Our Agoratag:,2007:/12007-05-30T21:27:42ZMovable Type 3.34Forty Daystag:www.divinity-school.com,2005://1.22005-10-02T00:06:17Z2007-05-30T21:27:42ZForty-one days and no rain – not a drop people, can you believe it?” The KISW D.j. made clear that Lake Union and Washington were already fifteen feet below average. The annoyance of the goofy incredulousness in his voice drowning... “HMMM, I guess the Brits are stealin’ our weather and it’s costing them a pretty ‘pence’. How’s that for deductive reasoning Sherlock?” He mocked his own ‘reasoning’ and drove on in silence under the grey quilt of clouds in the gathering twilight.
Jerome puzzled again over the earthworm he had seen wriggling on the August dry sidewalk. The worm’s movements vacillated between slow undulations and violent convulsions. “That was so bizarre,” he mused to himself. When Jerome saw the worm, he almost passed it by, but took a step back thinking that wouldn’t be in keeping with the spirit of his mission. In a tentative fit of compassion, he squatted down to move the witless creature on to the grass where it had a better chance of living to see the next rainfall. He did this despite the fact that he distrusted the clouds would let fall a single drop, let alone open the floodgates needed to restore ‘our withering city’ and save this little worm. Jerome laughed aloud at the thought of the worm ‘seeing’. There must have been some kind of electric poison in Jerome’s touch, though, judging by the worm’s reaction. At the instant of contact with his fingertip, the worm sprang and convulsed like an exploding clockwork expending all of its kinetic energy at once. He thought to himself “What was that all about? I was just trying to help and it just freaked.”
Jerome was pulled from the reverie of his worm riddle by the river of red taillights indicating that the West Seattle Freeway was grinding down to a snail’s pace. “Ahhh man! What the f...” he didn’t finish. He noticed his silent radio and the harsh sound of his own voice had shattered the silence like a brick crashing through some sacred window. He sat there in the smothering silence with the shards of his previous thoughts that remained though they were swept to the periphery of his mind while he dealt with the traffic and a cranky transmission. “Sorry God.” He whispered it aloud and meant it but wondered if God bothered to listen.
Ever since he had seen that old movie, Fiddler on the Roof, Jerome had taken up similar sort of repartee with God. Speaking aloud like that Tevya character. He figured this was as good as a time as any to engage in this sort of dialogue again. He wondered if Tevya ever longed for an exchange that felt a bit less one-sided. Considering the nature of his mission Jerome thought a little heart-to-heart with the Almighty was more than a little apropos.
“So what’s it all about Alfie? Huh, Chief? What was the deal with that worm? Is that how we look to you? Are we the same? Do you try to help us and we just fight against it like crazy? The way that worm flipped out didn’t inspire a deeper desire to help. Maybe if I didn’t appear such an alien bit of freakishness to the worm he wouldn’t have gone epileptic on me. I think that’s a pretty good hint for you Chief. Not too tall an order for the Almighty is it? Maybe you could think about helping us worm types with a hand that seems a little less freakish or alien then we might not fight against it like we are undergoing some kind of exorcism.”
In light of his convictions that were new and tenuously grounded, Jerome lapsed back into a pensive silence reflecting on His fledgling fealty as a Person of Faith. He preferred that title to Christian. “‘Christian’ - just has too much baggage,” he thought. It helped him avoid the hassles that calling himself a Christian would cause with the old crowd. He knew if he looked too hard, he would see through the thin veneer to the cowardice of this justification. “God, I’m a Christian. How did that happen?” He’d recently thought that very thing, truly incredulous as if he’d just been witness to someone blowing a cube shaped bubble.
He was now half way across the West Seattle Bridge. God had anticipated Jerome’s request for a hand more familiar. For Jerome, God is the Being that is, the source of all being, a kind of philosopher’s Koan1, and undoubtedly exists and as such, to Jerome’s mind, could not be more strange or ‘freakish or alien’. Thinking about thinking about thinking, Jerome recollected the moment when he pressed his thought further in and arrived at that silence – a silence pregnant with thought, unarticulated but full of purpose or significance or meaning or all three and Jerome knew that someone resided in that silence and was asking to pour the fullness of Being into him. That Jerome had thus far been unable to explain how he knew this and his inability to articulate the exact nature of this knowledge was a source of doubt and temptation to dismiss the experience as a bit of sketchy psychology. Yet, because of the experience Jerome had embraced Christianity. Now, as a Christian, Jerome still held to that descriptive premise about God; but in that experience, for an instant, he experienced a thickening of time illumined by a shaft of light that directed his focus on the humanity of Christ.
That God would take on an image less strange in order to offer a helping hand is an astounding idea in and of itself and a source of pathetic comedy if one thinks Aristotle’s ‘Magnanimous Man’ is an ideal. Yet, Jerome, for a very small instant, vaguely understood the light years and possibly infinite number of dimensions of being that were transcended to cause the arrival of God’s helping hand. A more unexpected arrival could not have been guessed. God’s helping hand was fully human and came to a bitter end transfixed to a tree. That wasn’t the end of the story of course but… in the presence the silence deepened. Jerome knew he was being offered something more than an extension of biological life, much more than he himself could have offered that little worm. He looked up and somehow the hill into west Seattle was alive with a thousand shades of green catching the last of the fading twilight. Jerome thought life is good and good is a very freakish and alien thing.
