Matty, Keith and I were sitting in the lobby bar of the Hilton Hotel across the street from the Austin Convention Center. It was late afternoon, a heavy and persistent rain was keeping the crowds indoors, and so the joint was jam-packed. The din was familiar to anyone who had ever attended an international trade show or convention: the mouth music of a thousand people on the make. Someone was supposed to be waiting tables, but the process had broken down, so I elbowed my way to the bar to get the three of us something to drink. There were two bartenders there flailing away -- a tall unsmiling guy in black jeans and a black shirt who moved like a stoned zombie and a petite blonde who couldn't get the touch screen ordering system to work properly. She kept talking to it but it didn't do any good. It was out of order. A large pale female in her early thirties sidled up next to me. "I've come to sell my screenplay," she said in a posh English accent. "I'm supposed to meet someone at four but I don't know how I'll find him in this crowd." It was near four thirty. I congratulated her on having made it as far as she had. She tried to say something in return but it was too loud in there to make out actual words or phrases so we just nodded and grinned at each other like a pair of effin primates. It was something of a relief not to have to attempt a real conversation. Besides, we were getting to used to sussing out people's motives by studying their facial expressions. The zombie finally took my order. When he brought the drinks -- two red wines for Matty and me, a gin and tonic for Keith -- I bid adieu to the British screenwriter and squeezed through the throng back to our corner table. We were near an electrical outlet: a prized location at a conference during which everyone needed to regularly recharge their batteries. We toasted our good fortune and drank. Matty said, "Remember when we were just starting in publishing?" That was along time ago, when Waldenbooks and B. Dalton were the retailers to be reckoned with. He jerked his head in the direction of the bar. "This reminds me of BEA back then. The buzz. The feeling that anything is possible. When we were young just like these guys." Matty's a geezer like me. I thought to myself, you're not far off the mark, cuz, even if Book Expo was called the ABA Convention back then, and there were a helluva lot fewer women and virtually no foreigners attending. I remember standing around with a bunch of stiff males in navy blazers who liked closing a sale a lot more than they liked literature. For misfits like Matty and me, corporate publishing was a great gig until the gambling got out of hand and the vigorish ran out. Sure, a few of us had survived with our scalps intact but by now the industry was teetering and BEA had become a mere shadow play, run by puppets too tired to go out on the road, parked in New York's Javits Center, a cavernous hall filled with daft nostalgia and moldy dreams, surely not a place to hoist a platform for the future.
The rain had set a lot of people's teeth on edge. At least we were getting dry. Keith was the young turk among the three of us, still raising hell on the West Coast, unafraid to shout down panelists when they said something stupid, and unapologetic over his love for printed books. He also had the rental car. He downed his G & T in a couple of swigs and stood up. "Listen, guys, I gotta go out to the airport to pick up Clay. I'll catch you later." Matty and I gave him the high sign. Then we sat back and surveyed the room, letting an enervated exhaustion overtake us between sips of wine, the kind that grips relatives-by-marriage at a family pig-roast. It had been a good long marriage, the one between us and the book industry. We got up in the morning and went to work, came home at night and read. We made a living, first in retail bookselling then in publishing. The work supported families, homes, cars, vacations, and a certain status at neighborhood gatherings -- just intellectual enough so we could hold our own with the lawyers and rabbis, just commercial enough so we could talk trash with the accountants and agents. And now here we were, in the maelstrom of South By Southwest, looking for some affirming sign that we hadn't wasted our time all those years. An image of a decrepit Ponce de Leon hacking his way through a teeming swamp in search of the magic fountain popped into my head. It was obvious there were riches here -- not the technology, although the technology was damned impressive, especially for old-timers like Matty and me who had grown up with rotary phones. No, it was these people that were the true treasure -- these bright young people, filled with boundless energy and grand ideas, ready to take on Big Government, Big Business, and a host of other Big Bad Gatekeepers in their quest for a redefinition of The Good Life. And because we hadn't yet given up that search ourselves, the two of us, grizzled vets of the book biz wars, could sit in that bar, authentically happy to be there, and maintain our middle-aged dignity. We had more to learn than to teach but we knew it and it didn't bother us.
