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Bookish

6/29/2010

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   I was not born an egghead. As a child my favorite activities were daydreaming, hanging around in the kitchen (the lady gossip was excellent), watching TV on my belly, or pretending to be those characters when I played outside. I was mostly a watchful person. Somewhere around ten I snagged a copy of “Charlotte’s Web”.  I had always loved reading in school simply because I could; it was magical. However Charlotte, Wilbur and Fern led me into another world, quieter than the kitchen, less abrasive than fighting with siblings over a channel, and wonderfully solitary.  I was alone but with wonderful company on E.B. White’s animal farm.  There I was introduced to pathos, irony, satire, tragedy and sweet sadness, all presented in a perfect square package, one I could ponder over and look away from when I chose but had me completely under its spell.  When I reached the final chapter (spoiler – it ain’t good) I ran into the living room to share the horrible climax of the novel, tears streaming down my face, drama in high gear.  “ Sha-Sha-Charlotte....is...dead!” I sobbed.   Everyone got a kick out of my new dramatics but something had occurred that could not be ridiculed away.  I had just read my first good book.

Once I got a taste of quality, a new man was born.  Greatness rubs off and I wanted more.  At age twelve I received a brand new pale gray ten speed bike and trips to the library became one of my normal routines.  I would go in and relish the cool air-conditioned spaces, pockets jangling with all the nickels I would need to Xerox anything xeroxable, and hit the biography sections.  I wasn’t after fiction to begin with (who knew where to look) so I dove into books about movies and sleazy Hollywood biographies (“Marilyn Monroe – Confidential”, a juicy tell-all written by her maid, really delivered).  I slowly began to develop a new sense that what you read became you.   I could develop myself: become smarter, sophisticated, and elite.  I could even educate myself, an amazing concept that had never occurred to me before.  Sooner or later (perhaps in high school) I found my way to better and better books. I chewed my nails as Atlanta burned in “Gone With The Wind”, vicariously became a Jew in Leon Uris' “QB VII”, an alien in Robert A. Heinlein’s “Stranger In A Strange Land”, a Japanese warrior in Clavell’s “Shogun”, a six year old girl in Harper Lee’s “To Kill A Mockingbird”, and a true Southern decadent reading Faulkner’s “The Sound and The Fury” for 12th grade AP English.  This one might have sealed my fate, a book at once so literary and so cinematic in its effects that I can remember the chair I was sitting in reading it, riveted with quality.  This was a book, and I was changed by it.

The better the books I read the less I was able to indulge in the ordinary.  Anything mechanical bored me: this ruined detective stories and lurid thrillers because the plots were based on formulas, clues and contrivances.  Once I began to read authors with a point of view I wanted ever more esoteric and artistic experiences through them.  This stage included the wonderful Eudora Welty (“Delta Wedding”), Joseph Conrad (“Heart Of Darkness”), Robert Nathan (a forgotten writer of gentle, poetic satires most famous for the movie versions of “The Portrait of Jennie” and “The Bishop’s Wife”).   All of the writers during this period shared a quality I look for today: a careful, spare and poetic style. In my 20s this led me toward wonderful artists as well as writers, spanning past fiction toward art: Cocteau, Oscar Wilde, Tennessee William’s short prose, Flannery O’Connor, Paul Bowles, the even nuttier Jane Bowles, Capote, Willa Cather, Katherine Anne Porter, Cheever, Fitzgerald, the exquisite E.M.Forster, the bizarre and Gothic Midwesterner James Purdy and on and on, each identifiable as a unique voice and a careful stylist. I believe that the best writers slave over highly selective prose so that we don’t have to.  Reading the hard diamond sparkle of Flannery O’Connor’s work is as wickedly delicious as any written work could be; so good it reads for you.   You may come out of it a sadomasochistic Lutheran with a rank world view but hey it is art.

Now that I feel like my persona has been developed (and I am not so bent on posing as an genius or aesthete) my reading choices are ever more select.  Perhaps most of the groundwork has been laid so I am no longer ravenous to improve myself.  I read four or five novels a year, usually very good ones, and savor them slowly.   As I read less I worship print more.  I love the qualities of books as objects: hard bound or soft I want good creamy paper in a heavy stock, a nicely chosen font (not too small) and a nice new bookmark.  I love the smell of a new book (and even an old one); I love the thrill that a tightly bound and unread book gives off.  I open the volume right in the middle and put my nose in; they always smell wonderful and feel wonderful.   I love owning them too.  Of course I still have my library card but books are such a wonderful indulgence: the graphic design is always carefully executed to pull in just the exact segment of the populace they are targeted for.  Books make a home warmer by being on the shelves.  Amazon may be evil but a book cheaply purchased at the touch of a button – who could resist?  I am sorry the small bookstore is dying but I cannot resist ordering them instead. (There is also an irony in that I often order gorgeous out of print things that arrive with their library card pockets glued in the back, safely in their mylar sleeves. I love them. I feel like a criminal!)

