masturbation contests

As a teen Peruvian (future) novelist Mario Vargas Llosa went to a military-style boarding school. Academically it was considered a cut above. It sounds like young Mario did okay there, but it instilled no love in him for the military’s “mechanical hierarchies, [its] authorized violence [or] the at times … cruel and monstrous uses” to which these were put. But what sticks out to me (so to speak) are the literally homosexual acts these (almost certainly mainly heterosexual) boys promulgated. 

On the very first day, after getting into their school uniforms and hearing welcoming (?) speeches from the adults, the new boys are turned over to the older boys for the usual hazing rituals. 

A group of cadets took me and a[nother] boy … to a fourth-year dormitory. They made us go through a ‘right angle’ contest. We had to kick each other in the backside as we doubled over alternately; the one who kicked more slowly than the other was in turn kicked, hard, by the hazers. Afterward, they made us open our trousers fly and take out our penis and masturbate: the one who came first would be let go and the other would stay behind to make our torturers’ beds. But, however hard we tried, fear kept us from getting an erection, and finally, bored by our incompetence, they took us out to the soccer field. They asked me what sport I went in for: ‘Swimming, sir.’ ‘Swim on your back from one end of the athletic field to the other, then, perro.’

As Mario figured out the place, he recognized that, “in order not to have one’s will broken [by the relentless bullying], it was necessary to do daring things, so as to earn the good feeling and respect of the others. I began doing them from the start: from the masturbation contests — the one who ejaculated first or who shot his sperm the farthest — to the famous escapades at night, after lights out.” The biggest “escapade,” Vargas Llosa says, was the escape, “going over the wall,” as being caught leaving the compound without authorization meant you’d be expelled “without appeal.” Mario was a regular escapee, it seems. 

Of course you had to boast about your sexual prowess with women — even if (especially if?) you were a virgin, which most of the boys were, I’m sure. The highest prestige went to (as it comes to us in English) the “mad jock with a big cock,” a title Mario proudly claimed.

In his memoir Mario Vargas Llosa at times expresses sympathy for gay men, and disappointment in others’ homophobia, though he presents himself as very het — besides the “masturbation contests,”  that is, although isn't that somehow hetter than het? It’s not like there’s any love or affection in it.

source:

A Fish in the Water

by Mario Vargas Llosa

translated by Helen Lane

1994. Farrar Straus Giroux, New York

When your son’s a rock star

John Taylor, despite his rock star excesses, often comes across in his memoir as a sweetie. Shortly after they formed Duran Duran in Birmingham, England, the boys imagined playing Madison Square Garden in New York City. They made it. And in the time frame they imagined, that is, by 1984. 

What was something they did to celebrate?

When we got to New York, we flew out all of our parents. My mom had never been on a plane before, nor out of the country, and had to get a passport. We put them up in the band’s hotel. They went around as if they were a band themselves on that trip. They went up the Empire State Building together. They rented two station wagons and drove to Disney World in Florida together. They went everywhere together. 

It was the most profound experience my parents had in their later years. They never stopped talking about it. We were fortunate to be able to give our parents that kind of gift.

Duran Duran flew all their parents over to the U.S. Five pairs of mums and dads? Maybe it’s something rock-and-roll bands do all the time, but it’s sure not part of the legend. It gives me a warm feeling to picture the middle-aged Brits peering out of the observation deck of the Empire State and nudging each other, pointing out the sights.

source:

In the Pleasure Groove: love, death & Duran Duran

by John Taylor with Tom Sykes

2012. Dutton / Penguin, NY

Duran Duran fan

John Taylor, bassist for Duran Duran, achieved all his dreams — and, what do you know, they didn’t make him happy. Or they did, at first, but, whew, there’s just no way you can be prepared for the kind of overwhelming fame that hit Duran Duran. I think there were some Durannies at my small town high school in California. I don’t remember much about them. There were kids who dressed “new wave,” but were they Durannies? I think The Cure had more cred. 

John Taylor talks about one fan who really wanted something from her idol:

The fans would do some pretty crazy things over the years but my favorite has to be the girl in Atlanta who was present at a press conference we gave on the reunion tour. I had a cold and was sniffling into a series of tissues, absentmindedly throwing them into a wastepaper bin under the table.

Next time into the city, the girl called out to me at another public appearance, ‘I was the girl who got your cold.’

I wondered what on earth she was talking about.

‘After you left the press conference last year I stole your used tissues. I wanted to get your cold.’

John Taylor’s calling this“crazy thing” a fan did his “favorite” is an odd choice of words, but it probably stands out in terms of commitment. 

source:

In the Pleasure Groove: love, death & Duran Duran

by John Taylor with Tom Sykes

2012. Dutton / Penguin, NY

“Hey, we’re all going to take a shower. Do you want to put your socks on?"

