Manifesto, definition courtesy of Tristan Tzara:
A manifesto is a communication addressed to the whole world, in which there is no other pretension than the discovery of a means of curing instantly political, astronomical, artistic, parliamentary, agronomic and literary syphilis. It can be gentle, good-natured, it is always right, it is strong, vigorous and logical. A propos logic, I consider myself very charming.
Saturday, February 27, 2010
The Year of the Aleatory
Like a developing nation seeking to boost tourism, I like to come up with slogans, and declare that this is The Official Year of Something or Other. Like “Malaysia Truly Asia”. Like “Come to Bangladesh Before the Tourists!”
For example, in my one man micro-state, 2005 was the Year of Tight Pants. Not to wear them myself, thank you, but to appreciate them on other people. Actually, The Year of Tight Pants went on for an extremely long time. (Public Relations is a hit-or-miss affair in my one man micro-state.)
Effective immediately however, a new slogan is in effect. This is the Year of the Aleatory. I found this word in a crowded page and fell in love at once. I’m smitten. I couldn’t love this word more if it had broad-shoulders and hands like catcher’s mitts. Not if it had three days of stubble, not if it were wearing overalls.
The dictionary defines aleatory as “dependent on chance, luck, of uncertain outcome.” It is derived from Latin aleator – a gambler.
Aleatory music is “20th century music in which chance or indeterminate elements are left for the performer to realize. The term is a loose one, describing compositions with strictly demarcated areas for improvisation according to specific directions and also unstructured pieces consisting of vague directions, such as “Play for five minutes.”
Anyone can imagine the vast wave of joy and relief that swept across me, when I came upon this vitalizing word. “Oh thank goodness!” I thought. “I was starting to worry that everything just random!”
But, no! No more random accidents, random sex, random scribbled pages. This is the Year of the Aleatory!
I intend to have t-shirts printed up which read: “We’re not LOST, darlings – we’re IMPROVISING!”
I discovered the word aleatory in an introduction to a book of stories by Robert Walser, the Swiss writer and psychiatric patient. His later work, as he neared final permanent incarceration in the sanatorium at Herisau, was described as “aleatory”.
And it was as if Robert Walser himself appeared before me, dapper in a yellow suit, with his pleasant smile and his eyes on the abyss, to say, “You too can practice the aleatory! You too can align yourself with the aleatory!”
My understanding of the word is further colored by the words of Eileen Agar, the Surrealist painter and photographer: “You see the shape of a tree, the way a pebble falls or is formed, and you are astounded to discover that dumb nature makes an effort to speak to you, to give you a sign, to warn you, to symbolize your innermost thoughts. Chance is not a neutral but a distinctly positive force; the surrealists believe that you can get on good terms with chance by adopting a lyrical mode of behavior and an open attitude.”
Ideally, there would be a fund available to reward and sustain anyone who, when questioned at the dinner table by their elderly father as to their future plans and direction in life, was brave enough to respond, “As for me, Dad -- I’m adopting a lyrical mode of behavior!”
Unfortunately, no funds are available at this time.
Annie Dillard says, “Every day is a god, each day is a god, and holiness holds forth in time.” How then do I learn to step aside and allow the day and the night to speak for themselves? Plans, good intentions and efficiency have been found empty-handed: I have wandered off into the floating world.
(Plans, outlines, and objectives: my opposition to them is suspicious, like a broken-hearted man who forever after takes an immediate dislike to any woman whose hair is a particular shade of red. Maybe I’d even approve of success – if it were a friend of mine.)
The white cards on which I write this evening are turned multi-colored by the rainbow lights of Soi Twilight in Bangkok, where I sit and watch the crowds who’ve come to buy sex and see the shows. The tattooed thug at the massage parlor across the way leers at me, gives a calculated belly rub. As for the mama-san at X Boys – she and I are having an affair -- as yet unconsummated. She’s wearing a red satin suit, her hair is pulled back in a fluffy white scrunchie, and I believe she genuinely loves me. Isn’t cold beer delightful?
Who is this now: a diva marching down the street in three inch heels, bottle red hair flying behind, and – now this is really extravagant – she is waving a large gold fan before her, as if preparing the air to receive her.
