Optimistic fit.

 Optimistic fit. 

“Maggie read your last post,” Roz was saying. “She wants to know where the ‘up with women’ is in Reflection in a Golden Eye. Is it with the ‘feeble-minded’ Leonora, as McCullers calls her? Or is it with poor, sickly, neurotic Mrs. Major Langdon, Alison?”
      “Right,” I found myself answering, not knowing what else to say.
     “Right what?”
     “Tell Maggie she’s right,” I said, thinking I had lucked on as good an answer as any.
      “You can tell her,” Roz looked at me, looked away, and looked back. I was looking at her; then I looked down.
     “Well, when I see her,” I said, thinking that by then it might cease to be an issue.
     “Good. That would be about five minutes from now,” Roz said.

“Gosh,” I said. “Sorry. I’m off to the bathroom. It may be a while.”
     Maggie is one of those people who like to think they are full of themselves and it needs to overflow onto others. To her credit, she is not. Full of herself is a role she plays and rather badly, laughing at how she’s been miscast. At least, that’s my sense of her. She blusters forward until a breeze sifts back, and it stops her.
     Her first words — since she arrived not in five minutes but in less than one, and I was not in the bathroom. I wasn’t even on the stairs: “Hey! I thought you liked Carson McCullers?”
     “I do,” I said. “Even more than the prophet Nahum.”
     “God!” Maggie said. “I tried. I really did. ‘Vengeance is mine!’ says your vengeful God. ‘Let’s bash those baby Ninevites’ brains against a rock.’ God!” She took a breath; she blew it out. “God!” she said a third time. Then, “What’s on for you today, Tedster?”
     I shrugged. Tedster? I was thinking. God! I shrugged and looked down.
     “You don’t want to come to Seeville with Roz and me?”
     “No,” I said. “Thank you.”
     “Right answer,” Roz said. And they were gone.

“Uncle Albert and I are going to watch the movie,” I said to the door. “Sure you don’t want to stay for that?”

Uncle Albert and Aunt Liz
through a golden eye.

I stuck my head around his door. “Uncle Albert,” I said. “I’m going to watch a movie. Do you want to?”
     “What is it?” he said.
     “It has Liz Taylor in it.”
     “I met her. In the mid-sixties. Wearing a burqa for some reason. She wasn’t one to explain. In Italy.”

The movie raises McCullers’ Captain to Major and her Major to Lt. Col. for some reason. Can Brando not play Capt. Penderton? Did Brian Keith refuse to play a mere major?
     Otherwise, the music is awful. I have long been longing for a button on my TV remote that could retain the sounds of all goings-on on the field of play and mute the announcers. It would have been useful here. To keep the dialogue and the ambient sound — the birds chirping, doors opening and closing, footsteps, hoofbeats, air moving, and the rest — and shut off the dreadful music that seems to think we can’t see what is going on or, if we can, we don’t know how to react to it: We’re not apprehensive enough, dammit.
     I am. I don’t need to walk around with plugs in my ears, Amy Winehouse moaning “Back to Black,” with The Beatles breaking in with “Here Comes the Sun” when I’m seized with the rare optimistic fit. What I do need, Roz says from time to time, is fewer fits, more just plain optimism. Or better, hope.
     And just as often as she says it, I remind her that I don’t want hope but love. And I am right about few things, but about this I am. (You really need to click on the link to read the denouement. - Ed.)

                                                                            03.29.23

"The whole so-called thing"

 “The whole so-called thing” 

“So, do you know what she said?”
     “No,” I said.
     “She said, ‘Ask Ted. He’ll know.’”
     “She was kidding.”
     “Partly,” Roz said and shrugged her shoulders. Then, she jumped in as if she were interrupting herself: “But partly not.”

