Ten years ago, John Mayer performed a set from his debut album Room for Squares in the WYEP studios - an independent radio station in Pittsburgh. I heard a recording from that session this morning. "Will you want me when I'm not myself?" he sings. As it turns out, my answer is Probably Not.
I used to say that he was the poet nearest my heart - a line stolen from the movie Shakespeare in Love. A movie about the imagined life of Shakespeare and the reckless love - 'come ruin or rapture' - that inspires him to write both Romeo and Juliet and Twelfth Night (from which comes my favorite line in all of Shakespeare's writing..."If music be the food of love, play on.") And I really loved John Mayer. Before he made it to commercial radio. Before he became the playboy of the western world - before his words went from 'poetry to prose' -- to borrow a line from "Not Myself".
But then, as a writer of prose, how can I stand in judgement? Further, as a writer of fiction - creator of unreal realities - why can I not separate the man from the artist? Why should I care that he dated Jessica Simpson? That poor girl likes a doughnut as much as me - but at least I'm not on the cover of every magazine with the words 'Wide Load' plastered across my ass-end.
Originally, I was angry that he'd chosen her. I had imagined him with a girl who'd broken his heart in 6th grade. A plain but pretty girl who (as he sings in "Comfortable") could distinguish between Miles and Coltraine. The One. So, seeing him posed next to the platinum Simpson was a blow. But the real problem for me occurred when he started saying ugly things about Jessica and the other high-profile women with whom he'd paraded down the red carpet. How could this callous misogynist be the same man who wrote "Daughters"? Who seemed to keenly understand the complications particular to girls who'd been abandoned by the first man they ever loved? Who wrote about watching his parents age with unparalleled tenderness in "Stop This Train"? About high school reunions and St. Patrick's Day; hope and heartbreak? Who left track #13 blank - just in case. How John? Please, if you're out there, I really want to know. How do we know if we'll want you when you're not yourself if we don't know which self is really you?
Alice Walker once said, "Deliver me from writers who think the way they live doesn't matter..." I agree. And I disagree. Let's say I was to make it to the big time as a writer. Let's say readers were out there imagining my life - idealizing a set of ideals for me. Absorbing my words like gospel - holding me to an unattainable standard - and then one day, I was exposed. Caught in a contradiction between my public and private life - billed as a fraud and a liar and a jerk. But what if I really meant everything I'd ever written? In that moment in time, it was true - I felt every emotion that had plucked the soulstrings of those once faithful followers? Who could say which moment was me being 'myself' and which was me as 'somebody else'?
Maybe it's best not to know too much about the artists whose work inspires us to lift our lighters in a dark sky. I don't know. But I do know that when I heard him singing this morning, I couldn't stop it - that old reckless love.
Listen to "Heart of Life" and decide for yourself:
August 31, 2011
August 23, 2011
We're Closer Now Than Ever Before
This song was originally featured in Emmet Otter's Jugband Christmas. Listen to this terrific version of "Our World" as performed by My Morning Jacket. What a treat for us all!
August 19, 2011
At the Top of the World...
...there is a place called Linden Vineyards. If you begin in Charlottesville, Virginia and drive along Rte. 29, it will take you about an hour and a half to arrive at the Top of the World, located, unexpectedly,on Rattle Snake Mountain...(why not Sparrow Mountain or Rainbow Range...etc, but I'll get to the 'why' questions later). En route to the Top of the World, you will pass through a series of small towns situated along the Shenandoah Valley. For example Madison and Sperryville, the apparent home of one of the biggest "slow-food" movements in the country, and mile after breathtaking green mile later, you will arrive at a gravel road. It is my opinion that this road was left unpaved to challenge the people who don't really care about wine. Or cheddar cheese which burns the roof of your mouth with its local sharpness. Or being so close to God you could almost ask him a question. Or three.
For the determined oenophile, however, there is no path too treacherous. No matter how wooded or narrow. How full of ruts like gaping jaws for gulping down little red cars.
This end-of-summer trip actually began in Washington D.C. There we visited the Holocaust Museum and the White House. Julia Child's kitchen and a statue of Andrew Jackson. We also stopped in at a place called "Busboys and Poets" named in honor of Langston Hughes and enjoyed a "Poet Pizza". Afterwards, we walked back to the hotel and passed a church with the following bible verse posted on its marquis: Wisdom is a tree of life to those who embrace her; those who lay hold of her will be blessed. (Proverbs 3:18.) Go ahead and chew on that for a minute while I sew this up.
