HONEST ADVENT

Today, I start reading Honest Advent by Scott Erickson. It is a collection of twenty-five devotions for Advent, accompanied by original art illustrations. I'm excited for these devotions, as they feel fresh and inviting, focusing upon Mary and some of the feminine aspects of the biblical stories surrounding the birth of Christ—the Annunciation, Mary's pregnancy, the physicality of birth. The art and devotions are very engaging and I'm looking forward to hearing these familiar texts with a new perspective.

LIMINALITY / THRESHOLDS

Convergences, à la Lawrence Weschler.

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"[A]n existence based on liminality and provisional presence, like television waves or information traveling by phone wire or electromagnetic light." 

—from "Cosmos" by Lidia Yuknavitch, as found in Verge

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"I write now about the calf because the image of liminality feels so accurate to grief."

"All spiritual traditions probably push us toward the threshold, the place of not knowing." 

—both from "Cattle Guard | The Calf" by Jessie van Eerden, as found in The Long Weeping

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Pastor Bri preaching upon John 3:1-17 this morning.

The threshold upon which Nicodemus stands.

"In-between" places, aka "liminal zones."

The poet John O'Donohue on thresholds.

Waiting patiently in the "in between." 

"The wind blows where it chooses..." (John 3:8)

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"To acknowledge and cross a new threshold is always a challenge. It demands courage and also a sense of trust in whatever is emerging."

"Suddenly you stand on completely strange ground and a new course of life has to be embraced. Especially at such times we desperately need blessing and protection. You look back at the life you have lived up to a few hours before, and it suddenly seems so far away."

—both from "Thresholds" by John O'Donohue, as found in To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings  

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It certainly feels as though I/we stand in "in between" times. In metaphorical liminal zones. At the threshold of something new, emerging.

May God grant me/us the strength to cross with love and mercy for all.

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On biblical stories of liminality—Noah, Lot's wife, Job, the exile of the Israelites in the desert for forty years—as examples for us:

"The kernel of these stories burns brightly with the moment of change and loss of everything, the moment that forges the soul in fire...And it seems to me that, contrary to the sermonizing of these stories, they do not reveal lessons easy to articulate."

—from "Cattle Guard | The Calf" by Jessie van Eerden, as found in The Long Weeping

(SILENT) CONVERGENCES

Detail of a handful of the 22 chapbooks that comprise Float by Anne Carson.

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"I myself have increasingly found myself being visited by similarly uncanny moments of convergence, bizarre associations, eerie rhymes, whispered recollections—sometimes in the weirdest places."
—from the introduction of Everything That Rises: A Book of Convergences by Lawrence Weschler

I have placed this quote on the worktable prior, and have referred to Weschler and his book many times. There is something that deeply resonates not only in the book, but in the kernel idea of this very quote and how it informs everything in the book!

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And the quote resonates more and more for me these days. I'm seeing things that have been there all along and I simply didn't notice before. Or, I am being drawn to things that create patterns, but I don't quite understand why the attraction was there in the first place.

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For example: Rilke.

I've been reading Rainer Maria Rilke's "Eighth Elegy" (from the Duino Elegies) for a year and am just now starting to see more and more "eerie rhymes, whispered recollections" of Rilke around. In fact, there is a Rilke quote used as an epigraph to Everything That Rises.

And in the recent death of William H. Gass, I learned that Gass had written multiple essays on Rilke and translated Rilke's Duino Elegies, something I had somehow overlooked. And in Gass's translations, I was reminded of those of Edward Snow, which I believe speak strongest to me.

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For example: Hölderlin.

In Gass, I "discovered" Hölderlin as an influence on Rilke. Yet Hölderlin was always there. He was a large part of Heidegger's essay on Rilke's poetry and, specifically, Rilke's "Eighth Elegy."

And then I realized I had read a translation of a fragment from one of Hölderlin's fragments—from "In Lovely Blue (In Lieblicher Bläue)," translated by George Kalogeris. In fact, I own the issue of Poetry magazine in which it resides.

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For example: Float.

I fell in love with Anne Carson many times—Eros the Bittersweet; The Autobiography of Red; Men in the Off Hours; If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho; Decreation. And then I was confused by her—NOX. And then I was not only confused, but also angered by her—Red Doc>. Which meant that I avoided Float when it was initially released.

But I was intrigued by the format—twenty-two chapbooks that can be read in any order.

So I eventually gave in and fell in love with Carson again.

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Tonight, reading through "Variations on the Right to Remain Silent," amongst Carson's ruminations on the untranslatable in the poetry of Homer, the "heretical" statements of Joan of Arc, the paintings of Francis Bacon, was the work of Hölderlin and his untranslatable term Pallaksch.

And not only was I given the gift of more Hölderlin, but there were echoes here on translation that I've been encountering in various translators of Rilke into English (Gary Miranda, Stephen Mitchell, Edward Snow), in Gass on Rilke, and in Sarah Ruden on the Hebrew and Christian scriptures (Old and New Testaments).

And then Anne Carson went "full on" crazy and pressed the issue of the untranslatable and the act of translation by translating a fragmentary poem by 6th century BC poet Ibykos through the words and work of John Donne, Bertolt Brecht's FBI file, Samuel Beckett, Gustav Janouch, the London Underground signs and stops, and a microwave's owner's manual.

And, as I said, I fell in love with Anne Carson again.

And I dug back into some of the essays of Weschler.

And I heard some echoes.

And I heard some echoes.

And I heard some echoes.

CONVERGENCES

On Saturday, August 12, 2017, my friend Dave and I got together for lunch, conversation, and to visit King's Books. While perusing the poetry shelves at King's Books, I stumbled upon Radio Sky by Norman Dubie and Crow by Ted Hughes.

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Years ago, I was working on a series of poems that featured Fox and Crow from the fables of Aesop. Each poem was a "comic strip" of sorts, consisting of three short sections or "panels." Each panel was filled with violence and/or death. Fox, Crow, or both were usually dead by the end. Even if they didn't die there was plenty of mischief.

A friend asked me if I had ever read Crow by Ted Hughes. I had not. At that time, I still didn't. I didn't want any associations of my Crow with that of the Crow of Hughes. I already had Aesop's Crow in my head, as well as my Crow, so I didn't need another.

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But that was then. Now seemed a good time to delve into the tales of this Crow. There was distance from poems long written and released.

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What appears on The Dark Mountain Project blog on Thursday, August 17, 2017? An essay by Mat Osmond about the poems of Ted Hughes and the illustrations of Leonard Baskin as found in Crow. Yes, the very book I had just picked up a few days prior was now the subject of "In Other Tongues: An Underswell of Divination."

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On Sunday, August 20, 2017, I'm having a conversation with my uncle at a family gathering. The talk is of trees and how they communicate with one another. My uncle asks me if I've read The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate—Discoveries from A Secret World by Peter Wohlleben. I have not, but I have read about the chemical communication of bananas with one antoher as they decay, and I've written a poem about the same. I have also learned recently about research on tomato plants and how they communicate with another through a fibrous fungal network in the soil, which acts as a sort of "internet" or information web for these plants.

