Later, another day

 Or,  

Later, another day.

Antonius Barth

I said, “When writers kill off characters, they’re dead. In real life, they hang around like Banquo’s ghost.”

     “Who said that?” Roz said.

     “I did, just now.”    

     “No, I don’t think so,” she said. I always try to tell the truth, and she knows that. So why doesn't she always believe me?

     “Maybe I read it somewhere,” I decided.

     “Where?”
     “Maybe Markus Barth, his commentary on one of the Thessalonians.”
     “You can’t say ‘Markus Barth,’” Uncle Albert said. “He’s a real person.”

     “Who is he?” Roz said.

     “He’s a Bible scholar,” Uncle Albert said. “And he’s real. The son of Karl Barth.” He paused. “The theologian.” 

     “What do you mean, ‘he’s real’? Why wouldn’t he be real?” She looked straight at Uncle Albert. He shrugged, not because he didn’t know what he meant but because he didn’t want to explain. “Why shouldn’t he be real?” Roz put the question another way. Uncle Albert shrugged again; his poor old shoulders barely move, he can hardly lift them.
     “How real is he anyway, at this point? In any case,” I said. “Isn’t he dead?”

     “I don’t know. Look it up.”

     So, I did, on my cellphone. “He’s dead.”

     “Well, he was real. So, you still can’t use him.” And he paused. “You should be talking to Dr. Feight about this. And he should be doing something about it.”

     “Antonius Barth, then,” I said. “Antonius Barth said it.”

     “About what? Dr. Feight should be doing something about what?” Roz asked. She looked again at Uncle Albert.

     “No, nothing,” I said. Maybe too quickly. There is no way to strike a happy medium; either you don’t answer quickly enough, or you’re jumping in too soon.

08.28.21

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Illustration: Antonius Barth from the artist’s photo on the dust jacket of his 1957 travel book, Moldovan Beaches. Badly colorized by a “friend” of the blog.

P. S. from Trudy Monae

 P. S.  

more from Trudy, right after this.

 “Lee and Leda,” I said to Roz.

     “What?” she said.

     “So?”

     “Tell me about them,” I said. “Are they our friends?”

     “What do you mean?” she said.

     “I don’t know exactly,” I said. “We’re not ‘good enough for them,’ I get the idea.”

     “Why not?”

     “It’s more how not,” I said. “We’re not cool enough. Or they’re not quite as democratic as they would like to think they are. They hesitate before they decide to include us because we might not get it, whatever it is. They’re condescending, I think.”

     “Doesn’t everyone have to have friends they can condescend to?” Roz said. She paused. “Bless their hearts.”

* * * * *

P.S. (continued from here)  I wanted to get back to you about In Watermelon Sugar before you went on to something else.

     So: inBOIL’s mayhem must be suicidal, too! Violence in such a drab, armored place can only destroy itself. It can’t touch the narrator, or Pauline. Or it can’t be more than a nuisance for her. It can’t even affect Chuck, inBOIL’s brother.

     Here is what I think. The death of the last tiger, the removal of all danger until inBOIL begins getting drunk and recruiting his band of scary, but not because they’re dangerous; actually, they’re suicidal ... before inBOIL starts getting drunk and recruiting his band of crazy followers ... The death of the last tiger settles the society in and around iDEATH into sleepy, bland bland-sleepiness. There is living, but there is no life to it; there is no creativity at all. Anything remotely odd – Margaret is the prime example – is considered threatening. Her interest in the past is especially so: there is no time but present time, dammit! (Best then that her funeral does take place in silence; best nothing at all can be said. Actually, best that she is dead. Suicide.)

     There is color, I’ll grant you that: the colors of the sky and the colors of the sun, but they are without variation; they come only in a predictable order. The planks of watermelon sugar can be turned out in any color, too, as long as it’s solid. No stripes (like the tigers have0, no speckles, spots, streaks, dapples, brindles, etc.; no blemishes.

     Finally, the people are colorless! There is no passion, only, at the most, affection. Or, if there is passion, as in Martha’s case, it can only irritate, as it irritates the narrator; it can finally only destroy itself. It cannot live or move or have real being; especially, it cannot ignite.

     The narrator himself cannot be ignited; he is fireproof, swamp-soaked, sad-soaked wood. And we, his readers, just can’t get him. That’s the sense I get. We’re rubes. As hard as we try, we’re not going to get it. On the other hand, we don’t seem to be trying as we should. In either case, we’re pitiable. We don’t see the need to try, or we are trying but we’re failing miserably.

     Do you ever feel that way?
                                                 Trudy

Another oar in the water. 
on another day, at another time

Dear Ted,

When will I hear from you? Only after I have initiated, it seems.
     Your sister told you we were getting a cat (to share)! She is a small, orange — almost pumpkin-colored tabby. Potato! Moira probably told you all of that.
     She told me — or us — that you were reading Richard Brautigan, or you were reading some of him again. Her college friend Gretchen Moore (not to be confused with my college friend, Gretchen Monet) said something like, “How cute is that?” And Bucket* laughed, taking her side.
     But I have more sympathy with you! They understand why you would read him in the sixties and seventies, but now, in your sixties? But I get it, I think. There’s a strain of gentle and sweet (in the best sense of both words) in both Trout Fishing and The Abortion. Not quite as much in Confederate General at Big Sur, but it’s still there. The gentle-and-sweet come from the narrator’s modesty: he knows what he is talking about up to a point, but he won’t go beyond that point without admitting he is: “From here until I tell you otherwise I’m only telling you what I understand to be the case, but I’m not sure I trust my understanding, so you shouldn’t rely on it either.” And that’s good, that kind of modesty. There isn’t enough of it fifty years later.