One of the theses of Allan Berube’s Coming Out Under Fire: the history of gay men and women in World War Two is that the gay community in the US was strengthened by the mass mobilization required for the prosecution of the war. Huge numbers of men were suddenly living in single sex communities, and many of them were discovering they were not alone in their same-sex attractions. I was hoping the book would contain some love stories. I knew it would trace the military’s anti-gay policies and campaigns, the sort of thing one needs to know but which make for discouraging reading. Berube includes no love narratives, though there are hints, a few informants who mention love affairs or who met a longterm lover while in the service. 

This anecdote emphasizes the relative tolerance of het crewmates in the extremis of a ship at sea heading into combat:

Maxwell Gordon recalled what happened on his [aircraft]* carrier when two men were caught sleeping together. ‘Early one morning in chow line I was standing with some friends and there was a commotion ahead, and we all looked over the rail, and there was a gun tub below. The canvas had blown back, and there [were]** two fellows down there. I knew one of them. And they were naked, except the older one had on black socks. And they were wrapped in each other’s arms, front to back. They’d obviously been screwing all night long. People started throwing pieces of bread down on them till they woke up. They were very embarrassed — hundreds of people saw them. [The other men]** were whistling and saying, “Oh, wake up! It’s morning!” The one fellow who was a bos’n’s mate was kidded for weeks and months after about his socks. They said, “Hey, we’re all going to take a shower. Do you want to put your socks on and come along?” Because that’s all he had on.’

___________

*my interpolation … ** author’s interpolation

Berube does not present any follow-up about the progress of this exposed affair or whether the bos’n’s mate was known to have any others. 

The second anecdote is more affecting:

Ben Small remembered, a lieutenant who had been injured was being shipped back to the States, so the men ‘all went to the plane to see him off that night. It was an amazingly touching moment, when he and his lover said good-bye, because they embraced and kissed in front of all these straight guys and everyone dealt with it so well. I think it was just this basic thing about the separation of someone you cared for, regardless of sex.’

Again, the emphasis is on the unusual exposure of the male-male relationship. Letting others see same-sex love was dangerous. The consequences ranged from teasing to hostile interrogation, the stockade, prison, a locked mental ward. Thousands were tossed out of the armed forces with dishonorable discharges which prevented them from accessing the benefits of the GI Bill. Come the anti-homosexual crusades of the ‘50s, this queer branding by the military lost many a person their job, especially among the ranks of the civil service.

These anecdotes stand out for offering a glimpse into the many relationships that must have gone on but had to be kept hidden. I wish Allan Berube had given us at least one full account of a romance. 

source:

Coming Out Under Fire: the history of gay men and women in World War Two

by Allan Berube

1990. The Free Press / Collier Macmillan, NY

What no serious poet does

Paisley Rekdahl served as poet guest editor for the 2020 number of The Best American Poetry. In her introduction she makes this amazing statement:

“I have never treated poetry as a therapeutic activity; I doubt any serious poet does.”

What? Please! The statement and the tutting corollary are condescending and ridiculous. Maybe even Infuriating?  

Rekdahl’s categorical is followed by the muddled: “And yet if I resist the impulse to turn to poetry for solace, I also risk missing the intimacy that poetry offers us, an intimacy that suggests the author knows my private thoughts and feelings and that, even if she cannot speak to me individually, she speaks about us all as a world.”

Again, what? 

For Paisley Rekdahl “therapeutic activity” and “solace” seem to be the same thing. I guess she’s talking specifically about writing poetry, but she probably also means reading poetry. Why turning to poetry for solace is a bad thing goes unexplained. It must be so obvious to her that she takes it as a given. Uncontroversial. All her friends think so! Why? 

If we turn to a dictionary to help us figure out what Rekdahl means by “therapeutic” we get this at Merriam-Webster: “having a beneficial effect on the body or mind”

Surely even to the deadly serious Paisley Rekdahl it wouldn’t be verboten for a poet to think of poetry as “having a beneficial effect on the … mind”. So she must mean something less broad, a definition with bad connotations. Similarly, another definition at M-W goes, “producing a useful or favorable result or effect”. That doesn’t seem to be so horrific as to be something a poet ought never to do. I imagine Rekdahl arguing that true poetry is not created purely in order to produce a useful or favorable result or effect. True poetry/art is full and deep — full of contradictions, ambiguities, suggestions. That which looks like poetry but is crafted solely to produce a favorable effect is propaganda. “Propaganda” is a word with few positive connotations. Propaganda typically leaves out a lot of truth in order to pare down to the only message it wants to get across. That sounds bad. 