We are so rich in our impoverishment, so very promising in this, our advanced state of physical and moral decay. I am astonished to discover myself all the time nearly bursting with radiant light – almost all of which serves only to light up trash.
I am not hopeless, however. Nothing is lost. Nothing is random. Not here in the Year of the Aleatory.
For example, in my one man micro-state, 2005 was the Year of Tight Pants. Not to wear them myself, thank you, but to appreciate them on other people. Actually, The Year of Tight Pants went on for an extremely long time. (Public Relations is a hit-or-miss affair in my one man micro-state.)
Effective immediately however, a new slogan is in effect. This is the Year of the Aleatory. I found this word in a crowded page and fell in love at once. I’m smitten. I couldn’t love this word more if it had broad-shoulders and hands like catcher’s mitts. Not if it had three days of stubble, not if it were wearing overalls.
The dictionary defines aleatory as “dependent on chance, luck, of uncertain outcome.” It is derived from Latin aleator – a gambler.
Aleatory music is “20th century music in which chance or indeterminate elements are left for the performer to realize. The term is a loose one, describing compositions with strictly demarcated areas for improvisation according to specific directions and also unstructured pieces consisting of vague directions, such as “Play for five minutes.”
Anyone can imagine the vast wave of joy and relief that swept across me, when I came upon this vitalizing word. “Oh thank goodness!” I thought. “I was starting to worry that everything just random!”
But, no! No more random accidents, random sex, random scribbled pages. This is the Year of the Aleatory!
I intend to have t-shirts printed up which read: “We’re not LOST, darlings – we’re IMPROVISING!”
I discovered the word aleatory in an introduction to a book of stories by Robert Walser, the Swiss writer and psychiatric patient. His later work, as he neared final permanent incarceration in the sanatorium at Herisau, was described as “aleatory”.
And it was as if Robert Walser himself appeared before me, dapper in a yellow suit, with his pleasant smile and his eyes on the abyss, to say, “You too can practice the aleatory! You too can align yourself with the aleatory!”
My understanding of the word is further colored by the words of Eileen Agar, the Surrealist painter and photographer: “You see the shape of a tree, the way a pebble falls or is formed, and you are astounded to discover that dumb nature makes an effort to speak to you, to give you a sign, to warn you, to symbolize your innermost thoughts. Chance is not a neutral but a distinctly positive force; the surrealists believe that you can get on good terms with chance by adopting a lyrical mode of behavior and an open attitude.”
Ideally, there would be a fund available to reward and sustain anyone who, when questioned at the dinner table by their elderly father as to their future plans and direction in life, was brave enough to respond, “As for me, Dad -- I’m adopting a lyrical mode of behavior!”
Unfortunately, no funds are available at this time.
Annie Dillard says, “Every day is a god, each day is a god, and holiness holds forth in time.” How then do I learn to step aside and allow the day and the night to speak for themselves? Plans, good intentions and efficiency have been found empty-handed: I have wandered off into the floating world.
(Plans, outlines, and objectives: my opposition to them is suspicious, like a broken-hearted man who forever after takes an immediate dislike to any woman whose hair is a particular shade of red. Maybe I’d even approve of success – if it were a friend of mine.)
The white cards on which I write this evening are turned multi-colored by the rainbow lights of Soi Twilight in Bangkok, where I sit and watch the crowds who’ve come to buy sex and see the shows. The tattooed thug at the massage parlor across the way leers at me, gives a calculated belly rub. As for the mama-san at X Boys – she and I are having an affair -- as yet unconsummated. She’s wearing a red satin suit, her hair is pulled back in a fluffy white scrunchie, and I believe she genuinely loves me. Isn’t cold beer delightful?
Who is this now: a diva marching down the street in three inch heels, bottle red hair flying behind, and – now this is really extravagant – she is waving a large gold fan before her, as if preparing the air to receive her.
We are so rich in our impoverishment, so very promising in this, our advanced state of physical and moral decay. I am astonished to discover myself all the time nearly bursting with radiant light – almost all of which serves only to light up trash.