I just buzzed through those books, the three I mentioned. They don’t take very long to read, do they? And I liked parts of all of them. I found Vida unbelievable, I’ll have to say. There must be women that turn men’s heads like that, but to that degree? Besides the young Elizabeth Taylor, who? And Elizabeth (in Confederate) is at least as unbelievable. But I did like Elaine, who became lovelier the longer Jesse looked at her.
     I liked Jesse, too, even if I didn’t quite “get” the hold Lee Mellon had over him. He’s almost what people mean now by “toxic masculinity,” Lee Mellon, if I understand the term correctly. (Do I?) And it’s not just Jesse! How does Elizabeth make love to a man with so few teeth? (She becomes only more unbelievable.) So, it’s the author that likes him so much; he sees something in Lee Mellon that he can’t explain. At least, not to me — I don’t see it.     
     Are you going to read In Watermelon Sugar, too? What about Revenge of the Lawn, Hawkline Monster — is that right? — the poems, etc.? Let me know. I mean: I’ve written, so you can write back.                                                                                                                                          Who used to be, Trudy 

 08.21.21

 _______________
 * Leslie Becket (one t). See here (also about the Gretchens). Illustration: “Richard Brautigan.” Cellphone drawing by mel ball.

The human condition, part 2 - where we're going.

 Where we’ll end up. 

The human condition, according to Patmos John.*

 

Uncle Albert was sitting in his chair, reading his Bible in French. I was half-sitting, half-lying on the couch across the brass table from him, alternately reading Trout Fishing in America and staring into space.

     Steps coming up to the front porch, the click and clatter of the front door opening. Roz.

     “What’s for supper?” she said, knowing it wasn’t anything yet because I had called her earlier about if I should cook, and she’d said, “No. Nothing: It’s heat-up-leftovers Monday.

     “When I get home,” she’d said.

 

“Albert,” she said now. “What are you reading?”

     “L’Apocalypse,” he said.

     “Oh? Where?”

     “Voici que je me tiens à la porte et je frappe.”

    “Then, he comes in,” Roz said – her voice is like an angel’s, or a dove’s – “to ‘sup’ with them.”

     “Souper, yes, et eux près de lui.”

     “But not to spend the night,” Roz said.

     “Well,” Uncle Albert was careful, his voice soft as ashes: “We don’t know for sure. It doesn’t say.”

 

“What happens when Jesus overstays his welcome?” Roz asked him. Then she hurried on, looking at the floor: “I’m not talking about you, Albert. I didn’t mean that at all!”
     “No,” Uncle Albert said. “You wouldn’t.”
     She was still rushing forward: “It was a theological question. Not even about the story. Generally.”
     Uncle Albert looked at me. I said, “I don’t know.”
     “Dogma,” Uncle Albert said. “Or/and ritual. That’s what happens. The church adjourns to the study or the theater.”
     “It leaves poor Jesus in the kitchen by himself,” I said, “washing the dishes.”

08.17.21

_______________
 * Revelation, chapter 3.

   Illustration: dirty dishes [https://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soubor:Dirty dishes.jpg]

The human condition

 Where we are now.

The human condition, according to The Apostle (2 Timothy 3).*

We are “narcissistic, covetous, arrogant, proud, blasphemous, disobedient, ungrateful, criminal, heartless, faithless, slanderous, lustful, merciless, unkind, treacherous, pig-headed, puffed-up.” We love earthly pleasures more than we love God: How could we not if our women are silly with lust, and leading men resist the truth because they love folly more?

 * * * * *

“The problem is,” Roz said, brows knitted, looking over my shoulder again.
“The problem is, you more than half believe this. You are a disciple of the apostle.”
     “No,” I said. “You don’t really think that.” I turned to look at her.
     She shook her head, but whether to say, “No, I don't think that” or to say “Maybe unwillingly, but” or to say “Oh, Ted! (Poor Ted.**)” I wasn’t sure.

08.10.21

_______________
 * Please, I don’t want to hear the argument that Paul (of Romans, the letters to the Corinthians, Philippians, Galatians, Philemon, et al.) didn’t write this. So, he didn’t. The Apostle sure as hell did! Illustration: “Dutch Oven.”

** Poor, misguided Ted!

   Illustration: the Greek and the Latin from the New Students’ New Testament Workbook (Collegeville, MN, 1962).

Oh, Moira!

Oh, Moira!

I reply.

 

the day after yesterday

Dear Moira,

     You do have The Apostle wrong, I believe, but I wouldn’t trust me to get him right.