The Pinot Noir that the zombie had poured was thin and sour but we polished it off anyway as waves of conversation rippled across the room. A serious young woman sat down and started talking about her job at AT&T in Dallas, and how much easier it was to travel from Dallas than from San Antonio where the company had been headquartered, while two sloppy guys vied over the outlet, each plugging in for ten minutes of recharging time. One of them almost handed Matty's iPhone off to a stranger. "Sorry, man, made a mistake. Didn't mean to." It was about time to go meet up with a group of friends at The Cedar Door and who knew where else beyond that. Fish tacos and Shiner Bock. I thought to myself, they're not the only things New York can't satisfy my craving for. Matty and I collected our gear and started walking toward 2nd Street. We knew we were gonna get wet but we didn't mind. In fact, sometimes it still felt good getting wet.
Sunday, March 18, 2012
Monday, March 12, 2012
Every memory leaves me with regret
There are six kids at the corner table talking about sex, four guys and two girls. "Stop means no." "Yeah, but no means yes." The Tedeschi Trucks Band comes on the air, that effin slide. "I don't care about hurt feelings, I just want to do my own thing." It's hard to tell whether they're doing anything other than talking. The pale girl with baby fat and chipped purple nails starts to giggle. It's after two o'clock but this is breakfast for them, bloody marys and mimosas, voluptuaries at the temple of technology. The sun has finally been coaxed out of its gray cocoon and the South Congress parade gets going in earnest. Animate flowers sashay by in their custom-made boots and antique dresses. Lanky and dreamy. You feel a bit of a buzz at the tip of your cock and wonder how in hell you're ever gonna process this shite. There's only one answer: write it down and put it on display. You gave up your right to privacy when you came down here.
An ice-cream truck stops on the corner. Dino leans out and says, "Getcha novelties here." This may be a full-time gig for sour-pants but you wouldn't trust Dino with your cats. He charges whatever he wants to depending on how short his customers' skirts are. He used to be a real ladies' man, but now he looks like he'll never get it up again: poor panther's got white whiskers. When the girls brandish their tattoos, all he can do is squirt them some extra fudge and shave a buck off the price of a sundae.
M. leans over and asks, "How many worlds can you inhabit at the same time?" You think to yourself, what a dopey question. The answer may be finite, but it's incomprehensibly large. Who's counting? Stephen Wolfram, for one. Reluctantly you give assent to his central thought: computation accounts for everything but only humans can provide a motive for doing the math.
With the sun comes optimism, the feeling that everything can be remade and made right this time. The metaphor of America as a melting pot seems to hold water here -- despite its size, one can discern individual humans in the crowd, each eager face belonging to its rightful owner. They know which anthill they've come from and they're not going back. Riding the escalator down to the ground level yesterday, you were overwhelmed by the prodigious amount of sexual energy on display -- the kind that frightens Republicans. Selfish memes are sexy carriers.
Now suppose these kids are smart and know a helluva lot more than you did when you were hiking around upstate in a fugual imitation of Leatherman. Suppose they know their brands, their Frito-Lay and their Chevrolet, are corpses. Suppose they don't mind being marketed to because pitches run off their backs like water off a duck's ass. Now suppose you've got to sell them on your version of culture. Don't bullshit. Tell the truth. Act your age. Maybe you're not finished yet.
An ice-cream truck stops on the corner. Dino leans out and says, "Getcha novelties here." This may be a full-time gig for sour-pants but you wouldn't trust Dino with your cats. He charges whatever he wants to depending on how short his customers' skirts are. He used to be a real ladies' man, but now he looks like he'll never get it up again: poor panther's got white whiskers. When the girls brandish their tattoos, all he can do is squirt them some extra fudge and shave a buck off the price of a sundae.
M. leans over and asks, "How many worlds can you inhabit at the same time?" You think to yourself, what a dopey question. The answer may be finite, but it's incomprehensibly large. Who's counting? Stephen Wolfram, for one. Reluctantly you give assent to his central thought: computation accounts for everything but only humans can provide a motive for doing the math.
With the sun comes optimism, the feeling that everything can be remade and made right this time. The metaphor of America as a melting pot seems to hold water here -- despite its size, one can discern individual humans in the crowd, each eager face belonging to its rightful owner. They know which anthill they've come from and they're not going back. Riding the escalator down to the ground level yesterday, you were overwhelmed by the prodigious amount of sexual energy on display -- the kind that frightens Republicans. Selfish memes are sexy carriers.