Earlier in the essay Rekdahl talks about how at the beginning of the Covid epidemic her “inbox was daily stuffed with requests from poetry chain mails and journalists and school administrators and arts programs to supply them with poems, preferably ones that could offer people inspiration. … [But] I didn’t feel poetry should be hopeful … [W]hy should I trust a poem that insisted everything, and everyone, would be all right?”

Well, that does sounds like a cheery kind of propaganda, doesn’t it? She’s exasperated by all this grasping after hope, that she, as a poet, is supposed to provide. I’m not a therapist, she seems to say. That’s not my job. Soothing you is not poetry’s job. 

Maybe not. But it’s quite a leap from pique over being prodded to produce poems that soothe to declaring that no serious poet ever turns to poetry for solace. 

Art therapy — and by extension, poetry therapy, I suppose — gets a bad rap. Since Paisley Rekdahl turns her nose up at the word “therapeutic” I immediately thought of the attitude I’ve encountered over the use of art and poetry as ways to heal. Art isn’t meant to heal! It’s meant to — something else — something serious. Make you think, feel, make you analyze, parse — but not heal, dammit. That’s for mommies — and medicines. Could there be some misogyny in the disdain for art therapy? “Serious” is such a masculine word.

Every Best American Poetry includes several pages at the back that not only give brief bios of the poets but also feature the poets talking about their poems. So do any of the poets talk about poetry as a therapeutic activity? 

Victoria Chang: “[M]y mother passed after a long illness and I was/am a bit lost without her. I read … many poems that helped me … I can see, in retrospect, that I wrote these poems to help myself, to see if I could get to the center of grief. Could I distill it? Describe it?” 

Gee, that sounds almost like the definition of “therapeutic.”

Max Ritvo: “I want my writing to heal people. And not like chemotherapy, but like a good veggie soup. Poetry must entertain if it is to heal.”

Arthur Sze: “In traditional Japanese culture, when a ceramic pot is broken, the shards are reassembled and bound together with gold-dusted lacquer. This ‘golden repair’ does not disguise but highlights the breakage, and in writing this section [of the poem that appears in the anthology], I conceived of silence as my gold lacquer.”

James Tate: “[Poets] may end up with an audience and a following of some sort, but in truth they write their poems with various degrees of obsessiveness mostly for themselves, for the pleasure and satisfaction it gives them. And for the hunger and need nothing else can abate.”

So many unserious poets!

source:

The Best American Poetry 2020

edited by Paisley Rekdahl

series editor, David Lehman

Scribner Poetry / Simon & Schuster, NY

word of the day: vedette

word of the day: vedette

Mario Vargas Llosa is a Peruvian novelist. He became involved in Peruvian electoral politics in the 80s. In the following paragraph Vargas Llosa talks about a man mulling a run for mayor in the capital, Lima. 

context:

His image was that of a likable emcee and a favorite of the masses — because of his manner of speaking filled with ‘in’ words, such as manito, for ‘pal,’ patita, for ‘getting the bounce,’ chelita, for ‘blondie,’ and all the picturesque expressions of the latest slang popular with teenagers — associated with the world of show business, of popular singers, comedians, and vedettes, and not with public affairs.

definition (lexico): A leading star of stage, screen, or television.

I like the way Vargas Llosa defines a bunch of words all at once, except vedette. Anybody familiar with the phrase “getting the bounce”? According to Collins, it means “to dismiss or be dismissed from a job.” I think I’ve heard “give him the bounce,” maybe on TV? Collins says it’s US slang. 

source:

A Fish in the Water: a memoir

by Mario Vargas Llosa

translated by Helen Lane

1994. Farrar Straus Giroux, New York

word of the day: haruspication

word of the day: haruspication

context:

They made love for a long time and finished wet and exhausted. Like swimmers, Browne thought. By the standards of his sexual haruspication, it augured well. He woke briefly, thinking he had heard her in tears. She appeared asleep. He thought it must have been a dream.

definition (Merriam-Webster): an act or instance of foretelling something

Other sources have the foretelling specifically from the examination of animal entrails. 