I am not hopeless, however. Nothing is lost. Nothing is random. Not here in the Year of the Aleatory.
Friday, February 19, 2010
Surrealist Painters and Poets
Mary Ann Caws, editor
The MIT Press, 2001
An anthology so rich and diverse I'm going to go ahead and call it "heroic". So much of this wouldn't be available anywhere, if not for this book. Mary Ann Caws has done dozens of fresh translations. It seemed incredible to sit at my table with my coffee and say, "Ah, now I'll read Andre Breton's letter to his daughter. . . now I'll look at facsimiles of Joseph Cornell's letters to Mina Loy and Marianne Moore. . . here is a picture of an elderly Picasso wearing a fireman's helmet. . . here are the poems of Robert Desnos and Paul Eluard and Malcolm de Chazal." The book is beautiful and fascinating and simply a lot of fun. I'm not a scholar or a historian -- this is a book to read for pleasure.
Somewhat at random, here are 7 Things I Loved:
Giorgio de Chirico, an excerpt from his memoirs: "Although the Surrealists professed unadulterated communist and anti-bourgeois feelings they always tried to live as comfortably as possible, dress very well and eat excellent meals washed down with excellent wine; they never gave so much as a centime to a poor man, never lifted a finger in favor of someone who needed material or moral support and above all they worked as little as possible, or not at all." (p.29)
Louis Aragon, an excerpt from Paris Peasant: "Fearsome, charming whores, let others take to generalizing in their arms." "No museum could ever reconstruct you on the basis of your little dimpled hand." (p.75)
Antonin Artaud, an excerpt from "Van Gogh: The Man Suicided by Society": "He who does not smell of a smouldering bomb and of compressed vertigo is not worthy to be alive." "Only perpetual struggle explains a peace that is only transitory just as milk that is ready to be poured explains the kettle in which it has boiled." (p.106)
Leonora Carrington, the story "House of Fear": "But I'd forgotten that I could only count to ten, and even then I made mistakes. In a very short time, I'd counted to ten several times, and I'd gone completely astray. Trees surrounded me on all sides. 'I'm in a forest,' I said, and I was right." (p.149)
Arthur Cravan, from his Notes: "I am perhaps the king of failures because I'm certainly the king of something." (p.171)
Julien Gracq, "Ross' Barrier": "At such times we hugged each other so long and close that in the melted snow, a single gully was hollowed out, narrower than a baby's cradle, and, when we got up, the cover between the two teat-like mounds suggested Asiatic asses, saddled with snow and descending the mountain slopes." (p.231)
Marcel Marien, his stunning essay "Psychological Aspects of the Fourth Dimension": "For if one break, pierce, breach, split, or otherwise penetrate an object, it is not its interior that is thereby reached; in the new void created, new images are created, hitherto unknown surfaces are touched." (p.289)
And I haven't mentioned the poems of Mina Loy, or the portfolio of Dorothea Tanning paintings, or Joseph Cornell's dream journal or Breton's collaborations with Eluard, or the entirely incredible Meret Oppenheim.
There is so much here -- and so many writers I would never have found if not for this book. An anthology, it seems to me, is a mission of rescue and in this case the survivors are dazzling.
Tuesday, February 09, 2010
Mr. Gerber Is Living the Life He Always Dreamed About.
We never learned how Mr. Gerber maintained himself. He helped out here at the building, kept an eye on things, but that hardly could have been enough to live on.
Mr. Gerber was peculiar, certainly. I don't doubt that he was somewhat mad. He may have been a pervert. A skim milk-looking middle-aged man, thinning hair, the kind of man you can hardly tell if he is 38 or 61. The sun seems to never shine directly on such a person.
In a crowd of people Mr. Gerber was useful as an end table. You gave him your drink to hold when you went to the toilet. Fifteen minutes later he hadn't moved. I suppose you could have thrown your coat over him.
Mr. Gerber was part of the complex. He lived in a corner basement apartment. A made-over utility closet, I suspect, though of course I never saw it. In this building we're all good friends -- it's required. When we had parties we invited everyone. When we invited everyone, we invited Mr. Gerber, too.