History is full of contradictions. Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence - decrying that all men are created equal - but over the course of his lifetime, some 600 slaves lived and worked on his Virginia plantation. During WWI, allied troops dropped leaflets from their planes onto the Germans - words written in their native language advising them to give up hope. That the U.S. and other armed forces were too great in numbers and prowess to be defeated and surrender was the only option. This tactic inspired a young German soldier. A frustrated artist named Adolph Hitler who tweaked the concept to sell anti-semitism to his citizens through one of the most effective propaganda campaigns ever created.
What else? About five blocks from the Holocaust Museum stands the statue of Andrew Jackson - the author of the "Indian Removal Act". By the end of his tenure, 46,000 Native Americans had been exiled from their homeland. He was, however, the only U.S. President to pay-off the National Debt. I suppose that's what's up with the statue. And it's funny (not ha-ha) how much of what I heard during my educational field-trip smacked of deja-vu. Not allowing German refugees into the U.S. because they might take 'our' jobs sounded strangely familiar, as a for instance. Why did the U.S. bomb the German factories first? Apparently they were afraid to raid the death camps because it might have pissed Hitler off and provoked him to do something really bad. Why oust Saddam Hussein and not the gang of misfit boys holding eastern Africa hostage? And what of the other nations of the world - where do they stand on genocide while wagging their fingers in our direction?
At the top of the world there is a place called Linden Vineyards. It is a place where you can drink some of the finest red wine being produced in this country in between bites of warm baguette and sharp cheese. You can say to yourself: I am blessed. I am lucky to be here - to have seen these mountains. Despite this, you find yourself wanting more. Wondering if you were granted an audience, invited to ask of God three questions - what would they be? Why me? maybe? But a why question runs the risk of soliciting the dreaded: "Because I said so". How is trickier to answer. How can we make things right for the homeless who sleep beneath the opulent buildings in our Nation's Capitol? How can we use our words as a force for good? How do we climb the tree of life, to embrace wisdom in the here and now, rather than when it's too late?
For the determined oenophile, however, there is no path too treacherous. No matter how wooded or narrow. How full of ruts like gaping jaws for gulping down little red cars.
This end-of-summer trip actually began in Washington D.C. There we visited the Holocaust Museum and the White House. Julia Child's kitchen and a statue of Andrew Jackson. We also stopped in at a place called "Busboys and Poets" named in honor of Langston Hughes and enjoyed a "Poet Pizza". Afterwards, we walked back to the hotel and passed a church with the following bible verse posted on its marquis: Wisdom is a tree of life to those who embrace her; those who lay hold of her will be blessed. (Proverbs 3:18.) Go ahead and chew on that for a minute while I sew this up.
History is full of contradictions. Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence - decrying that all men are created equal - but over the course of his lifetime, some 600 slaves lived and worked on his Virginia plantation. During WWI, allied troops dropped leaflets from their planes onto the Germans - words written in their native language advising them to give up hope. That the U.S. and other armed forces were too great in numbers and prowess to be defeated and surrender was the only option. This tactic inspired a young German soldier. A frustrated artist named Adolph Hitler who tweaked the concept to sell anti-semitism to his citizens through one of the most effective propaganda campaigns ever created.
What else? About five blocks from the Holocaust Museum stands the statue of Andrew Jackson - the author of the "Indian Removal Act". By the end of his tenure, 46,000 Native Americans had been exiled from their homeland. He was, however, the only U.S. President to pay-off the National Debt. I suppose that's what's up with the statue. And it's funny (not ha-ha) how much of what I heard during my educational field-trip smacked of deja-vu. Not allowing German refugees into the U.S. because they might take 'our' jobs sounded strangely familiar, as a for instance. Why did the U.S. bomb the German factories first? Apparently they were afraid to raid the death camps because it might have pissed Hitler off and provoked him to do something really bad. Why oust Saddam Hussein and not the gang of misfit boys holding eastern Africa hostage? And what of the other nations of the world - where do they stand on genocide while wagging their fingers in our direction?
