Lives Do Not Have Plots, But Lies Do

I should’ve, but I didn’t. I stayed home and mopped. I stayed home and was bored. I should have gotten up and shopped for a new microwave, but here I am lying on the couch watching TV. I complain that there is nothing on. I planned to go to the “Occupy” march but I didn’t. I stayed home instead. I did practice on the mandolin. I did accomplish that. Otherwise I didn’t do anything but watch TV. I needed to clean house. I didn’t do that either.

Scholars, artisans, craft people who love their work forget to eat – Guy Davenport – The Hunter Graacchus, 1996 p141

I am staring at the photographs on the wall behind the bar. They are snapshots from another time; another place - photos of patrons taken while on they were on vacation – they are standing in front the Eiffel Tower, or the Coliseum, or Niagara Falls - but this time I am not looking at the photos themselves. My eyes de-focus and take in the entire display. The individual photos become blotches of color; an abstraction. I stare without looking at anything in particular. I am thinking about what I should write. Nothing. Nothing comes to mind I start writing anyway. I was wondering on the way over here about becoming complacent, becoming too familiar with my surroundings, with my routines, no loner finding any novelty, anything particular, exceptional, unique. I am bored. Should I break away and take flight. Break out, fly away - escape from the mundane, from routine. The exotic lies just out of sight. Prozac is having its impact – I am even bored with sex. Go on a grand fishing trip to a quite lake in the mountains. Stay in a log cabin among the spruce, a trout stream running by. Wake up in the morning to a covering of frost. Having thrown a few logs on last night, there are still embers to start the breakfast fire - coffee, bacon and flapjacks. Take flight, jump, leap, soar - take a ride on a rocket. Writing is daydreaming, conscious daydreaming, better even than sex. And my second beer was the Blue Bell Bitter which the bartender had said was more malty than the Ashbury Ale. It can’t be that simple!

After a certain age our memories are so intertwined with one another that what we are thinking of, the book we are reading, scarcely  matter any more, we have put something of ourselves everywhere, everything is fertile, everything is dangerous, and we can make discoveries no less precious than in Pascal’s Penses in an advertisement for soap – Marcel Proust – The Fugitive p129

So, to Linda I go, I went to church last night. Which one, she goes. The Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping, I reply. I love his pompadour, she goes. Yes, I go, and it stays in place so well. I know, Linda says. Walter has told me that I was writing “he said/she said” way too much so I m trying the alternatives – today it is “he goes/she goes”. I am not happy with the results. Just substituting one word for another makes it no better. And how was the choir?  You mean 'The No Big Box Choir', I ask? Fantastic. I respond, even non-believers need a revival meeting ever once in a while. I know, she answered.

In our worst ineptitude of living, we are, if only we can see it, somehow thriving and being a success – Guy Davenport – The Hunter Graacchus, 1996 p325

News does not occur

            To the poor except

For incidents of mayhem

The poor never do anything

            Positive, never spawn

            Anything worthwhile

Or at least that is the story

            And the media is

            Sticking by it

Lives do not have plots, only biographies do – Guy Davenport – The Hunter Graacchus, 1996 p329

We keep waiting to read (to see in print) what confirms what we know to be the truth. We have not yet realized that it is our responsibility to tell the truth. No one can assume another’s responsibiligy. Christ will not die for your sins again.

The idea that one will die is more painful than dying, but less painful than the idea that another person is dead – Marcel Proust – The Fugative p92

Bombing raids on Germany produced AIC (Aviation Induced Cloudiness). A 900 aircraft raid on Maty 11, 1944 created a 1.5⁰ dip in the temperature – small but statistically significant

Facts are promiscuous, apt to serve any and all ends – Guy Davenport – The Hunter Graacchus, 1996 p130

The multitude of daemons

            Contained in our superstitions

Have become the bacilli

            Of our daily vigilance

What we feel is the only thing that exists for us, and we project it into the past, or into the future, without letting ourselvers be stopped by the fictitious barriers of death – Marcel Proust – Tine Regained p114

It is not solving yesterday’s problems tomorrow that is important although that is what garners kudos; it is solving tomorrow’s problems yesterday that matters and that is impossible to acknowledge. It is more rewarding to put out fires than it is to prevent them.

It is the kinetics of desire that creates the euphoria of loving and of learning, of being alive – Guy Davenport – The Hunter Graacchus, 1996 p140