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From:
[email protected] (Chris Porter)
Newsgroups: alt.etext,alt.zines,rec.arts.books
Subject: (news)letter 1:21
Date: 25 Jul 1994 23:27:12 -0400
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(news)letter
"Say the thing with which you labor."
Thoreau
from the porter micro.press
Volume 1, Number 21 July 20, 1994
_________________________________________________________________
A belated Happy Birthday to Corey, who yells just like his daddy.
Happy Birthday to Jed, a New Hampshire friend.
Please send suggestions and submissions.
To get on the mailing list, send your name and address to:
CTPorter 117-A S. Mendenhall St. Greensboro, NC 27403
or e-mail
[email protected]
Your input is appreciated.
This being the twenty-fifth anniversary of Neil Armstrong's
"giant leap for mankind," I began to read Norman Mailer's account
of that Apollo 11 flight, Of a Fire on the Moon. I first became
interested in the moon shots after reading Harry Hurt's book For
All Mankind, a book I highly recommend. This is an account of the
several Apollo missions that reached the moon and the author
really invests the astronauts with nobility, puts their
achievements in an historical perspective. Mailer's book, or as
far as I got into it, took a very cynical look at the Apollo 11
flight, as one might expect from him. I don't necessarily object
to that sentiment because I'm sensitive to the argument that
there were more humanitarian uses for the money used in the space
program; to put the moon walk into some cultural perspective, it
was only a month after they walked on the moon for the first time
that the astronauts were being wined and dined by Americans, that
the Rolling Stones played in a concert at Altamont and hired the
Hell's Angels to provide security. Their "security" was so
stringent that they beat and murdered a young black man and
generally terrorized both the band and the crowd, a tragedy that
has been labelled by some as the end of the flower power,
idealistic days. These anomalies seem so true to a subtitle of a
book that covers the Sixties, "Days of Hope, Days of Rage."
I just couldn't finish Mailer's book. I wasn't interested in
the day-to-day progression of the mission but more in the
cultural impact as found in Hurt's book. But it was so hard just
to put the book down. In my university days I became used to
completely reading even the books I disliked the most, because
they were assigned for a class and I felt personally responsible.
It has only been in the last few months that I have even been
able to put down a book without making myself finish it (though
plenty of books have been relegated so far back on the burner
that they'll never be read). Rare is the book that, in the
middle, I will decide, "no more." Two books I put down this past
week, for very different reasons, Mailer and Richard Price's The
Breaks. With Mailer, I recognize that it was a good book and I do
want to finish it before I die, but now is not the time. With
Price, on the other hand, I had no interest whatsoever, not
because it was a "bad" book but because I found my mind wandering
throughout the first fifty pages -- I wasn't interested in it.
But what if it took a surprise turn in the next couple of pages
that I would never find out about? I remember Ken Kesey's Sailor
Song, which was somewhat tedious for the first hundred pages or
so, then evolved into a wonderful book. I made it through Moby
Dick the first time on pure willpower; the second time it was a
breeze. Some books you have to wade through even though your mind
wanders and there are countless other things to grab the
attention.
Hass-led Big Time
I mentioned in the last issue the author Cormac McCarthy and that
he's a "hot writer pushed by everybody it seems." I heard mention
that his book The Crossing received a wonderful review in the NY
Times Book Review (June 12), so I decided to hunt it down and
read what it said. But I don't like reading reviews of books I
don't have time to read: I've read my Cormac for the month.
Instead I was diverted by a letter to the editor in a later issue
written by Donald Kozlosky taking the reviewer of the McCarthy
book (Robert Hass) to task for the superlatives which he heaped
on the book. The reviewer apparently invoked the memories of a
whole range of artists in the article:
beginning with Faulkner, Twain, Melville and even
Shakespeare, then continuing with Hemingway, Flannery
O'Connor, Cervantes, Beckett and Joseph Conrad to boot.
(31)
That's quite the company! Kozlosky insists that by raising such
comparisons the reviewer instills the novel with a literary
weight that the reviewer did not establish in the article. He
concludes the letter by insisting that any writer's imagination
and accomplishment should be regarded as unique:
it seems a clear and continuing hallmark of great writing,
be it Faulkner or Shakespeare -- or Jane Austen or Henry
James, for that matter -- is that it defies comparison and
may even perplex in its deviation from literary precedent.
The point seems to be that a reviewer can make an analogy -- "the
writer's treatment of theme X is like Faulkner's in that ..." --
but that reviewer should resist empty comparisons that seem to
suggest a concrete lineage for the writer's style. But then
reviewers of reviews should probably read the review of which
they write instead of a letter complaining of said review.
Smaller Hass-les
And it is one of those coincidences that make my life so
interesting that while writing the foregoing paragraph I realized
that the original McCarthy reviewer, Robert Hass, has figured in
my week in another way. A participant in the internet newsgroup
rec.arts.books suggested reading one of Hass' books, Human
Wishes, citing it as a fine contemporary example of Prose Poetry
(poetry typeset as prose, or prose with poetic flavor). I enjoy
getting recommendations like that; I'll drop what I'm supposed to
be reading just to satisfy my curiosity about a new discovery.