Jerome wanted harmony with “life” and that is why was headed to his father’s house. He’d chosen disharmony in more ways than he’d like to admit but one of more glaring examples that demanded atonement was his hostile rejection and general disrespect coupled with outrageous demands he had made of his father. Jerome had resolved to go and make it right. “Man, I hate the sound of that-- ‘make it right’, what does that mean?!” Jerome felt the heat in his face thought to himself, “I’m not going to get all worked up about this again.” So Dad didn’t possess the perfect parental skills; your criminal behavior didn’t exactly make it any easier. Jerome remembered being in high school and how, after being at a party he was so drunk that he let his friend drive his dad’s car and wrecked it, because, of course, Jerome’s friend was drunk, too. His Dad was furious, Jerome responded in kind, ferociously refusing to acknowledge any responsibility. Some hard and bitter words were spewed from the blustering red face of his father. Jerome didn’t break, at least not then, in front of his dad. A few days later, he found a card in his room. Jerome remembered it very clearly. It was a Non Sequitur comic. On it, there were two street prophets, caricatures of Moses, about to cross paths. Each prophet had his own sign, one read “REJOICE!- Today is the first day of the rest of your life.” The other read “REPENT!- Today could be your last.” Printed inside the card it said “the philosophers’ showdown” but his dad had written “Jerome. I love you. –Not I’d love you if only… or I love you but… Just I love you. Your dad.” At the time Jerome saw it he thought “Whatever! He’s been readin’ that psychobabble crap again. Well it ain’t gonna work!” Jerome’s girlfriend Deirdre, read the card and her eyes misted with tears; Jerome tried not to sneer when he heard her say she thought it was “beautiful…” Jerome recalled thinking at the time, “blah, blah, blah… what a sap! She doesn’t know my dad!” while at the same time wondering what his Dad was trying to prove. Jerome’s eyes were now stinging at the thought of his own pusillanimity at being unable to accept something good with out suspicion and the vicious schadenfreude he would often feel when he could make his Dad blow his cool or expose his failure to live up to his precious ‘standards’. “Stay detached,” He told himself “or you’ll end up blubbering like Teresa at the ending of Babette’s Feast.”
He had taken his little sister Teresa to an independent film house down town to see Babette’s Feast a few weeks ago Jerome liked it. The film was astounding in it’s ability to convey the poignancy and joy of self sacrifice to give gifts, even to those unable to fully understand the nature of the gift. He understood why Teresa wanted him to see it.
Afterwards they had gone down to Pike Place Market to get some seafood gumbo and apricot sherbet – Teresa’s favorite ever since she was four and had turned Beauregard her stuffed rabbit’s face orange trying to share the joy of her new favorite frozen delight.
Jerome’s mind returned to their conversation because he felt it was so pivotal in his decision to go and make peace with his father. His mind wandered further into memory.
They were coming out of the theater. “Hey Roman, let’s go to The Happy Clam,” Teresa said with a bit of forced enthusiasm. Her eyes were bloodshot and puffy. Jerome could see moisture glistening on her eyelashes. He felt sheepish about looking in her eyes because he knew she’d been crying in the movie, but he thought her eyes pretty and unusual in that they appeared to undergo dramatic shifts in color from baby blanket blue to dark like the water at Alkai Beach. They were dark now.
“I don’t know; that’s all the way down town and…
Teresa interrupted. “Oh C’mon Roman! It’s Tuesday and we’re havin’ California summer so quit actin’ like Wednesday’s child in a Montana winter. You know you love The Happy Clam – ‘Ask anyone around – Best seafood gumbo in Puget Sound!’ ” She mocked the famous slogan by trying to make her little voice into a booming bass. Teresa’s enthusiasm was fully spontaneous at this point.
“OK OK, Lady Bigbucks-- but I’m not buying Beauregard any sherbet and I don’t want to see your orange tongue,” Jerome teased. He thought it funny that his sister – ‘Miss Adjunct Physics Professor’ at Seattle U. seemed no less “little girlish” than the she did at four when she excitedly tried to share her sherbet with Beauregard.
The docks were all but deserted, mostly because it was Tuesday after the Fourth of July, but also the lack of rain made the fishy smell of the Sound a lot stronger. When Teresa and Jerome went into the Happy Clam, which was as deserted as the boardwalk, they were greeted by the bartender with a shaved head who wore a t-shirt with a print of a can of Spam on it, out of the sleeves sprang two well muscled arms entirely tattooed with some kind of very intricate Celtic weave. His face had multiple piercings and his ears had so many that it looked as though they were framed in metal. He told them to sit anywhere. Teresa jibbed under her breath, “Looks kinda like you used to when you had dad’s fishing lures through your lip and nose, Mr. Punk-rock.” Jerome laughed but quickly retorted, “they weren’t fishing lures and not everyone thinks granola girl chic is the epitome of cool, fashion crack.” They went and sat in a booth under a large tin bas-relief of a cartoonish clam and crab. In a backdrop of bright and whirling colors, both of these sea creatures wore John Lennon spectacles replete with oil-slick swirls for lenses. The paint was cracked and had flaked off near the bottom of sign so that all that was left of the Happy Clam slogan read: “anyone around”.
Jerome laughed. “Look Tes, ‘…anyone around…?’ Just us Donnegans! - Oh yeah and these hippy crustaceans on the wall.”
Teresa cast a baffled stare in his direction. Jerome pointed at the sign. She furrowed her brow then offered him a kind of knowing charity smile.
Jerome pouted, “How come my comedic timing is only perfect when it’s unintentional or at my expense?”
“ ’Cause, Mr. Roman, you were born a lone stooge. Now if you could just find you own Curly and Moe then you’d be off the chain,” Quipped Teresa.