As my uncle and I talk, I know that I will be locating a copy of The Hidden Life of Trees and end up reading it.

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My uncle also tells me about his special connection to yew trees. He talks about the amount of DNA that humans share with yew trees. He tells me about the various yew branches he has found throughout Tacoma and how he has been carving those branches. He tells me where yew trees are located in Tacoma and the surrounding communities of Pierce County.

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The next day, Monday, August 21, 2017, I'm on The Dark Mountain Project website again and there is a new post. What is it? Another "In Other Tongues" essay. This time it is "Conjuring Yew Trees and Mountains" by Christos Galanis.

The essay features a couple of people who are able to communicate with yew trees, similar to my uncle's experience.

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These Dark Mountain "echoes" of conversations and experiences I had just prior to their posts remind me of Everything That Rises: A Book of Convergences by Lawrence Weschler. I'm not sure how these juxtapositions happen sometimes, but they did. I'm learning to be better about recognizing them and accepting them for the gifts that they are.

DECREATION

"To tell is a function of self. This situation is a big problem for a writer. It is more than a contradiction, it is a paradox."
—page 172, from "Decreation: How Women Like Sappho, Marguerite Porete and Simone Weil Tell God," as found in Decreation by Anne Carson

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The father gave me a gift he may not understand. No, he does. He gave me the gift of women and God. He gave me a word, words, mirrors perhaps of the Word.

He understands because he himself is husband and father—to a wife and daughter and enigmatic sons.

He gave me the gift of Anne Carson, who in turn gave her gift of Sappho, Marguerite Porete, and Simone Weil. They, in turn, gave their gift, threefold yet one.

He stared into my searching eyes, seeking with his own, and found a piece of "sought-ness."

He saw my own wife and daughter and fleeting, whispered, fragmentary sons, the latter now lost to this world, forever.

I received a gift that I may not understand.

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Decreation, like the rest of Anne Carson's work, stops one's heart and starts it anew. So this is what intellectual, imaginative essay and poetry and prose can do...

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"From early on Hölderlin had a theory of himself."
—page 184, from "Variations on the Right to Remain Silent" by Anne Carson as found in A Public Space #7

"Let's begin with Simone Weil, who was a practical person and arranged for her own disappearance on several levels."
—page 173, from "Decreation: How Women Like Sappho, Marguerite Porete and Simone Weil Tell God," as found in Decreation by Anne Carson

What does it mean to know one's self? What does it mean for others to know one's self?

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"Here is contradiction and perhaps paradox."
—page 3, from "Bittersweet," as found in Eros the Bittersweet by Anne Carson

Carson posits, as do the three women that she is profiling, that to know God one must decreate one's self. One must get out of the way in order to make one's self what it was truly meant to be. The three women are talking about different gods—Sappho, Aphrodite; Marguerite Porete, the Christian God; Simone Weil, a loosely defined God—and yet they are not.

I like the mysticism of all three women and that of Carson herself. All speak to my own heart, which stumbles along through its strangely well-defined and undefined mystical tendencies. Contradiction and perhaps paradox.

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Here on this Good Friday, I am meditating on kenosis, self-emptying, in a context that is the foundation, the pinnacle, of the theology of the Cross. It is anti-glory, anti-triumphal, as it should be. It is hidden and mysterious. It is weak and shadowed.

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And here, in the midst of kenosis made manifest, I have found it spelled out for me by a compatriot soul, who has found it spelled out for her by compatriot souls (and all provided by a perhaps unknowing compatriot soul).

THE 9TH NORTHWEST BIENNIAL

Clockwise from upper left: (1) Promotion card for The 9th Northwest Biennial; (2) The 9th Northwest Biennial on the cover of City Arts Tacoma; (3) The 9th Northwest Biennial catalogue; and (4) The Clear Cut Future.

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I am stunned into silence by what I see. I am driving home with the radio off. My ears are ringing. I am swooning, near fainting.

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How does one explain the ephemeral? How does one capture or create a context?

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My speech is slurred. My thoughts stutter.

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Initial impressions of the works that speak strongest to me...

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Rick Araluce. The Outrage. The Fall. The Leap. Each is a small diorama of a room that was once possible filled with a strange violence. Araluce's attention to detail is meticulous. It as though the rooms have been shrunken in scale and left behind for their mysteries to be discovered. The aftermath of an event that has just occurred, or that occurred weeks ago, is frozen and presented. What detective skills do we bring to the scene?

In The Outrage, it appears that someone has kicked the door in. Were they pursuing someone? Were they looking for the box that is tucked in the attic crawlspace? Did someone witness the scene from the peephole in the other door?

In The Fall, a lightbulb has fallen from its socket and left a crater in the floor without breaking. While it has not shattered, it has heavily damaged a concrete floor. How? It is realistic yet implausible.

In The Leap, a scene similar to The Fall has occurred. A teacup has rolled (leapt?) from a shelf upon the wall to the floor below. It has left its own crater, breaking boards of a hardwood floor. It has also survived its descent. The mind boggles at the apparent force that is needed to cause this much damage, yet without consequence to the porcelain cup.

I am fascinated by the detail, by the scale, by the craftsmanship, by the love of the artist for his scenes and ambiguous narratives, by the surreality, by being unnerved by the contradictions of the scenes.

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Michael Brophy. Firewall series. Kitchen Painting series. There is a lushness to these 25 gouache paintings. They look as though panels in a graphic novel. They make don't quite make sense as a series if "read" from left to right, top to bottom. Yet there is a story to discern in the juxtaposition of one picture in the grid to it surrounding pictures—nonlinear perhaps, but present nonetheless.

They are also intensely personal, depicting his home and studio before and after it was destroyed by a fire that almost took his life. It positions me as voyeur, which makes me uncomfortable. I am forced into the role of "ambulance chaser." I want to look away, but the beauty of the flames call to me as though I am a moth. I suppose I will likewise go up in flames.

(One of the Kitchen Paintings graces the cover of the February 2009 issue of City Arts Tacoma, as seen above.)

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The 5 x 5 grid of Michael Brophy paintings echo another 5 x 5 grid across the gallery. These are the ambrotypes of Susan Seubert that depict abandoned and collected bird nests. They are very different in scope but their similar layout keeps me searching for a pattern that marries the two, something that connects them.

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Chang-Ae Song. Mass—Cloud series.

There are two sets of these paintings in the gallery. The first set includes numbers 2, 5, 3, and 6. They are composed of graphite, acrylic (red and white), and photocopied collage on paper. The graphite forms appear to be human forms—primarily legs, but also buttocks, breasts, vaginas. Do they depict births? Do they depict rapes? Do they depict body parts on a battlefield?

The second set includes numbers 22, 18, and 20. These are composed of graphite and acrylic (red) on paper. They are larger and feel more violent to me. There are still graphite forms, but they are less distinct. The acrylic paint has been applied more violently.