She was Roz’s friend Maggie. They had been talking about the book they were reading for their Up With Women, Down With Soldiers book group, Carson McCullers’ Reflections in a Golden Eye. Even though it rounded the edges, I could hear Maggie’s gawky voice inside Roz’s smooth one. “Which,” the combined voices said, “you must have read” because there were underlines and writing in the margins, besides which it had my name in it, the book Roz had from the shelves on the porch.
     “So I did,” I said, “but it must have been twenty years ago. More. It must have been before the turn of the century.”
     “But you remember it? Because you remember everything you read.” This because sounded more like Maggie than Roz. They have been good friends for quite a while, and it’s a good thing except when they begin to bustle. One begins and the other joins right in.
     I said (honestly!): “I play like I do sometimes, but I don’t. I remember the book a little. But not well.” About all I remembered about it in truth was that there was a picture of Liz Taylor on the cover. “I didn’t see the movie,” I said.
     “We don’t care. What we are interested in: Do you remember the essay by Tennessee Williams in the front?”
     “Give me a hint.”
     “No,” Roz said. “Take ten minutes and read it.”
     I took the book. “What am I looking for?” I said. Roz shook her head.

Right to left: Uncle Albert and Uncle Thomas
Paris, 1947

What I was looking for, it turned out, was how, according to Williams, what he calls the Southern “Gothic School” was related to the existentialists, which had to do with the sense of both, “an intuition of an underlying dreadfulness in modern experience.” Which dreadfulness is not the atom bomb or cancer or Donald Trump or anything else in the newspapers — or on the nightly news or NPR — because the “true sense of dread is not a reaction to anything sensible or visible or even, strictly materially, knowable. Rather it’s a kind of spiritual intuition of something almost too incredible and shocking to talk about which underlies the whole so-called thing.”
     Roz pointed to the underlines, when with a shrug, I started to hand the book back to her. “Don’t shrug,” she said. “What does that mean, this ‘dreadfulness’ that ‘underlies the whole so-called thing’? What is ‘the whole so-called thing’?”

Let the reader beware. The author has been reading the prophet Nahum, the prophet and his commentators. Let the reader say, “Oh, shit” and click elsewhither. Or the reader may say, “Oh, shit” and choose to hang around because he/she likes being battered about the ears.
     The room in which our conversation was taking place began to smell like a recently dead electric fire. Or my brain did. Then, I said something like this to Roz though I didn’t say it even this well:
     He [Williams] doesn’t mean by dreadfulness that bad things are happening to good people or even that bad things are happening to bad people, pretty much all the time in both cases. Things are worse, the dreadfulness is deeper, than that. There is something crooked about the way the world is spinning, so we’re all a bit off-balance, nauseated. At least, the artists and the insane feel it if the rest of us don’t. The world spins wobbly on its axis, it orbits wobbly around the sun.
     There is nothing can be done about it. In Nahum — or for Nahum — God can intervene and by crushing the evil Assyrians, the Nazis of their day, he can put it right. But for Tennessee Williams, the “Assyrians” are not the problem. Politics are not the problem, economics are not the problem, social ills are not the problem; not even war is the problem. The problem is deeper than anything on the surface of the globe. It’s deeper than sin. If it were just sin, there could be redemption. But the dreadfulness persists. The problem isn’t in the world, it is the world.
     We should be horrified, filled with dread. But, I would add, we can only stay horrified for so long. Even adolescents can remain horrified for only so long. Then, we react to our horror. We shrink into seriousness, or we break into laughter. We laugh at ourselves, our horror and our seriousness about being horrified; then we laugh at the world, the off-kilter, crooked-spinning, twitchy, creaky world.
     It is Carson McCullers’ gift — and Tennessee Williams’ — that they see what is funny about this, all of it, the “the whole so-called thing.” It is all funny, underlain with dreadfulness but infused with funny, both in the sense of curious or strange and in the sense of comic. Granted the comedy is general noir-er than noire, if there are still, relieving the black, occasional shades of charcoal, even gunmetal gray.* The Reflections in a Golden Eye stage manager: “There is a fort in the South where a few years ago a murder was committed. The participants of this tragedy were: two officers, a soldier, two women, a Filipino, and a horse.” Add that Liz Taylor will star in the movie. And Marlon Brando.