“Who says I’m Larry and… oh whatever, Juss ordah me a Guinness an a gambo an den shutcha pie hole cuz ahm goin to da crappuh, toots,” Jerome replied in his best 1930’s Chicago gangster accent.
“Ok, but get rid of that crappy Cagney before you get back brother dear,” Teresa replied with saccharine sweetness. The bartender was walking up with water and menus saying “You already know what you want?”
“Yeah, she’ll tell you. I gotta go…” Jerome nodded toward the bathroom.
“Alright, man.” The bartender turned to Teresa, “you know what you want too?” Teresa nodded her head.
Jerome was walking off while the bartender stuffed the menus under his arm and took her order. Teresa’a voice faded in Jerome’s ears as he walked away.
“Wow! That was fast.” Jerome returned to the table, finding his Gumbo and Guinness with the clover carved into the head of the pint had already arrived. He caught one whiff of the gumbo and realized how hungry he was. “Where’s yours?”
“I got the grilled chicken salad. Aren’t you happy he knows how to pour a pint? And quick, too.” Jerome dug in barely noticing that after her salad arrived Teresa was picking at it disinterestedly. When He took his first long pull on his pint he did notice. “Hey why’d you insist on comin’ here if you’re not even hungry?” Jerome asked though he didn’t think he really wanted to know.
Teresa began. “Did he spice up your gumbo? I know you like that so I told him to.”
“Yeah he did!” Jerome’s eyebrows lowered. “What’s up with you?”
With a tone of prevarication Teresa began, “Well you know Mom is going out of town in a couple of weeks and she asked me to check in on Dad. You know help him ‘remember’ to only smoke in the den and eat something besides frozen pizza. Well, I thought that…,” Teresa halted.
“That what?” Jerome queried but didn’t think he cared to hear more. The tones in Teresa’s voice all but killed Jerome’s appetite, but he finished his pint and asked for another. “I mean,” she continued, “Mom knows you been going to Mass with me, and you know how happy she is about that.” Jerome’s eyes narrowed. “She didn’t say anything to me about it. You think maybe she’s gloating about the efficacy of her prayers?” He laughed. Teresa’s face soured.
“I’m just kidding!” he said defensively. “So what are you getting at? Mom’s happy that I might be a repentant sinner?” Teresa’s eyes flared “Knock it off Romen! You know I don’t think that’s funny. You and your trendy paganism were really irritating-- either be a real pagan or don’t… Whatever… You know I love you but I’m not going to cry about your goofy stuff ‘cause… ‘cause your ‘smarter-than-God’ attitude is really stupid and I’m having apricot sherbet and you need to go see dad. Don’t think I haven’t noticed some of the new books in your apartment or wasn’t listening to some of your conversations with Father Chu and don’t tell me you just like to hear his Vietnamese accent either.”
Teresa was articulating her words with a kind of severe clarity, which, Jerome knew, meant she felt what she was saying was very important. He shifted uncomfortably.
“Ok, ok, chillage in the village, sisterling. I was just playin’, but Teresa,” Jerome’s voice grew assertive, “my ‘trendy paganism’, as you dismissively call it, is somewhat responsible for my being able to embrace Christ – in and through The Church. The Pure Land Buddhism that I studied with Dr. Tsu Lim…” Jerome trailed off.
“I’m sorry Jerome. I know. I know, ‘love truth wherever you find it.’ Anyway,” Teresa began again, “You need to go see Dad.” She touched the silver ring she’d given him recently. It had thorns outside but inside there were roses and Luke 15:11-32 inscribed. “You need to let this stuff go to work.”
“I just saw him on the Fourth-- and when did God make you the voice of my conscience?” Jerome blurted out in a tone harsher than he’d intended.
Teresa flinched but kept on, “Yeah, but you two said less than two words to each other and I don’t want another Christmas like last year. I swear between yours and Dad’s stony silences, Hark the herald angels sing, ends up feeling like a funeral dirge.”
Jerome felt a bit sullen. Part of him knew she was right but he resisted being pushed.
“Look, Romey just do it. Dad misses having someone who appreciates those silly comics and will engage him in political badinage or bickering and stuff… He misses you too, Romey.”
“Too? – who said that I…” He didn’t finish. “I’m less than twenty miles away which feels plenty close. And by the way we weren’t always ‘bickering’, we just engaged ‘interesting’ conversation.”
Jerome observed Teresa, smiling at him with naivety of a three year old-- or was it the purity of a saint? He wasn’t sure which; wasn’t sure if there was much of a difference between the two, and was certain there was none if intensity of joy were the measure of such things. He tried to scowl but couldn’t help smiling back and said. “You ready?” Still smiling she said, “Yes, brother dear.”
Jerome pulled up to the house still shaking his head at the thought of his sister’s triumphant smiling. He imagined her as a tiny Joan of Arc crawling up his shoulder and jamming the conqueror’s standard in his ear.” He laughed to himself. “So, Chief, some people get an angel on their shoulder and I get a little sister in militant mediaeval garb.” He was smiling back again. He opened the car door and the smell of fresh cut grass was at once sweet, thick and invigorating. Except for a dog barking in the distance, the street felt unusually still. Jerome looked to the house the only light on was in the den. He could see a flickering so he knew the TV was on. One of the rabbit ears was pushing the Venetian blind breaking the uniformity of the light pouring between the slats.