Ah, the seeking of omens. I wonder what made looking at spilled guts a method of predicting the future. When one “spills one’s guts” these days, it means one is confessing. But then, those are one’s own guts being spilled, not a slaughtered animal’s. I suppose during slaughter the spilling of the animal’s guts can’t be avoided. Presumably the guts fell out in some particularly weird and memorable way one day, then later something else weird and memorable happened, thus the connection. Who knows?

source:

Outerbridge Reach

by Robert Stone

1992. Ticknor & Fields, New York NY

word of the day: nun buoy

word of the day: nun buoy

context:

In mid-harbor he turned his back on the lights and Liberty’s statue. Hard by the Bayonne shore, he skirted a nun buoy and passed under the lighted fantail of an enormous container ship riding at anchor. Three Filipino crewmen leaned against the rail, smoking, looking silently down on him.

definition (Merriam-Webster): a red metal buoy made of two cones joined at the base and usually marking the starboard side of a channel approached from the sea

Another source gives the origin of the “nun” part as meaning a “spinning top.” I learned “buoy” phonetically as “boo-ee,” but apparently it’s also pronounced “boy.” Thus the nun buoy could be a boy nun, which is rather fun. Or maybe none boy? 

source:

Outerbridge Reach

by Robert Stone

1992. Ticknor & Fields, New York NY

The road that didn’t get here

I’ve been dealing with bouts of envy. This is not new, exactly, but I am old now (55) so it just seems more critical. I want my writings collected in books, which are available in bookstores and libraries. I want to go on a book tour. I don’t want to have to do it all myself. My ambitions seem pretty modest. I don’t expect to write bestsellers, or have Terry Gross suck my Fresh Air or sit on a panel at the Big Book Fair (none which I would scorn, however).

When I came across Jesse Browner’s How Did I Get Here?: making peace with the road not taken, I thought, maybe he’ll offer some consolation, this successful writer offering up an essay about how unsuccessful he is — like me, minus the successful part. 

And some of it just made me roll my eyes. Really? He’s complaining about a life that sounds similar to one I dreamed of as a kid. Polyglot, in his 20s Browner got a well-paid and intellectually stimulating job at the United Nations, married and had two daughters and is still married, and is regularly publishing books. Browner thinks he’s a failure because his books don’t pay his bills, he never sees anybody reading his books on the subway, and he’s not a bohemian living only for his art. Browner’s romantic views of poverty are not mine. I always hated being poor, whereas I used to dream of being an interpreter at the UN. That job seemed so important, if unsung. I have studied other languages, not to no avail but well shy of fluency. I don’t know that I ever had particular dreams about kids of my own, but I like kids, and in one of those alternate universe versions of my life (the kind of musing Browner does quite a bit in the book) I imagine myself as a father. 

But I did end up liking How Did I Get Here? Like Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof, “On the one hand … but on the other hand …”, Browner tries out different ways of thinking about his situation. The essay is framed by a discussion of Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken,” and Browner does a good thorough reading of that poem. It’s a far more ambiguous poem than its reputation suggests. “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— / I took the one less traveled by, / And that has made all the difference.” I like the way Browne even allows that the outcome of that fateful decision might have been terrible. The poet doesn’t really say. The mood of the poem seems wistful and satisfied rather than anguished and regretful, but no concrete result is described. Wealth? Love? Good drugs? The monastery?

So let’s say you are an artist, and underappreciated. What advice does Jesse Browner have for you? Fortunately, it’s less advice and more example. Here’s what I wrestled with in my head, kids. Maybe it will mean something to you?

My favorite line in the book is this one (by “work” he means his writing, not his day job):

My work was there to keep me alive, and it was doing exactly what it was supposed to do, but I was asking it to make me happy, and that was not its job.

With all big dreams of capturing the world’s attention unfulfilled, how then does the work serve? With commitment to one’s art not bringing satisfaction and contentment as one had expected, is there any point in doing it? To live. Really? To live?

Rereading the quote out of the context of Jesse Browner’s argument I see that “work” he’s referring to could also be the day job … so long as it keeps you alive. (Browner does explore this idea when he discusses Franz Kafka’s oft-voiced distaste for his day job, one at which, Browner says, Kafka actually excelled, moving up in the company and garnering much praise from his supervisors.)

And here we come upon one of my rare insights into the notion of the Blues. Why indulge sadness when you could strive to be happy? Well, there’s sadness in everything because nothing lasts forever. Happiness is great. I much prefer it. And I have a nagging tic of suicidal ideation. But for me the writing of a poem is the visiting of a place, and in that place that feels like a nexus many a disparate thread comes together into a cloth, or a poem. Browner also wonders what “meaning” is in the search for meaning. And I think we agree that the meaning is in the meaning, that is, meaning is an action, meaning is in the making of meaning (or maybe the searching). 

Live while you’re alive. 

source:

How Did I Get Here?: making peace with the road not taken

by Jesse Browner

2015. Harper Wave / HarperCollins, New York NY

95472

Fantagraphics Books (my publisher!) has been issuing volumes of Peanuts strips in collections covering two calendar years. I grew up in Sebastopol, a small Northern California town. I remember being told that Charles Schulz, the creator of Peanuts lived in town somewhere, that a kid or two I knew had even been to a pool party at this house. If I ever saw Schulz’s house I didn’t know it. So I’m reading vol. 7 of The Complete Peanuts and I come upon a character with a gimmicky name. It seems the boy is named “5.” What is his last name? “95472”

That’s Sebastopol’s zip code. Funny. 5’s sisters’ names are 3 and 4. I have read many collections of Peanuts strips over the years — as well as reading each new strip as it appeared — and I don’t recall these characters. I thought they must have been dropped soon after they were created. There’s not much you can do with such a gimmick. But a little research told me that 5 appeared off and on up to 1983, 20 years after his creation. 