Human Wishes is part poetry and part prose poetry but it has the
feel more of poetry than of prose. One prose poem that I
particularly liked was "Paschal Lamb." An activist moves to the
foothills of Kentucky to raise sheep after being fired from his
job at the university (for refusing to shake Hubert Humphrey's
hand). The narrator arrives on a visit and reminisces with his
host about the time that a cohort suggested a plan to end the
Vietnam War. If each war protestor cut off his or her pinky
finger and mailed it to the president then the war would most
certainly stop. They predict that a few days after such an action
was instigated there would be clinics set up to make the protest
immolation as painless as possible, the war would stop in eight
days, and years later instant friendships would be formed among
those pinky-less, middle-aged strangers who meet on the street.
But the image of them sitting around discussing this action
concludes the poem: the professors could "cut off our little
fingers / right now, take them down to the department secretary,
and have her put / them in the mail" (29). There seems something
perverse about that, something insincere: if one would take such
a drastic action could one then just drop the symbol off for
someone else to mail?
Politics, 101
Hass' poem might have been spoiled for me because I'm in the
middle of reading Bob Woodward's The Agenda, an account of
President Clinton's White House and the political machinations
that have followed his economic plan. I can't help wondering how
much sleep these guys get? As much work as they seem to do -- and
always the work was needed yesterday -- it makes me wonder about
the staffs these people of power drive. For every advisor to the
president there must be five over-worked secretaries walking
around with their shoulders all tensed from stress, never seeing
their families, much less given a whole weekend to relax. But we
don't hear of them. Bob Woodward does admit the worth of his
assistant, David Greenberg, in a fine acknowledgement ("Without
his resourcefulness and drive, the book would not have been
possible"), but I wonder how much of the royalties that assistant
receives. I continually rage against the style because it is
gossip; as an example of reporting it's good, but fine
literature it ain't.
I'm enjoying this book because I'm interested in President
Clinton and those around him. I want to see him lead the country
well. A couple of themes in this book are Clinton's indecision
(he hates polarities and is always ready for a compromise
option), and the change that came over his team once he won the
election and the national power brokers came into camp to take
charge. Those around him, during the campaign, figured out how to
form compromises that reflected Clinton's stated goals. With the
influx of the outsiders, and the advent of a more aggressive,
Machiavellian enemy (Congress), the compromises no longer fit
Clinton's style and his Arkansas advisors -- those few left who
know him best -- are left out of the process. You can read of the
same phenomenon in Hunter Thompson's Fear and Loathing on the
Campaign Trail '72, when George McGovern had to cater to the
moderate Democrats in order to win the nomination at the
convention, thereby alienating his original power base and losing
horribly in the election.
As much as I didn't think I would like this book, it is
fascinating as living history. It has given me a greater
appreciation for the Washington way of doing things, and a
greater knowledge of those players around Clinton. But the
question still remains: what does Bill Clinton stand for? Is he a
stymied political genius or someone who should have stayed in his
niche as a popular professor, a big fish in a smaller pond?
Mad Dogs and English Wreckers
Exquisite Corpse is a literary magazine edited by Andrei
Codrescu, occasional National Public Radio commentator and poetry
anthologist (Up Late). There's a little bit of everything in this
journal, reviews of books, essays, graphics and of course poetry.
The poems range from the traditional to prose poems to haiku to
the most avant-garde creations. Clark Lunberry's critical essay
presents an elaborate defense of the "para-poetic," the poetless
poem. In these poems the "poets" are beginning students of
English as a Second Language, and the worth of their poems comes
from the odd groupings of words that they might mistakenly
compose. One example comes from Mika Imae:
I'm often spoken to a strange person. I think that why?
But I'm a strange person that the person see to me.
So, the strange person all over the world are strange person
everyone.
(7)
And on and on and on. What's bad English to you can be poetry to
another. The strength of a para-poem comes from the divergent
images that it conjures in the native audience. It makes me think
of creating art by putting a paintbrush in a monkey's hand
because it depends on the lack of skill of the artist combined
with the refined taste of the audience. My favorite image from
the issue comes from a more traditional poem, James Broughton's
"Testimonies," a collection of stanzas presenting viewpoints from
different characters:
Said the window-washer from Dallas,
For years I tried to clarify
the purpose of smudge and blur.
When a glass wall split apart
and sent me flying through it
my vision of life cleared up. (1)
I love the idea that the glass actively decided to do something
to the window washer, thereby changing his world view. As if the
window was at that moment an agent from God. This is a wonderful
little magazine but it's not for everybody -- if you like a fresh
outlook on writing and the arts, you might pick it up and give it
a try.
