As usual, I see something else in it--about the burdens of being a modern American and representing.
Some of my favorite writers seem to have noticed the dual nature of America--the deep roots that the surface culture often masks with its infantile needs. History repeats again.
Let's see, the old school idea of an American--Natty Bumppo from Last of the Mohicans--was a self-reliant man. Spiritual, a loner, not following social rules or worrying so much about appearance. Thoreau in his cabin, Emerson, Walt Whitman. Making a paradise in the wilderness with his wits-- needing little, only enough to survive, singing the body electric, no church, just listening to nature's unspoken language of morality: he was quite the admirable man. How many permutations of him have we had? Clint Eastwood's cowboy, Caine from Kung Fu, a thousand renegade cops, drug dealers with a heart of gold.
You can see that some wisps of this still exist in the most base of American images--the gun nuts, the country music lovers, the Ford big rig owners (fish signs on the bumper), want to be this lonesome cowboy, they imagine they have this strength of mind and character. They forget Natty made everything himself, didn't eat barbecue and pork rinds, and Caine walked, not trucked in an air-conditioned cab, across the desert. They have conned themselves into mistaking image for character as much as Marie Antoinette's court imagined themselves to have the simplicity of milkmaids.
Here will be some of my favorite Classic and contemporary American Lit and maybe commentary on American culture. (Probably gonna be a lotta 20th, 21st Century here, rather than Puritans, etc). It suddenly occurred to me to narrow this further: Lit with humor. Because that's my favorite kind, especially if the humor comes from the characters.
Also, I think the Statue of Liberty being dragged around is some sort of image relating to the difficulties lodged in a single American, who perhaps doesn't really like or identify with or represent American Culture At Large--how this individual still manages to get lumped in, from outside perspectives, with the ugliness of modern America, with its lack of refinement, its anti-culture, shall we say. Strip malls, strippers , car-detailing and cruising (a dying art), dumbed-down entertainment, zealot sports fans, zealot ugly Christians, fallacial advertisement, adulteration and willful ignorance of history, a hatred of language(s) and education, the plastic, fantastic, disposeableness of modern America.
So it makes total sense to me that the " modern and post-modern" writers have a tendency, like T.S. Eliot, to have works that look something like a modern trash heap--everything including the broken kitchen sink: An old, broken cassette claiming "Increase your child's IQ with Nap Time Mozart!" right next to the free (sorta, only costs you an artery) chewed upon Fun-meal toy. Some discarded computer components ( I think that is illegal?), miles of plastic bags and blister " totally safe"packs (by "safe", I mean safe for the retailer, not the consumer), and throw in some old, silverfish-infested cloth covered copies of Homer, Shakespeare,and the Romantics that are too dirty and ugly for anyone to want to read anymore. Yards of old insulation, crumbling building parts, splintered composite plywood no longer whole, stripped and harmless old wiring no longer connected to anything….everything is shattered, like I tell my kids in AP, like so many broken greek urns, plus a bunch a useless cut-up reels of fading movies….
I do so want to coin a new phrase to represent modern America: Strip Culture. I think it says it all.
It's how I want to write humor. So, samples:
Bud av cawse, I've a stawnge sanse av 'umor…………...
It is a counterpoint to my Russian Lit page, although Victor Pelevin may be plowing the same field: Not sure what I'm going to put here but I was inspired to do it by several things relating to J.D. Salinger. (One of my favorite comedians and maybe the godfather of postmodern thinking in much the same way MC5, Iggy Pop, David Bowie and Marc Bolan were the godfathers of punk).
First, I watched Salinger's new Bio, finally, all the way through.
2nd, there was this rumor about as yet unpublished, newly leaked Salinger stories, the ones mentioned in the documentary, and I was actually able to find and read one of them, called "The Ocean Full of Bowling Balls". It is amazing, although I didn't think so at first--it has pieces in it relating to the Caulfields, but Holden's a minor third person character, and other names are different. Allie, of the poem-filled leftie mitt, is here, with a very similar wise young boy personality, but his name is Kenneth, instead. I don't know if the links to these will stay hot: I copied it onto my computer and hope I don't lose it, since it's not officially supposed to come out until 2060, I think.
3rd, this made me flip through Catcher in the Rye , and this time my attention landed on a different quote than my usual ones---it's from the scene where Holden goes to the Lavender Room and flirts and dances with 3 older "girls" from Seattle; his commentary makes wicked fun of them in that know-it-all NYC city slickster way. One he practically fell in love with because she's such a terrific dancer, the second is not bad, but the third, well, she was like "draggin" the Statue of Liberty around" …amazing image. So good, I thought it would be perfect to rep modern American Lit altogether…
….and American Culture. Sometimes it feels like we're all dragging that damned statue around. And consequently feel burdened, and like aliens in our own land.
It's sort of odd, but I have my own brass copy of the Statue of Liberty in my house, on my mantel. It was my Italian grandmother's.. dalla mia nonna. No one else in my family seemed to want it or feel its significance. It's probably over 100 years old, guessing from its metal construction. When I've been in New York, I've rather hopelessly looked for a similar one in the usual touristy places, but only find plastic facsimiles that look rather garish in comparison. I like to think either my great grandfather or mother bought it once they exited Ellis Island, purchasing it by trying to express themselves helplessly in Italian : "Vorrei comprare questa Donna di Liberta.." It's not that far-fetched of an idea, since I don't think they ever went back to New York where one may have readily been available, since they spent the rest of their American days in a small Illinois coal and farm town with fellow Italian ex-pats, and never learned to speak English as a consequence.
The only other possibility is that one of their bi-lingual children, who traveled to Rockaway Beach later, bought it for them then. An irony for me is that the iconic torch on my brass replica has been broken off, probably by one of us totally acclimated and insensitive grandchildren, or possibly one of our insensitive dogs.
Dec 6:
This is fun. I almost had a picture to go with this, but I got too paranoid about being on the paranoic's lawn, to get a good angle. I'll have to use 1000 words to paint the picture instead.
He's my VERY AMERICAN neighbor. I often go by his house when I walk home from work. Yes, I walk. Everyday.
He has an all-Americana, Two story, Leave-It-To-Beaver pre-war house, classy, understated off-white and green paint job. Always perfectly painted, never a blade of grass out of place. During political seasons, full of Ron Paul signs, btw. I'm guessing he's holding, armed to the armpits.
He's the guy who once sent a message around the neighborhood that some "suspicious-looking" adolescents----read, black kids----were knocking on doors in the neighborhood one weekend. BEWARE!! Caveat the freaky salespeople, neighbor!!
