wanted to explain to him what had happened to me that morning, but I guess I was tired and it came out all wrong.
I greeted him with:
“Hey, I just took a dump in the parking lot!”
Of course, it should have been:
“Hey, I just took a spill in the parking lot back home. I hurt my knee!”
Anyway, the bus was there and was just about to leave. He gave me my ticket and gave me a look that said:
“Well, don’t expect me to clean it up!”
There was no time to explain. I took the ticket in silence, raced the truck to a parking slot and got on the bus just in time. After that, he always looked at me like I was nuts, and I limited my greetings to “good morning,” robotically, predictably and safely.
I got into Manhattan about 6:10. Walking the empty streets to 27th and Madison, the steam emitting from the Con Edison conduits, the pavements shiny with wet and ice and multi-yellow with the reflection of streetlights, it occurred to me in a kind of revelation just how much I hated my life. All my life’s energy was being sapped by the commute, the daily grind. There was nothing left. I didn’t have a life at all. And my spontaneity with the poor guy at the booth was about the only thing creative I had left in me.
At the same time my referential misfire was funny as hell to me and so at the same time I laughed uproariously while walking down Madison Avenue around 6:30 that morning, the madman of Manhattan!
That morning and in days following, I resolved to do something about the life I was living.
It took many years to get back to where I should have been in 1991. And I still remember that morning when I have doubts of what I’ve made for myself since then. I compare now with that “dump” and feel much better. The pain in my knee comes back to me every so often. I can’t play softball anymore. But I have my life back.
It was a Monday morning in February, I believe. The year was 1991, I think. I was working for the book publishing division of a prominent science publishing company. They were located on Madison Avenue in New York and at the time I was living at a suburban apartment complex in New Jersey. I had been working for this company for around two years and the commute was a killer. If I drove to and from the Park and Ride lot in North Bergen during regular rush hours, my combined trip lasted as much as three to five hours, a huge chunk of daily life. I had recently been promoted and needed to put in long hours to keep things hopping.
I decided that, in order to beat traffic and to give myself the office time I really needed to get everything in order, I would arrive at the Park and Ride depot for the first bus into the city, which was 6:00 AM. Then I’d leave the office around 8:00 PM and catch the 8:30 bus back to North Bergen.
So it was a Monday morning in the middle of winter. I got up around 4:30, shaved and showered in a foul mood and left the apartment building on my way to my truck, which was parked in the lot outside. It turned out it had been sleeting all night and there were huge patches of black ice lurking on all the paved surfaces. The building superintendent was still sleeping and had not put down any sand or salt. The moment I left the sidewalk and stepped into the lot, I slipped and bashed my left knee painfully onto the asphalt. Man, it hurt! I was seeing stars! Nothing seemed seriously amiss, except for the throbbing pain, so I got into my truck and hot-foot-it down Route 23 and eventually to North Bergen.
I had worked in the city in 1975-76, then went to New York University, and now had made the commute for several years to Madison Avenue. I had used the Park and Ride lot off and on during all these times. At the entrance to the lot was a booth where you paid your $6 and received the round-trip bus ticket from the guy that was manning the post. Now over the years there was a fellow who had worked there since ancient times and I had gotten on a familiar basis with him.
Because I always tried to be creative in my life, and thought spontaneity was a good thing, I made a point of trying never to say the same thing to the ticket booth guy when we met every day. Because of the icy conditions that morning I arrived right at 6:00. I wanted to explain to him what had happened to me that morning, but I guess I was tired and it came out all wrong.
I greeted him with:
“Hey, I just took a dump in the parking lot!”
Of course, it should have been:
“Hey, I just took a spill in the parking lot back home. I hurt my knee!”
Anyway, the bus was there and was just about to leave. He gave me my ticket and gave me a look that said:
“Well, don’t expect me to clean it up!”
There was no time to explain. I took the ticket in silence, raced the truck to a parking slot and got on the bus just in time. After that, he always looked at me like I was nuts, and I limited my greetings to “good morning,” robotically, predictably and safely.
I got into Manhattan about 6:10. Walking the empty streets to 27th and Madison, the steam emitting from the Con Edison conduits, the pavements shiny with wet and ice and multi-yellow with the reflection of streetlights, it occurred to me in a kind of revelation just how much I hated my life. All my life’s energy was being sapped by the commute, the daily grind. There was nothing left. I didn’t have a life at all. And my spontaneity with the poor guy at the booth was about the only thing creative I had left in me.
At the same time my referential misfire was funny as hell to me and so at the same time I laughed uproariously while walking down Madison Avenue around 6:30 that morning, the madman of Manhattan!
That morning and in days following, I resolved to do something about the life I was living.
It took many years to get back to where I should have been in 1991. And I still remember that morning when I have doubts of what I’ve made for myself since then. I compare now with that “dump” and feel much better. The pain in my knee comes back to me every so often. I can’t play softball anymore. But I have my life back.
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