If you forced him to speak, Mr. Gerber would straighten up, tuck his chin down toward his chest, and say that he was grateful, grateful to be at a party like this, among people like these people. Mr. Gerber was so strenuously grateful one wondered if he was grateful at all.
I should clarify some things about myself. I am a person who tells the truth. Thus many people do not like me very much. I'm not a sentimentalist. I'm not a sympathetic sort of person. I'm a pragmatist. I'm an M.T.V. person. Do you know what that means? That means: My Time is Valuable. All right, let's continue.
Mr. Gerber was extremely unobtrusive, but he was always around. If you came home early feeling under the weather, there was Mr. Gerber. Or late on Sunday afternoon when distractions were running low. At 3am when you couldn't sleep, there was Mr. Gerber, clearing away the junk mail, sweeping out the entryway.
If you caught him alone Mr. Gerber was chatty, in a style both humdrum and bizarre. He'd chat about the light that was out, about trash collection, about the weather -- and then he'd sigh and say, "For so long I dreamed of this and now I'm living it!" And an enormous smile would sweep over his face.
I am not impressed by poetic-type people. If you take a moment to investigate their self-conscious behavior, you will nearly always see an attempt to camouflage failure. Like women who gain weight and become spiritual.
For all his being nothing, Mr. Gerber was extremely grandiose. His life appeared to be 10% of one's own life, which frankly was shoddy in some departments, and yet he talked like he was rags to riches, like his whole entire wish list had been delivered. He was delusional obviously. Probably he was actually severely depressed. I've seen a case or two of this before.
I suppose he was giving me some clue the afternoon we discussed Christmas shopping, while leaning up against the mailboxes. He said he was pleased to be finished with his shopping. (I have no idea who he could have been shopping for. I myself never received anything from him.)
Mr. Gerber said, "I like things -- but most of all I like the space between things."
Well. It sounds a little spiritual written down, doesn't it? Trust me, it wasn't spiritual at the time. He had one hand in a crinkly bag of BBQ ripple chips, He had little orange specks around his lips.
Conspiratorially he leaned near me, breathing on me with his barbecue chip breath. "Have you ever been in the train station at rush hour, shoving and elbowing along with everyone else, when, without warning, a gap appears? You've got 144,000 people in front of you. 144,000 in back. But nobody is quite exactly where you are. You're in a little gap. I love that."
I bet, if we really looked into it, we'd find out that Mr. Gerber really was a pervert. Perverts resemble skim milk and are always careful to be the nobody next door.
As for myself, I don't shirk responsibility. I believe in doing things. I celebrate achievement. That is why I live on the top floor, whereas Mr. Gerber lived in the basement. Both of us, it's true, live alone. But a corner on the top floor is obviously very different from a corner in the basement.
All religions of the world agree on one point: every little thing you do matters. All of us are born with a 'to do' list. We must work, procreate, ornament, etc. Like it or not this is the situation. When we die we go to Heaven, to the auditors, and all our exotic destinations, university publications, and redheads are tallied.
You can pretend otherwise but that just means you are afraid of life. At very least you must avoid blowing your nose on cloth napkins and eating potato chips on the train.
One night -- I was having some troubles, I admit. I don't have nearly as many troubles as most other people, but still I have some. For some reason I was walking around in my t-shirt. And underpants.
This is not as inappropriate, as abandoned, as it may seem. I am fastidious about underwear, about its cleanliness. And all my underwear is very modest, more modest than what many people wear on the outside.
Anyway, it was the middle of the night. In one of my hands could be found a fifth of whiskey. I turned the corner and saw that there was someone there. I started to apologize -- but there was no need. It was only Mr. Gerber.
"Whiskey?"
Mr. Gerber looked at the bottle. "It isn't space really," he said. "Actually it obliterates space. But it feels like space." I thought this meant I could continue enjoying my liquor privately, but he took the bottle from me, and had a good strong slug of it.
I remember he didn't shiver and his eyes didn't widen any. So maybe that was Mr. Gerber's story.
"Isn't this the very best time of night?" said Mr. Gerber. "I adore it. I like stumbling on these odd times when one can really live."