Anyway, He has this huge phallic video camera sticking out of his old oak tree, you know --where you normally would tie yellow ribbon?? He's very concerned about bad guys. Makes you wonder what he's got. Although I'm way too old to be this adolescent, I get a charge out of giving the finger, swearing within range, pointing out he's a paranoid freak, loser…you should see the bumberstickers on his car, oh, boy. Very patriotic. Very constitutional.
Anyway, this is the ultimate picture. Today, one week after Thanksgiving (punctual, too!) he has decked out his house with large, beautiful, fir-like, but quite realistic! wreaths on his 8 colonial windows--with scarlet Christmas ribbons!! very festive and welcoming! Except for this, not 10 feet from the western-most wreath. A Sign in matching scarlet red-- not welcoming guests or Santy Claus, or Jesus….it says, in Bloody letters:
" POSTED. KEEP OUT. NO TRESPASSING."
Possible Topics for this post:
John Kennedy Toole's Confederacy of Dunces
Here's a description of the voice you will hear in this novel: Ignatius P. Reilly. The setting is New Orleans:
"The green earflaps, full of large ears and uncut hair and the fine bristles that grew in the ears themselves, stuck out on either side like turn signals indicating two directions at once…studying the crowd of people for signs of bad taste in dress." Did I mention his mustache is full of potato chip crumbs?
He decides his outfit, which includes plaid flannel shirt, muffler, desert boots, and baggy tweed pants (all old) "was acceptable by any theological or geometrical standards, however abstruse, and suggested a rich inner life." He is in possession of trumpet sheet music, and a string for his lute. He gets accosted by a policeman who asked about his "string". He is sympathetic in his gross dislike for modern American culture: the so-called "Confederacy of Dunces" that he feels himself alienated from.
William Faulkner's Sound and the Fury
---yes, dammit, it is TOO hilarious….
Caddy--who is NOT one of the narrators, is the one who really nets my imagination. I' mean, all three of her brothers love her, and both as a surrogate mother and surrogate lover. She must have had some charisma. I would like to do an exercise of writing her narrative for The Sound and the Fury. The one that Faulkner didn't do. How does she relate to the Shakespeare, MacBeth allusion?
At the beginning, we meet her, just as a case of mistaken identity- - poor tragic idiot Benjy, age 33, watching the truly idiotic golfers --he's "Slobberin' and moanin' " cos the golfers keep yelling "Caddie!" which makes him think of his sister. Everything in the book is secretly about her. "Caddy smelled like leaves." And trees. Always.
What is it I love about this book? The subtlety of it.. the way it wants you to read between.
Like this short dialogue, in the carriage, where Dilsey, the maid is obviously the person in charge of the household--- few words do it.
"Yessum," T.P said [to Dilsey, that is ]"Hum up, Queenie."
"Quentin," Mother said. "Don't let."
"Course I is," Dilsey said.
Dilsey: The whole place, decadent as it was, would've fallen apart even faster without her. In the next few minutes the driver T.P. completely ignores all the boss lady's neurotic requests because he knows he can and she has no idea what she's talking about. Caroline, the mother, her every other piece of dialogue was either" Stop! " or " I'm afraid… " or "I'd feel much safer if you.." It's one of those cases where the children are instantly born more insightful than the parents--I relate to that.
Caddy is the opposite--she never seems afraid. Which is why she is gone. She is the only one who treats Benjy like a human being, takes his needs seriously. "You're not a poor baby, are you?" she tells Benjy after his mother gives him this overly dramatic, somehow self-pitying hug. She's the one who knows he just wants to go outside, probably to get away from the stupid people in the family. Her, too. "What are you trying to tell Caddy?" is what she frequently says to him…I suppose he can't talk, which is why he only slobbers and moans, at 33. No wonder he loves her so much, misses her so much. She has a true sense of compassion and depth. She's not embarrassed to be seen with him, like his "keeper" Luther. She's maybe an early punk girl! Now that I think about it, if I was to choose a character in literature to be, to be like, it just might be Caddy. Slut that she is)))).
The black folk in the story have the best, the funniest lines, however. They must've let ol' Count No'count into their secret world, since he has such a good ear for their dialogue. Just single lines are so funny to me, without context, even.
"Ain't you talking' biggity."
"I ain't studying no quarter," (when Luther asks another guy to look for the one he lost).
"Hush up. You ol' loony. Want I should whip you?"
"Taint none of my dress." says Versh when 7-year old Caddy, (like I said, unafraid) decides to take her wet dress off in front of all the boys…
"Can't you get done with all that moaning and play in the branch like folks.."
Brief Interviews with Hideous Men and all things David Foster Wallace:
Dec 30: Copied from my dream page. American Lit, American ideas, but hardly humorous:
I read this quite strange, dreamlike David Foster Wallace short story from a book called Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, which rather seems to consist of men behaving badly in their own minds, or wishing for confirmation that they are not really bad, or something. This particular story is called "Church Not Made With Hands." It is dedicated to a 10-year old who died, I'm assuming, who perhaps reflects the girl in the story. In this story, a young girl named Esther (Echo Esther Williams, the swimming star? But also Biblical, I imagine, esp since her mother's named Sarah) falls into a swimming pool, almost drowns, and is not saved by her father who can see her through the clear water. He does not know how to swim. She doesn't die, but suffers permanent brain damage. Although, she remembers the rainbow? The ending of the story builds on previous images in the story, in a surreal, almost Marc Chagall, stained glass sort of way, melding colors and church windows and swimming-pool-water,stained-glass giants, canvas paintings,3 dimensional phone-bills, and dandelion seed heads---and the girl is lifted up through all these images in a reverent manner. I'll try to find a funny line, image, to keep with my program…..cos DFW does have that strange sense of humor I rarely find, in odd spots….well, some dark humor in the Hispanic woman who refuses to clean the blood stain caused by her dead son's gang related shooting, because it's all she has left of him--something almost Faulknerian in that. Or maybe this, about the narrator's co-worker who visits mentally disabled shut-ins:
"Yang is a caseworker who consumes medication.." The fun irony of life. Some are in, while others are out. Sort of. It's rather a relief to know in the story he's not the one who drives.
Jan 7, 2014: To Quote millions on the Internet: "OMG!" --David Foster Wallace…to quote Stone Roses--"Hook Line and Sinker"--I'm a goner. More will come--I Garr-unnn-teeeee. More than just a hip icon.
You will be subjected to a lot of stuff about David Foster Wallace: my new obsession.