                                                                          03.23.23
_______________
* According to PPG Paints: “Gunmetal gray is a deep, gray, toad green with an ivy undertone. It is a perfect color for an accent wall. Pair it with white.”

Lions' den

 The lions’ den  

“Do you know about Habakkuk in the book of Daniel?” I asked Uncle ​Albert.
      “Only that he is taken up by his hair and dragged through the air from one place to another,” he said. “It must have had something to do with Daniel. I should remember,” Uncle Albert said, “but I don’t this morning.
     “But you’re going to tell me, so I don’t need to this morning, do I?”
     “No,” I admitted.

I told him I was playing like it happened at the end of the prophet’s book. He had gone through all he had gone through, asking God, Wasn’t it his job to rid Jerusalem of injustice? and God agreeing then adding, “Watch how!” and bringing the maleficent Babylonians in to do it, which in Habakkuk’s mind and from his experience on the ground, so to speak, was only to fight fire with fire — it wasn’t putting the injustice fire out, only making it worse, much worse, a house-fire into a block-fire, the whole city on fire. So back to God, saying “See? I don’t see justice, only more injustice — more greed, more violence, more drunkenness, sin blowing up all around. So? Is God countenancing sin?” And God agreeing again: No, he shouldn’t be. ‘Watch, they will get theirs, too.’ Tit-for-tat.”
     “Lex talionis,” Uncle Albert said.

I took a second to remember what that meant.
     “Yes,” I said. “And all that happens, or it doesn’t happen, or it doesn’t matter if it happens, because the prophet has decided that whatever has happened, whatever does happen or doesn’t — if the fig tree doesn’t blossom, there is no fruit on the fruit trees or olives on the olive trees, if there is no grain in the fields, no sheep in the fold, no cattle in the stalls — still he will rejoice in the God of his salvation.
     “Whether he saves him or not.”
     Uncle Albert had his left hand open and his right hand moved back and forth across it as if he were taking notes though clearly he was not.
     “It’s then,” I said, “when the prophet is going to be faithful that God decides to test him but not with the orchards and grain fields and cattle of Judea dying but with this prank.
     “Habakkuk has made a mess of soup and broken bread into the mess, and he is taking it to men working in the field, reaping so the crops are coming in, and an angel shows up: ‘Instead take it to Babylon, to Daniel,’ the angel says. ‘He is in the lions’ den.’ Habakkuk replies quite sanely, ‘But I have never been there. I have never seen Babylon. How would I find my way?’ Then ‘the angel of the Lord took him by the crown of his head and lifted him by his hair and set him down in Babylon, right over the den, with the rushing sound of the wind itself.’” I had picked up my Bible, and I read the verse to Uncle Albert, still scratching the palm of his left hand with the fingers of his right. He looked up for a moment, looked back down again.

“And the next thing Habakkuk knows he sees Daniel, and he finds himself shouting out, ‘Here. Here!’ and giving him the soup he had been taking to the men in the Judean field. And Daniel is thanking God and eating. And before he knows it, before he can see Daniel take a third bite, the prophet is back home. He ends up where he began, and everything is exactly the same and everything is completely different, as it always is from one moment to the next. But he is still going to be faithful and rejoice whatever happens, as he has promised. If he can, of course, because there is no telling for sure because everything is always changing.”
                                                                         03.13.23

Frat boys

  Frat boys 

from Krab Drukte’s commentary on Habakkuk (in the Incoherent series, Obadiah, Nahum, and Habakkuk by Scott Bradwardine and Krab Drukte published by Rantrage Press, 2019, p. 123)* –

Habakkuk has excoriated the rich, and the violent. Now he takes on their sons. Still following the MDV (Modern Dutch Version by way of my translation into English). 

 

II. 15 Woe to him that serves drinks and puts a bit of “poison” in and makes her drunk so she’ll get naked and you can leer!  16 You should be ashamed, not full of bravado. A drink for you, too? — then you will be naked, filthy naked not glorious at all, God bless your little heart.