We live in a digital age. If you are reading this now you are reading it online and may even be enjoying it regardless of this detail.  I, too, used to buy the New York Times religiously Monday through Friday and preached the benefits of a paper document to scan – what could match it? – and here I am reading it online every day (on the day before it is actually published) and I am fully embracing it.  If the writing is good who cares if I am immersed?  I do not fear for the printed word.  Books will always be with us because they are real and they are intimate. Is it possible the internet will sort the wheat from the chaff?  Maybe only the best books will merit print in a future world. 

My wish is that if you do not have a collection you begin one immediately and start cultivating that style.  Stop bitching about ebooks and invest in your own library!  Let your bookshelves be your calling card; let them tell your guests secrets about you.   Let them tell secrets to you.  Once you start collecting your tastes will be dramatic and obvious (I may be a book snob but if someone has the nerve to collect Barbara Cartland romances I am impressed).   Of all pointless habits (let's be honest - we rarely reread them and I never lend them) this must be one of the most delightful, cultivated, and civilized.  You may not come out of it as the model of a perverse Southern aristocrat but you do your own magic.  I have already made my choices. 

*

For Diane - as bookish as they come.

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I Hate Bling

6/22/2010

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   Traveling the streets of New York City can be a disorienting experience. It is not so much the hordes of commuters, Ivy League bankers, shopkeepers or tourists that get me down (well, for the most part). It is the ever presence of shiny, attention seeking Americans flashing their latest look that I cannot stand. Growing up on old movies taught me that sparkle is definitely an evening wear choice. Well, no more in 21st century America!  Feel free to sparkle all of the time!  Lately none of us seem able to distinguish ourselves without a big, loud designer something on. Must sandals now have long suede ankle wraps attached to them (and 20 buckles)?  Does every young girl have to look like an 18 year old hooker recently let loose unchaperoned at Barney’s?  It’s not just the girls either. Grown men cannot seem to ride the subway without wearing full wraparound beige to white Gucci sunglasses on. I know fluorescents provide an unflattering light but there are limits. So what has happened to style?  Why does fashion only mean risk taking anymore?  I need a break. My eyes hurt.

What disturbs me about the prevalence of a ‘bling’ attitude is the pose it suggests – that of a very insecure, well-off teenager.  Adolescence was never my favorite phase to begin with. I remember walking around like I was untouchable but truthfully I could not have felt more insecure or fag-bashed. Burgeoning sexuality is not a pleasant sensation, especially when you are trying to find a social niche. This is just what I see on the streets nowadays, this same stance: can’t touch this / I don’t know who I am (add  an expendable income). Is this the new America?  I’m not gonna lie - I am afraid.

I do not believe this is the slightest representation of America or the American character. It is however pervasive. Everyone on the street seems to want to be perceived as a slumming pop star. It is a look but don’t touch world. But I don’t think it is style. Style is cultivated - this is bought and boy does it show. Isn’t leisure wear supposed to be leisurely? I am all for a little color coordination and some high end sunglasses but we the USA have fallen into a rabbit hole and everyone on the other side looks bizarre on purpose. Here are some of the apparel I would place in the 'no, please' category: strappy sandals with rhinestones, anything with rhinestones, loud European sunglasses, high heeled shoes at noon, excessive layering, “pocket pants” (jeans with a crotch pouch for men), super high sheen lip gloss, tiny tees, skin tight jeans, oxford shoes without socks, peg leg pants for men, Capri pants for men, summer fedoras for anybody, gaudy handbags held out for display, omnipresent smart phones, “guns” (giant headsets), sleeves (arms full of tattoos), print tees, and labels, labels, labels.

What happened to a distinctive American style?  A casual, modest kind of look designed for walking around during the day?  I love fashion, I love glitter, but I love my sanity more.  Looking at old family photos from the 60s I once asked my mother how she kept us all looking so immaculate on a budget. “Oh I bought everything at Penneys (JCPenney)” she said. “Clothes were not high like they are now”.  I’ll say. Clothes are high! I am not saying that we should all run around in 40s fashions (where every man owned a good suit and a woman wore gloves) but I am not saying I would mind either. How about a touch of modesty in our attire?  Must our clothes sneer at one another?  Extreme presentation is a very isolating experience for the wearer and the viewer. It also defies a classic American ethos of folksiness, even friendliness. If we are all starring in our own show how are we going to get along?  I feel as if we are all running around like Malcolm McDowell in A Clockwork Orange – and look what happened to him!  So here is what I say: viva chinos, hello khakis, wear a belt, shoes to match, buy a couple of things and wear them over and over again. If you are working on your look don’t make the public suffer – casual elegance is time honored and worth achieving. This way if someone strikes up a conversation with you it won’t be about where you got your jeans.  Not that you would bother responding. You will just blankly, glamorously stare into space. 