Most significantly, the three number-named kids appear in the first Peanuts special, A Charlie Brown Christmas. There are three kids who only appear in a dance scene. Two stringy-haired girls face the camera, smiling, and drop their heads from side to side. A boy with short spiky hair juts out his chin, then pulls it in. Those are 5, 4, and 3. None of them have any lines. But with Peanuts’ limited cast, I guess these otherwise seldom used characters helped fill up a crowd scene. (Credit to Karl Heitmuller for putting together the clues.)

source:

The Complete Poems, vol. 7: 1963-1964

by Charles Schulz

2017. Fantagraphics Books, Seattle WA

word of the day: viga

word of the day: viga 

from “In Chimayo” by Gloria Bird 

Across the arroyo, the news would remind Manuelita of her grief, y su hijito lost the month we moved in. That spring, centipedes sprinkled sand from the warming vigas where they were hidden. 

 

 

definition (Merriam-Webster): one of the heavy rafters and especially a log supporting the roof in American Indian and Spanish architecture of the Southwest 

source: 

When the Light of the World Was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through: a Norton anthology of Native Nations poetry 

edited by Joy Harjo, with Leanne Howe, Jennifer Elise Foerster, and contributing editors 

2020. W. W. Norton & Co., New York

word of the day: baldachin

word of the day: baldachin

from “The Seventh Angel” by Zbigniew Herbert:

The seventh angel 

is completely different

even his name is different

Shemkel

he is no Gabriel

the aureate

upholder of the throne

and baldachin

and he’s no Raphael

tuner of choirs

…

Shemkel

is black and nervous

and has been fined many times

for illegal import of sinners

definition (Merriam-Webster): a cloth canopy fixed or carried over an important person or a sacred object

bonus definition from Merriam-Webster — aureate: of a golden color or brilliance

source: 

Zbigniew Herbert: Selected Poems

translations by Czeslaw Milosz and Peter Dale Scott

1968. Penguin Books, Baltimore MD

word of the day: rhubarb

word of the day: rhubarb

first context Peanuts: 

In an April 1963 Sunday strip Lucy is on the pitcher’s mound. She calls over Snoopy to have him slobber on the baseball. When thrown, the ball loops and swirls before passing over home plate into the catcher’s mitt, Charlie Brown swinging at it fruitlessly. Charlie Brown lectures Lucy on the rule that prohibits such a pitch: “Right here on page thirty-one, section three, rule 6.12!” Pleased with himself nevertheless Snoopy sits by thinking to himself, “I love a good rhubarb.”

second context Dykes to Watch Out For:

In a 2/20/08 strip Mo and Lois run into each other at the grocery store, and do a little catching up. Lois, always ready to bed the latest hot babe, is surprised and a little disturbed to note that she’s been an exclusive relationship for three years. One of her housemates (not her girlfriend) is insisting on stocking the larder as a locavore. Mo looks into the grocery cart full of commercially produced food packages. “Clarice [a different housemate] told me you were only eating local food.” Lois: “That’s just at my place. When I want to escape the rhubarb wine, I go to [the house of Jasmine, the girlfriend].” Being as it’s 2008 and the Democratic Party is in the midst of the contentious primary between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, Jasmine and daughter Janis start arguing over which candidates each prefers. Lois turns to Mo, “And when I want to escape the political rhubarb, I go back home!”

definition (Merriam-Webster): a heated dispute or controversy

I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone use “rhubarb” this way in conversation. I remember reading the Peanuts strip as a kid and being puzzled by the word. I wouldn’t be surprised if Alison Bechdel also picked up “rhubarb” from Peanuts, but who knows? Maybe back east it’s common usage. 

sources:

The Complete Poems, vol. 7: 1963-1964

by Charles Schulz

2017. Fantagraphics Books, Seattle WA

The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For

by Alison Bechdel

2008. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, New York

word of the day: dunnage

word of the day: dunnage

context: 

“Our canoe, old now with the weight of her journey, lay with her scrofulous sides on the shore. Beside her was the meager pile of supplies which must see us out of the land. It was raining. A fine penetrating haze as cold and dismal as the gray sweat on the face of a corpse hung over us.

Ohoto and Ootek came to help us stow our spare dunnage against the rough splintered ribs of the canoe.”