 

Notes

 
ii. 15.  Drinks with a bit of ‘poison’ in. Who knows? חמתךּ has been variously translated. Does it come from חמת meaning ‘waterskin’? — so the NIV renders it, which turns the water into wine. [Woe to him who gives drink to his neighbors, / pouring from the wineskin till they are drunk...] Or does it, as MDV and others (the Complete Jewish Bible and most Jewish translations) believe, derive from חמת meaning ‘venom’ or ‘heat’ (which the RSV and ESV turn into ‘wrath’)? Though some pretend to, no one really knows. Our common practice is to flip a coin and then justify the heads or the tails. 

 

Commentary

 

God is replying to the prophet’s continuing question. So, great God, you can use the wicked to punish the wicked, but what then is going to happen to the wicked? Well, woe! Woe is what is going to happen to the wicked, to greedy men of business (2:6b-8), to powerful politicians (2:9-11), to those that use violence for whatever their commercial or political reasons (2:12-14). But having taken on the fathers and mothers, now the prophet and God take on their fratboy sons and daughters.
     They take on drink and drugs, and nakedness, which hasn’t been anything but lewd since Adam ate the apple. It has only ended up in Noah with his skirt up around his ears, with Sodom and Gomorrah and Lot’s skirt up around his ears.
     Sorry, that’s the way Habakkuk sees it. And so it will be; and it will be so, he says, until the Lord of Hosts intervenes, and his glory covers all our shameful attempts at getting our own.

03.06.23

_______________
  Links to passages from other Rantrage Press commentaries are here.

A “chapter” about money

  A “chapter” about money 

Uncle ​Albert asked me if we wanted him to pay rent. He had been talking with his banker and his broker, and if he was losing money en un tour de main what about us? If I’d thought about it, I’d have thought he was already paying rent. I said, “Talk to Roz.”
     I don’t know anything about money except that it comes in and it goes out again, and I get cash when I ask for it, sometimes $40 and sometimes $60, and it’s best if I buy everything locally, there’s no need really to order online — I mean what do I need that I can’t get in town? By “I mean” I mean “as Roz says.” She knows what we know about money.

So, that is that.
                                                                              02.20.23

All is never quite well.

All will be well.
  Except what won’t be, part 2. 

“​Albert agrees,” Roz said. “If you are going to go mad, please don’t go quietly mad.
     “The way you usually do,” she added. “Make some noise.”
     “What sort of noise?” I said. “Like a duck, like a goose, like a gull, like a siren?”
     “Like a dove,” Roz said.

‘All will be well’
And if it doesn’t be,
there are boxes they can put you in.

Her new cat, Potato, can purr like a dove, or like several doves. I can’t make a dove sound, nothing near, though if I went crazy quietly enough, I might be able to when I got there.
     Roz said this, “Albert agrees. Please don’t go quietly mad” this morning, before she left for work. Then, she kissed me, and she left.
     I went back upstairs and knocked on Uncle Albert’s door. He said, “What?” and I said, so it would be like every morning, “Are you ready for breakfast?” He said, “Almost,” also like every morning. And I went in to help him with his slippers. Otherwise, he was dressed, but the every-morning litany is not the every-morning litany if he isn’t having trouble with his slippers and I don’t help him.
     Then we came down the stairs, and we went back — from the front of the house to the back of the house, from the front door to the back door — we went back to the kitchen. He sat down at the table. I said, “What?” And he said, “Oatmeal.” And it continued, the litany.

And I started the kettle and poured him a mug of coffee, added half-and-half and a spoonful of fake sugar, and put it in front of him. When the kettle sang, I made the oatmeal. It’s instant. The oats in a bowl, the boiling water on top to the right amount, stir. Add brown sugar and milk.
     “Am I about to go mad?” I asked.
     “Indications are,” Uncle Albert said. 