Here's from a story about DFW's mental problems: depression , etc.. Here he is discussing how going off his meds made him feel:
I’m not incredibly glib, but I’ll tell what I think the Bad Thing is like. . . . Imagine that every single atom in every single cell in your body is sick . . . intolerably sick. And every proton and neutron in every atom . . . swollen and throbbing, off-color, sick, with just no chance of throwing up to relieve the feeling. Every electron is sick, here, twirling offbalance and all erratic in these funhouse orbitals that are just thick and swirling with mottled yellow and purple poison gases, everything off balance and woozy. Quarks and neutrinos out of their minds and bouncing sick all over the place.
I have been listening to a few old interviews of DFW, after he had written some of his famous works. They are on a site called Bookworm, that is available on YouTube. First, he's pretty close to my age, and spent significant time in Illinois, was a professor at Illinois State--a school , when I was prepping for college, that I considered "beneath me". Hah! But, he is only three years younger than me, so it's doubtful we would have crossed paths then. Also, he had grown up in Champaign-Urbana--a school not beneath me, that I got accepted to but then turned down. But not for a decent reason--because I had somewhere better to go or whatev…it was because I was scared of it. Especially bigness. That was a good instinct for me, I found..I had to grow into my ability to handle big places/cities.
Anyway, all this gave me a feel for this writer I've heard much about peripherally, and made me feel a kinship--more the age than the Illinois stuff, although that helps too, especially since he looks too eccentric for a typical Midwesterner my age. He lived elsewhere, anyway, from California to the New York islands… Mostly I'm thinking, he's one of the first big writers for my generation. That's the connect.
Dec 11,2014:
Just finished DFW's "A Supposedly Fun Thing I Will Never Do Again", which definitely belongs in the Dragging- the- Statue- of- Liberty- Around- darkish/ironic- humor- that- I- like category. Again, I think, generational and speaks to some of our discomfort of being American, or not being "typically American" but thought to be, in the context of the larger world. That's where dragging the statue particularly fits with this story.
In the story, originally published in Harpers, told in 1st person, Dave describes what it is like to be, in excruciating detail, on one of those luxury cruises---and the details made me thank god I'd always followed my instincts in realizing I would absolutely loathe one of these things and would feel trapped for the week or whatever it is, plus having paid beaucoup bucks for something I hated.
To give Dave credit (I hope he didn't hate to be called "Dave" when he was alive, but I'm tired of writing out the full name, and feel pretentious always using DFW) --anyway--Dave wasn't nearly as negative or nasty about his experience as I perhaps would have been--he seemed to take some sort of delight in how bland and mediocre being pampered in this way could be. This was sort of his main focus, and from what I'm beginning to realize is a sort of signature of his POV, he sort of recognizes his own guilt/temptation to be that ugly American, spoiled, finicky lout that this sort of thing caters to. oh, yeah, he likes to repeat, to a point where you might question his abilities as a writer.
I confess I would be more hard pressed to admit this submission to pampering myself in the same circumstance. So, rather obliquely, this becomes a sort of criticism of this sort of life-niche, but at the same time, rather than lapsing into full caricature, parody or exaggerative satire--it merely details very realistic-sounding elements of the cruise, the passengers, the employees, the treatment of the employees, without making it a horrific statement about American Bourgeois Values. Again, I think I would have been more tempted to go for a SNL-like snark-fest. But, his way, the criticism sticks better and deeper. It will affect my own writing, I think!
For example, I don't remember one pair of garish plaid golf pants being mentioned. Instead, a similar tone was handled more coyly by the inclusion of some elderly amateur stand-up comedians, at the ship "Talent Show"---an entertainment favorite--who had a propensity to tell 50s generation, canned jokes about how much they loved golf and their wives tried to keep them from their love. It sort of made me realize that someday that whole generation's proclivities will be gone. Perhaps Dave feels more observational about all this, with less venom, because his own parents were college professors, not corporate CEOs….he aims the criticism back at himself when, after a few days on the cruise, he himself begins to succumb to an over-indulged state of mind, chaffing against hospital corners without uniform angles, missed crumbs on a tablecloth, and most importantly, the lack of Mr. Pibb, even though Dr. Pepper (inferiorly) was readily available on the ship.
David Foster Wallace: Infinite Jest
(or--Daily American Life,what a riot!!)
Hahahahaha...
This is a novel about the things so entertaining, they literally kill you. Bright concept. The Killing Joke. The movie so entertaining it makes you feel like you can't do anything else, like a lab rat in a Skinner box, a heroin addict, a lotus eater. Here is some related media:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RnYhOxz_Zs : Killing Joke!!!!!!!!!!
and..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8I3zCQzZx68 ::::::Monty Python's Killer Joke.
Wenn ist das Nunstück git und Slotermeyer? Ja! Beiherhund das Oder die Flipperwaldt gersput![1]
This apparently is just German Nonsense (I'm guessing the words Nunstuck and Slotermeyer? Flipperwaldt?) the German counter-joke (ineffective) was:
"Der ver zwei peanuts, valking down der strasse, and von vas . . . assaulted! peanut."
Apparently, there was a precedent in the comic strip Li'l Abner: Abner was holding the joke that could kill, but didn't understand it. Of course the comic never told the joke, but apparently the storyline had Bob Hope wanting to read it, as "The funniest joke ever" on live TV. But because Abner didn't understand the original, he substituted his favorite joke for Bob, which, of course, didn't kill.
Also there was some guy who wrote about a killing song for the Germans, so catchy they could think of nothing else--man, WWII must have spawned some dark humor.:::(((:DDD
Well,, I'm only on page 7, although I once read the first 3 chapters in a Manhattan bookstore waiting for Dochb to get off work…and already I am so excited to read this! It's a commentary on The modern, particularly Western, American, need for the ultimate entertainment, hence the killing joke. Damn. In the early chapters every random character seems to be trying to entertain themselves in random stupid ways: dumb TV, dumb bongs, dumb games, dumb magazines, witless movies, dumb sports plus dumb half-time entertainment…
For example..this is a beauty of a satire: красивая! Page 66--One of the story's ??protagonists?? Orin, the pro-football kicker who is full of ticks and phobias, particularly about roaches, who apparently plays for (now) the Arizona, nee St. Louis --that's ripe for satire right there--Cardinals, is forced to participate in some pre-show nonsense where the whole team glides in dressed up as birds (Cardinals, hi-yuk) from the top of the stadium, to the oohs, ahs, and screaming of the stupid crowd. His interior monologue is running alongside, about his fear of heights, his humiliation, his worry that he will land wrong on his priceless leg, his refusal to squawk like a bird..this would seem like an over-the-top scenario, except we all know the entertainment business of sports does this kind of stupidity to their supposed athletes every day. It reminds me that I myself had to participate in a Gangnam style video--that everyone loved! for last year's graduation--because, after all, I am the school's drama teacher….
