Archive for the ‘Authors’ Category
Life Is for Living, Plots for Burying Things in
Tuesday, December 8th, 2009
[O]n the contrary, everything in it is both head and tail, alternately and reciprocally…. We can cut wherever we please…. Chop it into numerous pieces and you will see that each one can get along alone. — Charles Baudelaire, “To Arsene Houssaye”
It was that great modernist monk of the late fourteenth century, Baudelard, who first codified the principle of spontaneous generation. He had stowed away a porcelain saucer of skunk meat high in a cupboard where no animal–including the human kind–could reach it. In truth, he had set it aside like manna, afraid that one day the countryside would have scant meat if he and his fellow monks kept hunting as they had all that blustery fall.
A week later, as Baudelard dusted the cupboard, he rediscovered the meat, writhing with worms, and quilled his findings in a thirty-pound volume of accumulated observations.
Yet Baudelard was no one-trick pony of a natural philosopher who folds his hands and rests on laurels. He understood this principle had to be developed to its fullest, for “To understand the essence of nature,” as he was fond of informing his fellow monks spraying a sibilant mouthful of his noon meal: day-old bread, goat cheese and wine, “is to understand the mind of God.” So Baudelard cut worms at varying lengths to see if life might sprout again.
And, lo, they did grow full and wriggling blood-red with both head and tail intact, whichever was the original of which. The confusion brought him to recall a minor poet friend of his, the Englishman Geoffrey Chaucer. He had started a series of semi-bawdy, semi-humorous tales of wanderers mocking the Old English tales of heroes, using the vulgar, common English tongue. Chaucer and Baudelard both saw the stories–pale imitations of Boccaccio–as best fit for lining refuse bins.
To test just how far the principle of spontaneous generation went, they took his original manuscript, mulched it, stirred in earthworms, water, and ink, and let the rotting mass germinate for several months. Chaucer was probably over-eager and exhumed the manuscript prematurely. The Canterbury tales were still unfinished and a bit raw, but Chaucer corrected the earthworms’ grammatical errors and found ways to punch up the bawdiness.
The triumphant success of Baudelard’s literary experiment, logically lead him to human beings as his next test subject. The rest, as you know, is history–eternal glory springs from temporary gore. Even now, a century later, Baudelard’s achievements remain the high-water mark of natural philosophy and letters.
Promises
Monday, December 7th, 2009
I walk and the wind is in my hair. New York city in January. My blue hair against yellow cabs. It was blue when I was born. The doctors had never seen such a thing.
*
Some people believe that their wardrobe is a history. A jacket from that Wall Street job. A pair of shoes from college. That they can take it off—strip down, bare as that day they first stepped into the world.
*
I meet Julie outside Starbucks. She says she likes my hair. We order mochas. She loads hers with sugar. I let her think the salt I bring with me is the same. She says we are as compatible as the internet service said we would be. I try to smile.
*
People forget the stitching—the thread that hold more than just fabric to fabric. Each garment is sewn to their skin, becomes a layer of the shell. And over that outfit they place another. A mess of cloth and flesh, the constant piercing of self. Our history clings to us.
*
She comments on my hair again. She tells me it reminds her of the sea. I tell her how a lot of people have said that. She laughs. Her breath smells of fruit. Of places over the sea she has not been. She asks to touch my hair. I let her.
*
When I see someone so punctured, so tortured by the stitching of their lives, their limbs so tangled, I wonder what would it take to free them? What would it take to sever the stitching of the years?
*
Her hand grazes the surface at first. Strands tangle between her fingers. I smile and she grows bolder. I twist my head just a little, just for her. Her hand sinks in. And even I can smell the brine, can feel the breeze that blows through the place with the scent of fruit-laden shores. And deep goes her hand, up to the elbow, up to the shoulder, reaching in, reaching for something she cannot name. And what does she feel now? Not hair. Something more than currents. The slipping embrace of someone’s arms. And she sinks deeper. And, yes, everything in there is as it was promised. As she slips beneath the surface. eight tentacular arms reach up to her, and claim her like a lover. And they unseam her.