Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Don't Mess with Mr. In-Between: Bob Dylan's very first performance




OK, I finally won this battle, the battle to find an excerpt I remembered from one of the many biographies of Bob Dylan. Dylan was maybe my first hero/crush, and as a teenager I worshipped him. Images from his songs still pop into my head, and I marvel at them and realize I will never write anything that good ("Jewels and binoculars hang from the head of the mule. . ."). 

I had this excerpt in mind from a book called Down the Highway by somebody-or-other Sounes. I don't remember if I reviewed it or not during my endless career as a literary critic (during which I covered about 350 titles for the Montreal Gazette, Globe and Mail, Vancouver Sun, and various lit mags), or bought it. At that point I wasn't buying many books because an online mag I was writing for was presenting me with truckloads of books they didn't want. After a while I didn't want them either, so I became a sort of storage depot. But this Dylan book, I can't find it anywhere, not in my shelves of review copies (which I have always kept segregated in chronological order, probably because at the time they were the only identity I had as a writer and I was afraid of disappearing), or anywhere in my own collection, though I did find THREE other Dylan bios: the first one written by Anthoony Scaduto, a spiral-bound galley proof called Behind the Shades, and Chronicles, Dylan's first attempt at a memoir.




But soft! What's this? All I had to google was Bob Dylan Accentuate the Positive, and lo! This came up. I am sure it is in the public domain cuzzadafact that it was sitting there on the internet, just a-sittin' there saying "take me".

So I found it: the record of Bob Dylan's very first musical performance. As a child, he seems to have been unusually self-possessed. His parents seem loving, even devoted. One would expect horrible abuse, alcoholism, etc., but there was none of that. Perhaps that's why he's still around, tough as an old dandelion root.




The central hillside district of Duluth was predominantly Jewish and Polish, with a synagogue at the end of the road. There was a general store, a European bakery, the Loiselle liquor store, and a Sears Roebuck at the bottom of the hill. The weather was determined by Lake Superior, so vast and deep it remained icy cold throughout the year. Even in mid-summer, Duluth could be shrouded in frigid fog. There was a fresh ocean smell and the cry of seagulls. Ships approaching the landmark Ariel Bridge sounded their horns and a horn on the bridge blasted in reply. These were the sights and sounds Bob grew up with as the Second World War raged to its end.





    In 1946, a year after the war ended, Bob enrolled at the Nettleton elementary school two blocks from his home. The same year he gave his singing debut at a family party. Children were encouraged to perform for the entertainment of the adults. When it was his turn, four-year-old Bob stamped his foot for attention. "If everybody in this room will keep quiet," he said. "I will sing for my grandmother. I'm going to sing `Some Sunday Morning.'" It was such a success the audience demanded an encore. Bob obliged with "Accentuate the Positive." These were popular tunes on the radio at the time. "Our phone never stopped ringing with people congratulating me," said the proud Beatty.





    Not long after, Bob had a second opportunity to perform, at the wedding of Beatty's sister, Irene. The relatives wanted Bob to sing again. Bob was reluctant, even when an uncle offered him money, but Abe persuaded him. Once again he prefaced his performance by telling the excited relatives, "If it's quiet, I will sing." It was another great success. Everybody cheered and clapped and one of Bob's uncles pressed money into his hand. With instinctive showmanship, Bob turned to his mother and said, "Mummy, I'm going to give the money back." It brought the house down. "People would laugh with delight at heating him sing. He was, I would say, a very lovable, a very unusual child," Abe remembered. "I think we were the only ones who would not agree that he was going to be a very famous person some day ... When he sang `Accentuate the Positive' the way other children his age sang `Mary Had a Little Lamb' people said he was brilliant." As Beatty said, it was amazing her son was not spoiled by so much attention.


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Sunday, November 10, 2013

Why my husband is NOT my best friend



BLOGGER'S NOTE. I am not ashamed to say that this is a repeat. I just can't keep feeding this insatiable monster, not with my mind so embroiled in completing the final edit for my new novel, The Glass Character (soon to be a major motion picture - oops, not yet, but it's soon to be published by Thistledown Press in spring 2014). What I wrote then, I believe now.