This is where DFW's flatness is brilliant--he merely records what actually happens. It heightens and satirizes itself, because it is already so stupid it's beyond belief. But apparently, like in that old Woody Allen joke, we must do this because "we need the eggs." Other people's needs look dumber than ours. Not.
I keep using the word satire to describe these passages, but I can plainly see the view is something outside of satire--it's missing for example, that element about poking fun in order to reform. It's funny, human nature, but perhaps it's not reformable. Life just makes us do this stupid stuff, gives us vile, laughable needs when one's own pricks, stings, and rushes of emotion cannot be felt.
We are slaves, victims, captives, of our own brains' chemistry...
Jonathan Swift made that definitive comment about satire: "--a sort of glass wherein beholders do generally discover everyone's face but their own." I think this is the breaking point with Wallace: he sees his own face in the glass, too. I used to teach my AP kids that the difference between tragedy and comedy is the distance one feels from the actor: Hamlet is our soul brother, our "there -but-for-the-grace--god--one- butterfly- effect- removed" soul brother; Sir Andrew Aguecheek is a dogsbody, beneath us. It's why you might not always laugh out loud at the Infinite Jest--tweeked with tragedy too close.
Oh my. I almost missed this by skipping the important endnote #24: one of the movies made by Papa Incandenza in IJ. (This isn't what's in the book per se, but is a cartoon interpretation):
http://vimeo.com/53619671
So by my argument, we aren't supposed to see those eyeballs in the theater as "other", but me, you, Dave. It's a funny idea, clever, but ultimately sobering, to think even we are not capable of making the world better, because we are too busy tsk-ing over the car wreck.
I'm wondering, when Dave came up with his fake list of movie titles/topics, if they were on subjects he really wanted to see himself, even if they are impossible, fait non-accompli..
Too many coincidences to be believed: just googled this--besides having one friend's last name in the title, THIS was drawn by one of my BANDMATES' son:
http://www.inprnt.com/gallery/kurtmcrobert/homo-duplex/
Jan 31: Infinite Jest @ page 145.....
There is this bizarre chapter that is quite worthy of a Victor Pelevin idea...
Now, it has dawned on me that this book is supposed to be set in the near future (It was written in the late 1990’s I think). This allows for somewhat oblique critique of humanity, more in the vein of, say, Jonathan Swift, but minus the mean sarcasm--seriously! That doesn’t really criticize any one group or behavior or modern phenomenon in that satirical, political reform--it’s more a sly, empathetic observation on all our tendencies and weaknesses.
So, this chapter is speculating on a new technological advance in communication (that, at that point, hadn’t happened , in the 1990’s but is presciently thoughtful).
Video phones: imagined chillingly close to what has occurred with Skype, Facetime, etc.
In Wallace’s book, this technological advance is a huge flop--entrepreneurs and initial investors “lose their shirts” on promoting this expensive advance, but for such a silly but true reason: the universal insecurity and vanity of people, who dislike seeing their own images onscreen, especially as the video quality is rough and too uneven, too sharp on some negative features.
Full disclosure: I HATE how I look on Skype--I age twenty years and add 30 pounds and two chins---uck. My skin looks like lumpy oatmeal. My eyes look like Charlie Manson's if his were grey/green instead of brown. But, probably, that's what I look like, walking around. It's not what I look like in my bathroom mirror.))))
So there’s some great technological monkeyworks (very expensive) to “enhance the projected images through some mass compilation of multiple shots from various angles--I suppose looking for the subject’s “good side”, in old Hollywood parlance, culling the best, plus air-brushing lines, blemishes bags, etc. (Photo-shop, anyone?)
This fails. Expensive. Then, there is a watered down version, where users have a mask of their “best face” to use when videophoning, all with requisite hooks for storing it, etc. This is popular for some time in a sort of faddish way of these kinds of things. These leads to potential problems with identity theft, and other weirdness.Eventually this fad dies.
There was also a side problem of feigning intense interest through all calls, no secret distraction, doodling, nose-picking, making silent hand gestures to live people on your end. Desperate gestures to end the conversation. Which may only be for show….
In the end, everybody goes back to audio-only communication…Brilliant.
Feb 4, 2014: I wonder about the etymology of the term "stoned". Honestly, tonite that's all I want-- Dylan? "I would not feel so all alone"...unless I can hold you like a doll instead. Stoned immaculate. Urban dictionary?
Mar 1: I had been warned about this part of IJ--the super compulsive tennis chapters. I might as well be in church, listening to the Catholic mass for the umpteenth time. My friend Leo, who I am reading this with, for camaraderie, insight, and motivation, is also bogged down in this part, but I think we have broken through! Around the 2nd century in this book (that's what it feels like) --the 200 pages, we leave the tennis academy for the mental health facility--which tells you what sort of thing entertains me, unfortunately.
Not something healthy and recreational, like tennis, but the messed up, fessed up, addict-o-maniacs. There are starting to be good insightful lines about human behavior again, like the ones about addicts being as much addicted to their own thinking habits as any substance, and how much harder it is for high IQ addicts to kick than the lower IQ ones. Of course, the underlying idea is that these two "institutions" are just different facets of the same diamond that comprises modern man's lust for entertainment--the killer joke is still there. And to illustrate, quite a surprising personal link exists between the two--addicts do "work" at the tennis academy, the tennis students discover drug use in the courts, and some characters will go back and forth between the two hillsides.
Mar 30: Around p. 400--I feel like I'm swimming in Vasoline in this book--so slow. I can already tell you: it's not my favorite, but I think (??) I'll be glad I read it in the end. Just every once in a while, between the obsessive compulsive details, there will be just a hilariously imaginative idea. Especially Old Man (or the Mad Stork, as one of his sons calls him) Incandenza's mad movies. I keep picturing that Harry Dean Stanton would play him in the movie. By the way, are they supposed to be Italian, ethnically? The name doesn't match their WASP-y sensibilities. The beautiful mom, of course, is Canadian.
So one of the Mad Stork's movies is called The Medusa v. The Odalisque. See below..
http://pooryorickentertainment.tumblr.com/post/6274160764/design-by-chris-ayers-pre-nuptial-agreement-of
Now, the idea in the book is that the Snake Haired Medusa, who can turn men to stone with her ugly face(can she turn women? hmm.) fights a highly stylized, choreographed fight with a character out of Quebecois mythology--St Therese--who was so beautiful she turned her lookers into precious gems.
