“All of What I Could Teach You Provided Enough Time to Learn It"

There is so much I don’t know and even more that other people do know and wrongfully withhold. While reading David Foster Wallace’s essay, “Some Remarks on Kafka’s Funniness from Which Probably Not Enough Has Been Removed,”[1] it dawned on me that I was reading criticism on an author whose work I’ve barely read,[2] which is a ridiculous endeavor that is sort of like being inspired to build a house after hanging drywall once as a favor to a friend, and reading the directions[3] after tiling the roof and sealing all the windows. But this uselessness is nothing new to a guy who prides himself on his ability to name the authors of nearly every book he’s never opened.[4] I planned on giving a short list here, exampling this skill; however, my mind drew a definite blank while attempting to do…[5] Thus, I normally wouldn’t be disturbed by the scarcity of my own understanding of things,[6] but the whole Kafka incident reminded me of a day in one of my professor’s offices, surrounded by way too many books I’ve never read let alone heard of,[7] while he discussed Salinger’s Babe Gladwaller story, “A Boy in France.” I don’t remember what his exact argument was because I was distracted by two facts: 1) that he knew who Babe Gladwaller is, and 2) that there are three[8] stories concerning Babe Gladwaller.[9] What’s more is upon his mentioning of Babe’s full name, it dawned on me that I had spelled the character’s last name incorrectly while “analyzing” him in my comprehensive exam[10] essay. The books were no longer surrounding me. They were wiggling free, coming off the shelves and smacking me upside my head like that scene in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast in which all the possessions in the castle attack the intruders who have come for the beast’s hide. He’s read Salinger, I thought. Also, And not just any old Salinger, underpublished Salinger. He’s probably read Kafka, too. And David Foster Wallace. The part about Kafka and Wallace I didn’t ponder until la[11]ter that night. Walking out of his office though, down the loud, cement staircase, I stayed optimistic. Don’t be discouraged, I told myself. There are truths you can offer people, facts with which you can broaden the minds of others, knowledge you can bestow upon the ignorant. For example:

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[1] For the record, this essay was above my comprehension in some ways. Take the title of the essay as an example. I know humor is in it, but I’m still searching out where and why the humor exactly is. I think I have an idea, but I’m not confident enough to share. Maybe the second footnote is – I don’t believe me one bit right now – an explanation of why the essay confuses me.  

[2] Outside of “The Metamorphosis” (a piece hazy in my mind, and I am, to add to this, not entirely sure if the title is quotation marked or italicized because I can’t remember if it’s a novella or a long short story) I’ve also read the first page of Amerika.

[3] If housebuilding directions even exist.

[4] Giving others the impression that he is well read, knowledgeable, intimidating, capable of working in a bookstore, worthy of sweeping at least one remarkably tailored category on Jeopardy! so long as he works the buzzer correctly, etc.

[5] THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MARK TWAIN WRITTEN BY MARK TWAIN!

[6] I define “things” here as anything capable of being thought of: words, history (American, world, or otherwise), technology, how to rebuild any kind of engine, 13 X 14, the mating habits of Loggerhead sea turtles, etc.

[7] Shamelessly, and without glasses, I squinted at the names on the spines and tried to commit each to memory for future reference.

[8] Not one.

[9] “The Last Day of the Last Furlough” and “The Stranger” being the other two (Wikipedia succeeds where memory falters).

[10] An exam I did not pass, not even close, and, as a result, must retake, thus keeping me in my MA program for one more semester only, pass or fail.

[11] As I finished writing the thought actually.

Memory Examination #1

Charles, as I recall him, was a nice kid. I didn't know him that well or for very long; we worked together for a little over a year almost a decade ago. But he used to tap on my truck's window to wake me up before our shifts started at 05:30 even though I drove a Ford and he drove a Chevy.

We'd walk toward the large building in the pre-dawn dim, not saying much, probably thinking about how tired we were, and about how that particular tired never compared to the tired we would feel once our jobs were finished. Our asses were kicked on a daily basis; but we also ate breakfast burritos in the cafeteria on our lunch breaks.

Charles was soft spoken and laughed genuinely. For a short time, he was my best friend. He knew someone who was important to me at the time (I want to say it was an ex-girlfriend), but I can't remember who that person was. I can barely remember Charles now, too; his name came back to me only two days ago. He was blonde, grew decent facial hair, and shaved when he wanted to be less unruly. He had a good smile.

I remember being affected by his presence. But I was selfish. Did I even say a proper goodbye after I quit? The word bastard should be reserved for the young and arrogant and neglectful and unseeing. I hope Charles is happy if he's still around. Sometimes I just miss people. If only I could hate myself more effectively for forgetting the people who proceed through my life.    