Well, this was nonsense, and I would certainly have said so, had I not been overwhelmingly intoxicated. And so I said, "Gosh. You really like some unusual things, Mr. Gerber."
"I like all the things that are likeable. And also those things that cannot help but be loved. Dust, for instance." Now he started counting things off on his thick stubby fingers. "I like train stations when the train is gone. I like gardens in winter. Nothing charms like the absence of charm! I like cafeterias. I am addicted to laundromats. I dislike traveling, but I enjoy being in transit. There's no place a man can really live, don't you agree, besides in a city, in a basement apartment, in a building where no one really likes anyone!"
Likely this was not Mr. Gerber's first whiskey of the evening. Some people enjoy being eccentric and contrary. And they expect other people to find it just delightful.
Personally, I dislike monologists. Don't you, too, dislike monologists? It's the back and forth of dialogue that enriches one, connects one to the species, even has health benefits. Not so Mr. Gerber. He did not seek the back and forth, the to and fro. Mr. Gerber had his speech prepared. No doubt he was a deeply lonely man, and monologues, as everyone knows, are a hazard of that species.
"One of the joys of modern life," said Mr. Gerber, "Is the perfectly anonymous coffee shop -- not the most popular chain, but its cheaper, though I grant still over-priced, imitators. Each shop is just like another and even the street corners on which they appear are so similar, so dull and gray, that you could never agree to meet anyone there, because you could never think of anything that might distinguish it from any other shop, its street from any other street, its city from any other city, until finally you cannot even distinguish yourself from anyone else: in a place like this you can really live!"
My diction doubtless makes Mr. Gerber's gobbledygook more distinguished than it really was. I decided to confront him about his evasions, to remind him that work and restraint are necessary, that the age of consent is 18. Unfortunately that drunken evening was the last I saw of him. For shortly after this discussion, Mr. Gerber disappeared.
I don't mean that there was anything untoward about it. I don't think he ran out on the rent. He just isn't with us anymore.
The odd thing is, now that Mr. Gerber is gone, he's become a very common topic of conversation among residents here in the building. They want to know where he went. They want to understand him. This is a sentimental and foolish interest which Mr. Gerber does not in any way merit.
Thus it disturbs me somewhat to discover that I, too, am unable to stop thinking about Mr. Gerber. Mr. Gerber is absolutely stuck in my mind. He appears to have become part of the structure, like train stations and dull street corners. Like dust.
I want very much to see Mr. Gerber again. I would greet him courteously. I'd listen to whatever nonsense he wished to share. And I'd be sure to tell him, "We cannot forget you, Mr. Gerber." I think the look of disappointment on his dull face would be most satisfactory.
Mr. Gerber was peculiar, certainly. I don't doubt that he was somewhat mad. He may have been a pervert. A skim milk-looking middle-aged man, thinning hair, the kind of man you can hardly tell if he is 38 or 61. The sun seems to never shine directly on such a person.
In a crowd of people Mr. Gerber was useful as an end table. You gave him your drink to hold when you went to the toilet. Fifteen minutes later he hadn't moved. I suppose you could have thrown your coat over him.
Mr. Gerber was part of the complex. He lived in a corner basement apartment. A made-over utility closet, I suspect, though of course I never saw it. In this building we're all good friends -- it's required. When we had parties we invited everyone. When we invited everyone, we invited Mr. Gerber, too.
If you forced him to speak, Mr. Gerber would straighten up, tuck his chin down toward his chest, and say that he was grateful, grateful to be at a party like this, among people like these people. Mr. Gerber was so strenuously grateful one wondered if he was grateful at all.
I should clarify some things about myself. I am a person who tells the truth. Thus many people do not like me very much. I'm not a sentimentalist. I'm not a sympathetic sort of person. I'm a pragmatist. I'm an M.T.V. person. Do you know what that means? That means: My Time is Valuable. All right, let's continue.
Mr. Gerber was extremely unobtrusive, but he was always around. If you came home early feeling under the weather, there was Mr. Gerber. Or late on Sunday afternoon when distractions were running low. At 3am when you couldn't sleep, there was Mr. Gerber, clearing away the junk mail, sweeping out the entryway.