Now, I figured (as have others) this had something to do with that Bernini thing, The Ecstasy of St. Theresa. Which DFW discusses elsewhere in the book. However, as I've always known (17 years of Catholic school;DD), there are two St. Theresas, and I think they are frequently confused due to the similarity of their biographies. One, often called "The Little Flower" was Norman French and lived in the 19th Century. She's the one I had a statue of on my desk when I was young...wish I still had that. Wonder what my so very Catholic mother did with it? Probably put it in the trash.. Images of them look similar, dressed as pretty nuns in white, creme, brown and black. Little Flower (from Lisieux) is often portrayed with pink roses--as my statue was.
The other St. Theresa is called of Avila and lived in the 1500's. Like the other, her mother died young, and during an illness went into an ecstatic state that she claimed was a fusion with God, and was questioned as diabolical by some. Others supported her claim. This is the basis of the moment captured in the Bernini statue. These are Theresa's words about that, about God's messenger, the angel, that visited her and is also portrayed in the statue:
I saw in his hand a long spear of gold, and at the point there seemed to be a little fire. He appeared to me to be thrusting it at times into my heart, and to pierce my very entrails; when he drew it out, he seemed to draw them out also, and to leave me all on fire with a great love of God. The pain was so great, that it made me moan; and yet so surpassing was the sweetness of this excessive pain, that I could not wish to be rid of it...
Rather Sexual, no?
I have a weird personal history with all this, including that statue on my white girly desk that I woke up to every morning for 7-8 years. Why did I have it? Not quite sure, but my Italian grandmother gave it to me. I also know my mother was in hot water with the local Catholics for naming me Tracy instead of a saint's name, so this was always explained away as a diminution of Theresa--(for the little Flower?) Nuns even tried to call me Theresa in class, but this didn't work too well, as there were already 3 Theresas in my class (2 Mary's, three Susans, this is how Catholic school went..)--some diminufied to Terri..
I also remember at a quite young age my bilingual Italian grandmother taking me to visit her monolingual Italian mother, my Nonni, and introducing me as Tracy, to great confusion of my Great grandmother. I quite distinctly remember the negative look, the confusion, until my grandmother--in probably the first Italian exchange I ever understood in my life, said, "No, No, Ma, e Terrrresah..Terrresah..." To which Nonni's expression completely changed and said, "Ah,ah, si, Terr-rr-ese, Terr-rrr-rrese, si!" and grabbed my hand, kissed me, in just about the only real affectionate moment I ever remember experiencing from her. The rest of the time I just picture her sitting in the dark, unsmiling, looking depressed, or in her smelly vinegary kitchen, cooking.
Somehow I connect my acquisition of this statue with this moment, and wonder if it was a way for my grandmother to show devotion to the mother she obviously revered. My sisters less marginally named Tina (St. Christina works for that name), and my youngest sister, whose middle name was, thankfully Marie! did not receive similar statues of their patron saints. My grandmother never broke in showing her doubts about the Church, and towards the end, when my grandfather was so deep into Alzheimer's she went to church every day.
Then mystifyingly, on her death-bed,maybe 6 months later, when it was obvious she was crossing over, my mother said to her, "Mary, do you want me to call a priest?"
To which my grandmother, who always had a wicked sense of humor, replied, "C'mon Deanne, you don't really believe in all that shit?" I don't know what this is supposed to mean, but I love my grandmother so much for having these last words on Earth. (It also upset my mother who didn't know what to think, enough that I felt bad that I gave a big horse laugh when she told me...it still makes me laugh when I think about it).
But back to St. Teresa and DFW. That Bernini thing always sorta freaked me out, 'cos to me it looked like she was having an orgasm--something I've never said out loud, and it seems to me that DF Wallace thought the same thing. I'm not crazy! Oh, wait...he was kinda crazy...
Anyway, the idea of St. Teresa fighting the Gorgon Medusa is brilliantly mad to me. Especially since, as the choreographed movie proceeds, with the camera never revealing either of the fighter's faces for obvious reasons, people in the audience (once again, this is a movie about the audience) are being alternately turned to stone or gem, when they DO see, unfortunately.
One more odd thing in all this...the addition of the word "Odalisque" also has an art history. Mostly, it refers to paintings of concubines in Turkish Harems. There are some famous ones, which, if you are at all interested in art, you have seen. And here's another odd connection: in many of those famous paintings it shows the concubine with her back towards the audience, usually showing off her derriere. So, should we make the connection that DFW thinks of St. Teresa as God's concubine?
Май 8:
Back to the Infinite Jest after a short hiatus. I'm @ p. 472, approaching the half-mark, half-life.
This is where a new crazy idea related to the entertainment obsessed culture is explored. Recall this book is set in the near future, where capitalism has run rampant, to the point where countries have become huge conglomerations, the one that was America is now something much bigger, in fact, probably bigger than the former USSR (СССР). In this world, Canada, especially the radical Quebecois, are on the verge of rebellion, terrorist acts.
So, the crazy idea: the p-terminal. This refers to the (future) discovery of an electro-cranial stimulation that targets the brain's pleasure centers. It has something to do with "receptors" for various neurotransmitters like L-Dopa, Q-Dopa, serotonin, beta-endorphins-- a distillation of all that is stimulated by pleasure inducers--orgasms, euphoria, religious ecstasy, drugs, warm fires, massage, cuddling-- First, experiments were done on rats and various other higher functioning animals (they all die from obsessing over the pleasure stimulus, natch), but this develops into a program of human volunteers who line up around the block to be a part of this new exciting way to pass the time!! None of the volunteers test as psychologically deviant, and all are warned of the impending death trend.
You can hear the dollar signs lining up to facilitate the spread of this "program", in the name of capitalist freedom. Or as DFW puts it: "Surely you can see the implications for any industrialized, market-driven, high-discretionary spending society."
I'm reminded of the old Big Black song, "L-Dopa."--unmemorable song except for the line, "L-Dopa gonna fix me, alright?" (It always sounded like a question to me...)
Wonder where this will go next--I'm in. On the bright side: drug use may go down)).
May 18: p.577. Everyone's idiosyncratic psychoses are in full swing--in flagrante-- The Mom's efficient OCD, Lenz' cocaine fueled rant about the universe, his obese mother, and everything, (secretly on a campaign against cats and other late night creatures) Orin's sexual desire to prove someone loves him for a moment even if he does not perhaps reciprocate,some dude named Arslanian, running around in a blindfold to prove he can help a blind tennis-player, desperate to have someone point him at the can, and who runs serendipitously into Pemulis, who needs others' urine, what a nerve-twitching world....is this America???))) There is truth, but it's not mine. It is entertaining, as promised. Seems we might get a peek at the "Infinite Jest" via hologrammic viewing? I'm guessing.