Viewing these paintings and thinking about their series title adds another layer of confusion and mystery for me. "Mass" implies weight to me. It implies a tumor. "Cloud" implies obfuscation. It implies haziness and a lack of clarity. It implies moisture. Both words fluctuate between their various denotations and connotations in the same way that the pencil, the paint, and the organic forms do.

"Mass" and "cloud" could mean so many things, especially in conjunction with one another. The weight of a body, the body, perhaps.

I am left unsettled.

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Isaac Layman. Self Portrait. Asleep 4.5 Minutes. Tools. I first encountered these three pieces as part of an Isaac Layman exhibit at Lawrimore Project. Although I am not as personally intrigued by Self Portrait and Asleep 4.5 Minutes as I am by Tools, they are still wonderful works. They are enormous inkjet prints that depict a hyperreal scene that could not have been taken by traditional methods of photography. And their origins in digital photography and "scanning technology" are apparent upon close inspection as the time needed to take the photograph has been captured by the camera.

Tools is my favorite of these three for the banality that it depicts in such precise detail and vivid color. I also like the playfulness of its commentary. The tools displayed on the workbench are not only wrenches and pliers and screwdrivers, but also bottles of tequila and dry gin. There is beauty on display here, although it also masks masculine violence.

Tools also reminds me of some of my other favorite Layman photos that were part of his Photographs from Inside a Whale exhibit—Sink, Sink with Lettuce, and Stove. These three archival inkjet prints also depict the beauty of the banal and ordinary.

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The Isaac Layman photographs also speak to me because I was able to have a conversation with Scott Lawrimore, owner and impresario of Lawrimore Project, and Layman himself about the works when Layman happened to stop by the Lawrimore gallery when I was there. It was interesting to hear firsthand some of the personal history and contexts that influenced the various pieces.

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I begin to remember things that I cannot quite place, at least in the immediate. I will shortly.

I have met some of the people associated with The 9th Northwest Biennial before.

I first encountered images of some of Michael Brophy's gouache paintings in The Clear Cut Future. They were from his The Chinook Jargon series, but the brushstrokes and colors are similar to the Firewall and Kitchen Paintings series.

The design work of Tae Won Yu for the Biennial logo (designed for The 8th Northwest Biennial and retained in the design work of Pei Pei Sung for number 9) echoes the design work he did for the cover of The Clear Cut Future.

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Now, I am sitting at home, reading pieces from The Clear Cut Future again. I am perusing the show catalogue of The 9th Northwest Biennial. I am meditating on the violence that is explicit and implicit in the works that grabbed me by the throat and threw to the floor of Tacoma Art Museum's Annette B. Weyerhauser's Gallery.

I am planning my next few visits to the exhibit.

2666: THE PART ABOUT THE CRITICS

"And a funny thing happened to me with those kids, or the coffee they bought me, I noticed something strange about them, it was as if they were there but at the same time they weren't there, I'm not sure how to explain it, they were the first young Mexican poets I'd met and maybe that was why they seemed odd, but in the previous months I'd met young Peruvian poets, young Colombian poets, young poets from Panama and Costa Rica, and I hadn't felt the same thing. I was an expert in young poets and something was off here, something was missing: the camaraderie, the strong sense of shared ideals, the frankness that always prevails at any gathering of Latin American poets."
—page 136, The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolaño

"Mexico is unbelievable (here she digressed, but only in Espinoza's letter, as if Pelletier wouldn't understand of as if she knew beforehand that they would compare letters), a place where one of the big fish in the cultural establishment, someone presumably refined, a writer who has reached the highest levels of government, is called El Cerdo, and no one even questions it, she said, and she saw a connection between this, the nickname or the cruelty of the nickname or the resignation to the nickname, and the criminal acts that had been occurring for some time in Santa Teresa."
—page 142, 2666 by Roberto Bolaño

What do I find so compelling about a tale of four academics who specialize in a reclusive novelist that none of them has ever met?

First, it is their echo and distorted reflection of the young visceral realist poets of The Savage Detectives. These four critics—Pelletier (France), Espinoza (Spain), Morini (Italy), Norton (America)—would not have been proper members of the visceral poets but fringe members or friends of the core members, if they even ran in such circles in their youth. Now, however, they have grown up, sold out, become established, settled down, matured. They have academic credentials and tenure to protect. They must publish and lecture and debate. But they still remember what they once had and the loss is palpable.

Second, it is their abject loneliness. They revolve around one another like stars and their planets and their moons on a macrocosmic scale or like protons and neutrons and electrons and smaller, stranger particles on a microcosmic level. They love one another. It is camaraderie and friendship, philos and eros, companionship and fucking. It is the choice between the inherent misunderstanding and violence of relationships or the threat of the abyss. It is choosing the lesser of two evils. It is shoring up our defenses against our own mortality. It is joining with another to stave off thanatos.

Third, it is the hauntedness of these four individual atoms. It is their ghostlike wanderings across Europe and Latin America, as they converge upon Santa Teresa. It is their traces as they enter this city of the Sonora Desert. It is the hints and forebodings of dangers, some which I fear may be revealed in short order and others that I fear will never be revealed.

It is the loss. It is the quiet places carved out of "prehistoric rocks." It is the specters of the twentieth century, looming large yet unnamed. It is death, palpable and tasted.

"The sky, at sunset, looked like a carnivorous flower."
—page 129, 2666 by Roberto Bolaño

AN EX-MAS FEAST

"Mama smiled at the glue and winked at me, pushing her tongue through the holes left by her missing teeth. She snapped the tin's top expertly, and the shack swelled with the smell of a shoemaker's stall. I watched her decant the kabire into my plastic "feeding bottle." It glowed warm and yellow in the dull light. Though she still appeared drunk from last night's party, her hands were so steady that her large tinsel Ex-mas bangles, a gift from a church Ex-mas party, did not even sway."
—page 7, Say You're One of Them by Uwem Akpan, from the short story "An Ex-mas Feast"

"Danny heard a groan from the next room. He frowned with annoyance. Another groan. He could not help listening. He walked across the room, the dropper in his hand, and inclined his ear to the wall. The groans were coming at regular intervals, a horrible inhuman sound pushed out from the stomach."
—page 29, Interzone by William S. Burroughs, from the short story "The Junky's Christmas"

I thought I had read the ultimate in dreary Christmas tales and that its place as such was secure. But the darkness and despair of Burroughs's holiday Manhattan is no match for that of Akpan's Christmastime Nairobi.

Yes, the Manhattan tale has thievery and drugs and poverty and the everpresent threat of murder. The Nairobi tale has all of that as well, and then adds in child prostitution and the squalor of a crowded shack in the slums of the city and the dysfunction and disintegration of a family—all of it experienced and navigated in attempts to survive each day.

Yes, Burroughs fills his brief tale with hopelessness, but it ends with a scene of concern for one worse off than one's self. It ends with a glimmer of hope and the protagonist rewarded with "the immaculate fix," one that requires no shot of heroin for its high. Akpan's short story ends with a family in disarray, frayed by the promises of a better life that may never come. It ends with shattered lives.