If you caught him alone Mr. Gerber was chatty, in a style both humdrum and bizarre. He'd chat about the light that was out, about trash collection, about the weather -- and then he'd sigh and say, "For so long I dreamed of this and now I'm living it!" And an enormous smile would sweep over his face.
I am not impressed by poetic-type people. If you take a moment to investigate their self-conscious behavior, you will nearly always see an attempt to camouflage failure. Like women who gain weight and become spiritual.
For all his being nothing, Mr. Gerber was extremely grandiose. His life appeared to be 10% of one's own life, which frankly was shoddy in some departments, and yet he talked like he was rags to riches, like his whole entire wish list had been delivered. He was delusional obviously. Probably he was actually severely depressed. I've seen a case or two of this before.
I suppose he was giving me some clue the afternoon we discussed Christmas shopping, while leaning up against the mailboxes. He said he was pleased to be finished with his shopping. (I have no idea who he could have been shopping for. I myself never received anything from him.)
Mr. Gerber said, "I like things -- but most of all I like the space between things."
Well. It sounds a little spiritual written down, doesn't it? Trust me, it wasn't spiritual at the time. He had one hand in a crinkly bag of BBQ ripple chips, He had little orange specks around his lips.
Conspiratorially he leaned near me, breathing on me with his barbecue chip breath. "Have you ever been in the train station at rush hour, shoving and elbowing along with everyone else, when, without warning, a gap appears? You've got 144,000 people in front of you. 144,000 in back. But nobody is quite exactly where you are. You're in a little gap. I love that."
I bet, if we really looked into it, we'd find out that Mr. Gerber really was a pervert. Perverts resemble skim milk and are always careful to be the nobody next door.
As for myself, I don't shirk responsibility. I believe in doing things. I celebrate achievement. That is why I live on the top floor, whereas Mr. Gerber lived in the basement. Both of us, it's true, live alone. But a corner on the top floor is obviously very different from a corner in the basement.
All religions of the world agree on one point: every little thing you do matters. All of us are born with a 'to do' list. We must work, procreate, ornament, etc. Like it or not this is the situation. When we die we go to Heaven, to the auditors, and all our exotic destinations, university publications, and redheads are tallied.
You can pretend otherwise but that just means you are afraid of life. At very least you must avoid blowing your nose on cloth napkins and eating potato chips on the train.
One night -- I was having some troubles, I admit. I don't have nearly as many troubles as most other people, but still I have some. For some reason I was walking around in my t-shirt. And underpants.
This is not as inappropriate, as abandoned, as it may seem. I am fastidious about underwear, about its cleanliness. And all my underwear is very modest, more modest than what many people wear on the outside.
Anyway, it was the middle of the night. In one of my hands could be found a fifth of whiskey. I turned the corner and saw that there was someone there. I started to apologize -- but there was no need. It was only Mr. Gerber.
"Whiskey?"
Mr. Gerber looked at the bottle. "It isn't space really," he said. "Actually it obliterates space. But it feels like space." I thought this meant I could continue enjoying my liquor privately, but he took the bottle from me, and had a good strong slug of it.
I remember he didn't shiver and his eyes didn't widen any. So maybe that was Mr. Gerber's story.
"Isn't this the very best time of night?" said Mr. Gerber. "I adore it. I like stumbling on these odd times when one can really live."
Well, this was nonsense, and I would certainly have said so, had I not been overwhelmingly intoxicated. And so I said, "Gosh. You really like some unusual things, Mr. Gerber."
"I like all the things that are likeable. And also those things that cannot help but be loved. Dust, for instance." Now he started counting things off on his thick stubby fingers. "I like train stations when the train is gone. I like gardens in winter. Nothing charms like the absence of charm! I like cafeterias. I am addicted to laundromats. I dislike traveling, but I enjoy being in transit. There's no place a man can really live, don't you agree, besides in a city, in a basement apartment, in a building where no one really likes anyone!"
Likely this was not Mr. Gerber's first whiskey of the evening. Some people enjoy being eccentric and contrary. And they expect other people to find it just delightful.