At the top of the world there is a place called Linden Vineyards. It is a place where you can drink some of the finest red wine being produced in this country in between bites of warm baguette and sharp cheese. You can say to yourself: I am blessed. I am lucky to be here - to have seen these mountains. Despite this, you find yourself wanting more. Wondering if you were granted an audience, invited to ask of God three questions - what would they be? Why me? maybe? But a why question runs the risk of soliciting the dreaded: "Because I said so". How is trickier to answer. How can we make things right for the homeless who sleep beneath the opulent buildings in our Nation's Capitol? How can we use our words as a force for good? How do we climb the tree of life, to embrace wisdom in the here and now, rather than when it's too late?
August 8, 2011
Dear You, Love Me
My childhood mailbox wasn't bolted to the house. It wasn't nailed to a wooden post at the end of the driveway, either. Especially in the summer, checking the mail was an event. At ten to 11, the streets of Virginia Hills emptied of kids long enough for us to retreive the mail key from inside our respective homes, taking care not to slam the screen doors before reconvening, filing one-by-one into the parade. A half-mile procession to the recreation hall, where once inside, we were rewarded for our efforts with a blast of ice-cold air. Staring at the wall of silver, we held our collective breath - hedging silent bets. When we turned the key, would there be a child-support check or a stack of utility bills? A letter from a boy or an empty echo?
Summer always makes me nostalgic for letters. Hand-written, stamped, and sometimes even S.W.A.K.ed. What could be better than a letter? Better than reading words meant only for you, as if language had been invented for that singular purpose? A child-support check, of course. But other than that, not much. However, a letter in a story or book can be almost as satisfying, sometimes even more so, when it allows us to anonymously appease our inner voyeur.
Dear Mr. Henshaw by Beverly Clearly ranks among my favorite books from childhood. Unfortunately, in modern literature, the epistolary form is often regarded as passe'. Often but not always, as in the case of a story called "It Looks Like This" by Caitlin Horrocks. Having read several of Caitlin's stories in various literary journals, I was pleased to find her collection of short fiction This Is Not Your City featured prominently on the "Discover New Writers" shelf at Barnes and Noble.
"It Looks Like This" is a story about an 18 year old girl whose mother suffers from crippling arthritis. A girl too busy caring for her mother to pass 12th grade and writes a letter to a former teacher, explicating the details of her life for extra credit. Supplemented by clip art, a diagram of the Pythagorean Theorem, and thumbnail photographs, this story brilliantly acheives the look of a school report. But much like a Brandi Carlile song, it reaches a painful epiphany - like a guttoral scream - in the spaces the writer leaves blank.
Another solidly written story told in letters is "Luckily, Lucy Sims Has No Stamps" by Shellie Zacharia. A master of the flash format, Shellie reveals the sad story of Lucy Sims' life (to hysterical effect) through notes written to Bed Bath & Beyond, the Manager of Primo Italian Cafe, a seventh grade English teacher, an ex-husband named Bill, the parents of Lucy Sims' elementary-aged students, and her former mother-in-law. I love intelligently written absurdity. It's like candied beets: a treat that's also good for me. This story and many fine others can be found in Shellie's book Now Playing.
Although not written in letters, Stewart O'Nan's latest novel Emily, Alone offers a portal into the mind of the book's namesake. Without giving anything away, I think it's safe to say that nothing really happens. There are no plot-turning moments. No cliff-hangars. No catastrophic highs or lows. But somehow, I don't care. Never mind the fact that the book is set in Pittsburgh, which is great for those of us on the home team - the references to Eat-n-Park and the Ft. Pitt Tunnels rended with as much loving detail as the descriptions of a Van Gogh exhibit and the array of dog droppings emerging during the spring thaw. What makes this book special is being privy to Emily's thoughts. Thoughts we might not think an old woman would have. Almost as if she's willed us her diary and rather than wait until she passes, we sneak a peek at the envelope - pretending to be upstairs in the bathroom while she makes us a nice cup of tea.
In an interview appearing in this week's New York Times Magazine, Nicholson Baker (author of several unconventional novels including The Anthologist, which is really funny) said this about trying to write a traditional novel: "I get to the point where there should be a major thing that goes wrong and I don't want it to happen. It doesn't feel true to me. I don't feel entitled, because very few bad things have happened to me."