The most sympathetic moment in the story for me was Gately's hospitalization. Gately is a success story in the AA world--former narco- pill-addict/criminal turned AA counselor--one of the better ones. He's the one who seems to have found real love( secretly) in Jolene--the girl behind the veil, rumored to be a once-beauty now scarred with acid thrown by her mother. She's also Madame Psychosis, my favorite character in this story. This is the closest this novel gets to being the kind I love.
BTW, for anyone who is drug curious, but doesn't wish to defile his/her real body for the experience, for the vicarious thrill seeker (I admit, I am one!) , for anyone who wants to really know what it feels like to be under the influence of all sorts of drugs, and their fine distinctions of distortions of reality--this is the book for you. Paragraphs and pages are devoted to the experiences of the experienced. It may be DFW's one gift to the world. Gately's descriptions of the details of what certain substances, and his favorite, do to your brain, are particularly gnarly, strangely beautiful, compelling, and (XaXa!) entertaining. They are undercut with the graphic descriptions of what it looks like from the outside: the experienced pissing, shitting, and drooling on themselves in ecstasy.
So here is the tragic, suspense filled moment that makes Gately the central figure in this. The former addict/AA counselor who wants to abide in freedom from his former entertainment, is shot (also a suspense driven scene), and hospitalized. Compounding the suspense is the fact that he has been somehow rendered speechless. He is, in the hospital, labeled on his chart as a former addict, therefore instructions are standard to NOT supply him with any opiate painkillers--he has to suck up with weak baby aspirin-like substitutes. But the pain is of the bone-shattering, suicide inducing variety. What should he do? His interior monologue runs all through this section--he is trying to indicate with his eyes that he does NOT want the morphine compound that will stop his pain in one way but further it in another. Pages chapters go in this vein, ratcheting up to an insane level of wire-tension-- with a hair trigger trip wire. Add to the mix a bland-eyed friendly doctor who thinks this might be an exception to the rule--it's all up to the patient--will he, won't he? Will there be an intervention on his behalf? It's Hamlet all over again. I won't tell you how it ends. My entertainment ...
Jun 13: (Friday the 13th!!) Well, my need for closure means I need to finish this about DFW and Infinite Jest. I'm afraid that for me it ended with a whimper, not a bang. Oh, so much hope, so many good ideas, so much truth! but never put in the proper frame. On GR I gave it 5 stars, just for the sheer brilliance of its potential ideas. But, is DFW always a great writer, and even in this? Nope. I think his shorter stuff is better, but he just doesn't have an artistic eye for the big picture like he does for the (obsessive!) detail, the crazy dizziness of where his brain is willing to go. He is no Shakespeare, no Dostoyevski--I think he is more a tennis player than artist. Keeping 6000 balls in the air! So much potential, so much truth, but never an artist's eye. Sadly. So much so it doesn't comfortably fit for me here to list it as a favorite American story. Honestly, I just don't agree with his view of the world, but I do feel its tragedy.
But, I am too lazy to erase it. Plus, it is funny--that's all I need.
Chronological time WARP!!!<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
August 14, 2015--But for good reason, cos the DFWallace biopic came out and I saw it tonight.
So it belongs here, right? Ok, so in 1997 some guy named David Lipsky did one of those extended Rolling Stone interviews with David Foster Wallace. It was immediately after Infinite Jest came out, when DFW was still teaching writing at Illinois State not so far from where I grew up, so one of the perks of this movie was seeing my beloved Illinois in deep snow, which I miss. (It is beautiful, as someone in the movie observed). David is not yet married to Karen Green, and it will be 20 years before he kills himself; he does seem to be having some trouble dealing with fame.
Every Love Story Is A Ghost Story. This is apparently a line that appears over and again in Wallace's writing. It sticks with me too, and I suppose for me I'm thinking how our perfect--love-- moments in life(maybe something like Anny's "perfect moments" in Nausea?, tend to seem so much more so (perfect) in the haze of memory, not when we're living them. This sets us up for constant feelings of dissatisfaction with the present, a sort of lazy nostalgia, and pushes us into a modern life filled with need for pleasure and entertainment. This really is Dave's cup of tea.
It really does seem to be our Achille's heel. We've used science, technology and biology to make our lives less physically grueling..yet all it does is keep us in this bittersweet loop of needing pleasure and feeling guilty about this need. Our once manual-labor engaged minds now crave stimulation.There's a moment in the movie where Dave recounts a mind numbing security job he had to take, and surprisingly he liked it because it allowed him to do thoughtless things like contemplate the details of a ceiling tile. get what he's saying, really, that almost wistful desire for dumbness --the ordinary guy presentation that he's always yearning towards.
When I read Infinite Jest it struck me over and again how American this story was--how much DFW really was preserving a particular, very peculiar American mindset and problem. Other people in other countries deal with this boredom, entertainment, life-has-become-too-easy-what's- the- point problem as well, but there often seems to be some sense, right or wrong, that it is a cultural perspective imported from 20th Century America.
It wasn't always the central focus of this movie, because there were a few points where I could feel some stage props being wheeled in with creaky gears, like the obvious moments of Lipsky being the typical vulture journalist feeding off the prey of his victim/interviewee. I sorta get what they were trying to do, given DFW's own ambivalence about the predatory relationhip of fame/celebrity/audience. They had a really nice little debate/discussion in the middle of the film that I think should have been more upfront and center. Lipsky is prodding DFW to discuss this persona of ordinary guy masking a great intellect, and assumes David must always feel he's playing his audience for an ego boost of feeling superior. Although the movie painfully points out Wallace is quite capable of this human weakness, he says a most profound thing in response. Writing for him is not motivated by feelings of superiority, triumph over the audience. Instead, it is a desperate attempt at having a conversation with a fellow. A moment of rare, but true connection. Wow.
September 19, 2014: I'm guessing I will be adding a new novel here:
My Life In Heavy Metal by Steve Almond.
It's supposed to be funny--I'm relying on a friend's taste here who has a similar sense of humor to me.
October 26: Okay, I finished it, and think it's worth talking about here. Some of these short stories, by Steve Almond, were published in notable publications, like Playboy, The New England Review, and Other Voices. It's funny, with an unusual voice, and very 1980's American. Only one story didn't hit me right, done in the voice of a sort of American Bridget Jones--it just didn't ring true--probably because this writer is so obviously male (in a good way!). The rest of the stories seemed like life now.