But then, who can? You know my favorite quote on the subject: “Only Luther understood Paul, and he misunderstood him.”

     But in this case (Romans 8:28), it doesn’t all work out for the good for those whom God loves; I wish it did. Instead, it works out for those who love God, and that means almost certainly for those who love God truly, aright. And that is The Apostle himself and those that understand him (period). I wouldn’t, then, go to him, to Paul, to find consolation.

     And I wouldn’t go to him to find out what foolishness really means. Paul may write of the foolishness of God (as in 1 Corinthians 1:25), but he doesn’t understand it unless he knows far more about Jesus of Nazareth than I think he does. Or, unless he cares more for Jesus of Nazareth than he ever demonstrates in any of the letters. For the foolishness of God (in my opinion)* is not found in the triumph of the Christ but in the ill-designed and poorly implemented Jesus experiment.

     So, I like “philomorer.” (I also like “seesay.”)

These are my immediate reactions to what I remember your writing. (I don’t have the letter in front of me.) But now I don’t know what to write next anymore than I know what to do next.

     I still (decades later) can’t seem to get organized. So, before I sat down to write you, I found myself surfing the web for planning calendars. “I need to play,” I was thinking, “And I can’t do it by myself. I need help.” A crutch, I was thinking. Then: Not that a crutch can help if you have no legs. Maybe you could swing at someone going by, knock them down, and steal one of their legs — though then, to be fair, you would have to come up with a plan to share the crutch. Or, you could steal both of their legs. I know that sounds harsh; it’s why I was only going to steal one to begin with. Besides, now you have both, where do you go? You could steal their map! But if it has a route traced on it, it’s their route, not yours. Besides, assuming you do know how to read a map — because I do — if you don’t know where you are on the map, it’s useless, right?

     You’re right, that’s what I do say, all the time, that it doesn’t all make sense. I’m never sure that any of it makes good sense. But that’s not the result of a position I have come to philosophically. It’s the result of a philomor(on)ic temperament: I have been dazed and confused from an early age, maybe from the first time Aunt Margaret asked me why I did something she didn’t like, and I didn’t know why. She would then always explain to me why it was a wrong, illogical, or stupid thing to do. But I couldn’t explain why it had made sense at the time. Because it hadn’t. I’d just did it.

     And I’d do it again if I could remember what it was.

                                                                                              Love, Ted

08.10.21

_______________
Illustration: “Dutch Oven.” Cell phone drawing by mel ball.

From my sister Moira

 Dear Ted,  

From my sister Moira (the dead one) to me.

 

“This Perry Como business,” Roz said. “He didn’t die in 1981. He died in 2001. I looked it up.”

     “I know,” I said.

     “So?”

     “What?” She looked worried. There was a line from her forehead into the bridge of her glasses. She’d put it there, but she couldn’t seem to keep it still. “What?” I said again. She couldn’t keep the line still, but she was still.

     “I don’t know,” I said,” because I didn’t. But then: “I’m taking my medicine.

     “You can check.” She wouldn’t, of course because she trusts me. Because I am trustworthy.

     You can trust me.

* * * * *

Today    

Dear Ted,

     Sometimes when I come to Alma’s diner to write you, I have toast and jam as well as coffee: generic white bread toast and the blobby stuff that’s in those little plastic packets they have in all diners. I did this time. And I got my fingers all sticky, and I said, “Aaarrggh,” and Alma came with a cloth napkin and a finger bowl. I had forgotten such things existed.

     What are you eating for breakfast these days? One piece of toast is usually enough for me.

     You were visiting friends is North Carolina? I was born there, wasn’t I? I ask because I forget why we were there, and I’m not sure where we went next, or even after that. Not that it matters. Except does matter, doesn’t it, in the sense that everything matters because everything works together for the good for those whom God loves? Isn’t that what The Apostle says? And God loves everything, so it all matters. That’s what I say. Which doesn’t mean that it all makes sense. That’s what you keep saying, right?

     But something doesn’t have to make sense to be true. I’ll say that, too. I mean “true” in the sense of “real”; and I mean “real” in the sense of available to taste, touch, and smell — you don’t only see and hear. It isn’t only hearsay or seesay. A wolf howls, and you can smell it; the sound of it enters you at the base of your neck and runs down between your breasts, even behind your navel and into your groin. At the back of your tongue is a coppery taste. Maybe?

This just occurs to me: If the wisdom of men is the foolishness of God — or is it the foolishness of God is wiser than the wisdom of men — if that is the case, is Jesus not a philosopher but a philomorer? (And do I get that right? You know that I don’t know any Greek, but I do know sopho-more means “wise fool” and I extrapolate. What would Paul say?)
     And I extricate myself from my booth at Alma’s, taking my letter with me and my pen and another leaf of paper in case I want to add something. I am going to meet your old girlfriend, Trudy Monae. I’ve decided I’m going to like her after all, for your sake. We are going to the shelter to get a cat that will live with her half the week and then a hundred years with me. And vice-versa.
     Write me back soon. Answer all my questions!

                                                                 Love, Moira

08.07.21

_______________

Illustration: “The Apopsicle Paul”