Neither of these tales would be as powerful if they were false "reports" of life on the streets of Manhattan and Nairobi. The truth, however, is in their details and what we know about these "places," these "times," these "conditions" from other accounts—newspapers, documentaries, primary sources. The sadness seeps through and infuses them. The sadness sinks deep into us. May God have mercy upon our souls.

MADNESS, part 1

Clockwise from upper left: (1) "The Bipolar Child" from the Sunday 14 September 2008 issue of The New York Times Magazine; (2) The Center Cannot Hold by Elyn R. Saks; (3) a popular antidepressant, also used to reduce spinal nerve pain; and (4) Hurry Down Sunshine by Michael Greenberg

"The Lord will afflict you with madness, blindness, and confusion of mind; you shall grope about at noon as blind people grope in darkness, but you shall be unable to find your way."
—Deuteronomy 28:28-29a

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The whole world seems to have gone mad.

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I am in the middle of two books on madness. The first is the autobiography of Elyn Saks and her "journey through madness," The Center Cannot Hold. It is a harrowing firsthand account of her slip into moments of mania and depression and intense psychosis. The second is Hurry Down Sunshine, the biographical account of Michael Greenberg's daughter Sally as she is "struck mad" at the age of fifteen. This is a companion look at madness from the vantage point of an "outsider," a family member.

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There are two main ideas that come creeping toward me as I read these two books. The first is the difficult of diagnostic criteria. The second is the need for control mechanisms.

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The difficulty of diagnostic criteria is that the different forms of madness seem to overlap. Mania and depression seem to be polar opposites that play in many forms of mental illness—bipolarity and other mood disorders, schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders, anxiety disorders, personality disorders—as well as being mood disorders in their own right. Hallucinations and delusions can likewise occur in various forms of mental illness. So how does one distinguish between bipolar disorder and forms of schizophrenia? And, if there is difficulty in determining to which category the symptoms and signs of an individual's madness belong, then how can the disease that is the summation of those symptoms and signs be treated?

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I have more questions than I have answers. I am talking to myself. I am thinking "out loud."

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It seems important to me that control mechanisms are sought out. If order cannot be restored, then where is hope?

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The control mechanisms that I have been able to identify in the two books, thus far, are (1) hospitalization; (2) physical restraint; (3) isolation; (4) individual therapy; (5) group therapy; (6) pharmaceuticals; (7) lobotomies, physical or chemical; (8) strong family structure; and (9) religion. I am sure there are more to come and some that I have overlooked.

Some of the control mechanisms have worked well, some fairly well, and some not at all. There seems to be a need for more than one, a willingness to adapt to fluctuating symptoms and signs by either adopting or abandoning control mechanisms, as needed.

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In his short story, "Classical Scenes of Farewell," Jim Shepard shows us the power of religion to act as a control mechanism. In this particular case, it is used to curb the murderous appetite of Lord Gilles de Rais as he rapes and kills the children of peasants. It functions as a legal system to convict him and curb his pychosis and its attendant crimes. In this case, death is required as punishment and thus ends his madness.

In Hurry Down Sunshine, Michael Greenberg also shows us the power of religion to act as a control mechanism. In this particular case, it is used to rally around a mentally ill individual and recognize that they are gifted by God in ways that we cannot fathom. A group of Hasidic Jews takes care of a stricken relative, believing him to have "achieved devaykah, the state of constant communion with God." His madness is absorbed into their religious beliefs and protected, perhaps even fostered, in a circle of strong family support.

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"When Moses announced the penalties for disobeying God's laws, madness was first, before blindness and poverty, before the death of children, before war. Like the Hasid, I try to improvise my own area of protection around Sally. But I have little faith to draw from, either in medicine or God."
—page 57, Hurry Down Sunshine by Michael Greenberg

What happens when the control mechanism fails? What happens when the despair and the depression and the madness become too much to bear? It seems that a new control mechanism needs to be put in place, such as institutionalization; the madness has to run its course; or, perhaps death ends the need for another control mechanism.

On Friday 12 September 2008, novelist David Foster Wallace chose the latter. Death became preferable to the darkness of the absolutized moment. Therefore, he took his own life by hanging himself.

I cannot imagine the loneliness, the aloneness, the despair that he must have felt, even though I have been ravaged by my own share of depression and anxiety and panic attacks at times. Having known a certain level of debilitation, albeit minor in comparison to what I guess DFW experienced, I know those things and the power that they can have. However, I still find it difficult to fathom the depth of the abyss that he must have stared into that would press him into the hands of death.

When I heard the news of DFW's death, I was stunned, paralyzed.

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I didn't know David Foster Wallace. I had read a few of his essays here and there, but have never tackled his postmodern magnum opus Infinite Jest. I have often intended to purchase it and read it, but instead thumbed through it and glanced at a few sentences or paragraphs or footnotes. Then, I would think about its dense and rich and chewy 1,100 pages and place it back onto the shelf from whence I grabbed it.

Instead, I knew him through the other authors and writers that he influenced. I knew him through the work of his contemporaries, even if I didn't directly know his work, except in fragments.

So, why did it affect me so? I am sure that it is due to the craziness of the current climate of our culture—vapid celebrity politicians of all stripes, reality television stars whose fifteen minutes of fame was really sixteen minutes of unbearableness (you do the math!), the entertainment "news" of CNN and Fox and MSNBC—all while our country is bogged down in an unpopular war in Iraq, we are being led by a unpopular fundamentalist idiot of a president, the greed of Wall Street is bringing our economy to a screeching halt, the price of staple foods is soaring world wide, and natural disasters are looming due to our reliance upon fossil fuels and our unwillingness to acknowledge our addiction. And, in the midst of all of that, I see a bit of myself reflected back from David Foster Wallace's own struggle with madness and depression.

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Carl Jung would call it synchronicity. Some would call it the work of the Holy Spirit, others coincidence. I think it was perhaps due to heightened awareness to madness simply because I was surrounded by it, immersed in it's presence. But, there, on the cover of The New York Times Magazine of Sunday 14 September 2008, were the words "The Bipolar Kid." Opening up the magazine and delving into the article, I discovered that the same stories I was reading in two books on madness were being told again. Yes, the names and circumstances were different, but the stories were the same.