Now suppose these kids are smart and know a helluva lot more than you did when you were hiking around upstate in a fugual imitation of Leatherman. Suppose they know their brands, their Frito-Lay and their Chevrolet, are corpses. Suppose they don't mind being marketed to because pitches run off their backs like water off a duck's ass. Now suppose you've got to sell them on your version of culture. Don't bullshit. Tell the truth. Act your age. Maybe you're not finished yet.
Friday, March 9, 2012
Let it rain
It's always later than you think it is, clouds tumbling down the mountains like unruly children, while across the valley someone sings a Hank Williams tune, something in a minor key, maybe "Alone & Forsaken," and the old and infirm keep watch and wait for a good death, if they can find one among the tangled second-growth woods and rushing streams on the floodplain. Oh children so full of promise, look away, for this world's beauty can only be glimpsed in those strange scalded moments when you find yourself weeping for no reason. You don't want to turn into stone like your elders.
It's always later than you think it is, so loudly clap your hands and watch the grackles explode upward out of their eve's necklace toward the stars. What dreams, what nightmares, they carry away with them. Run shouting toward the river and see the mallards fly off, skimming the surface of the water with their clattering wings. They're making you a promise. "Listen, we will always be here." Then they disappear under a bridge.
Stop and dip your open hands in the cold dark current. The river whispers through your fingers, "I will be your constant friend even though I'm running away from you." You can make a prayer if you want to, but water will remain a mystery, like your own blood. Prayers won't illuminate anything at this stage of the game.
Look at your image in the water and marvel at the way your body has changed. That pale face, those beat-up hands, that flabby gut, those chickenshit legs. Think of all the beings you have been. Damn. And now here you are, in a damp motel room listening to the plumbing in the walls and the slamming of car doors out in the parking lot. You hear someone light a cigarette in the stairwell and start talking on the phone. Everyone here is younger than you but it doesn't matter, darlin, no one is keeping score. They're waiting till the storms pass so they can get back out on the street and hike downtown. They going to remake the world of which they're made.
Hell, you came here under your own volition, wanting to tap into the hipster's highball energy, older but not necessarily wiser, still scratching to get under the surface of things, still picking at your scabs, despite the fact you've never been alone and forsaken. Your friends have made sure of that even as they made a life for themselves. It was you who sought solitude, you and a few kindred souls who made no distinction between the high and the low, between this world and the world to come. You have no clear notion of whose love sustains you. This is Austin but it could be anywhere.
It's late. Under a leaden sky the traffic crawls down Congress. You look around but there's no other way to go for now.
It's always later than you think it is, so loudly clap your hands and watch the grackles explode upward out of their eve's necklace toward the stars. What dreams, what nightmares, they carry away with them. Run shouting toward the river and see the mallards fly off, skimming the surface of the water with their clattering wings. They're making you a promise. "Listen, we will always be here." Then they disappear under a bridge.
Stop and dip your open hands in the cold dark current. The river whispers through your fingers, "I will be your constant friend even though I'm running away from you." You can make a prayer if you want to, but water will remain a mystery, like your own blood. Prayers won't illuminate anything at this stage of the game.
Look at your image in the water and marvel at the way your body has changed. That pale face, those beat-up hands, that flabby gut, those chickenshit legs. Think of all the beings you have been. Damn. And now here you are, in a damp motel room listening to the plumbing in the walls and the slamming of car doors out in the parking lot. You hear someone light a cigarette in the stairwell and start talking on the phone. Everyone here is younger than you but it doesn't matter, darlin, no one is keeping score. They're waiting till the storms pass so they can get back out on the street and hike downtown. They going to remake the world of which they're made.
Hell, you came here under your own volition, wanting to tap into the hipster's highball energy, older but not necessarily wiser, still scratching to get under the surface of things, still picking at your scabs, despite the fact you've never been alone and forsaken. Your friends have made sure of that even as they made a life for themselves. It was you who sought solitude, you and a few kindred souls who made no distinction between the high and the low, between this world and the world to come. You have no clear notion of whose love sustains you. This is Austin but it could be anywhere.