So, OK. . . what's on the top of my head today? I'm not halfway through my enormous Starbuck's mug yet, so who knows how coherent it will be, but several ideas have been forming like baby icebergs in my brain, waiting to calve.

I have been married for 40 years, to the same person I mean, and as with a lot of life's more arcane mysteries, I can't really talk about it. I've attempted to write about our relationship before, either in this blog or "that other one", the Open Salon experiment that backfired so badly.

So I won't write about it except to say a few things, maybe dispell a few cliches. If you read this at all, and let's hope somebody does, you'll realize I keep yammering away at certain themes: horses, Anthony Perkins, Harold Lloyd, frustration as an author, etc. But it's the cliches that really get down my neck, chief among them "everything happens for a reason" (with a side of "God never gives us more than we can handle").




These sayings are idiotic in my mind, because there are murders, disasters, jihads, planes flying into towers, world wars, child murders, and all manner of things that happen for no reason at all, except perhaps human stupidity and indifference. And as far as good o'l God seeing to it that we aren't overburdened, as a friend of mine likes to say, "our prisons and mental hospitals are full of people who had more than they could handle".

Amen.

So what do we attack today? So to speak. I hear this phrase all the time: "My husband is my best friend." I have never felt that way about my husband, and I will tell you why.



I have a best friend already. That's part of it. To her, I can tell all the woman-stuff that guys, sorry about that, just don't getand won't get in a million years because of their hormonal structure and brain physiology. 

So if I already have one, how can my husband be my best friend? To me, the term implies a buddy-buddy-ness, being there to listen on the phone when you lose that promotion, walking along the beach skipping stones together or sitting in Starbuck's over a double caramelized Machiavelli, just gabbing away.

We don't do that.

It also implies, to me, sexlessness. I'm not saying we're Romeo and Juliet, but our marriage is not sexless and never has been.



Saying "my husband is my best friend" is supposed to be totally positive, but to me it's totally weird if you really look at it (and that's the thing: how many people LOOK at it?). It's like roommates who really get along and even do each other's laundry in a pinch. (He does his own laundry, by the way - always has - it's why we're still married.) So if we aren't best friends, what are we?

The other one is "soul-mate". I don't know about that one either: I dislike like it for reasons that are hard to articulate. It just doesn't hit the mark, and maybe nothing can. My husband is my husband, and occupies a unique place in my life and has occupied that place for the vast majority of my life (since I was ten when I got married - one of those cultural betrothal things). He is my life partner, the father of my children and grandfather to my precious grandkids. And guess what: a best friend doesn't do that. 


"Friend" is great, it's wonderful, but it only goes so far. When you're in the trenches together for nearly 40 years, you find out about the deeper levels of commitment that most people seem to ignore.






There are three of them, actually. Everyone goes on and on about commitment, and it's fine. But you can be committed to a dog, a job, a fitness plan. Will that be enough to keep the bond strong as life's hurricanes blast you out of your chair?
No.

The next level, as I see it, is devotion. Great-sounding word, isn't it - and a leap beyond commitment in emotional content. But is it enough to stay married?

Double-no.




The third level is one that doesn't even occur to people, and I call it covenant. In case you think I'm going all religious on you, let me define it now:


cov·e·nant  [kuhv-uh-nuhnt]  Show IPA 
noun 
1. 
an agreement, usually formal, between two or more persons todo or not do something specified.
2. 
Law an incidental clause in such an agreement.
3. 
Ecclesiastical a solemn agreement between the members of achurch to act together in harmony with the precepts of thegospel.
4. 
initial capital letter History/Historical 
5. 
Bible 
a. 
the conditional promises made to humanity by God, as revealedin Scripture.
b. 
the agreement between God and the ancient Israelites, in whichGod promised to protect them if they kept His law and werefaithful to Him.



OK, I see where this is going all Biblical, and that puts people off. But what I'm trying to say is: you don't sign a contract with your best friend, unless you happen to be business partners. You don't even sign a contract with your soul-mate, as a general rule.