When faced with photographs of emaciated children - literally starving to death in Somalia, most of us would be hard pressed to disagree with Mr. Baker. And maybe Stewart O'Nan had the same idea in mind - that nothing truly awful had ever happened to Emily and pretending that it had would feel false on the page. But there is one thing we can all be certain of, one inescapable similarity. One day we'll turn the key to find our final notice has arrived.
But hopefully, someone will find the letters we wrote to our mothers from camp; to our seventh grade boyfriends over a summer break; to our brothers and sisters away at college - long-distance friends, future husbands and wives - and know that we were here.
Summer always makes me nostalgic for letters. Hand-written, stamped, and sometimes even S.W.A.K.ed. What could be better than a letter? Better than reading words meant only for you, as if language had been invented for that singular purpose? A child-support check, of course. But other than that, not much. However, a letter in a story or book can be almost as satisfying, sometimes even more so, when it allows us to anonymously appease our inner voyeur.
Dear Mr. Henshaw by Beverly Clearly ranks among my favorite books from childhood. Unfortunately, in modern literature, the epistolary form is often regarded as passe'. Often but not always, as in the case of a story called "It Looks Like This" by Caitlin Horrocks. Having read several of Caitlin's stories in various literary journals, I was pleased to find her collection of short fiction This Is Not Your City featured prominently on the "Discover New Writers" shelf at Barnes and Noble.
"It Looks Like This" is a story about an 18 year old girl whose mother suffers from crippling arthritis. A girl too busy caring for her mother to pass 12th grade and writes a letter to a former teacher, explicating the details of her life for extra credit. Supplemented by clip art, a diagram of the Pythagorean Theorem, and thumbnail photographs, this story brilliantly acheives the look of a school report. But much like a Brandi Carlile song, it reaches a painful epiphany - like a guttoral scream - in the spaces the writer leaves blank.
Another solidly written story told in letters is "Luckily, Lucy Sims Has No Stamps" by Shellie Zacharia. A master of the flash format, Shellie reveals the sad story of Lucy Sims' life (to hysterical effect) through notes written to Bed Bath & Beyond, the Manager of Primo Italian Cafe, a seventh grade English teacher, an ex-husband named Bill, the parents of Lucy Sims' elementary-aged students, and her former mother-in-law. I love intelligently written absurdity. It's like candied beets: a treat that's also good for me. This story and many fine others can be found in Shellie's book Now Playing.
Although not written in letters, Stewart O'Nan's latest novel Emily, Alone offers a portal into the mind of the book's namesake. Without giving anything away, I think it's safe to say that nothing really happens. There are no plot-turning moments. No cliff-hangars. No catastrophic highs or lows. But somehow, I don't care. Never mind the fact that the book is set in Pittsburgh, which is great for those of us on the home team - the references to Eat-n-Park and the Ft. Pitt Tunnels rended with as much loving detail as the descriptions of a Van Gogh exhibit and the array of dog droppings emerging during the spring thaw. What makes this book special is being privy to Emily's thoughts. Thoughts we might not think an old woman would have. Almost as if she's willed us her diary and rather than wait until she passes, we sneak a peek at the envelope - pretending to be upstairs in the bathroom while she makes us a nice cup of tea.
In an interview appearing in this week's New York Times Magazine, Nicholson Baker (author of several unconventional novels including The Anthologist, which is really funny) said this about trying to write a traditional novel: "I get to the point where there should be a major thing that goes wrong and I don't want it to happen. It doesn't feel true to me. I don't feel entitled, because very few bad things have happened to me."
When faced with photographs of emaciated children - literally starving to death in Somalia, most of us would be hard pressed to disagree with Mr. Baker. And maybe Stewart O'Nan had the same idea in mind - that nothing truly awful had ever happened to Emily and pretending that it had would feel false on the page. But there is one thing we can all be certain of, one inescapable similarity. One day we'll turn the key to find our final notice has arrived.
But hopefully, someone will find the letters we wrote to our mothers from camp; to our seventh grade boyfriends over a summer break; to our brothers and sisters away at college - long-distance friends, future husbands and wives - and know that we were here.
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