LIFE AFTER

She phones me from her mother's house and we talk every day. This is better than nothing. She says she has fallen out of love with me. She says she is confused. She says she feels lost, sort of like the way she felt when she was younger. I told her that everybody feels lost when they are young. But she says there is a difference. She tells me that at least when she was younger she felt lost in her own special way. Now she just feels lost like everyone else.
—pages 137–138, Life After God by Douglas Coupland, from the short story "Gettysburg"

Bush refers to his time in office as "a joyous experience," a phrase that seems jarring. A satisfying experience, pursuing important goals maybe, or a vital experience, to be at the center of so many historic moments. But joyous? With all the heartache, the wars, the political attacks? "You know, obviously there's some good days and some bad days," Bush tried to explain at a forum in Missouri in May. "I feel so strongly about my principles and my values, and I'm an optimistic guy."
—page 30, "The Final Days" by Peter Barker, from The New York Times Magazine, August 31, 2008

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It started with an observation. The stepmother-in-law looked at the illustration by R. Kikuo Johnson on the cover of The New York Times Magazine and commented that it was very intriguing. So we peeked inside to peruse his other illustrations that accompany an article by Peter Barker on the final days of the presidency of George W. Bush.

Therein was a fascinating illustration of President Bush floating on a pink air mattress in a pool of brilliant blue water, hands clasped on his chest, staring up at us (above left). The image immediately resonated with me. I thought that it was a play on the jacket photo by Robert Earnest that adorns the cover of Douglas Coupland's short story collection Life After God (above right). But, I guess I didn't quite remember the photograph as it actually appears, for even though the illustration of Bush echoes the photograph, it simply is not what I remembered.

I am unsure where the image I imagined actually resides, if it even does, but that is somewhat beside the point. The illustration of Bush was so intense and so strong that it set off a small chain of strange coincidences and explorations.

---

Having a very intense interest in Abraham Lincoln at the moment, especially after bearing witness to his monument in Washington DC and visiting the Manassas battlefield, I was immediatley drawn to the short story "Gettysburg" in Life After God when I perused its table of contents. I knew that the story had nothing to do with Lincoln other than the association of him with the city and his Civil War era speech. Nonetheless, I found myself reading it again and experiencing the loss of relationship that it relates.

---

The narrator of "Gettysburg" states that his estranged wife "says she doesn't want us to become dreadful people who do dreadful things to each other because there will be no one to forgive us." What happens when that level of hopelessness rears its ugly head? If there is no one to forgive, then it must truly be "life after God." And, if there is no God, then there is also no judgment. No judgment means no law. No law means lawlessness and chaos. Chaos means that everyone is on their own. It seems to be a brutal way to navigate the world. Alone. Lonely.

---

I like to believe otherwise. I like to grasp on to hope, to God, to love. I just don't readily admit it.

---

That seems rather optimistic for me, especially as I watch marriages of people that I care about collapse—a relative, a neighbor, a couple of friends. The wives of these friends, like the wife of the "Gettysburg" narrator, have each declared that they are lost, empty, searching for something that they can no longer seek with a partner. They have declared themselves devoid of love for the person that they took vows to love in perpetuity.

---

And, what of President George W. Bush? It seems that he is also mourning the loss of his "wife." The country of which he is commander in chief has essentially turned its back on him and walked away from their relationship. I can't say that I don't blame America for walking away from him and his policies. I can claim to disagree with him on most issues. But, it still seems like a relationship in collapse on a macrocosmic scale. And, it still seems to me that it is somewhat unfaithful and unfair and therefore sad.

---

And, what of President Abraham Lincoln? He seemed to also have been left behind in his marriage to America. She tore herself in two and cannibalized herself, while he looked on, trying to keep her as one person. Both halves seemed to hate him. In the midst of that hatred, he clung fast to his beliefs, and delivered some of the most memorable, amazing, and fascinating speeches and writings in American history—the Emancipation Proclamation, the Gettysburg Address, his Second Inaugural Address, among others.

---

Bush, in my estimation, is no Lincoln. He is, however, a president who has been abandoned by the one he loves, one who no longer loves him. Therefore, my heart grieves for him, even though I don't like his policies.

---

Is there life after God? Perhaps. If so, then it seems that it will be lonely. Do we have the fortitude to peer into the mysteries of the universe and survive? Or, will we destroy ourselves before we even begin to glimpse those mysteries? The latter seems more likely to me. Chaos, xenophobia, inferiority complexes. It only takes one bully with no fear of his or her own death, with a nuclear weapon in hand, to set off a chain of events from which there may be no turning back.

---

Personally, I hope we don't find it necessary to really explore the question. I would prefer that we just keep God in the equation.

---

Is there life after a marriage collapses? Perhaps. But I imagine that the person left behind is never quite the same. I imagine them to be haunted by the questions of what could have been. I am sure that the person who leaves, who claims the love to be at an end, is also never the same, is also haunted, although they may claim otherwise.

---

Is there life after the presidency? Perhaps. Many presidents continue to build upon their legacy after their years in office. Speaking engagements. International diplomacy. Political party power brokers. Elder statesmen. I can only hope that President Bush will think long and hard about the damage he has done to the political process, the environment, the law, the people who elected him, the soldiers he sent into Iraq, the Constitution during his time in office. I can only hope that he will repent and receive forgiveness for his national sins.

---

The imagined image still resonates. It still has life. It is powerful because it is vague yet intense. It is the cover of Life After God and it is not.

OBJECT 47

"One of us will live to rue the day we met each other."
—from "One of Us" by Wire, as found on the album Object 47.

---

For the record, I must state that I am a Wire fan.

---

My first listen to material from Wire's Object 47 album was the free download of "One of Us." I knew that Bruce Gilbert, Wire's guitarist had left the band after more than thirty years with the band. I tried to keep that from influencing how I felt about the song, but couldn't. It felt like something was missing, although I wasn't sure if it really was or if I was grieving a loss.

---

When I went out to seek the album, no local brick-and-mortar store had it in stock. Wall of Sound in Seattle told me that they would order some and have them in a few days. That worked out perfectly since I would be back in a week for another session of my writing group.

When I returned I didn't see Object 47 anywhere, so I inquired about it. The clerk told me that he had already sold out of the few he had ordered and that "you wouldn't want it anyway because it sounds like all of their '80s stuff." What? You turned down a guaranteed sale due to your aesthetic judgment of the album. Needless to say, I will never shop at Wall of Sound again.

So I trudged up to Everyday Music on Broadway with the help of my trusty cane. They had three copies in stock and no objections to my buying it. In fact, their clerks seemed generally happy that I was buying an album, and one of them even asked me my general opinion of Wire.

---

There are Wire fans, of which I am one, and there are Wire snobs, one of which the Wall of Sound clerk was.

Wire fans like all of the periods of Wire's creative output—Mach I: 1976-1980, mostly punk and post-punk; Mach II: 1985-1992, pop and dance-floor tracks, along with a lot of experimentation; Mach III: 1999-2004, a return to their punk roots, very loud and abrasive; and Mach IV: 2006 to present, a mature sound that encompasses everything that went before, including the myriad of offshoots and solo projects. Wire snobs are stuck in the Mach I period and seem to have disdain for anything else. Some of them will also admit to liking Mach III period Wire, while others will not.

The Wire snobs are really the ones that lose, especially since Wire themselves is always trying to change their sound, challenge themselves, remain dynamic and vital. Wire snobs are static, stagnant.

Object 47 is definitely not for them.