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Connecticut R & R

6/14/2010

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   When I was a freshman at The University Of Georgia the library had a video center on the 8th floor (it was a haven). You could choose a vintage (or new) VHS, a television of your own, and with earphones (the big kind) entertain yourself. It was here that I first saw the Cary Grant/Mynra Loy comedy Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (1948) and was introduced to the novel predicament of the New Yorker. What starts as the dream of anonymity and possibility with the big city at some point is turned on it's ear and one is dreaming of escape: the country. In the movie Cary, his wife and two teen girls brush their teeth over one another and squeeze around their tiny Manhattan apartment until they have had it.   As all roads point to a beautiful new suburban home in Connecticut, hilarity ensues (if not quite at screwball speed), and calm is restored.  Now that I am grown up and have paced the 1919 wood floor of a studio in Queens myself for 10 years I too now find myself in Connecticut with my partner on the weekends. Some thoughts.

4:30 am

Racket. It all starts out so beautifully. I usually go to bed by 10 or 11pm on a Saturday night if we don't have plans. The condo bedroom faces dark green woods. Population here is sparse. In Spring and Summer a cool breath emanates from the trees. It is very very dark. The smallest noise makes an impression, yet invariably this will be a twig drifting to the ground. It is Mr. Blandings' dream : deafening silence and calm. I unwind from the honk honk siren salsa salsa cha cha cha of nighttime in Queens. I begin to settle in for a long 10 hour rest – hey, I average 7 in NY now. I drift away. And then it happens. I am awakened by the din of flocks and multitudes of undetermined species of birds twittering, squawking and socializing like maniacs. This is a meet and greet from hell. I don't think I have heard more noise at Tea Dance in Provincetown on Fridays at 6pm (look it up). It is the Colonial version of noise pollution. I now know how Betsy Ross felt and why Thoreau died young. I find myself wanting to scream shut up but it is pointless. The birds are having one hell of a good party. I know they are not working; I know that what they are doing is gossiping. Isn't this why I left the city? I roll over and try to find my sleep rhythm but I am robbed of at least an hour of good rest. Please Lord make it stop. There was less sonic boom in the Dolby theater version of Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. I am in hell. Somehow I drift back off and poof by morning all is normal. 

11:00 am

Ramble. My boyfriend is a hiking enthusiast and so I join the birds once again. There are (I am learning) hundreds of parks with trails to hike in Connecticut. We started doing this together five years ago and it is a nice workout. If we go to a famous one called Steep Rock the hike is up. The terrain is rocky and full of pines and gnarled roots underfoot. There are some beautiful things to see and experience here: amber light in the pine forest, soft needles underfoot, a small hush, and a deep earthy smell. Down below is a river with a rapid current and white spray. When I am hiking I find myself uncoiling from a city attitude. Instead of being present and watching the sidewalks for spaces to rush ahead of the rushing crowd I let my mind wander and eventually become completely thoughtless. I am only panting up a hill and quietly slipping over the rocks and roots. I am clumsy so I stumble from time to time but this becomes part of a greater rhythm. What happens is another kind of anonymity, a new kind of possibility. I just go blank for a little while and forget about myself. I have the benefit of the boyfriend ahead, sussing out the blue hash-marked trees to follow our trail (two hashes mean abrupt turn) and I just go with it. It is a peaceful thing.  At the top we sit on a boulder that overlooks a wide vista and eat our sandwiches.  All is quiet.

People tell me I have the best of both worlds and the truth is that I do. I have thought of abandoning NY for the country just like Cary did but the oddest thing happens when I pull into Grand Central on Monday mornings: I breathe a sigh of relief. Connecticut's woods aren't the only wilderness. There is another freedom in the city. It has it's own rapids but I know how to navigate them, and I don't think at this point I could choose. I just switch mental gears, grab my bag and head into the gorgeous human traffic. I bob, I weave, I look at the faces as they blur by and then stop for a freeze frame. I am anonymous here as I travel on foot. As my mind amps up and my spirit relaxes I accept that there are more ways than one to be yourself and I need them all.

But one day those birds are gonna get it.

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    Author


    Mark Lindsey is an artist and writer formerly from the streets of New York City and now residing in the forests of Connect-icut.  He likes it there. 



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