“Well heeeeeeerzz Johnny, and here goes nothing. C’mon, it’s just Dad,” Jerome mumbled to himself, trying to steady his resolve as he slouched his way to the door. He rang the bell. He didn’t know why he felt nervous-- after all, he was expected. He’d phoned earlier saying he was coming over, but that was at ten in the morning. The porch light came on and the inward suction of the door opening pulled the screen in with a jarring cacophony of metal on metal. The instant before Jerome pulled the screen door he saw his warbled reflection in the glass super imposed over his father’s face far on the other side.
“I thought you were coming over this morning.” Jerome’s father stepped back offering an unspoken invitation to come in. Jerome accepted. Jerome’s father looked steady at him and then turned toward the den saying, “I was just watching The McLaughlin Group and having a snack. C’mon back. You wanna a pop? How’s your new place? Don’t tell your mom I was smoking out of the den.”
“She already knows.” Jerome thought, but he said, “I won’t.” When they came into the den Jerome noticed his dad was wearing a plaid flannel robe barley tied and some thread bear pajama pants. James Donnegan was in his late fifties, and though he was once a barrel-chested athlete, now he had a considerable paunch. His hair was thick grizzled and dull brown, pushed back in a kind of disheveled pompadour. He wore a goatee, equally disheveled and grizzled, though more white than brown. His Irish face was round and ruddy and set with eyes like Teresa’s, but when his eyes were bright, they were full of mirth and mischief. When they went dark, they burned with a hot Irish temper, which, coupled with his considerable intellect, made him capable of hard and cutting words. Some of those words had been directed at Jerome in this very room. In the amber light of the table lamp, his father’s eyes merely looked faded and he seemed somehow smaller to Jerome. Jerome looked around and as usual, he saw that his dad had three or four periodicals on the coffee table next to an open sci-fi paperback and a Who’s Who in Jazz book. There were pizza crusts on plate and Jerome was looking at them when they sat down. John noticed his son looking and laughingly said, “I’ll have salad later. After I finished the lawn this afternoon, I’ve just been the lounge lizard since I showered – haven’t bothered to get dressed yet.”
“Yeah I thought it was kind of early to be going to bed. I hope you don’t mind me droppin’ over.” Jerome looked in his father’s face. “’Cause I wanted to talk to about something I thought was pretty important.”
John Donnegan shrugged then his brow furrowed and said, “Are you in trouble?”
Jerome clenched his jaw, angry that his father just assumed trouble, but then he relaxed, reminding himself that trouble had been a big staple their relational diet these past few years, and he did ask rather than declare. “No, no trouble I just…” He hesitated.
Then his father did something very odd-- he turned off the TV and sat up looking intently at his son as if he knew the extent of Jerome’s struggle to say what he wanted.
This disturbed Jerome. His dad rarely gave what felt like undivided attention and when he did, Jerome wished it didn’t feel so probing.
Jerome continued, “I know that this has been a long time coming and I’m sorry I’ve waited so long to do this or at least try. I wish I knew exactly where to begin. I know I’ve acted like an ass to you and done a lot of crap that I need own up to. You probably know most, if not all, of it. Like the time I got your car wrecked or when destroyed your glasses when we were arguing or put salt in your coffee… all the name calling and lying about stupid stuff… I am sorry. I know that doesn’t make everything all better. But more than being sorry I am asking for your forgiveness. There’s probably stuff I don’t remember but I know I caused you, Mom, and all the family a lot of grief and cost you more than a pretty penny to boot. If you think I can make it up, I’ll try but I know most of what’s done is done and… well… I am sorry. I really…” Jerome’s voice faded.
He felt as though he’d covered it pretty well. Not as well as he’d rehearsed but what was lacking in detail he made up for with the emotion that fueled the delivery. His emotions hadn’t surged as strong during his moral inventory, or as Teresa preferred to call it examination of conscience.
Except for a dismissive wave of the hand at the words “make it up…’Jerome’s father remained a still point and with an unguarded yet stony stare he observed his son for a few minutes without comment. Jerome felt like three or four eternities passed while he looked into his father’s face completely dumfounded by his inability to read the expression he saw. He looked at the bookshelf, noticed Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy next to Robert Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land, and was thankful for the distraction of such an odd juxtaposition of literature. He heard his father shift in his chair.
John Donnegan was judiciously weighing the words his son had just spoken. He focused on Jerome’s facial expression; nervousness was bleeding into dejection like he thought he’d wasted his breath and was looking for an escape. John Donnegan spoke from the silence. “Jer… Achcemm…” He cleared his throat. “I forgave you before you were here.” He looked at his son and loved him.
Jerome had been studying his father’s face but it had been inscrutable, and he thought about saying something so his dad wouldn’t feel obligated to respond; anything was better than the deafening silence. As Jerome struggled for the words that would release them from this silent stalemate, his dad centered his gaze on Jerome and said those startling seven words that would echo in his head long after he ever heard them.
Jerome got up mumbling his gratitude. John nodded and mentioned that Tim his partner at the firm said the ‘steelhead were jumping in the boat over at Alkai’, “How’d you like to go, say, Labor Day Weekend?” They were standing on the porch and though the smell of cut grass was still in the air there was a gentle but steady breeze, cool and thick with smell of rain. “I wonder if we’ll get rain.” John continued releasing Jerome from answering his invitation. Jerome smiled easy saying, “Yeah, where’s Chief Seattle and a good rain dance when you need him? God knows how we need the rain.” Silence again, they were both looking down the way like they expected to see something besides the lighted street on a quiet suburban night. Jerome tuned to look at his dad and said, “Yeah I’d like to go… it’s been awhile.” His dad smiled. “It’s been a while.” He repeated.