"From the southland and the droughtland"

I have been wanting to produce a new blog - one that resists discussing the death of yet another famous writer - for some time now; however, with my lifestyle being what it is these days (one that involves -- most importantly -- Netflix, a little reading, a little tennis, sporadic aerobic binges, drinking, and countless social functions) I just haven’t found the time or the desire. Lucky I am then that my good, albeit elusive, friend Roman Conrad recently returned from a short, on-assignment job in Damascus (Syria, not Virginia). Roman is a truly remarkable writer/observer/poet/widower, and I begged him to come up with anything for General Narrator, anything topical that would ultimately shed his brilliant light on American life. After several days of lengthy phone conversations laced with promises of alcohol and poorly-manufactured Mexican cuisine, he finally agreed, and rode his motorcycle down from Carpinteria, California, where he lives when he’s not traveling. I gave him time to roam the streets of Long Beach; he was in search not only of a topic, but of the right kind of people whose conversations and musings would help him broach whatever subject he decided to explore. After a week or so, Roman came back to my apartment -- I was out stalking the filming locales of the upcoming season of Dexter, but preemptively had an extra key made for him so he could come and go as he pleased -- and produced the following essay while holed up in the shower of my small bathroom. I have yet to read the piece due to quite a few late nights and later mornings, but knowing Roman, I’m sure it’s a great, insightful read, and I pray you enjoy his mind in the same envious way that I do.

“Americans Remain Resilient Amid Mid-Summer Swelter”
By: Roman Conrad
Special to General Narrator

Just as the Free Syrian Army -- despite problems among divided sects being opposed to one another in purpose and tactics -- continues to wage war for freedom against the Bashar al-Assad led regime hellbent on oppressing and/or murdering its impoverished citizens, so do farmers across the expanse of this great nation prepare themselves for a similar battle against an arguably less-vanquishable foe: inclement weather.

Reports from many credible sources are calling this the hottest and droughtiest dry season this side of the Dust Bowl of the 1930s. Enormous tractors with balers, binders, and planters in tow leave a wake of rising dust rather than fertile ground for future sowing. Crops of differing produce sit crumbly and lifeless, decimated by scorching heat. Cattle farmers are forced to send animals to an early slaughter and are left pondering the metaphorical parallels as they do so. In the vein of Studs Terkel -- the great American voice who documented the effects the Great Depression had on the American public -- these indeed are Hard Times.

The extent of the heat’s unrelenting oppression, however, reaches far beyond the world of agriculture. Here in Long Beach, the city I am currently visiting, the effects are just as damaging and worrisome. Margaret B. Thompson, a stay-at-home mother of four who I came upon while she was watering a dead patch of grass in her quaint front yard, recalls when her husband gave her some sobering news:

“It was August 7th, I think. My husband called me from his office and said, ‘We just had a rolling blackout at work. All the computers are down. The lights are off. Everyone’s pretty upset. I heard on the radio this morning that state officials declared a Flex Alert. I think it’s best if we stop using the air conditioner for a while.’”

I asked Margaret how she reacted:

“I panicked a little [chuckles nervously]. You know, without air conditioning our house can get pretty stuffy, and then the kids complain a little more. But they still have the Xbox 360 and that helps them forget about the heat at least for a little while. The first thing I did, you know, after my husband told me to keep the air off, was I went to Costco and stocked up on as much Gatorade and Diet Coke as I could. So that has been an added expense. But it’s nothing compared to the money we’ll save at the end of the month when the bill comes.”

Margaret and her family aren’t the only ones making sacrifices during these trying times. I talked to Wilhelmina Brown, a tax adjuster who works in Los Angeles, at a local coffee shop about the soaring temperatures just before she started her daily 45 minute commute into downtown:

“It has definitely been an adjustment. I come here every morning to get a cup of coffee to help start my day, and recently I had to switch to iced coffee to help keep me cool.”

Has that helped, I asked:

“Yeah, it really has. It’s a pain because the iced coffee is the same price as a regular cup of the hot stuff even though you’re getting less coffee because the ice takes up more space, but it definitely keeps me cool and still keeps me awake throughout the day.”

(In related events, coffee shops with eastern facing patios have seen a severe decrease in patronship between the hours of 6am & 12pm; the same has been reported at shops with western facing patios between 3 & 8pm, thus leaving a meager three hours for a tolerable coffee buying experience -- all of which fly by, by the way, during non-peak coffee buying hours.)

Bobby Fellows, who does PC repair from home, was also at the coffee shop when I spoke with Wilhelmina.

“Right now, in the morning, is about the best time to get anything done really; it’s not as excruciating. I just dropped my kid off at school, but I’m dreading having to pick him up later this afternoon.”