---

Track 1 > "One of Us"
If there were still such a beast in existence, this would have been the first single of the album. Wire released it as such on their own Pink Flag website, as well as their MySpace page. The bass guitar and drums really drive this pop track with dark lyrics. This is classic Wire, even with the absence of Bruce Gilbert.

Track 2 > "Circumspect"
This is a slow Beatlesque track that shows the influence of the Beatles upon Wire. It slows the tempo down before it takes off again in the next track.

Track 3 > "Mekon Headman"
This track either samples from or lifts a riff from "Outdoor Miner" on Wire's second album Chairs Missing, which seems appropriate since "Outdoor Miner" is probably one of the most covered Wire songs. The echo is more sophisticated than that, but the borrow is completely in keeping with the games that Wire plays with both its lyrics and instruments. Another great game in "Mekon Headman" is the backward sampled guitar lines. The vocals may also be backward samples, although it is difficult to tell. It could just be Graham Lewis's delivery on this particular song is affected to sound as though backward. Some wild stuff.

Track 4 > "Perspex Icon"
Echoes of Colin Newman's solo album A-Z, which contains much of the material that would have been Wire's fourth album of the Mach I period, if the members of the band hadn't driven each other crazy. At first listen, I thought that Colin's wife, and oftentimes collaborator, Malka Spigel, was singing with him, but it appears not. Colin is just singing toward the upper reaches of his vocal range.

Track 5 > "Four Long Years"
Another song that sounds as though stolen from session tapes of a Colin Newman solo album, this time Or So It Seems. That is, until you really listen to it. Graham Lewis's filtered background vocals playing against Colin's lead vocals playing against Colin's background vocals, and all of it corralled by the cymbals of Robert Grey's drum kit, show it to be much more mature and complex than an album of twenty years ago.

Track 6 > "Hard Currency"
This is ready for remixing and then the dance floor. It is hypnotic. There is some kind of wild sound collage buried deep in the mix below drums, bass, guitar, and vocals. It rises up ever so briefly in the middle of the song. Try to catch Graham's quiet chanting, which may or not be part of the same murky layer.

Track 7 > "Patient Flees"
I think of this as the "drunken Western soundtrack." It takes slow, plodding, anxious steps as it approaches hangover at High Noon. Colin's "quiet" and "sung" verse vocals rub against his "loud" and "spoken" refrain vocals, which amplifies the tension that the band is trying to achieve with the music itself.

Track 8 > "Are You Ready?"
This is the requisite song of "questions" that seem to appear on most Wire albums, and are usually sung by Graham. This one is no different. It's pop sensibility and dance-friendly grooves would make it a likely candidate for remixing for the dance floor, the album's second single, or both. If some of the other tracks feel like they could have easily fit on Colin solo albums, then this is the one that could have easily been found on a Graham/He Said album.

Track 9 > "All Fours"
I get goosebumps every time I hear this track. It is loud and abrasive. The pulsing drone of guitar and bass and drum anchor the sound. Colin and Graham play off of one another's vocals. Page Hamilton (of Helmet fame) provides a feedback storm of guitar that is very similar to that of departed guitarist Bruce Gilbert's similar feedback storm on "Spent" from Read & Burn 01. This is the huge, over-the-top send-off for the album, shooting us skyward, taking us into orbit, as the layers and noise and controlled chaos increase. And then the brief, quiet beauty of breaking free of gravity's grasp hovers before us for a few seconds, until we are absolutely certain of our freedom and left floating in absolute silence.

---

Object 47 stands on its own as one of Wire's best albums, even with the absence of Bruce Gilbert. I would assume that my early fears were more grief than anything else.

ODYSSEUS'S GARDEN

Odysseus's Garden by Bryan Rubino, as seen through the front plate glass of Fulcrum Gallery, 1308 Martin Luther King Jr. Way, Tacoma (with reflected street scene).

This past weekend, the child and I made another trip to Fulcrum Gallery, our third or fourth in as many months to see the latest exhibit by glass artist Bryan Rubino. Odysseus's Garden is magnificent. The central pieces consist of eight foot poles of glass "bamboo" that are mounted either on steel rods or in steel cups attached to a steel base plate. The three largest gatherings of "bamboo" are red, frosted clear, and green. Three smaller gatherings consist of clear "bamboo" with neon tubing to illuminate them—red, blue, green.

The best part, however, was gallery owner Oliver Doriss coming out and telling tales about the construction of individual pieces. He told us how Bryan forms the individual sections of bamboo, sands down the ends, and glues them together. He showed us how they are mounted on their bases, as well as the weight and motion of individual stalks.

He informed us of upcoming shows. He gave us a "sneak peek" of pieces for his installation at Showcase Tacoma.

He regaled us with stories of how Bryan Rubino ended up showing his work at Fulcrum, of artists and persons of note in the local and regional glass art scene. We shared stories about art and dreams and imaginings.

We discussed his Skyponds exhibit.

Oliver Doriss is a generous person in his many guises—as artist, as collaborator, as gallery owner, as impresario, as critic. That was apparent in our conversation and is apparent in his work and the way that he runs and maintains his gallery.

You need to meet him now. Stop by Fulcrum to see and hear what I mean.

SKYPONDS

Skyponds by Joseph Miller and Oliver Doriss at W.W. Seymour Botanical Conservatory at Wright Park, Tacoma.

In June, the wife, the child, and I wandered around Tacoma's Wright Park on a beautifully sunny day. We spent the day peering into ponds, walking in the shade of the park's well-kept trees, sitting near or upon statues, and playing on toys. The highlight of our visit, though, was the W.W. Seymour Botanical Conservatory. The conservatory is filled with amazing specimens of fauna, both local and foreign, both ordinary and exotic. But we were there for the Skyponds.

Skyponds are glass bowls suspended by wires and hooks, either individually or in small constellations. The skyponds triggered both natural and artificial echoes within me. My first impulse was that skyponds were "heavy clouds" of a sort, collecting moisture from condensation and waterings of the plants. My second sensation was that skyponds were cousins to the bottoms of deformed two-liter pop bottles. I then found it difficult to divorce myself of either image. Another echo-image that kept haunting me was of large overripe fruit, albeit clear and malformed. One moment I found the skyponds creepy, the next comforting.

Needless to say, the skyponds were (and are) very interesting. Not only do they inhabit physical space, but they also inhabit time, something that many artists, collectors, galleries, and museums try to keep from "ravaging" their pieces of art. Not here. The metal of the wires, hooks, cables, and bars has been allowed to rust in the humidity and warmth. The skyponds collect water during waterings and lose it to evaporation. Algae grows in some and mineral stains are left behind in others. It gives what could otherwise feel out of place to be very much a part of this planned and controlled "world." It allows a degree of the organic into the manmade, much in the same way that the conservatory itself functions.

---

You can view more pictures of Skyponds in their natural setting at the troysworktable Flickr page.