Jerome was nearly home and still pondering the words, his father had given him. Jerome mused aloud “’…before you were here.’ What did he mean? Did he guess why I wanted to visit? Did he mean in some bizarre metaphysical sense like he ‘forgave’ me before I was born or before I reached this level of spiritual maturity…?” Jerome laughed at the thought of calling himself ‘mature’. A contented quiet washed over Jerome as he thought of his father sitting there in a tattered plaid robe with a belly that refused to remain covered. The same robe his mother wanted to give to The St. Vincent Society but John Donnegan refused saying in an exaggerated Irish brogue “For better or worse woman these are the colors of the Donnegan Clan and they’ll not be forsaken!” At this Teresa and Jerome squealed in amusement. He was a bit thinner and less grizzled then.
Jerome let those words spoken in the den, like absolution, run through his mind again. He thought his dad an odd mystery and for an instant, he thought him like a Buddha, if Buddha if had been an Irish chain smoker with a disheveled pompadour and a goatee. “He’s certainly got the belly.” Jerome chortled to himself. Then he thought to himself “no, it was more like Jesus. The Incarnation - the physical helping hand of God still manifests, sometimes through the nicotine stained fingers if an Irishman.”
A big – SPLAT - On the windshield. “What the…” Jerome thought it was a huge bug at first but then there was another and another and another – it was rain! Rain was coming down like the tropical torrents in Texas. Just like the rain Jerome had seen when the family had gone to Sea World in San Antonio to see Shamu the killer whale do his tricks. Jerome was eleven and wondered how people could live where it rained so hard. “Seattle never gets rain like this.” He thought reaching for the windshield wipers.
He remembered saying “God knows we need It.” to his dad on the porch less than an hour before. He thought of the announcer who was so excited that we would get forty-one days with out rain. “I guess someone higher up figured forty days would be enough to go without…” Jerome trailed off. The gospel story of Jesus fasting for forty days came to his mind. “’…and after forty days he was comforted by angels…’” He spoke the closing words of the tale softly. He looked forward to when he would be fishing with his father. Aloud, he spoke, “it’s been awhile.” He continued simply saying, “Thanks God.”
“It’s been awhile.”
Jerome felt these words come again, from somewhere beyond himself to be consumed by the sacred interior.]]>
The Myth Of Sisyphustag:www.divinity-school.com,2007://1.12005-10-01T17:12:40Z2007-06-01T03:21:50Z“And Sisyphus I saw in bitter pains, forcing a monstrous stone along with both his hands. Tugging with hand an foot, he pushed the stone upward along the hill. But when he thought to heave it on clean to the...
The myth of Sisyphus stands as a timeless metaphor concisely teaching man of the human condition. The act of repeating a routine time and again with no final goal nor end in sight, though desperate, is vital to an understanding of what comprises a meaningful life. Camus calls the Sisyphean routine the absurd; “Rising, streetcar, four hours in the office or the factory, meal, streetcar, four hours of work, meal, sleep, and Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday and Saturday according to the same rhythm” (12-13). In Women Henry Chinaski less eloquently coins it as “a duel to death in a cesspool” (217). But regardless of what it is called, according to Camus, the most important aspect of the absurd is when “one day the ‘why’ arises and everything begins in that weariness tinged with amazement” (13). This “why,” however, is merely the beginning of a quest in search of fundamental meaning and purpose in human life.
What happens after this “why,” this admitting of futility in the everyday routine of modern American life, is what Charles Bukowski explores through his protagonal character Henry Chinaski. From the realization of the absurd in Ham on Rye to the model of conquering its inescapable qualities in Hollywood, Chinaski provides a model for living from an existential viewpoint freely and truly. It is on this existential journey through the routines of work, sex, and even leisure that Charles Bukowski shows the reader how to avoid judging that everything in life is nothingness and meaningless, and how to avoid the final conclusion that life is not worth living, thus suicide is the only rational finale.
Although the legendary poet of skid row appears to be the unlikeliest candidate for providing any model of living aside from depravity, herein lies Charles Bukowski’s relevance as a modern thinker, a perpetual source of inspiration to overcome the seemingly insurmountable drudgery of common, everyday, existence. Camus asserts “judging whether or not life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy” (3) and through Henry Chinaski’s endless struggles and misfortunes Bukowski answers this question succinctly with a resounding “absolutely.” As crass and unrefined as Bukowski’s approach to describing American living is, writing him off solely on the basis of aesthetics implies that only the beautiful and socially acceptable can be profound. However, Charles Bukowski is the prophet in a movement of literary thought concerned with communicating life’s frustrations through the usage of authentic emotion in an accurate depiction of the human condition rather than glossing over it with pleasing adjectives. Though his membership in laity is apparent, he writes about the transcendent bonds that connect every human being and the senseless routine that separates and categorizes people into different classes of the American Dream. In short, Henry Chinaski represents what binds and liberates us from the stranglehold of the absurd and its incessant claim that life is worthless. In this essay I will explain how Henry Chinaski provides a model for existential living and how he liberates himself from the absurd by paralleling the life of Henry Chinaski with the routine of Sisyphus using Charles Bukowski’s novels Ham on Rye, Factotum, Post Office, Women, and Hollywood.