Marriage is legal. It's something that holds up in a court of law. Most people seal this covenant in a public setting, often very elaborately and expensively, as if to show off the intensity and sincerity of the covenant (though more often, it's the elaborateness of the trappings, including the supposedly-virginal white wedding gown. This ubiquitous bridezilla-mania represents a return to a deeply sexist tradition that makes my hair stand on end).




But the truth is, as people sign that register and smile their faces off, they don't really think that they have signed on for the long haul.

Remember how it goes? Forsaking all others; for richer, for poorer; in sickness and in health. . . so long as you both shall live.




If you think it sounds cold to define marriage as a covenant/contractual agreement, then why do people still insist on it? A few decades ago, the prediction was that legal marriage would become completely obsolete by the year 2000 (always named as the watershed year when absolutely everything would change). People would just live together, or if they married at all the marriages would be loose agreements with lots of escape clauses built in, based on the concept of "serial monogamy" (which still exists: it's called a pre-nup).

Most of us don't have prenups unless we're George Clooney or something, and last time I checked, I wasn't. So OK, why has marriage become more popular than ever, with crazed brides stampeding each other to upstage their girl friends and nab the perfect virginal white gown? On one level at least, it has to do with the kids. Raising kids can be brutal, and it's long and it's very expensive. "Commitment" won't do it. This isn't a Dalmation. Even devotion might wobble and collapse in the storm.

So we're back to that old, creaky, Moses-esque concept of covenant, because it has been the glue in profound human attachments for millennia. Can I step out? OK, it's just my girl friend, she'll never notice. Oops, wait a minute. . . she's my wife. Not only that, she's the mother of my kids, who just happen to have my name on them.




We won't go into the ramifications of last names right now, except to say that the awkward double-barrelled name seems to have trickled away in popularity. (Think of it: the next generation would have four names, the one after that eight. . . It just doesn't work.) Suffice it to say that, in my opinion, that "little piece of paper" people used to scorn is about as unimportant as the Magna Carta and other little pieces of paper that have made a bit of difference over the years.The bits of paper that have changed the course of human history.

Why are we still together? I only have one husband, and he occupies a unique position in my life. To say he's some sort of patriarchal figure would be completely inaccurate, except for his innate need to be protective in his love.



We signed on the dotted line all those years ago, and during those inevitable stormy times when it looked like we might be over, one or the other of us would say: wait a minute. Let's wait it out, work at it for just a little bit longer.
We're not best friends. We're married. Still married. And somehow, as intimate and exclusive as we are with each other, the marriage is part of a much bigger picture, a network or matrix of kids and grandkids, uncles, cousins, in-laws, and other people we probably wouldn't be able to stand otherwise. And may I say this? Marriage is the basic social unit of society, a whole lot of interlocking puzzle pieces of people at least making an attempt at commitment to living in a manner based on love.  Or devotion.

Wednesday, November 6, 2013

A chastity belt for 2013

 


http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/ar-wear-confidence-protection-that-can-be-worn



  • How in the world would these work? You mean he can't pull her panties down ("oh, darn!"), so would just go away? If women are raped at knife-point, which they are all the time, surely these things would be useless. They are also demeaning, like diapers. 

     And what are you supposed to do, walk around with them on all the time: "I'm going to be raped, I'm going to be raped"? Does this offer peace of mind or serve as a constant reminder that you are a potential target? 

    Aren't they more of a chastity belt than anything else, and why haven't we gotten past those medieval devices? (And by the way, how do you go to the bathroom? Is there a combination for the lock that you must memorize, and what if you forget it? THIS is freedom?) 

    And. . . if he couldn't get what he wanted, wouldn't he be more likely to kill her? Just some thoughts.

Monday, November 4, 2013

Adonis in saddle shoes




A VERY young Harold Lloyd, possibly during his early Lonesome Luke phase. What is it that propelled him beyond the so-so nature of his Chaplin impersonation? Can you guess? Hint: it wasn't the saddle shoes.