RIDING TOWARD EVERYWHERE

"And if not, could it be that my various books, written in the belief that we are all members of the same human family, are either hypocritical or else as ghostly as boxcars slowly trundling through the northern darkness?"
—pages 47–48, Riding Toward Everywhere by William T. Vollmann

I have read various reviews that have accused Vollmann's latest book of being one of his minor works. I disagree.

First, Vollmann himself states that the book has few points to make:

And I cannot say for sure that the unknown place where Steve and I were headed was not the same sort of mirage. (If I make this point too often for your taste, I apologize; this book has few points to make.) [page 44]

Although that is somewhat of a fallacy, because I think he makes plenty of points. He challenges our assumptions about the hobos, tramps, and trainhoppers in his portrayals of his own journeys, as well as the glimpses into the lives of these "others." He questions his need for danger, his need to wander, his fears and anxieties. He tries to describe, and perhaps save, a piece of "freedom" in the midst of an increasingly Plastic America, with its ever present cameras and security personnel.

Second, this book is a work of prose that functions like the best poetry. It evokes images. It thrives in ambiguity. It challenges us to see things differently. He tries to take us to a place (Cold Mountain) and an era (back then) that are not easily located in either space or time.

Third, he is in conversation with other (mostly) American writers who are on their own journeys through the heartland of our country. He quotes and reflects upon the works of Ernest Hemingway, Jack Kerouac, Jack London, Henry Thoreau, Mark Twain, Thomas Wolfe, and Chinese poet Cold Mountain. He wrestles with their works. A couple of times he argues with their conclusions.

He even quotes from the memoirs of a few trainhoppers. Not only does he give time and space on the page to some of the masters of American literature, but he does the same for some of the nameless and anonymous.

Fourth, he is in conversation with his own work. The tone of examination and exploration is similar to his recent nonfiction, especially Rising Up, Rising Down and Poor People. I also hear echoes of The Atlas, as well as the four completed novels of his Seven Dreams: A Book of North American Landscapes—The Ice-Shirt, Fathers and Crows, The Rifles, and Argall. And, he paints the people of the hobo jungles with the same compassionate brush that he used on the prostitutes in Butterfly Stories, Whores for Gloria, and The Royal Family.

Yes, he is a prolific writer. Yes, not all of his work is as good as some of his best work. But, Riding Toward Everywhere is some of his best work. It is telling us all to shake off our apathy, our anxiety, our laziness and start to actually see the country we live in. He may not "spell it out" for us in the way we would like or hope for, but if we are already that dead or numb to what Vollmann is saying then we may as well put the book down, grab another Diet Coke, and turn on another exciting and thrilling episode of Dancing with the Stars on our 52-inch plasma screen television.

THE TRANSLATOR, PART 3

"But for now it was ashes and graves. This had been a good village."
—page 60, The Translator: A Tribesman's Memoir of Darfur by Daoud Hari

The Translator traverses familiar terrain. True, we may not have visited Darfur before. True, Daoud Hari was certainly not our guide. But, we have visited similar places. We have visited the killing fields of Rwanda in Philip Gourevitch's We Wish To Inform You that Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families: Stories from Rwanda, we have heard tales of terror, rescue, and redemption from Valentino Achak Deng in Southern Sudan in Dave Egger's What is the What: The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng, and we have experienced firsthand the roles of victim and perpetrator of violence in Liberia in Ishmael Beah's A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier.

Yet, this is new territory as well. The Translator is a slender and sparse volume. It lacks much of the research, historical detail, and knowledge of local and international politics that fill the other three books. Its primary strength, however, lies in the oral history of its storyteller, Daoud Hari. His words, as related to Dennis Burke and Megan McKenna, relate his story in a humble manner, which focuses on family, village, and community. His heart truly grieves for his people.

---

"We walked through a strange world of occasionally falling human limbs and heads. A leg fell near me. A head thumped to the ground farther away. Horrible smells filled the grove like poison gas that even hurts the eyes. And yet this was but the welcome to what we would eventually see: eighty-one men and boys fallen across one another, hacked and stabbed to death in that same attack."
—page 112, The Translator: A Tribesman's Memoir of Darfur by Daoud Hari

Another strength of Hari's memoir is that he presents us with the violence, horror, and carnage of Darfur without resorting to cinematic violence. The above passage is as graphic as it gets. It would have filled pages in the books by Gourevitch, Eggers, and Beah. Instead, Hari brings us to the violence and laments and mourns. He is asking us to do the same.

He is part of a group of Zaghawa survivors who interview their fellow survivors under the auspices of the United Nations and non-governmental organizations in the refugee camps of N'Djamena, Chad. He only presents a few of the 1,134 stories that his group collected during their interviews. He only needs to present a few because the rape, torture, slaughter, and decimation of those few are representative of the whole.

After this, he places his own life in jeopardy, once again highlighting the community over the individual, by acting as a translator and guide for foreign journalists who are trying to make the international community aware of the genocide. After reading the final chapters of his story, it is amazing that he cares about anyone at all. His spirit shines through in the final paragraphs, in the final sentences. It is still vibrant and strong, even amidst its experienced brokenness and loss. He asks, "What can one person do?" The answer—if we can use his own life, his own story, as example—is that there is plenty that one person can do: live life fully, love those around you, and act in justice and mercy.

[Part 1] [Part 2]

THE TRANSLATOR, PART 2

"There is never enough help sent to solve the problems of poor people, but this effort did help many women at some camps. And it made me feel that I could do something."


—page 87, The Translator: A Tribesman's Memoir of Darfur by Daoud Hari

Hari's memoir is not my first encounter with the horrors of warfare and civil unrest in postcolonial Africa, although this is the first book I have read on the violence specific to the Darfur region of Sudan. Therein lies my problem. Two recent books have influenced my reading of any books about African conflicts that followed them. One is nonfiction, one is a fictionalized retelling of an oral history: We Wish To Inform You that Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families: Stories from Rwanda by Philip Gourevitch and What is the What: The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng by Dave Eggers. The problem is that both are so detailed, so rich and dense, so well-informed, so well-researched, that I have to find the voice that lies in the current book. I have to give it room to breathe and live on its own. This was my main struggle with The Translator.

This was also my main struggle with A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah. I read the book shortly after the experience of What is the What. Beah's book was a very well-crafted firsthand account of the horrors of civil war, both as victim and perpetrator of violence. The problem was that images and information from What is the What kept influencing my reading of A Long Way Gone.

Therefore, I had to sit and think about The Translator to allow it to simmer and steep. I needed to allow Hari's voice to emerge from the chorus and echoes of the voices of Gourevitch, Deng/Eggers, Beah, and the myriad others.

---

The Translator is an oral account given to the two people who wrote the words down—Dennis Burke and Megan McKenna. In that sense, Hari is the author and Burke and McKenna are scribes. This is the story of Daoud Hari, even if the specific words on the page are not his. (And, I don't know for certain whether or not liberties were taken with his tale or if the words are verbatim. If the tale is true, does it matter?)