It's late. Under a leaden sky the traffic crawls down Congress. You look around but there's no other way to go for now.
Thursday, March 8, 2012
Arrivals and departures
I'm writing this in an airplane, flying from Newark to San Antonio. Effin air travel. It has taken less than a hundred years for the romance of flying to have devolved into a tedious means of getting from point A to point B. Like all human strivings, dreamed of for eons, flying provided a fit subject for inspired art and powerful myths. Angels and demons, Icarus and Pegasus, flying carpets and wingéd chariots. What child didn't want to soar? I grew up near Roosevelt Field and heard early on the story of Lucky Lindbergh, sat in the cockpit of a WWII fighter, and was allowed to handle the controls of a Piper Cub bouncing over the green Poconos. I doted on Jules Verne.
Well, we reached our goal: people, unlike pigs, really can fly. Human ingenuity and skill built this plane. It is a technological marvel that my parents, let alone the generations before them, could not envision, no matter how hard they might've tried. And yet how boring it is, and how great an affront to the senses. The very experience -- once dreamt of as exhilarating -- is anti-sensual: confined in a cramped, airless, and colorless metal tube, severed from the world of sensation, I type on a laptop keyboard as though I were at a workstation back in the office.
The fact that there are no distractions may be the only good thing about hurtling through Earth's atmosphere in enforced isolation on a 737. One can read or write uninterrupted, a godsend for a publisher inhabiting a noisy world. I wonder how many submissions have been read and judged in the sky? And how many manuscripts have been edited up here? Probably not enough, judging from the scheise passed off as books these days.
Yes, the goal of human flight has been reached and become a commonplace reality. Boredom has set in. It happens all the time. Worshipfulness becomes dogma, poetry becomes prose, songs become jingles, and a more perfect union is seen as a flawed social contract. The shining city on the hill has slid down an eroded slope into the valley of gloom. Who cares? We dreaming humans put it behind us, girded with biological optimism, and strive for something bigger and better, even if we can't precisely articulate it. Immortality? An end to suffering? Universal health care? Space colonies? More toys?
But I don't want to write about flying, or recycled dreams, or remote-controlled drones delivering killing payloads in a shadowy war against the Other, whoever the Other might be at any given moment. Wake up, mirror. Take a good look at the ass peering into your silvered glass.
Instead, I want to write about my fears. Whenever I hear bad news it reminds me of my mortality. A friend dies. A car crashes. Somebody's kid OD's. A marriage ends in violence. Someone gets a cancer diagnosis. Another one contracts a debilitating disease that too often signals the descent toward oblivion. I can feel it like a lead weight: that's where I'm headed -- oblivion. Inconceivable nothingness. My heart palpitates and my armpits drip. My face gets flushed and my scalp itches. I don't have time to think before I start praying, even though it's been a long time since I'd thought there was a god worth addressing. Not now, Lord, not me. It's pure reflex, up here at 34,000 feet.
Even if the landing gear on this plane doesn't open properly, I have to believe it will coast gently to earth and land safely on the runway of my dreams. Once we have touched down, the spirits of my ancestors will rise as one from the flat airfields of Europe and appear as banks of clouds portending clear skies and an early spring. The diabetics and the demented, the jaundiced and the martyrs, the ones who died in infancy and the elders who withered on the vine, those I knew and the multitudes I never even heard of -- I will call upon them to rise inside me. For they flow in my blood, whatever they believed, whatever lives they led. They will see that I am here, flying away from the past, flying toward the future. The bloody boring godless future.
Quist hated flying. He thought it broke a Promethean taboo. "Once men start fighting gravity, they're bound to lose their sense of being earthlings. Then who knows what kind of foolishness they'll get themselves into. Funny how something that was meant to bring people together has allowed them to live far apart." I hardly listened to him -- he was of an earlier generation that didn't have an easy relationship to technology. For him, airplanes meant war and crashes and noise. You could practically see the runways at Idlewild from his front stoop. Almost all the people who mattered to him lived nearby. But as I've gotten older, I find myself coming around to his point of view. There's not much up here for me, sitting on a plane, high above the plains, flying through the present. Not much at all.