Farley Mowat was one of my mother’s favorite writers. But then Mowat often wrote about one of my mother’s favorite topics — the people and animals of the arctic. He writes well. I read Never Cry Wolf when I was a teen and enjoyed it. Good adventure story. 

In the excerpt above Mowat has just gotten back from a trip through territory even his Eskimo guide didn’t know. It was his longest expedition on this visit to the arctic, and it was sometimes harrowing. But now it is time for Mowat to return south, to civilization, to his non-arctic life. 

definition (dictionary.com): baggage or personal effects.

source:

The People of the Deer

by Farley Mowat

1952. Atlantic-Little, Brown, Boston MA

words of the day: dace and tangle

words of the day: dace and tangle

In the months and years after the atomic bomb explosion over Hiroshima the survivors have to deal with the effects of radiation poisoning. Yasuko was not hurt by the initial blast but wandered the ruins looking for her uncle, so unknowingly took on a strong dose. Her uncle and aunt were also sickened, but the younger woman seemed to have it worse. 

I see the doctor to the gate and am told: ‘She seems more listless than yesterday. It’s the effect of the fever, I imagine.’

For supper, stewed dace, egg, tangle, shallots, one bowl of rice, tomatoes. The doctor said he would come every three days, but after talking with my husband and with Yasuko, I go to Dr. Kajita’s house to ask him to come every day. He agrees.

The patient goes to bed at eight.

dace (dictionary.com): a small, freshwater cyprinoid fish, Leuciscus leuciscus, of Europe, having a stout, fusiform body.

tangle (dictionary.com): any of several large seaweeds of the genus Laminaria.

source: 

Black Rain

by Masuji Ibuse

translated by John Bester

1985. Kodansha International / Bantam Books, NY

word of the day: rusk

word of the day: rusk

The narrator is walking back into post-A-bomb Hiroshima. He has come upon a body that at first he thinks might be alive, as “from time to time it seemed to puff its cheeks out and take a deep breath. Its eyelids seemed to be moving, too.” As he approaches the narrator is revolted to see the movements of the face are the actions of maggots swarming.

For a moment, I felt like flinging my bundle in the river. I hated war. Who cared, after all, which side won? The only important thing was to end it all as soon as possible: rather an unjust peace than a ‘just’ war! I went back to the parapet, but instead of flinging my bundle into the river made it fast on my back. It was full of things necessary for survival amidst the ruins: a bottle containing stomach pills, a trowel, old magazines, eucalyptus leaves, dried rusks, a round paper fan, and the like.

definition (Merriam-Webster): hard crisp bread originally used as ship's stores

The eucalyptus leaves, when burned slowly, are a mosquito repellent, the paper fan a way to keep the smoke moving. 

source: 

Black Rain

by Masuji Ibuse

translated by John Bester

1985. Kodansha International / Bantam Books, NY

Death by Balloon

Eight years ago I put up a post about Japan’s World War II rather random weapon, the incendiary balloon. I just came across a more thorough account in Nicholas Basbanes’ history of paper. The balloons were made of paper, so … 

[This] ambitious [balloon] offensive was deemed feasible on the strength of meteorological research conducted in the 1930s that had discovered ‘rivers of fast moving air’ flowing in the upper atmosphere toward North America, wind patterns that we know today as jet streams. …

Seven manufacturing centers were set up around Tokyo to assemble what was code-named the Fu-Go Weapon (the first character of the word for balloon is fu), with handmade paper selected for the skin of the thirty-two-foot-diameter balloons, six hundred individual sheets required for each one, all glued together in a lamination that made no allowance for gas leakage. …

It is believed that nine thousand balloon bombs were launched from three coastal locations in Japan between November 3, 1944, and April 5, 1945, each inflated with nineteen thousand cubic feet of hydrogen. About a thousand are thought to have reached North America … Sightings were confirmed in locations that ranged from Alaska, British Columbia, and Manitoba … to Oregon, Washington, California, Montana, Colorado, Wyoming, and Nebraska … One traveled as far east as Grand Rapids, Michigan … Wreckage … turns up from time to time in densely wooded areas, one as recently as 1992. …

Unwilling to give the Japanese any information to fine-tune their assaults, American censors placed a strict embargo on all details of the raids. … The … assault was not without its victims, however. On May 5, 1945, a woman and five children on an outing near the Gearhart Mountains, northwest of Klamath Falls, Oregon, came across a strange object lying on the ground; all six were killed when one of them apparently tugged on a dangling line, triggering a bomb. A memorial plaque erected after the war identifies the location as the ‘only place on the American continent where death resulted from enemy action during World War II.’