Why is that?:

“Well, he gets out of school around 2, and that’s really just about the worst time to be outside. I go outside to my truck, get in -- I got [sic] leather seats so I’m just sticking to them at first -- and am sweating almost immediately. My wife calls it ‘swamp back.’ The air conditioner cools everything down pretty quick [sic], but those first three minutes are really brutal.”

Forecasters haven’t been able to adequately explain why this recent heat wave sweeping across the country -- some point to global warming while others say it’s merely the weather being its usual, unpredictable, cyclical self -- nor have they been able to give any idea as to when it will let up. In the meantime, southern Californians continue to persevere, somehow managing to bear the unbearable. When the heat will subside? Only time will tell.

"All the carnival lights blinked out"

Had I met Ray Bradbury when my first opportunity arose, the result would have been more serendipitous than it was when I finally met him. I was 17, this was during the first chance you’ll see, and reading Fahrenheit 451 in my senior English class. Steinbeck had been my introduction to literature; my grandpa left a copy of Of Mice and Men on my bed when I was 11. I read it over the following summer and searched out all the Steinbeck I could immediately after finishing. But reading Steinbeck was a solitary, leisurely undertaking. I understood the general plot unprecociously, cried, “Why?” and, “He shouldn’t have done that! It’s not fair!” to my mother when George kills Lenny and left it at that. No tests. No essays. Just an unexplainable need for more.

Bradbury, then, marked my introduction to literary analysis. That’s not entirely true; what is true is that Bradbury marked the beginning of my understanding that there was more to books than simply reading them. That I could engage the text, write in its margins, learn and feel from it, alter its meaning, steal from it and covet what I’d stolen. Still, I was mediocre at these things, too. When my teacher informed the class that we were to each rewrite the part in 451 in which Montag fails to outrun the Hound, which then injects a tranquilizer into him before he destroys it with a flamethrower and manages to hobble out of reach of pyromaniacal authorities, I used the assignment to turn Montag’s getaway into a melodramatic death scene complete with a defiant speech aimed at his pursuers. The only problem was the speech consisted of the lyrics to the song, “Drive” by Incubus and was nothing of my own creation. Regretfully, this choice was not a case of trying to take the easy way out of schoolwork. I was elated by the prospect of revisioning part of the first book that made me feel literature mattered in the world for more than the fun (as I saw it) of reading(1). My other elation came once I realized how perfectly Brandon Boyd’s lyrics fit into my revision. It was the first time I remember my writing coming together in such a satisfying way.

A few days after we turned in the assignment my teacher asked me to see him after class. I had been half expecting something like this since I turned in my work; he wanted to praise me for the impeccable, and seemingly effortless, job I did on his normally daunting writing assignment.

“Matt, I was really taken with what you wrote.”

“Thank you,” I said, trying hard not to care, unaware of the fact that if you’re trying hard not to care about anything, you must say, “Thanks” instead of, “Thank you” because the syllables in “Thank you” leave you vulnerable to placing telling emphasis on both words.

“Forgive me, but I have to ask this: Did you write Montag’s speech?”

“No,” (proudly and without hesitation). “I got the speech from one of my favorite songs.”

I sat back in my chair and politely waited for more praise.

He informed that I must immediately rewrite the assignment using only my own words. I was appalled, pleading my case of the lyrics being perfect and that anything I wrote in lieu of them would fail miserably by comparison(2). Like any good and patient teacher though, he quietly insisted.

It wasn’t until years later when I finally became aware of plagiarism and its rampant, (sometimes) intentional use and, as a result, the truth that a genuine love for reading and writing doesn’t exists in everyone. So I was angry with my teacher for not seeing how flawless my rewrite was, how poetic and sincere Montag became after speaking the lyrics. But I was a good student, always in want of my teachers’ acceptance, so I started work on the scene again.

Then something amazing happened. At the time, my grandma(3) lived in Lucerne Valley, a small(4) gathering of people (who staunchly oppose healthy, occasional migration) nestled deep within the dirt and cacti of the Mojave, and she had read in the local newspaper that Bradbury was going to make an appearance at the Lucerne Valley Library(5) the following Tuesday. The timing of Bradbury’s visit couldn’t have been planned any better. I knew what I had to do. The scenario was clear: I would go to Lucerne Valley, find the library, walk up to Mr. Bradbury, hand him my assignment, watch as he read it(6), and wait while he composed a damning letter to my teacher exempting me from the terrible redo. The more I thought about it the giddier I was. I begged my mom to let me skip school to go see the famous author of the book I was reading for class, but she refused. She was never an overly stern parent, but the subject of missing school, for any reason save a near-death illness like cancer, was out of the question. I think my mother’s odd subservience to the policies of a school district is an aspect of parenthood that is common ground trudged by most kids. Despite the excuse(7), there was no missing of school. Period. School was where we were sent to learn and to grow. It’s absurd and morally reprehensible to think a child’s development occurs anywhere else.