Client Hell
I just went to see the movie The Client, another one of John
Grisham's thrillers brought to the big screen. A child is
somewhere he's not supposed to be, hears a secret that puts him
in danger from the mob, and, with the help of a small-time lawyer
(Susan Sarandon), outwits the Fed heavyweights and escapes the
Mafia hitmen sent to murder him, and unravels the case; at the
end the kid and his family fly into the sunset, ready to begin a
new, quieter life. I used to really enjoy reading thrillers --
Clive Cussler's hero Dirk Pitt was my favorite. I'll never forget
the thought that stuck in my head one day years ago that turned
me against them: the heroes and heroines are not human, I
realized, because they never lose. Dirk Pitt would get beat up
every once in a while but that was never a set back, only a minor
deviation in an inevitable progression from Problem to Solution.
More people enjoy the formula fiction than enjoy the highbrow
fiction probably because they don't want to see losers, they want
clearly delineated good and evil or something like that. I don't
know what John Grisham's fiction is like, but The Client on film
is formula (the little guys besting the big guys), but does
anybody expect any different? This is an opiate and sometimes
that's a fun way to kill an afternoon. But I'm sure you can find
something more constructive to do.
Fool's Mate
Granta is a literary magazine that has a unique flavor. The
current issue, titled "Losers," has a priceless cover: it
features a hand-colored photograph probably from the turn of the
century, showing a young girl sporting an elaborate paper dunce
cap. She sits, head bowed in a pout, hands in her lap, while four
other children behind a gate in the adjoining room seem to mock
her. "Losers" indeed. Neil Steinberg in "The Spelling Bee"
focuses on the young loser, those who try to win the national
spelling title. Of the nine million contestants nationally,
"8,999,999 will lose, and they will lose in a public and
humiliating fashion" (53). I can just imagine the author, a big-
city reporter, working the participants, interviewing parents and
ferreting out information in the various stages of the
tournaments, trying to find the effect losing has on these kids.
In the end Steinberg wonders about the wisdom of a spelling bee,
a place with its trade secrets and scheming which reminds me of
the young beauty pageant contestants and their coaches.
Good spelling is a handy skill, but ninety-nine per cent of
good spelling is knowing when to use a dictionary. If I am a
little shaky on the second vowel in 'separate', as I am from
time to time, I don't squint my eyes and try to dredge the
proper spelling out of some inner core. I look it up.
(72)
But that's the way we are, isn't it? In our lust for a new
Michael Jordan we don't mind making scapegoats of those who fail.
One article that I really enjoyed was written by Julian
Barnes, about a chess meeting between England's Nigel Short and
the Russian World Champion Gary Kasparov. Short has little chance
to win but pretends that he has that glimmer of hope and ends up
accomplishing something, a loser who takes glory away from the
winner. The title of Barnes' piece, which I censor as "Trap.
Dominate. F*#&," refers to the attitudes of the cutthroat
chessmen: they strive not merely to defeat an opponent but to
humiliate as well. I've been in the chess mentality several times
in my life, and though I'm just a duffer who even hesitates to
play a stranger in a coffee shop, I can confirm that chess -- and
power on the board -- quickly becomes addictive and you begin to
look at life as if it were a big chess board.
Once I was in the chess frame of mind very heavily, playing
my friend Dude at least once a day. It was the beginning of the
semester and I went to one of my new classes. Usually I took a
seat next to the windows, as far away from the door as I could
but the class was very small and for some reason the professor
wanted us all to get in closer. He asked me to move to a seat at
a forty five degree angle from where I chose to sit. I could have
taken two ways: just step over a couple of seats and be there, or
go the long way around and move with the rows and around the
seats. But at that moment the whole series of desks became a
basic chess board for me, I could see it so clearly, and what I
did was to move down the row a couple of desks, do a ninety
degree turn on my heel as if I were marching, then push the other
desks out of the way, thereby clearing a path for myself at a
right angle to the row. I had become a specific chess piece.
There was a very attractive young lady sitting near and she and I
made eye contact, and I gave a little chuckle and said to her,
"I'm a rook." She didn't find humor in it and to this day she
probably thinks that I am a complete loser.
Quote of the Week
In his account of the Apollo 11 flight, Mailer writes of the
period just before the launch, when he found that the horde of
hungry and thirsty reporters had the option of only a couple of
vending machines:
It was pure American lunacy. Shoddy technology, the worst
kind of American shoddy, was replacing men with machines
which did not do the work as well as the men. This crowd of
a hundred thirsty reporters could have been handled in three
minutes by a couple of countermen at a refreshment stand in
a ball park. (86)
Therein is the real accomplishment of corporate America, Mailer
insists. Not the shiny Apollo rocket on the launchpad that will
go to the moon and back, but machines that can't provide the
service real people could but that we are supposed to get used
to. You remember those soda machines that would drop the cup,
then the ice, the syrup, then the water? Can you imagine being
fiftieth in line for one of those?