The people killed in the ballon bombing campaign were almost all children. Children killed by balloons. Children love balloons!

source:

On Paper: the everything of its two-thousand year history

by Nicholas A. Basbanes

2013. Alfred A. Knopf, New York

The structure of Oz

In her book on writing Ariel Gore uses The Wizard of Oz to illustrate “the classic five-act” structure for a novel. She calls it “the traditional Western male story structure that so much of modern prose relies on.”

Act I : “This is your background … This act shows your character in her known world, in her daily life, in her culture or subculture. This is Dorothy in Kansas before the tornado.”

Act II : “Your character faces a crisis and leaves something that is known for something that is unknown. … This is Dorothy landing in Oz.”

Act III : “This act introduces a complication or further conflict. Here your character faces tests, bumps in the road, a temptation or distraction from the goal. … This is Dorothy crossing a fast-moving river, falling asleep in the poppy field, seeking an audience with the Wizard.”

Act IV : “In this act, it appears that the forces of ‘evil’ will win out, the character will never reach her destination … Total defeat. The Wizard is a fraud.”

Act V : “There is a turn of events … that enables your character to resolve the problem, get to her destination or home again. … Dorothy realizes she has what she needs within herself to get home. Tap, tap, tap.”

Ariel Gore mixes up the original L. Frank Baum novel and the MGM movie adaptation somewhat. There’s no fast-moving river in the movie, but there is in the novel. There is no realization in the novel that Dorothy has always had everything she needs to get home. But it does take a sorceress to tell her the silver shoes will get her there, the very shoes she’s been wearing ever since she shook the dust of the Wicked Witch of the East out of them. Her companions, the Tin Woodman, the Scarecrow, and the Cowardly Lion, are the ones who already had what they needed within themselves.  

source:

How to Become a Famous Writer Before You’re Dead

by Ariel Gore

2007. Three Rivers Press / Crown Publishing / Random House

“make it impossible”

In an interview with a book editor, Ariel Gore asks for tips on the kind of query they would like to see. 

The editor shakes their head at “sloppy” authors who don’t “really put a lot of time and effort into making the best impression.” The editor goes on, “The sad truth is that, like everyone else, agents and editors are busy, and as much as we want to find the next book we can’t turn down, there is such a high volume of material coming in that it’s easier to find reasons to say no than to say yes.”

The editor concludes, “The author’s job is to make it impossible for us to say no.”

That’s what the author’s job is. The book is obviously secondary. You’d better be good at sales, author. You’d better be a real salesman. 

None of this is a new information. Since I was a kid I’ve been reading books on how to be a writer and achieve publication. But this is one of those things about being an author that I find discouraging. Sales. I’m no good at sales. 

The editor’s obvious disgust for authors is offputting, too. I get it. Editors are overwhelmed by the mass of manuscript that comes their way. On their bad days they’d prefer 99% of the hopefuls clogging their in-box would just drop dead. In order to stand out you’d better be good at jumping up and down on the page and shouting in just that way that demonstrates your brilliance, the million-selling potential of your product, your obedient and marketable personality, etc. 

I like to write. I get a lot of value out of it. Having written interesting things, I would like to find a publisher for them. But the sort of advice the editor is dishing up always depresses me. Make it impossible, they say. But that seems to be their job.

source:

How to Become a Famous Writer Before You’re Dead

by Ariel Gore

2007. Three Rivers Press / Crown Publishing / Random House

word of the day: suguration

word of the day: suguration

The elderly, ailing Aunt Jane is telling her heirs what to expect from her will.

context: 

Aunt Jane turned to her brother.

‘I have also provided for you, John, in the sum of five thousand dollars.’

‘Me!’ he exclaimed, astounded. ‘Why, suguration, Jane, I don’t —‘

‘Silence!’ she cried, sternly. ‘I expect neither thanks nor protests. If you take care of the money, John, it will last you as long as you live.’

Uncle John laughed.

I googled “suguration” and got one search result — Aunt Jane’s Nieces. The website Word in Context quotes exactly the same passage, but offers no definition. 

Presumably Baum coined it. I’m guessing the first two syllables “sugur” sound like “sugar.” So the word might be heard as “sugar-ration.” 

There is a long tradition of nonsense words being used in place of curses or other taboo words, from “darn” for “damn” to “freaking” for “fucking,” and Baum is not the first or last to make one up himself. Nor is it unusual to switch something sweet in for something nasty. The “honey wagon” that pumps the sewage out of your septic tank comes to mind.

source: Aunt Jane’s Nieces

by L. Frank Baum, writing as Edith Van Dyne

1906/2003. International Wizard of Oz Club, Antioch CA

Wizard of Oz as allegory

In her book on Modern Monetary Theory Stephanie Kelton touches on the most obvious, inarguable allegory of The Wizard of Oz:

The United States is the wealthiest country in the history of the world. But even when Americans were at their poorest during the Great Depression, we managed to establish Social Security and the minimum wage, electrify rural communities, provide federal housing loans, and fund a massive jobs program. Like Dorothy and her companions in The Wizard of Oz, we need to see through the myths and remember once again that we’ve had the power all along.

