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 All of this
is modified from a letter to CLH:
I shopped at BMG last night. DMB
gave us each a check for Christmas and mine went all toward CDs. Synchronicity
for $5.09, pretty good; except shipping is $2.49. My order was half
again what I plotted. So I culled it. I shall soon have all the Police
on CD, and Spike and Blood and Chocolate. BMG does not have
Imperial Bedroom, however. Or Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders
from Mars, which is on the back of my Zenyatta Mondatta and
which cassette is dead dead dead. BMG does not have Cat Stevens, the Cocteau
Twins, Yaz, Bryan Ferry, Roxy Music, or fucking Alanis Morissette, whose
name I still cannot spell. Maybe I should have gone to cdnow.com.
CLH gave me a chenille sweater last Christmas that
I get compliments on every time I wear it. It's a great color, though
one I never think of myself. In that vein (lots of veins), I bought a
suit just before Christmas in a hue claiming to be "eggplant," an altogether
less violet and ruddier color than I prefer. Another find from Ross or
TJ Maxx, or Roxx, as I just mistyped and plan to call either from now
on.
There are
two women at Dot Org whom I confuse, actually three. One works here and
the other works there but otherwise they are both tall and gorgeous and
wear short blond blunt cuts and I swear I've never seen them together
in one room. Anyway I wore the suit a couple of days after I bought it.
One was in my coworker's office when I popped in and she complimented
me on the suit. She said, "Nice suit." Monday I wore the suit again and
the other was in the same coworker's office when I popped in and she complimented
me on the suit. She said, "Nice suit." I thanked both of them and didn't
chortle then, but I told the coworker afterward, and he laughed. So Tuesday
I wore the chenille sweater and saw the one in the hall and said carefully,
"Hi K-----," because whenever I am sure who it is, I am careful to use
her name. She grinned--she knows I confuse them and I'm sure it annoys
her but she was amused that I remembered this time. She said, "I like
that sweater," whereupon I cracked up--would I see the other later for
her to say the same thing? I told her that I know I'm awful for confusing
them, but when each of them sits in the exact same chair in the exact
same person's office and compliments the exact same suit with the exact
same words, can I help confusing them?
Speaking
of Christmas, this morning I used the last of the Santa Claus bandaids
CLH put in my stocking three hundred years ago. And Saturday after I picked
her up from the airport, HAO
and I dismantled the tree, and I put everything away, and then I scrutinized
all the apartment because I hate realizing the next day the stupid Santa
magnet is still on the fridge and having to get the boxes down again.
So Monday I walked into my cube at work to see my Santa Pez dispenser
leering at me. Damn it.
You'll notice I said "HAO and I dismantled the tree" but only "I" put
everything away. She asked if she could help do that but I said I get
very particular about what ornaments go with what other ornaments and
I don't want anyone else fucking it up. Am I anal or what? But the three
plaster ornaments DEW made have to go together and all the rest of my
favorites and then the other crate contains the ones I could give fuck-all
about, like the McDonald's-gold back-of-the-tree ones, and the not fragile
stuff.
So instead of letting HAO help wrap up ornaments, I made her watch the
Masterpiece Theatre "Jeeves and Wooster" with Peter Fry and Hugh Laurie,
respectively. This library tape had only the first, "Jeeves' Arrival,"
on it, but I figure if she hated it only an hour would be wasted and if
she liked it, well, we'd consider that it whetted her appetite. So she
watched and was converted. I made her watch "Peter's Friends" a while
ago and she liked it, and she has a good head for actors so remembered
the right people. There's P.G. Wodehouse, and then there's Fry and Laurie.
She's watched "Are You Being Served?" which I consider only a half-step
up from "Benny Hill" but has never seen "The Young Ones" or "Blackadder"
and knows "Fawlty Towers" only slightly. My tutelage will soon correct
these shortcomings.
I started
to listen to The Hunchback of Notre Dame. I tried to listen to
a Recorded Books Inc. production of this once
but the first tape was busted so I never got past the opening scene in
the jampacked hall. This time I borrowed a Blackstone Audio Book production
from another library. It was wretched. The narrator spoke in a north Boston
monotone except when a character yelled, in which case he sounded like
Elmer Fudd. In no case did he pronounce the g of an ing. So I didn't get
much further than the opening scene in the jampacked hall. I shall never
read Hugo on paper, simply because he's not a priority, and it seems I
shall never listen to him either. So I borrowed the RBI production Primary
Colors. This company puts thought into its narration and you never
hear the reader hiccough or anything. I hate Blackstone.
I'm not sure I'm going to like Primary Colors as a book either,
but I can stand to listen to it so far (I get through a lot of stuff in
audio that I couldn't on paper). I wonder if it's the "new journalism"
style of fiction that Tom Wolfe pioneered in The Right Stuff and
Bonfire of the Vanities. CLH and I saw "Bonfire" together one Thanksgiving
or Christmas, in Waterford, and then later I read it. I don't remember
much about the movie but I know I didn't like the book, didn't like the
protagonist, didn't like the way it was written. New journalism indeed.
But I might only think it's "new journalism" because I know
its author wrote for Newsweek.