The book is different from What is the What because the words of Hari appear to be his own. The cadence and rhythm and language feel like a story being told to the reader, rather than the reader simply reading the story. I wrestled with this for the first third of the book, until I settled into Hari's style of storytelling. By then, his voice was clear. I heard it. I understood it, as much as I could. His tale is foreign to me in many ways.

The most refreshing piece of reading this particular tale of survival in the midst of civil war in postcolonial Africa is that it is relatively "uncinematic." This was also my experience with The Farther Shore. The brutality in the book is difficult enough. It doesn't need to be splashed across the page in Technicolor crimson. Images of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay came to mind when reading the torture scenes. Fortunately, Hari doesn't spend too much time in the midst of them. And, really, how can one express what is happening to one's self, in the midst of torture? How do you capture the "scene" in words? It seems to me, that words ultimately fail.

[Part 1] [Part 3]

THE TRANSLATOR, PART 1

"'Shooting people doesn't make you a man, Daoud,' he said. 'Doing the right thing for who you are makes you a man.' So he walked me back to town and I returned to school. I became interested in English because of a wonderful teacher, and I became lost in the classic books of England and America."
—page 17, The Translator: A Tribesman's Memoir of Darfur by Daoud Hari

In the interest of an honest review, full disclosure of my biases and prejudices is necessary.

First, the book was sent to me by Random House as part of LibraryThing's Early Reviewers program. Therefore, I received it for free.

Second, I believe that I was chosen for this particular book due to some of the books in my Library Thing catalog. Some of these books include:

*What is the What: The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng by Dave Eggers
The book is a fictionalized account of the stories told by Deng to Eggers of his life in wartorn Sudan. It is one of the most powerful memoirs that I have ever read. The fact that it is told through the words of another person does not diminish its impact.
[011207, 011507, 011907]

*A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah
This is written by Beah's own hand. The book details his time as a boy soldier for rebel groups in Liberia. It is in many ways more disturbing due to Beah's recruitment to fight the war as a young teenager. It is amazing that he is able to overcome his drug use and the violence of warfare as a perpetrator of that very violence.
[052107]

*Landscapes of War: From Sarajevo to Chechnya by Juan Goytisolo
Landscapes of War is a collection of essays written for the Spanish daily newspaper El País. Especially relevant to the conversation surrounding The Translator are the seven essays on Algeria.
[050207]

*Poor People by William T. Vollmann
Poverty breeds the seeds of conflict and war. Most of the wars in postcolonial Africa concern resources. The group that controls resources wields power with the "West," the "First World." Those without starve. Vollmann examines many different causes and effects of poverty. Warfare is but one of many.
[042707, 043007]

*The Farther Shore by Matthew Eck
This war novel is experienced from the vantage of US soldiers caught "behind" enemy lines in a large city of an unnamed African country, but hinted at Mogadishu, Somalia. The novel is crisp and brutal, without being cinematic. The poverty, even though fictional, is palpable.
[011108]

Third, there are additional books that inform my conversation with The Translator. Some of these books include:

*We Wish To Inform You that Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families: Stories from Rwanda by Philip Gourevitch
Gourevitch presents the historical background of the Rwanda genocide, as well as the stories of slaughter from the killing fields. He visits the haunts of the dead and interviews survivors. His narrative is well-informed, relevant, and vital.

*An Afghanistan Picture Show: Or, How I Saved the World by William T. Vollmann
One of Vollmann's most important pieces of nonfiction explores the world of mujahadeen fighters in Afghanistan and Pakistan in their war against the Soviet Army. Vollmann addresses his own political ignorance, while exploring the reasons that drive these fighters to defend their homeland.

Now that these pieces are in place, the conversation can begin...

[Part 2] [Part 3]

THEATRE OF INCEST

"I would always love her like a daughter. After all, how else could I have had such a daughter whom I had always desired? I could only have dreamed her. This story could have been told quite differently."
—page 90, Theatre of Incest by Alain Arias-Misson

Yes, this story could have been told quite differently, and it would have been a much better story. As it is, the story has no soul. It collapses under its own pretense.

The concept behind the story is that the tale is that of an unnamed protagonist who is seduced by his mother, which begins a life of incest with various female relatives. The three parts are "My Mother My Lover," "My Daughter My Other," and "My Sister My Sweet Witch." The problem is that each of these three relationships—son to mother, father to daughter, brother to sister—is only defined by the incestuous sex that is endured. And, I use the word endured deliberately, because the sex is less than titillating. It is dry, barely described, and "academic." In fact, the only redeeming quality of the book is trying to build a story around a framework of French psychoanalytic theories of sexuality—Lacan, Foucault, Deleuze, Guattari, Baudrillard. That alone could be applauded, except that it also ultimately fails.

---

"Today, the most crucial task for any theory of sexuality remains how to get away from Freud. We are tired of endless discussions of the phallus, the castration complex, and the problematics of sexual representation. Psychoanalytic discourse, even at its ostensibly most critical, does nothing but reinscribe a universal history of lack and oppression."
—page 67, The Cinematic Body by Steven Shaviro

"I realize that to the outsider, my relationship with my sweet girl might appear to exclusively sexual or physical. And that would be a mistake. What appeared to be purely sexual was in reality, beneath the surface, intensely emotional, and, what may be more disconcerting to the prurient onlooker, spiritual."

—page 73, Theatre of Incest by Alain Arias-Misson

The protestation of the protagonist points out the problem. The novel is dealing exclusively with the "characters" and the "plot" in a sexual manner. The characters are simply objects of fantasy. In fact, there are many times during the book when the protagonist alludes to the fact that what has come before in the chronology may be false. "I could only have dreamed her." If the incestuous relationship with the mother is false (viewed in/through chapters named after windows of the house of his parents), then the incestuous relationship with the daughter (viewed in/through chapters named after doors of the protagonist's house) and the incestuous relationship with the sister (viewed in chapters named for conventions of theatre or storytelling) are also false.

The house imagery of windows and doors, which could also be parts of stage scenery, also fails. Instead of "providing" the story a soul, as the house does for Roderick and Madeline in Edgar Allan Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher," the psychoanalytic framework of windows, doors, scenery, and structure is static. It frames the uninspired "erotic" scenes that are really non-scenes. Using the words "cock," "mound," and "pudenda" incessantly doesn't create a sensual scene. It bores. If you want to write about sex, then sear it into the reader's mind, like Henry Miller or William S. Burroughs or the Marquis de Sade do. If you are going to write about sexual taboos, then you better "go all the way."

---

"Was it because I wanted to render her passive, an object of my desire? To do with her what was my pleasure? No. She easily defused that. By going limp. By becoming a “doll”—“One of those inflatable dolls, baby!” She just lapsed into inert flesh, and I could take no more pleasure."
—page 68, Theatre of Incest by Alain Arias-Misson

I also could take no (more) pleasure in the story. I almost put this book down a number of times. The only reasons that I completed it were (1) it was short, and (2) even though the psychoanalytic theory was butchered, horribly explored, and poorly presented, it provided hope that something would shine forth at the book's conclusion. It did not.