To be fair, my mother did make sure that my grandma, who was far removed from the oppressive confines of school district policies, remembered to get Bradbury to sign a book for me. And he did: the first page(8) of a sixth edition softcover copy of his short story collection, The Machines of Joy, once owned by a (thanks to an official looking stamp) Mr. Michael L. Herring, 7137 Fairfax Drive San Bernardino, CA. 924[the rest is blotted out by the all too inky edge of the stamp].

I felt closer to Bradbury after seeing his surprisingly legible signature in that book. I liked holding it and knowing he had held it. But for many years I also felt I had been shafted, especially since, my plan foiled, I still had to rewrite my teacher’s assignment. I’m not sure if I hold grudges, but I do know that if the memory of a specific event or person doesn’t settle well in my head, if its sediment is forever agitated, I remember it begrudgingly. And I remember being so angry with my mother for not letting me go to Lucerne Valley that Tuesday to see Bradbury. I remember being so angry with my grandma for getting to see him. I remember being even more angry with her, years later, when I found out all she’d ever read of Bradbury was the novel, Dandelion Wine, and she’d given it the lukewarm review of “fair.”

In 2008, all that anger dissipated, however, when I finally made it to the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, held at UCLA at the time, and procured two tickets to Bradbury’s lecture on writing, at which I found him surprisingly vibrant and youthful. Before the lecture, I stood in a long line with my then girlfriend for a chance to meet the author. I had brought with me the very same copy of Fahrenheit 451 that I had read in high school with hopes he would sign it and unknowingly put an end to my saga involving absence on both our parts. But when my turn came, I walked up to the 86-year-old man, bound to a wheelchair and suffering with the complications of a stroke, and saw how hard it was for him to lift his hand to meet mine for a polite shake, I couldn’t bring myself to ask him to sign my book. Instead I settled for a picture, which you can see below. Note the French Commandeur Ordre des Arts et des Lettres medal around his neck; it was bestowed upon him in 2007, and he was so proud that he wore it to every subsequent public function he attended.

Like Steinbeck (and later, Salinger), Bradbury stays with me. Despite the innumerable throng of authors I’ve come in contact with since that blip in time as a naive high school senior, his voice remains one of the few that continues to sound true, clear, and warm in my mind. He was one of that rare breed of writer in search of answers to questions that were bigger than his generation’s capacity to comprehend them. He sought by way of an endless imagination that sparked with the electricity of youth and rebellion, an imagination that continues to mesmerize even after his vanishing.


Footnotes

1. In the summer after I graduated high school, I was in Switzerland - because of a friendship with a foreign exchange student that developed on the decayed tennis courts of our high school where he was the standout singles player and I was lucky enough to have a decent doubles partner - preparing to get drunk for the first time in my life. Because it was my first exposure to hard alcohol and language barriers, I was naturally nervous, mainly about overdrinking myself into an irrevocable stupor, so to calm myself before we started, I kept repeating to myself, "You're going to be okay. Just remember that Fahrenheit 451 is one of the greatest books ever written and you'll be okay." The first shots of kirsch were downed not long and somehow I relaxed a bit. My reminder to myself even worked later in the evening when, 12 or 13 shots into it, I was riding a bicycle over cobblestone streets yelling, "Yes, you're drunk at the moment, Matt, but you're in Swisserlin and you're be okay! Hey! What's the greatest book you've ever written? Fahrenheit 4. 5. 1. That's right! And who is the greatest writer ever written? Ray Bradbury. That's right, too!" And all was right with the world until I woke up the next morning, arms wrapped around the bottom of a wastebasket that I'll bet never weighed more than it did after I was through with it.

2. I often wonder how K-12 teachers, or K-12 teachers who haven't already, get through their workdays without laughing insanely in the face of at least one student.

3. No direct relation to the grandpa who introduced me to Of Mice and Men.

4. The Geographic Names Information System (GNIS), which is operated by the United States Geological Survey (USGS), lists Lucerne Valley as a "census designated place" rather than a city.

5. I've searched extensively for a reason as to why Bradbury would lecture, let alone know about a census designated place like Lucerne Valley, and the only plausible answer I can find involves his writing contributions to the 1953 film, It Came from Outer Space, which was partly filmed at Dead Man's Point in Lucerne Valley. I have no idea whether or not Bradbury was on set during filming.

6. I'd never been to an author's lecture before and had no notion of the goings on. I assumed he was just there to be gawked at so he'd have nothing better to do than read my work in the interim.

7. I still think I had a pretty damn good one.

8. In this particular book the first page is the "Praise" page, on which you will learn the strangely-worded fact that Bradbury "with Hemingway, is one of the very few writers whose fiction has ever been published in Life."