Most of the stories were about love affairs and sex, from the man's point of view, which is something I think you don't often get without some kind of dumbass cheesy pornographic anti-fantasy of the type Slavoj Zizek criticizes. So I definitely found this to be interesting. He tended to focus on the minutia of various girls and their various ways of making love. This sounds kinda ridiculous, but it really wasn't--it was actually nice to see the close attention to detail one man can observe. It also was nothing like the in-your-face sexuality of Henry Miller, who just loves to say naughty words many women find offensive (and therefore label him sexist.)
This guy seems to really love women, everything, even the things most people might consider disgusting or at least ugly. In fact, one reviewer said of the book, it's "about man's powerlessness in the face of feminine beauty...."--well that's flattering for all us dames, particularly since he doesn't always go for the most obvious beauties. In fact, in the title story, the only one that really has anything to do with Heavy Metal( because the narrator is a pretty lame rock journalist whose secret indulgence is hair bands), does something pretty surprising. He got his college classes' top beauty, who also happens to be nice, intelligent, thoughtful, hard-working--you know, perfect lover/wife material --and he cheats on her with a blue-collar, less beautiful Hispanic, who smelled of chlorine, because, well, you just get the feel she matches his crude, mullet-haired self better. It's a sort of intentional explosion, when he chooses a Guns 'n' Roses concert over the perfect girl's best friend's wedding and he's kinda happy when he gets caught with the Latina.
There's a story about a college professor whose wife died, and months later, he has to go ID a girl from his class at the morgue because she got killed in a car crash. Another takes place in a bar about some old Don who is sort of the main stud, always looking for "the action", storyteller, Cuba Libre drinker, raconteur of the place. He's one of those old weird dudes who smooths down his wooly eyebrows in public with beeswax on his pinkie. He tells women things like, "Your hips have real carriage." He wears a cape. He goes down because of some Romanians. These were okay, but I liked the girlfriend stories better.
I like the one about the perennial student who falls for a fat-cheeked (they had "the bulge of glaciers") Polish girl who hardly talks. He describes her accent as "excruciating: the burred diphthongs of Russian, the sulky lilt of French." Then his heart arpeggios. He loves how she pronounces her last name. He pretends to have read a Polish writer, saying, "What sentences!" She is vaguely bell-shaped, and during sex yells, "Tak! Tak!" They carry on a long distance relationship with pictures and letters. She finally calls him to say, "I made a breakup with my boyfriend." So he goes to visit her in Warsaw, which is when things get good. When he meets Mamu and drinks wodka with lemon wedges from tall glasses, all three at the foot of mama's bed because it's a small apartment. Mamu can kill one of her Petit Ceour cigarettes in six drags.
Later they eat Borscht. It has a sad ending.
Most of Almond's women have really odd smells coming from their mouths: one, Clamato. Another from her breasts, shoe leather and cinnamon. He implies that men too get caught up in the fantasy of the wedding pageantry, considering plump bridesmaids in shabby peach dyed satin pumps.
There is also a story called, simply, "Moscow". You know I read this one. It is a story where it is speculated, that Moscow is a place "above shame, above lust and privation." The shadow of churches on the horizon are described, rather beautifully, I think, like "clumps of wet chocolate drawn to a point." It's one of my favorites. It's about one perfect memory, that haunts. It also features snow;)
Another is called "The Pass", and discusses why this method has become difficult for modern men on the make. One guy says something like, about a woman's lower regions, "I don't know if I can go a lifetime without knowing." Ha, slick. Modern women have dissected all these moves, so males are given an additional burden to haul around besides their cumbersome sticks.
There's also an absolutely lovely story about how one sad dude with a beautiful, mad mother uses a myth he may have made up about "Valentino" --the title--to help himself with his love life. I liked that one a lot, too.
Yeah, now that I have revisited these stories, I think I really loved them. I think they say something new about the burden of being a modern American male who wants something beyond the usual American dream. Thank god for funny men--they make my life less atrocious.
Vladimir Nabakov's Lolita:
I debated where to put this, including "Art I Want To See" because I have such mixed up feelings about this book. Is it American? I decided it is.
Super Ugly American...nothing to be proud of.
Thomas Pynchon--Inherent Vice:
I was reminded about this book because it's about to come out as a movie--I almost saw it in the perfect place: Hollywood, but, the best laid plans of mice and men... also, I am now actively reading another book of his, Bleeding Edge, that I like a little less. (Morrissey sez: Nothing's changed, I still love you, oh, I still love you...only slightly, only slightly less, than I used to, my love...)
I'm starting to see the pattern of what Pynchon goes for--he likes to slice out a section of a turning point in history--recent American history in particular, and let us chew on it for awhile. Bleeding Edge is about the millennium "end times" including the dot.com bust and 9/11. Inherent Vice is about a time I suppose I feel more nostalgic for : 1970. Notice his decadal love?
This book most definitely is a humorous portrayal of America, American culture, and a particular slice of American culture: an interestingly flaccid time, in the gulf between the idealistic, beautiful and earnest sixties and its decaying opposite, its yang, the "dazed and confused" early seventies, which caused so many people to think the revolution was not really about the group effort but was more about individuals getting their individual rocks off in a number of ridiculous ways. The end of the American Dream.
Entropy in the system. It was a fascinating time.
This book is frequently compared to the Coen Brother's The Big Lewbowski, and although there is some similarity, the hippie detective protagonist, for example, and the bevy of eccentric side characters--the two don't really have the same feel. First, it's not that specific 70's time in Lewbowski, it's more contemporary. IV perhaps feels trippier because it is so much more plotless--it has the feel of going into some weird pointless dream--or at least the point is submerged in so much symbol that you'd have to think it through and relate it to someone's waking life to find it. Lewbowski has a more traditionally resolvable story line, but doesn't wear as well with extra viewings once the audience gets it. You watch it again for nostalgia, not to try to figure it out. How often can you do that?
Wikipedia seems to think the title refers to a William Gaddis post-modern novel, referring to a flaw in a work of art, but I also found this:
"The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries." Winston Churchill.
Pynchon also used the idea in his novel Mason & Dixon, which I want to read, to" imply the (comic?how does that work?) weakening of original sin"?
This novel sort of reminds me of many of Dylan 's narrative songs--great imagery and energy, scattered in multiple funhouse images, difficult to put into a single idea--following Dylan's famous quote criticizing mainstream life: "Cos something is happening, but you don't know what it is, do you, Mr. Jones?" Apparently, the hippies themselves became Mr. Jones, too.