The narrator is Henry and he is detached and disinterested, so far, in
Jack Stanton (the protagonist). I'm waiting for the Moby-Dick and
Great Gatsby parallels to be more obvious: the narrator who doesn't
particularly like the protagonist but tells his story anyway. That's interesting:
I've never wondered about Ishmael or the Robert Redford character (I am
so well read*) as reliable narrators, although the credibility
of housekeeper Nell in Wuthering Heights is frequently impugned.
I suppose because Nell's story is further removed: she tells whatshisname
while he recuperates in the comfort of Thrushcross Grange from the cold
he caught in his one nasty night in Wuthering Heights, and she has to
recall from her childhood situations in which she was a player, whereas
Ishmael and Redford are just third-person point-of-view narrators. The
least reliable narrator is Frankenstein, who tells his tale to the whaling
ship captain; the captain picked him up from arctic when the monster and
he had gotten that far chasing each other around.
* Is his name Nick, or do I think so because of Nick Adams? I am so
well read. (Later: It is Nick.)
The whole issue of the unreliable narrator is moot though if you consider
authorial intent, since the authors were only using the convention of
the day to set out their stories. That's why assuming authorial intent
is taboo. It puts grad students out of work.
I don't
remember the name of The Great Gatsby's narrator, but I have ceased
nursing the Hershey's syrup bottle. An accomplishment is an accomplishment,
no matter how small. I bought a three-pack from CostCo; two are in the
cupboard. The one in the fridge still has the plastic neckband on it.
This might be because we've been having Nutella on our ice cream instead.
And on our cookies. HAO was over and making toast and RDC offered her
the gargantuan jar. She said, "I'll still have jam on my toast but I might
have a spoonful later." It's a separate course.
We saw "Life
is Beautiful" last Saturday. And it was great. I think only Italians could
make a comedy set half in a concentration camp. Americans shrink from
such humor in real life, thinking laughter invariably means ridicule.
Germans wouldn't want anyone to think humor means they don't still feel
guilty. We went to Chez Artiste in a driving snowstorm and waited in a
queue of people hoping to get into "Shakespeare in Love." There was a
sign over the ticket counter about "Life is Beautiful": "Life is Beautiful"
is subtitled. No refunds will be given after the first 15 minutes."
The madman
freak called "The Crocodile Hunter" on Animal Planet is as compelling
as a car wreck or Jerry Springer. I can't watch any of them. Not a car
wreck because to do so is an invasion of the privacy of someone else's
tragedy and not either of the two television personalities because even
I cannot waste my life so much. Well, maybe a little. I've never seen
the Croc dude chase crocodiles but I have seen him pick up venomous snakes
not behind their jaws or with a stick but by their tails. Also he speaks
broad Australian, so broadly it's got to be an act for Usans
to be duped by. The other day he was snorkeling among penguins in the
Galapagos, still in his little outback outfit, complete with shirt and
black socks. This proves his appeal is meant to be the freakishness, like
Jerry Springer. So he's snorkeling with penguins in the Galapagos, and
I already hate him because he's a) a freak which I don't want to be and
b) snorkeling c) in the Galapagos d) with penguins, which I do want to
do. He discusses the penguins' food supply, saying "The el neeno impacted
the fish supply in this area…." Reasons e f and g to avoid him.
Are those
stupid damn things with WWJD on them all over the country? I hope they're
only a midwestern phenomenon that won't penetrate to the coasts. It stands
for "What Would Jesus Do?" and wearing such an ornament, pin or camera
strap or button or whatever, you're supposed to be reminded to take ol'
JC as the guide to your behavior. Spew. The first I heard of them was
last year when someone at work had just bought what she alleged was "a
real nice pin" and was crabbing because someone else asked her for it
and she had to give it over (according to JC's rules and the rules of
the WWJD club). Was it Christlike for her to complain about it,
I wondered but did not ask? So you see this on shirts, which makes me
wonder if a woman should flaunt her body like a harlot if she's asked
for the shirt, and on buttons and pins and eyeglass leashes, and it's
enough to drive you insane. Of course people have to keep buying such
shit since they are compelled to give it away whenever anyone asks, so
you can bet someone with a sweatshop in Bangladesh started the trend.
Plus it annoys me that "What would Jesus do?" is present subjunctive.
Of course the point of Christianity is that he's still around. "What would
Jesus have done?" is presumably too long, except it's only one syllable
more than the eight-syllable "abbreviation" of "double you double you
jay dee."
So anyway yesterday morning on the bus without even seeing anything so
monogrammed the phrase came into my head, which scared me, but modified,
perfectly modified, which amused me. Jesus might have had good ethics,
however much his followers have mangled his teachings, but no one can
do what he did, according to the faith. Are you supposed to feel guilty
because you can't take three fish and two loaves and feed multitudes?
because you can't raise the dead? And anyway, no poverty-stricken carpenter
could possibly have impeccable manners no matter his setting or situation.
No, for me, WWJD will now stand for "What Would Jeeves Do?"
Unfortunately no one will get that. You have a) to know midwestern conservative
Christianity and b) to be willing to mock it and c) to know P.G. Wodehouse
preferably as adapted by Fry and Laurie to get it. My audience, as usual,
is small. Sigh.
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