Well, we reached our goal: people, unlike pigs, really can fly. Human ingenuity and skill built this plane. It is a technological marvel that my parents, let alone the generations before them, could not envision, no matter how hard they might've tried. And yet how boring it is, and how great an affront to the senses. The very experience -- once dreamt of as exhilarating -- is anti-sensual: confined in a cramped, airless, and colorless metal tube, severed from the world of sensation, I type on a laptop keyboard as though I were at a workstation back in the office.
The fact that there are no distractions may be the only good thing about hurtling through Earth's atmosphere in enforced isolation on a 737. One can read or write uninterrupted, a godsend for a publisher inhabiting a noisy world. I wonder how many submissions have been read and judged in the sky? And how many manuscripts have been edited up here? Probably not enough, judging from the scheise passed off as books these days.
Yes, the goal of human flight has been reached and become a commonplace reality. Boredom has set in. It happens all the time. Worshipfulness becomes dogma, poetry becomes prose, songs become jingles, and a more perfect union is seen as a flawed social contract. The shining city on the hill has slid down an eroded slope into the valley of gloom. Who cares? We dreaming humans put it behind us, girded with biological optimism, and strive for something bigger and better, even if we can't precisely articulate it. Immortality? An end to suffering? Universal health care? Space colonies? More toys?
But I don't want to write about flying, or recycled dreams, or remote-controlled drones delivering killing payloads in a shadowy war against the Other, whoever the Other might be at any given moment. Wake up, mirror. Take a good look at the ass peering into your silvered glass.
Instead, I want to write about my fears. Whenever I hear bad news it reminds me of my mortality. A friend dies. A car crashes. Somebody's kid OD's. A marriage ends in violence. Someone gets a cancer diagnosis. Another one contracts a debilitating disease that too often signals the descent toward oblivion. I can feel it like a lead weight: that's where I'm headed -- oblivion. Inconceivable nothingness. My heart palpitates and my armpits drip. My face gets flushed and my scalp itches. I don't have time to think before I start praying, even though it's been a long time since I'd thought there was a god worth addressing. Not now, Lord, not me. It's pure reflex, up here at 34,000 feet.
Even if the landing gear on this plane doesn't open properly, I have to believe it will coast gently to earth and land safely on the runway of my dreams. Once we have touched down, the spirits of my ancestors will rise as one from the flat airfields of Europe and appear as banks of clouds portending clear skies and an early spring. The diabetics and the demented, the jaundiced and the martyrs, the ones who died in infancy and the elders who withered on the vine, those I knew and the multitudes I never even heard of -- I will call upon them to rise inside me. For they flow in my blood, whatever they believed, whatever lives they led. They will see that I am here, flying away from the past, flying toward the future. The bloody boring godless future.
Quist hated flying. He thought it broke a Promethean taboo. "Once men start fighting gravity, they're bound to lose their sense of being earthlings. Then who knows what kind of foolishness they'll get themselves into. Funny how something that was meant to bring people together has allowed them to live far apart." I hardly listened to him -- he was of an earlier generation that didn't have an easy relationship to technology. For him, airplanes meant war and crashes and noise. You could practically see the runways at Idlewild from his front stoop. Almost all the people who mattered to him lived nearby. But as I've gotten older, I find myself coming around to his point of view. There's not much up here for me, sitting on a plane, high above the plains, flying through the present. Not much at all.
Sunday, February 26, 2012
An American tune
America you bitch you nurtured us and then you turned on us. In our naiveté, we took you in at face value, all of your primal beauty, all of your social promise. When you coddled us, you cooed and whispered in our ears that we could be anyone we wanted to be. You told us that every door would open if we pushed hard enough. You heartbreaker. You were just giving us the business. We pushed and pushed. Look where we are.
Stupid kids. We marveled at your topography, your every kind of landscape, your seasons and weather, your mineral wealth and seemingly endless elbow room. We believed the songs we sung about you were true. Even more we marveled at your people, their foundational documents of genius and cogent body of laws, their jazz and their open hands, their optimism and energy and willingness to reform their institutions without violence. We were proud to join them as your citizens. We were proud to be your children.
When we were born the free world loved you. You were helping it rebuild after the world war just like you helped our parents buy their houses. You built schools and highways. You had no problem underwriting the future because the present was yours. You convinced us that communism was evil and doomed but you didn't tell us anything worthwhile about capitalism other than to promise us that it was the best of all possible worlds. You loved us tender but you were really giving us the business.