Before we can determine how Henry Chinaski provides an existential model for living with knowledge of the absurd, the absurd must be clearly defined in Camus’s terms. Essentially the absurd is the meaningless routine in everyday life that arises when man and the world come face to face and man “feels an alien, a stranger…this divorce between man and his life, the actor and his setting, is properly the feeling of absurdity” (6). In short, any routine that has no meaning outside of custom is the absurd. It is something that, once realized, appears contradictory to any justification for its existence. However, the absurd is not governed by routine, but by an unconscious routine, when the routine ceases to be a conscious decision. In fact, “the Absurd is not in man (if such a metaphor could have a meaning) nor in the world, but in their presence together” (30). For Henry Chinaski the absurd is the work place, the sorting of mail, sex with women, betting on the horses. All of these things are not of Chinaski, but results of how Chinaski and the world interact.
Becoming aware of the absurd is simple, just a beginning. Were Bukowski to stop at pointing out the absurd his writing would offer nothing worth considering. It is in the next step of the journey through life, overcoming the absurd, that makes Bukowski significant. Camus writes “there are but two methods of thought” for overcoming the absurd: “the method of La Palisse and the method of Don Quixote” (4). The method of fighting what is worth fighting, or the method of creating something to fight solely for the purpose of overcoming.
Although Chinaski considers manifestations of the absurd to be oppressive giants, appears crazy to those around him, and lives most of his life as the lowest rank in American society, the similarities with Don Quixote end there. Chinaski does not delude himself into believing his female companions are all beautiful maidens, nor is he a self-proclaimed knight convinced that his actions are the rightings of wrongdoings; quite the contrary. Henry Chinaski openly admits the physical abnormalities and faults of his women as well as the futility in toppling a system of tyrannous monsters. Instead, Chinaski understands that he is a disposable cog and a revolting, dirty, man whose actions are often unethical. Unlike Don Quixote, he is fully aware of what he is, and embraces this. Don Quixote gets into “the habit of living before acquiring the habit of thinking” (8). Camus calls this “eluding” (8).
Because Henry Chinaski understands who he is as a person and does not elude the absurd, his method is more like La Palisse’s best explained by “The Song of La Palisse”:
Gentlemen, hear if you please
the song of famous La Palisse,
You may indeed enjoy it
as long as you find it fun.
La Palisse didn't have the means
to pay for his own birth,
But he did not lack anything
once his riches were plenty.
He was quite fond of travel,
going all over the kingdom,
When he was in Poitiers
You would not find him in Vendôme!
He enjoyed a boat ride
and, whether in peace or in war,
He would always go by water
when he didn't go by land.
He drank every morning
some wine from a barrel,
For eating at his neighbors
he would always go in person.
He preferred at good meals
his dishes to be tasty and tender
And had his Mardi Gras
always on the eve of Ashes.
He shone like a sun,
his hair was blonde,
He would have had no equals
had he been the only one.
He had diverse talents,
some even claimed this:
Whenever he wrote in verse,
he did not write in prose.
to tell the truth
a rather mediocre dancer,
But he did not sing so bad
if he chose to shut up.
They tell that he would never
have taken the decision
of loading his two pistols
when he had no ammunition.
Monsieur d'la Palisse is dead,
he died before Padua,
A quarter hour before his death,
he was still quite alive.
He was by sorry fate
wounded by a cruel hand
Since he died of it, we fear
that the wound was a mortal one.
Lamented by his soldiers,
his death is to be envied,
And the day of his passing away
was the last day of his life.
He died on a Friday,
the last day of his age,
Had he died on the Saturday,
he would have lived longer.
Chinaski, like La Palisse, is a man who fights against the odds and deems that fight worth dying for. This fight is what allows Chinaski to liberate himself from the absurd and its senseless routines. However, liberation from the absurd does not come easily for Chinaski. Freedom only occurs after an epic struggle through five novels covering nearly 70 years of his life. In fact, “a man who has become conscious of the absurd is forever bound to it” (31). Essentially the struggle for liberation from the absurd is not an endpoint in itself. Camus explains that “at this moment the absurd, so obvious and yet so hard to win, returns to a man’s life and finds its home there” (51). This does not mean liberation from the absurd is impossible, however. Because the absurd is impossible to separate from man due to his constant presence in the world, eternal freedom is impossible, but “if the absurd cancels all my chances of eternal freedom, it restores and magnifies, on the other hand, my freedom of action” (57): this is Chinaski’s realization. By choosing to bet at the races, or write novels, or have sex with women Chinaski exercises his freedom of action. He finds that the only way to escape the absurd is to remain aware of it and actively choose. In short, to just keep doing.
Integrating Camus’s absurd with the myth of Sisyphus is obvious; the routine of pushing a rock up a hill only to have it fall ad infinitum is the most basic model of the absurd. The endless system of promotions supposedly a realization of the American Dream is no different than Sisyphus’s rock. Every day people struggle to provide themselves with food, shelter, and a few personal possessions all the while convincing themselves that this is meaningful. However, rarely are those personal possessions much less the food and shelter enjoyed. None of those things reflect a life of purpose and conscious action, but a vicious cycle filling their life with the absurd. The idea of sex producing pleasure as an end result is another example of the absurd. Sex becomes a routine meant to help achieve pleasure, but that pleasure is rarely savored. Even leisure becomes routine, just some action to fill time between working. The loss of freedom and the reign of the absurd in all of these three examples is what Chinaski exhibits how to reject. First in Ham On Rye Henry Chinaski becomes aware of the absurd avoiding it until the last moment. Then, as he progresses through early adulthood in Factotum and Post Office he tries to evade the work routine as a means of avoiding the absurd only to find himself trapped in the absurdity of sexual routine in his fifties in Women. Finally, however, Chinaski stops avoiding the absurd and accepts it well into his sixties in Hollywood thus choosing freedom of thought and action over the mindlessness of the absurd.]]>
Linguistics As An Approach For Musical Analysistag:www.ouragora.com,2007://1.32004-06-15T02:48:53Z2007-06-01T02:57:43ZContrary to the first half of the twentieth century, today discussion of the relation between musical and linguistic analysis have become common among linguists, musicologists, and ethnomusicologists, with major review essays and articles appearing in journals specific to all three... I.