Personally, I dislike monologists. Don't you, too, dislike monologists? It's the back and forth of dialogue that enriches one, connects one to the species, even has health benefits. Not so Mr. Gerber. He did not seek the back and forth, the to and fro. Mr. Gerber had his speech prepared. No doubt he was a deeply lonely man, and monologues, as everyone knows, are a hazard of that species.
"One of the joys of modern life," said Mr. Gerber, "Is the perfectly anonymous coffee shop -- not the most popular chain, but its cheaper, though I grant still over-priced, imitators. Each shop is just like another and even the street corners on which they appear are so similar, so dull and gray, that you could never agree to meet anyone there, because you could never think of anything that might distinguish it from any other shop, its street from any other street, its city from any other city, until finally you cannot even distinguish yourself from anyone else: in a place like this you can really live!"
My diction doubtless makes Mr. Gerber's gobbledygook more distinguished than it really was. I decided to confront him about his evasions, to remind him that work and restraint are necessary, that the age of consent is 18. Unfortunately that drunken evening was the last I saw of him. For shortly after this discussion, Mr. Gerber disappeared.
I don't mean that there was anything untoward about it. I don't think he ran out on the rent. He just isn't with us anymore.
The odd thing is, now that Mr. Gerber is gone, he's become a very common topic of conversation among residents here in the building. They want to know where he went. They want to understand him. This is a sentimental and foolish interest which Mr. Gerber does not in any way merit.
Thus it disturbs me somewhat to discover that I, too, am unable to stop thinking about Mr. Gerber. Mr. Gerber is absolutely stuck in my mind. He appears to have become part of the structure, like train stations and dull street corners. Like dust.
I want very much to see Mr. Gerber again. I would greet him courteously. I'd listen to whatever nonsense he wished to share. And I'd be sure to tell him, "We cannot forget you, Mr. Gerber." I think the look of disappointment on his dull face would be most satisfactory.
Thursday, February 04, 2010
Holy Books of Guttersnipe Das: Robert Walser
Robert Walser, Masquerade
translated by Susan Bernofsky
Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990
I adore Robert Walser. Sometimes I think I love him too much. Like, I might have amounted to something, might have succeeded in life, if I hadn't been all the time reading and re-reading Robert Walser. Maybe this book was a really bad influence on me. Maybe you shouldn't read it.
But it is so wonderful. So alive. Despite reading omnivorously and obsessively for years, I haven't found anyone else who writes anything like Robert Walser.
Walser's work is gleefully improvisatory, deliberately sketchy. It disappears as you read it. He is strenuously humble. Haughtily humble. He never stops referring to himself and how minor he is.
There's a special Jane Bowles variety of relief I feel, reading Robert Walser. The relief of having absolutely no idea what sentence is coming next. The feeling that the writer does NOT have a perfect and fixed agenda that I must now march down without missing a scenic vista or semi-colon, as if I were a tourist/prisoner on some kind of militant buttoned-up bus tour.
I think Masquerade is my favorite, among the Robert Walser books now available. (If you can, buy whatever is available. The books go in and out of print.) However, if you're just discovering Walser, I recommend reading Selected Stories first, followed by Masquerade, and then try one of the novels -- Jakob von Gunten or The Tanners.
It's more useful to "taste" Walser, than to try to explain him. Thus, here are a few typical sentences you'll find inside Masquerade:
(p.71) "I came into the world on this or that day, was brought up in this or that place, went properly to school, am something or other, am called so and so, and don't think much."
(p.77) "She then offered the opinion that she was the embodiment of a long string of capricious notions. I said I would love all her notions, would even worship them."
(p.31) "The elegant woman is somewhat hesitant to bite into the caviar marvel; naturally I imagine it's me she's holding and no other, that's why she's not entirely in control of her biting powers. It's so easy and so enjoyable to fool oneself."
(p.154) "Being carefree is never permissible, only seeming to be."
(p.170) "One should, in my opinion, treat sinners with care. To be sure, depravity can not only be exceedingly moving, but even something splendid. I incidentally possess, at the moment, a great deal of social polish, which I point out expressly for the benefit of those incapable of believing it. What a smashing, springblossomishly unfolding tussle I tussle!"
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