OF A GOLDEN AGE

sophocles should write fortune cookies, illustrated by this passage from ajax:

[ . . . ]           Envy stalks
After magnates of wealth and power;
Yet humble men without their princes
Are a frail prop for a fortress.

rocky: you know what a mirage is, don’tcha?
bullwinkle: sure. it’s where you park your car.

the word ribbon likely comes from ribband, which is a ship term. rib-band.

volkswagen’s convertible models are usually known as cabrios, a word short for cabriolet — a kind of carriage, labeled from the word for a dancey leap because of its springy bouncy motion.

and in other volkswagen etymologies, their grossly ridiculous suv — the touareg — shares its name with the french spelling for the tuareg people. the tuareg live scattered across northern and western africa. many wear dark, dark indigo cloth wrapped around their faces, and often have skin dyed blue as a result.

finally, because sent me a copy of his school’s publication chimera, i stopped when i saw that word in the story. damn, it has a million different meanings.

a couple of receipts from walletland.

september 3:
12.245 gallons @ $3.199 = $39.17

october 21:
12.035 gallons @ $2.549 = $30.68

i never thought i’d be happy to fill up my corsica for thirty bucks.

robert stone spoke to my english class today. he blew me away when he was speaking candidly in person — the way he speaks is eloquent, clear, and beautiful. (this came as a surprise because i did not enjoy reading one of his novels, nor his public reading a couple of weeks ago.)

people asked him questions about dog soldiers, which is the novel we read for class. in describing one main character, he said: “hicks is determined to live out life as though he were a serious person . . . if he were weaker and more scattered, he might have better luck.”

following his neo-hemingway ethic, he also said, “to act halfway decently, at the best of times, is very hard.”

he said that to recreate personal experience in a nonfiction sense is impossible because one can never be in the same mindset again — in fact, he says people turn what is happening to them into narrative while it is happening. he cited the proverb “don’t let facts get in the way of truth” as one of his credos. (“credo” was a word he used multiple times during the hour.)

stone said the united states is unique in the world — “the people in it are supposed to be about something.” the best novel capturing america, he says, is moby-dick: the idea that whatever stands in the way of the “american machine” is evil and should be destroyed. he cited ahab in the story, a quote which i do not believe is directly from the text: “don’t talk to me about blasphemy. i would strike the sun if it wronged me.”

on jack kerouac, he related a short version of kerouac’s life and disappointments, how kerouac was wounded by the words of critics like john updike who openly made fun of kerouac’s work. (stone said he did not understand on the road, not for lack of trying, and explained hilariously why he struggled.) by the end of kerouac’s career, stone said, “he was a person who had been ruined by the reaction to his work.”

and finally, he discussed the lifestyle of the post-beats he hung out with in the late ’60s and ’70s. they were a drug-fueled, dangerous culture — “one in five” of the people who would go tripping with them, he said, “wouldn’t come back alive, in some sense.”

“if there was a war, you were supposed to go look at it,” he said, “and let it bite you.”

paul newman as judge roy bean:

“i know the law. and i have spent my entire life in its flagrant disregard. but i had never killed a man before. oh, i had shot at some, in self-defense or blind fright, but i never hit anyone. so god must have directed my bullets. why, he even sent an angel to deliver this weapon.”

as a side note, the dvd has subtitles in english, french, spanish, portuguese, japanese, chinese, thai, korean, and malaysian.

(har har har)

what i gave rich for his birthday:

• a card with two cats drinking from a toilet, which says on the inside, “in honor of your birthday we’re having a drink”
• copies of two of my favorite pieces of writing: “the body’s weight” by stephen dobyns and a passage from richard bachman’s rage
• a picture frame which is awesome and also black like his soul
• this stupid stupid book that he has given to me or left in my room stealthily like a zillion times and i swear next time i will light it on fire.
• a book called the lowbrow guide to history or something like that, which has sections like “king tut: king of bling?”
• a box of chocolate band-aids
• single-serving nutella complete with tiny plastic spreader
• an r2d2 pez dispenser
• a tiny can of DUFF BEER which is full of mints.

i guess i never thought there was a tungsten company.

note the address at the bottom. that’s right, this company is on nathan lane.

on his 1984 solo album go insane, lindsey “fucking crazy” buckingham sang the following in the dennis wilson tribute track “d.w. suite”:

if we go, go insane
we can all go together
in this wild, wanton world
we can all break down forever . . .

it’s the last track on the album, and what you don’t get from reading the lyrics is how it really goes something like this:

if we go (go go go go go go go go), go insane (sane sane sane sane sane sane sane sane)
we can all (all all all all all all all all) . . .

in an interview, he explained his motivations for writing the song:

“‘d.w. suite’ really was written right after dennis wilson died. and uh, about two days after that happened – and i was quite upset by that – i locked myself in the studio and recorded this whole thing. i emerged a week later with the ‘d.w. suite.’ it was, to me – the visual that i had – it can refer to anything obviously – going insane together – can refer to anything and anyone can relate to it in their own specific way. but i was thinking in terms of the beach boys, really, and the death of dennis wilson inspired the composing of this particular tune.” (quoted here.)

uhhh. right.

in the first episode of the second season of northern exposure, joel’s fiancee wrote him a dear john letter saying she’d run off with someone else. his friends recreate a favorite memory to let joel find closure, and one asks what he would say to his fiancee if she were there. he says:

“sex should be wild, shouldn’t it? unfettered and free. we’re animals, aren’t we? i mean basically we’re all wolves in sheep’s fur. i always wanted more. i mean, not frequency, i’m not talking about frequency — although that would be great too — but i, i, i want more intensity. i want it to be out there, outside myself, outside my skin. i want sex to be like robbing life out of the jaws of death.”