Friday, November 1, 2013

I'm cool like that







Russell Smith on the novel’s fight to stay relevant

Thursday, October 31, 2013

Be VERY afraid!




Still has some powerful mojo, even after all these years.


The Resurrection of Peter

The Resurrection of Peter



It wasn’t much of a day. She wasn’t even sure it was a day at all, since they had really cancelled days quite a long time ago and made everything One. Or was it that they had cancelled Night?

Which means, you walk around in a half-state, sometimes jokingly known as Twilight. Twilight was the stuff of owls and demons and things that didn’t even really exist any more. But, she thought to herself, do any of us really exist any more?

They all made it seem as if it were “just her”, and that everyone else was normal. This was all part of the scheme, the huge heartwrenching scheme to take her life away. It was illustrated nearly every day now when she ran into the people she knew.

They looked dissimilar, but all the same, with a strange hazy quality. Yet they laughed and were jolly in a way they never seemed to be before, as if they had discovered an amazing new Secret.



“Emma. Hi, Emma! Haven’t seen you in a long time!” Gretel was wearing the strangest outfit, bright paisley like she’d never worn, a sort of muumuu, with a straw tote bag.

“Hi, Gretel. I think.”

“Oh, it’s me all right. This is just my New Look.”

It’s hardly a look at all, thought Emma, wondering whatever happened to the Old Look, and what made her change it.

“You look the same,” Gretel said in a flat tone. Looking the same wasn’t quite “it”, she supposed.

“Haven’t gotten my instructions in the mail yet,” Emma said, trying to be ironic.


“Oh, that’s so funny! You’re such a funny person! Well, goodbye then!”

“Wait, Gretel. I need to ask you something.”

“What is it now?” She was getting testy already.

“You know, Peter. . . “

“Yes, Peter.” They had both known Peter. His sudden death had been a wrench, for both of them she thought, but now she wasn’t so sure.

“What about Peter?”

“Ever since he passed, you know. . . “




“Passed?” She began to titter. “Was he in school or something?”

“No! Don’t you remember? When he. . .”

“What, when he went on vacation?”

The ultimate vacation, Emma thought.

“Look, I mean when he died.”

“Died?”

“Died.”

“Died?”

“For God’s sake, Gretel! You know what I’m talking about.”


“Oh, that.” She fumbled around in her straw bag for a minute. “I thought you’d heard about it.”

“Heard what?”

“He’s back alive again.”

Stunned silence. A sick feeling gathered in her stomach.

“Back alive again?”

“Of course. Haven’t you seen him? He’s walking around.”

“How, by remote control?” Her sarcasm seemed to be flying over Greta’s pointed little head.

“Sort of, but it’s better than that. He can go under his own steam by now.”

“But he’s dead!”

“Sort of. But not really. You can get renewed now, sort of like a library book. You must know that by now."

She stood there stunned, things whirling around, as Gretel just walked away without even saying goodbye.


She started to comprehend then why everything was different, why she was sort of seeing through some people, mostly really old people, but some of them children. They had a strange sort of translucent quality, but they were still walking around.

And they always seemed happy. Emma thought about Bible study a million years ago, before the Bible was universally banned, and how Jesus had raised Lazarus from the dead. She had always wondered if Lazarus really wanted to be raised, his body half-rotted. Would he have a new body, somehow, or walk around like that forever?



But then that meant she could find Peter!

Peter wasn’t her lover, never had been, but he had been there during the blackest, the most despairing time in her life. He would just show up at Starbucks with his baseball cap and his smile, cheerful as Bugs Bunny. He was in worse shape than she was, but they joked about it, guffawed about how awful life was.

“I heard about a woman who committed suicide. But before she committed suicide she got out the vacuum cleaner and cleaned her whole house top to bottom so it was absolutely spotless. Then she hung herself.” They had both howled with laughter.

Then they just lost touch. Like a sick cat, he had crawled under the house somewhere. She had known he was deteriorating; one conversation they had wasn’t a conversation at all, but a monologue on her part. He’d start to say something, then dry up after a couple of words and look at her in bafflement.

What bothered her was the fact that it didn’t bother him.