The idea is in the air: linguistics, that is, the methods used to describe a language, might be relevant to musical analysis (Nattiez 1973: 51).
The notion of using linguistics as a method to develop musical analysis is certainly not a new subject in the field of linguistics, musicology or ethnomusicology. This idea is traced back over seventy years to 1932, to a lecture given by Becking to the Prague Linguistic Circle. The first mention of using linguistics in a non-linguistic medium was first introduced by F. de Saussere in his Cours de linguistique générale (C.L.G.), published in 1916. The author proceeds to introduce the idea of semiology, or the existence of a series of signs outside of language that could be analyzed under the same forms of linguistic analysis that were already present.
It was after three decades that this idea actually became reputable and linguists began to pose the ideas that Saussere had daringly exposed in suggesting linguistic methods of analysis could be applied to non-linguistic forms. Semiology became defined by George Mounin as a discipline which undertakes as its first task to examine the validity of such a use: in order to do this he suggests that the structures of human language should be compared with those of the field in question (Nattiez 1973: 52-53). When applied to musical structures, this idea becomes known as musical semiology and must start with a basic comparison between the properties of language and with those of music. It can be roughly summarized as the similarities found within language semantics and syntax and music. To refer to music as a linear system is to suggest that music, like language, is a two dimensional medium that progresses in chronological order. Music arouses sensory activity that, in many cases, can not be achieved by the semantics of language; the idea is that music at its most basic is an audible form of communication that rarely will succumb to the same problems that are found in studying written language because it is a singularly audible form of communication. Nattiez attempts to enhance ethnomusicology’s scientific appeal by insisting that we must use the methodologies found in linguistic analysis and learn to apply them correspondingly to musical analysis (Feld 1974: 199). Of course, with the wealth in variety of language study, there is not one correct method to be used, and the ethnomusicologist inclined to research in semiology must be aware that the latest trends among anthropological linguists may not always be the best suited for their particular field.
II.
What Claude Lévi-Strauss referred to as the capacite anagrammatique is the idea that while music and myth are both basically untranslatable when it comes to relating them to anything other than themselves, they are both inherently structural. He asserts that music can only be changed into music, and myth only changed into myth. However, both myth and music are seemingly related--each contains a basic dichotomy: theme and countertheme, both of which can be inverted, rhythmically distorted (through augmentation, diminution or otherwise), modally transformed, or presented in a new timbre (Hopkins 1977: 250). Beyond capacite anagrammatique, it is suggested that both mythological and musical passages are coded patterns that become selected by the culture in which they are surrounded. Referring to the codes implied divides music and myth into two separate levels: the external (physiological in the case of music and historical or supposed facts in the case of myth), and the cultural or internal, which is then split into two levels on its own, one being a pooling of possibilities exacted by culture (in the example of music, the pitches available and the variations possible within), the other the collection of schemes including all the possibilities (Hopkins 1977: 250; Lévi-Strauss 1964).
Lévi-Strauss’ studies in musical analysis through linguistic thinking yielded a good deal of criticism, some of it accusing Strauss of ethnocentricity in his research by overlooking study of West African drum music and focusing primarily in using Western European music as a model for analysis. S. Diamond voiced this opinion on this matter:
Among such peoples [West African] a drummer may, either alone or in combination with others, create incredibly complex contrapuntal rhythms, which disappear at the moment of invention; they are not fixed in any form of notation. Themes may be relatively limited, but the elaboration is rich and everyone seems capable of invention. Indeed the distinction between theme and elaboration becomes trivial, merely academic under such circumstances (1974: 298).
Scholars such as S. Diamond have held over time a view that written record is the only form of permanent documentation of the ways and habits of various cultures spread throughout the inhabitable continents. Of course, there is fallacy found in this notion, for what of mythical stories and musical traditions that are only communicated through oral history and audiation? Believing that through written records and formal structure permanency is found does a disservice to those cultures and therefore showcases a lack of knowledge on the part of these scholars.
The levels of code suggested by Lévi-Strauss have placed reservations in many modern musicologists who do not want to make the claim that music is possibly anything outside of what is presented (Powers 1980: 4). After all, it was Lévi-Strauss himself who first said that myth and music were untranslatable, so how could it be that music could be anything but just music? One will find that as the exploration into language and music continues, various textual commonalities appear that signal to those musicologists who feel apprehension towards the notion of “music only being music” that their viewpoint was similar to those who accused Lévi-Strauss of being ethnocentric.
III.
Harold S. Powers describes three textual relations between music and language that have been found in South Asian and in both the South Indian and North Indian classical music tradition (Powers 1980: 2). Following the idea developed by Bright (1963), that the short and long syllabic phrases within the textual setting that correspond with shorter and longer musical duration, Powers agrees that the principle of this notion is exactly correct, and upon further discretion contains more complexity than was originally thought. Bright contrasted the musical phrases of the Indian raga with a Tegulu padam. The relationship between the textual Telugu-based construction of the raga is found to be both heterogeneous and complex, while retaining in its rhythms the Telugu prosody and implications of Sanskritic examples, from syllable and foot to stanza and beyond (Powers 1980: 3).