The Cowardly Lion was already brave, the Tin Woodman already compassionate (not what you’d expect for someone without a heart), and the Scarecrow (despite having a head stuffed with straw) took care to think things through. In other words, the Oz friends had to learn that what held them back were “myths,” as Kelton puts it. 

The myth Kelton addresses in her book is the myth that the U.S. is deeply in debt and we must continually cut spending in order to keep from going under. I’ve found this truism of Washington politics most curious in the case of our endless wars and so-called defense spending. There never seems to be an issue about paying for that stuff. And yet the economy doesn’t crash based on profligate military budgets. 

Don’t our taxes pay for everything the government does? No, says Stephanie Kelton. Taxes don’t actually pay for the federal government. The federal government self-funds — by printing money. Also, the federal government is never in debt. Those treasury bills bearing interest, that we can read as the federal debt? They’re not really a debt. They’re a way to get people to use the money the USA creates. 

There’s a lot more to Kelton’s argument, and I’m not sure I get it all. But before I read the book I knew there was plenty of money — there is plenty of money to do everything we need to do, everything that’s really a good idea, and a lot of silly, just-for-fun things. Stephanie Kelton backs me up on that. 

The last time I wrote about Wizard as allegory was back in 2012. 

source:

The Deficit Myth: Modern Monetary Theory and the birth of the people’s economy

by Stephanie Kelton

2020. Public Affairs / Perseus Books / Hachette Book Group, New York

unholy math

In medieval Europe the numerals we use today weren’t so much unknown as they were taboo. They were sinful, evil, because Christianity. 

Numbers were dangerous; at least these Indian [also known as Arabic] numbers were. They were contraband. The zero was the most unholy: a symbol for nothingness, a Hindu concept, influenced by Buddhism and transplanted to Christian Europe. It became a secret sign, a signal between fellow travelers. Sunyata was a well-established Buddhist practice of emptying the mind of all impressions, dating as far back as about 300 B.C. The Sanskirt term for zero was sunya, meaning ‘empty’ or ‘blank.’ Flashing a zero to another merchant let him know that you were a user of Hindu-Arabic numerals. In many principalities, Arabic numerals were banned from official documents. Math was sometimes exported to the West by ‘bootleggers’ in Hindu-Arabic numerals. There is plentiful evidence of such illicit number use in thirteenth-century archives in Italy, where merchants used Gwalior numbers as a secret code.

Hindu-Arabic numerals were so much easier to use in calculations than Roman numerals that they were even considered magical — which, of course, made them more verboten. 

I wonder how many mathematicians were burned at the stake. 

source:

Lost Discoveries: the ancient roots of modern science — from the Babylonians to the Maya

by Dick Teresi

2002. Simon & Schuster, New York, NY

New York City tableau

The musician known as Moby namedrops a lot in his memoir Then It Fell Apart. He also drinks a lot and does a lot drugs.  This was the paragraph that maxed the namedropping: 

Teany had become a place where some of the public figures in the neighborhood like to hang out, and somehow today they had all shown up at the same time. Kim Gordon, Thurston Moore, and Lee Ranaldo from Sonic Youth were at one of the tables. David Bowie and Iman and their toddler daughter were at another table. A few feet away Gus Van Sant was having tea with Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, and Joaquin Phoenix. Outside, Jake and Maggie Gyllenhaal were having scones.

Do I want to hang out with David Bowie and Jake Gyllenhaal and that lot? Wouldn’t it be nice?

Moby is, like, one month older than me. He found fame and wealth pursuing his art. The adoring crowds, the money, the celebrity buddies made him feel loved. For a little while. 

Teany was a tea shop / lounge that Moby and his girlfriend Kelly opened in NYC. Moby had a lot of money to throw around. He financed teany, but says Kelly did almost all the work. Theirs is one of the longer relationships Moby describes in his book. Intimacy gives him panic attacks, he says, and he evens himself out with large quantities of drink. 

Moby describes taking every kind of drug, often in poured in together, though he drinks so much the drugs are really only sprinkles on the alcohol cupcake. 

It’s hard to feel sorry for someone who buys a three-storey penthouse apartment with expansive views of Central Park. But, yeah, the poor guy was unhappy. And Natalie Portman wishes he wouldn’t say they were ever in a relationship. 

source:

Then It Fell Apart

Moby

2019. Faber & Faber, London UK