She kept sending him emails long after she suspected he had passed (and NOT “in school”!). She couldn’t help it. She’d think she saw him in a crowd. But it wasn’t him. Because the emails didn’t bounce back to her, she assumed they were hitting the target and he was just too busy to reply (knowing full well he had kicked the bucket long ago).

Back alive again. Strange things had been happening lately. She had mentioned her grandfather to a friend of hers, how difficult it had been for him to let go.

“Is he still dead?” the friend asked.

Oh, maybe they meant in her mind, in her memory! But somehow she didn’t think so. Death was the only thing more sure than birth. Wasn’t it?



Would she see Peter again? A wild stab of hope made her heart beat faster.

She became aware of how the light went right through people, and began to count them. It was an awful lot. She wondered just what had happened to everyone. Back alive again? Is he still dead? Did you will this, wish it, or did someone impose it on you like poor Lazarus wrapped in his rotten gravecloths?

It was too much to hope for, but in her next turn of mind, when she did not pass Go but began in the middle again, she saw him. She saw a ball cap bouncing up and down the street first, then a smile.

Then they were sitting in Starbucks, but she noticed he was sitting two inches above the chair. He didn’t seem to really drink the coffee, but the eyes were the same.

They could always be blunt and honest with each other, so Emma waded right into it.



“So, Peter. I hear you’re back alive again.”

“It would seem to be so.”

“How does that happen?”

“I don’t know that, any more than cells know how to multiply or the earth knows how to turn.”

“But is it. . . beyond your will or something?”

"This is a place beyond will."

Her head was whirling. She hated the idea of not being able to die. Death was one of the things she looked forward to the most.

“Peter, I’m sorry, but it sounds as if you’re a fucking zombie or something. The Undead.”

“Hey, I like that! Undead, but not really alive.”



“Look, Peter, there are only TWO states: dead and alive! Which one are you?”

“No. There is the dream state. There is the hypnotic state. There is the hypnogogic state. There is the catatonic state. There is the trance state. There is the transcendent state. There is the resurrected state. I could go on and on.”

“But those are only in your mind, Peter.”

“Tell me this.” He leaned forward and looked at her with his old intensity, and for one moment she really believed this was Peter. “If I were just a body, I mean lying over there with my heart beating but no consciousness, would that be ‘me’?”

“I don’t. . . “

“So what is it that makes me me?”


“I don’t know, your brain?”

“The brain is just half a pound of juice with some wires running through it. Dissect it, and you see some curls and buds and bulges like normal internal organs. There’s nothing there.”



“So where. . . “

“Ah. You’re about to ask me where Consciousness resides.”

“I guess so. Peter, why aren’t you drinking your coffee?”

"I've evolved beyond coffee, I guess." He chuckled to himself.

“You’re not alive. Get away from me! You’re not really Peter. Are you a ghost?”

"Beyond ghost. We've been refined. We don't have to go around haunting old buildings and Civil War battle sites any more."



“But who DOES this? It has to come from somewhere!”

“Haven’t you noticed you don’t have any privacy any more?”

“Oh, Jesus, Peter.”

“Haven’t you noticed all the electronic jims and jams that everyone seems to carry now?”

“Oh, so you’re saying your Smart Phone turned you into a ghost.”

“Everything is changed, changed utterly.”

“So what if it all just shuts down, the power grid and that?”

“Yes! Smart girl. THAT is what it is all about.”

“What?”

"Bodies that need no sustenance when the Time comes. That time when the whole ecosystem collapses, gives way in a great Biblical flood and rips apart the rest of the world with an all-consuming fire."


“You’re scaring me.”

“Haven’t you ever worried about it?"

“Of course. But I never knew that. . . “

“Now we can live under any conditions.”

“BUT YOU AREN’T REALLY ALIVE! You died of AIDS two years ago!”

“But I’m not really dead.” He grinned, looking as cheerful as when he told me the suicide joke.

“You must be dead, Peter. You MUST be.”

“No, my good friend.” He lifted his mug and pretended to drink from it. “I’m back alive again.”