In the background, but not all that frequently mentioned, is the setting, perfect for hinting at the underlying message: We're in decadent Los Angeles, at its crossroads, as the epicenter of the imploding counterculture--the very place and time I recall registering it myself, in my life, falling apart: when the Manson Family (that's Charlie, not Marilyn, youngsters) was on trial and all the sordid details of their lifestyle on Spahn Ranch was becoming mass-consumed by popular media. I even inhaled that damned Helter Skelter book myself, grossing out to the police photographs that were in the gatefold of the book, including the lyrics to the White Album written in Sharon Tate's baby's blood on a closet door: "On, two, three, four, five, six, seven/ All good children go to heaven."
And Charlie becomes an icon: the devil you don't want to know in the counterculture underground.
Now, skimming through the contents of this novel, to try to remind myself what it was about, I find myself seeing the forest in the trees, a perspective I couldn't get while reading it. It seems like almost every character, excepting our hero, pothead Doc Sportello, seems to be working on a way to escape whatever sort of life they've found themselves stuck in. The Cage they are in. And since a lot have them are doing their lifestyle for money, fame, etc., it's not really that much of a stretch to figure out what they really need to escape, and the real message of the book is much again a sort of modern reworking of romanticism: simplify. Doc maybe is like the Dude. Travel light and be true to yourself. I mean, Charlie himself wanted to be famous, rich, a thousand girls, a musician..establishment..established. Mr. Jones.
*********************************************
I will let the man speak in his own words:
Doc was in the toilet pissing during a commercial break when he heard Sauncho screaming at the television set. He got back to find his attorney just withdrawing his nose from the screen.
"Everything cool?"
"Ahh..." collapsing on the couch, "Charlie the fucking Tuna, man."
"What?"
"It's all supposed to be so innocent, upwardly mobile snob, designer shades, beret, so desperate to show he's got good taste, except he's also dyslexic so he gets 'good taste' mixed up with 'taste good', but it's worse than that! Far, far worse! Charlie really has this, like, obsessive death wish! Yes! he wants to be caught, processed, put in a can, not just any can, you dig, it has to be StarKist! suicidal brand loyalty, man, deep parable of consumer capitalism, they won't be happy with anything less than drift-netting us all, chopping us up and stacking us on the shelves of Supermarket Amerika, and subconsciously the horrible thing is, is we want them to do it..
Indeed.
Charley:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pJw3N4KmMQ
April 7: I should remind myself to write about Michael Chabon's The Adventures of Cavalier and Clay, which is an amazing book, both funny and sobering.
August 29, 2015: I just watched a bio on Nina Simone (amazing) which gave a very graphic description of the impact of the MLK shooting. It occurred to me--what if that had happened today, given the atmosphere??
Harold and Maude: Hal Ashby, director, Colin Higgins, novel and screenplay
February 10, 2016: Ok, I'm including a novelized movie here--very American, yet very dark, sarcastic humor. It drags around the ennui of the upper crust American, born of the silver spoon.. What is that Russian word? Irony so deep it gets mistaken for admiration. Dammitt tttttt--I cannot remember! Great word though. AHA!!! Found it!! стёб..I gotta remember that!
If I'm recalling correctly, the idea is you perform a work of [sarcastic] irony, by imitating and parodying the target so thoroughly, it's hard to tell if the performer is making fun--it seems more like admiration. So, you got to imagine, in repressive Soviet days, it may have been dangerous to blatantly parody some party boss or apparatchik, so instead you create стёб-- but you must be very careful to be completely deadpan, reign in the extremes so you won't be caught rolling your eyes or overdoing it. It seems to me that Harold and Maude has a few instances of стёб humor. For example, Harold's "suicides" seem somehow ironic, but you're never entirely sure if he means them or not or if he is merely trying to be very, very, darkly funny--and make fun of his uptight/sophisticated/ weirdly creative mother. They are a pair, boy.
First, in this scene, Harold, -- a well brought up, sophisticated, and extremely repressed Young American, is visiting his equally sophisticated psychiatrist. You see, he's "suicidal" and this is what is "done" in such circles--run to the psychiatrist. But you are never sure if Harold's mother does this because she's trying to help him, to be de rigueur, or just one- up him in their little humor competition.
The most hilarious thing I have now noticed is he takes the time to dress exactly like the psychiatrist--an amazing piece of visual irony ( стёб?) in this scene. He is very deferential, and I think, there is a part of him that really does admire the doctor. And the uncle/general in a later scene.
"Psychiatrist: So, Harold, have all [these "mock" suicides] been done for your mother's, benefit?"
Harold: " Oh, no." [He stops and raises one eyebrow with a little conspiratorial, barely repressed grin]; " I would not say, benefit."
So here's some fun echoes in that psychoanalyst scene. Of course it makes fun of mom and the culture of neurotic rich folk running off to the psychoanalyst--Woody Allen territory. But the thing is, you get the impression that Harold is not at all neurotic--it's the ultimate rebellion. And smart. He knows the psychiatrist's game without his years of study, knows what he wants to hear, and he gives it to him in spades, the voyeurism he seeks to make his bones, the insight he imagines he's seeing, the wisdom he feels he's imparting: making a difference.
The swimming pool scene is just a thing of beauty in dark laughter. Harold Floating, supposedly dead,artistically. His mother, Entering the water, Putting on her bathing cap, In time to music,Her arms Moving like a conductor's, then Breast-stroking to Tchaikovsky. Artistically. Everyone conscious of the music. Mother ignores Harold Floating, Harold expresses Underwater Indignation at being Ignored.
A running gag in the story is that Harold's mother has decided it would help along Harold's maturity if he got married, so she puts him in a dating service and screens his dates for him. Of course he intentionally blows them up--this even before he falls for Maude.
Can I say I absolutely love Bud Cort's Harold, with a mad sort of unreasonable love? He's sort of ghoulish, Addam's Family creepy, but in a fine, sensitive way. In one sense he seems both too young and simultaneously too old. He has class and style like his equally dramatic mother (they are a pair!) Like the way he lights candles before a hanging, unbuttons his coat in time to invisible music, carefully moves his tie away from his shirtfront before committing hari-kari. He loves the art of living. Yet considering the context, it is all so, so funny.
And the best scene of all has no dialogue --just Harold going through a series of facial changes after getting rid of his mother's arrangements . First he smiles this smug little Iago smile for the camera, very long and drawn out, in time to the music, then he slowly turns to his mother, whose frosty look turns his smile first grim, then embarrassed, then into self-loathing... amazing moment on film.