Does the textual relation found in these two examples of phonological structure of language and the basic assimilation of music constitute as an entire metaphor of language-as-music and music-as-language (Feld 1974:197)? Powers suggest that more is needed to make that assertion. In most instances the vocal music of a culture has a great deal to do with the influence of instrumental music in the same setting. Most North Indian (Hindustani) instrumental music, in addition to the classical music of South India has grown directly from the vocal repertoire established, and even the instrumental patterns (i.e. plucking of strings on a sitar). Every stylistic difference in plucking methods is a reflection of the long and short syllabic sounds describe in the above paragraph, except for the case of the jhala, which relates more to Middle Eastern methods of string plucking.
The third of these textual relations is based on the more abstract view of language forms and musical design in South Asian settings (Powers 1980: 3). South Asian musical performance in general is based largely upon the structures of later post-classical Sanskrit poetry, which unlike older poetry of the same language is more interconnected in terms of refrain and stanza connections, as opposed to each passage being its own separate entity. The order in which these refrains occur is a natural one, with each independent refrain leading into the next stanza, in some cases completing the last words of the stanza. These patterns usually end with stanzas and refrains containing matching rhyme scheme and sharing a word or two, ensuring that the end of the stanza or refrain flows seamlessly back to the beginning, benefiting repetition and the cycling of the refrains. In nearly all cases of classical ragas of melodic type are derived using these three characteristic commonalities between language and music.
***
These connections lead back into the desire of many ethnomusicologists to follow in Saussere’s footsteps and find a positive use of linguistic methods to analyze music. However, as Powers further notes, musicologists and ethnomusicologists often have the mistaken approach to music in only a bi-lateral sense, as opposed to a culture-spanning multi-lateral descent on linguistics-based analysis (Powers 1980: 9). We know of course that any attempt to define language in a simple bi-lateral method defeats the ways in which linguistic models were born. Powers points to the fact that linguistic models were devised from an enormous number of languages of all origin and that that were tested against each other, unlike musical methods of testing based strictly on a model derived from a variety of sources, such as field study or standard music theory (Powers 1980: 9). The methods so famously introduced in the aforementioned Cours de linguistique générale find their way back into this discussion of the semantically based relation of music and language. It is suggested by Powers that instead of relying on the new trends of musical analysis, musicologists and ethnomusicologists should reach back to reacquaint themselves with works of such influence such as Saussere (along the same desires that Nattiez proposes). It is noted that some still attempt to define music and thus define the methods (usually consisting of Western origin) of which they analyze it:
As is well known, there is not always agreement about what music is and about what is music, not just across cultures, but even within them. The very notion that music is something that can be segmented and analyzed, and the traditional terminology for doing so, have deep and particular roots in historical language for musical analysis are peculiar to Western European culture (Powers 1980: 9).
IV.
Before study into linguistic models as a means for musical analysis was a widely spread as seen today, much was focused on the overlapping nature of the music and language phenomena (Feld 1974: 197). Feld notes that the shifting popularity between the music and language phenomena and the study of linguistics in relation to musical study was in many ways initiated by Lévi-Strauss’ introductions to musical structure in relation to myth and Chomsky’s development of transformational linguistics combined with Sausserian semiotic study.
Looking into the overlap of music and language, two forms of study have been used primarily: that of music in language, referring to the correlation between stylistic and textual notions in basic song structure, and that of language in music, or the musical nature found in the spoken word. Beginning with studies concerning the coincidental nature of aligned musical and speech structures, continuing through Bright’s research pertaining to South Indian relations and following in several attempts by both linguists and ethnomusicologists to find an intermediate melody and the vocalization of language, these advances led to the rising interest in using these two forms of communication naturally intertwined with one another. Once these ideas had been presented, the uses for linguistic methodology in conjunction with music were thrust to the front of the interest of many of those who had begun in the former area.
***
In using linguistics model for musical analysis, it is emphasized how important these two forms of communication truly are, and the properties that both obtain in the emotional impact on a person. Perhaps this notion can best be summed up by Bright, who asserted that
It is widely felt that music, like language, conveys something--that a musical performance, like a linguistic message, contains something more than the physical properties of the individual sounds that make it up (1963: 28).
It is from here that the majority of linguists, musicologists, and ethnomusicologists find the inspiration to delve in such a far reaching subject that takes years to properly mediate upon. It is my hope that this has served as an introductory guideline to the sciences presented and sparked interest in often overlooked areas of anthropological study.
Notes
Bright, William 1963 “Language and Music: Areas for Cooperation”, Ethnomusicology 7 (1): 26-32.
Diamond, S. 1974 The myth of structuralism, in Rossi, ed., The Unconscious in Culture: the Structuralism of Claude Levi-Strauss in Perspective. New York.
Hopkins, Pandora. 1977 “The Homology of Music and Myth: Views of Levi-Strauss on Musical Structure”, Ethnomusicology 21 (2): 247-261.
Lévi-Strauss, C. 1964 Mythologiques I. Le cru et le cruit. Paris. Eng. Trans., the raw and cooked. New York. 1969.
Nattiez, Jean-Jacques. 1973 “Linguistics: a New Approach for Musical Analysis”, International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music 4 (1): 51-68.
Powers, Harold S. 1980 “Language Models and Musical Analysis”, Ethnomusicology 24 (1): 1-60.
Saussere, F. de. 1916 Cours de linguistique générale. Paris.