Luck was blessedness. Wealth was the product of work. Progress was inevitable. And it was all tied up with the perfectibility of the soul. You liar. You knew that the scars of your civil war hadn't healed in a hundred years. You knew that race and religion and ethnic background were going to determine who we would turn out to be. You bitch, pretending to give us all your love equally.
Even so, you were everything to us, but you couldn't leave well enough alone -- you had to go back to war. It wasn't enough to shoot for the moon. You had to incinerate Vietnamese. You enlisted our blood but you never explained why it needed to be shed half a world away. And when we asked you, you turned on us, with your dogs and high-pressure hoses, with your bullets and tear gas. You unpredictable bitch. You tantalized us. You let us play with your toys and pretend to be adults, then when we finally reached adulthood, you gave us more toys and encouraged us to stay children.
And now you expect us to figure out how your wondrous story of tolerance and liberty turned into a turgid theology-soaked soap opera? What the hell were we supposed to glean from those fairytales you told us when you tucked us into our suburban beds? Those fables about the ghost of Paul Revere and Johnny Appleseed. About Paul Bunyan and Honest Abe. About the Alamo and Walden Pond. About whales and riverboats, stallions and cherry trees. You lulled us to sleep. You had us dreaming of Old Faithful, Davy Crockett, Lassie, and Wyatt Earp. You even made Jesus an American despite his Jewish parents and foreign tongue.
Hell, you were our father and our mother. We drank your milk and ate your grain and dreamed of riding your body from sea to sea like Captain America and Billy the Kid. You've got nothing left to give us, have you? You turned on us, then you turned inward. Superstitious, miserly, forgetful. If we didn't love you so much we'd put you to sleep.
Stupid kids. We marveled at your topography, your every kind of landscape, your seasons and weather, your mineral wealth and seemingly endless elbow room. We believed the songs we sung about you were true. Even more we marveled at your people, their foundational documents of genius and cogent body of laws, their jazz and their open hands, their optimism and energy and willingness to reform their institutions without violence. We were proud to join them as your citizens. We were proud to be your children.
When we were born the free world loved you. You were helping it rebuild after the world war just like you helped our parents buy their houses. You built schools and highways. You had no problem underwriting the future because the present was yours. You convinced us that communism was evil and doomed but you didn't tell us anything worthwhile about capitalism other than to promise us that it was the best of all possible worlds. You loved us tender but you were really giving us the business.
Luck was blessedness. Wealth was the product of work. Progress was inevitable. And it was all tied up with the perfectibility of the soul. You liar. You knew that the scars of your civil war hadn't healed in a hundred years. You knew that race and religion and ethnic background were going to determine who we would turn out to be. You bitch, pretending to give us all your love equally.
Even so, you were everything to us, but you couldn't leave well enough alone -- you had to go back to war. It wasn't enough to shoot for the moon. You had to incinerate Vietnamese. You enlisted our blood but you never explained why it needed to be shed half a world away. And when we asked you, you turned on us, with your dogs and high-pressure hoses, with your bullets and tear gas. You unpredictable bitch. You tantalized us. You let us play with your toys and pretend to be adults, then when we finally reached adulthood, you gave us more toys and encouraged us to stay children.
And now you expect us to figure out how your wondrous story of tolerance and liberty turned into a turgid theology-soaked soap opera? What the hell were we supposed to glean from those fairytales you told us when you tucked us into our suburban beds? Those fables about the ghost of Paul Revere and Johnny Appleseed. About Paul Bunyan and Honest Abe. About the Alamo and Walden Pond. About whales and riverboats, stallions and cherry trees. You lulled us to sleep. You had us dreaming of Old Faithful, Davy Crockett, Lassie, and Wyatt Earp. You even made Jesus an American despite his Jewish parents and foreign tongue.
Hell, you were our father and our mother. We drank your milk and ate your grain and dreamed of riding your body from sea to sea like Captain America and Billy the Kid. You've got nothing left to give us, have you? You turned on us, then you turned inward. Superstitious, miserly, forgetful. If we didn't love you so much we'd put you to sleep.
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