For the last several months — I’m not sure how many — Uncle Albert has eaten oatmeal for breakfast and a peanut butter and bologna sandwich for lunch. He drinks coffee at breakfast. He drinks grape Kool-Aid at lunch. He takes his fiber pills with one glass of Kool-Aid. Then, he has a second glass to wash down his sandwich. Every other week or so, he thinks out loud about changing from grape Kool-Aid to “red,” but the next day, or sometimes in the next breath, he decides not.
     On the other hand, he doesn’t care what brand of bologna we buy or what brand of peanut butter, only not crunchy.

Uncle Albert has been 96 for as long as I can remember. Or in my mind he has. In truth, I have no idea how old he is. Some days, ninety-six seems about right; other days, he seems much younger. He can still get up and down the stairs, without help if he has to. He reads in the morning. He goes out most afternoons. Nils Sundstrøm or Carl the truck driver from the rooming house he used to live in or one of his lectio divina friends comes by. And off they go I don’t know where except sometimes I tag along when it’s Nils — then they go to Corner Coffee and talk about politics and religion. I listen.
     I asked him once what he and Carl talked about. “Roads,” Uncle Albert said.

After breakfast this morning, I got him settled in his chair. He won’t have a recliner, but he has a rocker and doorstops for under the rockers and a footstool and a number of different sized pillows I can adjust according to his instructions. I get him settled in his chair with his little pile of books beside him, LaRochefoucauld and Montaigne and Weymouth’s New Testament. And he chooses one — this morning, the New Testament, which he opened to the middle of John’s gospel, blew a raspberry, and turned forward to Acts. 
     I went back to the kitchen to rinse the breakfast dishes and put them in the dishwasher.

I sat down at the kitchen table, and I thought about going mad. Was I? Again? If so, it was going to be quiet. I couldn’t make a noise about it. I didn’t have the right one.

                                                                              02.20.23

_______________
 About Roz here. About Nils here. Carl is here. And I take Uncle Albert to lectio here.

Except what won’t be.

                                                                                                                                       continued from here All will be well.
  Except what won’t be. 

“What did you preach on yesterday,” I said to Axel, sneezing — the books in his office were shedding.
     “Are you okay?” he said.
     “Yes.”

‘All will be well’
If you just stay inside,
it won’t matter if things change out.

He turned around in his chair, Axel, and he took a Bible from the shelf directly behind him, from the middle of the shelf. If he sat in the middle of the desk, facing forward, the Bible was directly behind and aligned with his spine. It was sea green and worn. He turned back with it, put it in front of him. He opened it. He said, “Deuteronomy 30.
     “The lesson from the Old Testament. Moses is speaking on God’s behalf: ‘See, I have set before you this day life and good, death and evil. If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you this day, by loving the Lord your God, by walking in his ways, and by keeping his commandments . . . then you shall live and multiply, and the Lord your God will bless you . . . . But if your heart turns away and you will not hear, but are drawn away to worship other gods and serve them, I declare to you this day that you shall perish . . . . I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse; therefore choose life . . . loving the Lord your God, obeying his voice, and cleaving to him.’ Choose life, God pleads with the people. Choose love, Jesus pleads with us. It’s the law of love that is his commandment. To choose love is to choose life.”
     “Good enough,” I said, boldly (knowing I was about to put my foot in it). “But what about all the other stuff in yesterday’s gospel. I’m thinking especially of . . . ” I gestured for the Bible. “‘Anyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of unchastity, causes her to commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.’ Not a word about love.”

“No,” Axel said. “No.” He shook his head. His hand asked for the Bible back; I pushed it across the desk. “But,” he said, “the whole passage: it’s about steadfastness, isn’t it? — about reconciling with your brother, or your sister, about remaining faithful to your wife, or your husband. It’s about constancy, about not wavering. We make bad choices, or we think we have. We decide we don’t want to be brothers or sisters any longer, we don’t want to be married any longer, because the choices we made then are no longer satisfying. They no longer delight us. We’re no longer, I don’t, enthralled. But satisfaction/delight/being enthralled is not the same thing as love, is it?”
     “I have to say no,” I said. “I will. I will say no.” And Axel put his hands out, palms facing me. They said, “There it is.”

And there it was, if it would only stay there. But it never does.

                                                                              02.14.23