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The Night the Man with the Watermelon Died

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The following is from Jack Kerouac’s Doctor Sax, about his youth in Lowell, Massachusetts. Here he describes a sobering scene in his typical jazzy style:

A man carrying a watermelon passed us, he wore a hat, a suit in a warm summer night; he was just on the boards of the bridge, refreshed, maybe from a long walk up slummy swilly Moody and its rantankling saloons with swinging doors, mopped his brow, or came up through Little Canada or Cheever or Aiken, rewarded by the bridge of eve and sighs of stone—the great massive charge of the ever stationary ever yearning cataracts and ghosts, this is his reward after a long dull hot dumb walk to the river thru houses—he strides on across the bridge—We stroll on behind him talking about the mysteries of life (inspired we were by moon and river), I remember I was so happy—something in the alchemy of the summernight, Ah Midsummer Night’s Dream, John a Dreams, the clink of clock on rock in river, roar—old gloor-merrimac figalitating down the mark all spread—I was happy too in the intensity of something we were talking about, something that was giving me joy.

Suddenly the man fell, we heard a great thump of his watermelon on wood planks and saw him fallen—Another man was there, also mysterious, but without watermelon, who bent to him quickly and solicitously as by assent and nod in the heavens and when I got there I saw the watermelon man staring at the waves below with shining eyes (‘Il’s meurt, he’s dying,’ my mother’s saying) and I see him breathing hard, feeble-bodied, the man holding him gravely watching him die, I’m completely terrified and yet I feel the profound pull and turn to see what he is staring at so deadly-earnest with his froth stiffness—I look down with him and there is the moon on shiny froth and rocks, there is the long eternity we have been seeking.

Disaster Zone

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Boats Stranded by the Disappearance of the Aral Sea

In the deserts of Central Asia sits the ghost of the Aral Sea. The original sea bed, shared by Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, is the poster child of decades of neglect. The rivers feeding into the sea were canalized to raise cotton. Very little cotton grows there now. In his Chasing the Sea: Lost Among the Ghosts of Empire in Central Asia, Tom Bissell describes meeting up with a couple of small boys in the eerie desert salt and pesticide-laden atmosphere of a community that used to exist on the shores of the sea.

I sat perched half in and half out of the car. The door was wide open, My chin rested upon the shelf of my hand. The sun was going down, the horizon dyed a Creamsicle orange. I watched a skinny, ravaged-looking dog sniff around various piles of refuse. A dog’s life. Then it occurred to me that American dogs have no idea what a dog’s life is. Suddenly, two little boys appeared from behind one of the houses and approached me. They were brothers, clearly. One was taller and certainly older. The other was small, perhaps five years old. The boy’s head was pumpkin-sized, seemingly twice the circumference of his brother’s, who was regarding me coldly. The younger boy smiled, his teeth cavitied and yellow, his skinny body completely naked and covered in dust. The dust was spread so evenly over his body it seemed deliberately applied. His uncircumcized penis looked like a tiny anteater nose. I smiled back at him. “Ismingiz nimah?” I asked. What is your name?

Before the boy could answer, his older brother inexplicably struck him from behind. The boy flopped face-first in the dust. The shove was two-handed and savage, like something out of provincial hockey. A sound, perhaps “Hey—,” filled my mouth. But I did nothing. The younger brother coughed into the dust. He had landed badly, arms at his sides. Now he tried to get to his feet. His brother placed a foot on his naked bottom and, almost tenderly, pushed him back into the dirt. He stared down, having satisfied some obscure but insatiable impulse, and then walked away. I waited for tears, the shrieks and cries of fraternal terror. But no. Nothing at all. The naked dusty child was silent. The dog trotted over and, as the boy picked himself up, he searched the ground blindly with a small pawing hand. Finally, he stood holding a triangular rock. He turned and threw it at the dog, hitting the creature full in the ribs; the dog flinched but otherwise took the blow in silence. The younger boy simply walked away. I made soft kissing sounds to summon the dog. It was understandably skittish, but I persisted. I did not know what else to do. When it slunk over, head lowered and panting, I saw a red spiderlike creature dug into its collarless neck. I extended my hand. The dog bit me and staggered off.

Sidewalk Contamination

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Author Renata Adler (Born 1938)

The following paragraph was pretty much self-contained in Renata Adler’s Speedboat, which consists of hundreds of similar paragraphs, some of which are loosely linked.

Kate was walking along Forty-second Street from the subway station. She saw a tall, young, scholarly-looking man obviously about to say something to her. “Excuse me,” he said at last. He said he was from the Stanford urban-contaminations study. Kate said nothing. “Sidewalks,” he went on, frowning slightly. “Sidewalk contamination.” He said they were working on the right shoes of pedestrians. He wondered whether he might take a slide from hers? Kate nodded. She felt a flash of unease the moment she leaned against a wall and raised her foot to take the shoe off. He was already on the sidewalk, quietly licking the sole. No passerby took any notice. In another moment, he had stood up and walked away.

The Real Thing

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Roman Slave Turned Philosopher Epictetus

In my previous post, I mentioned three Roman Stoic philosophers. One of them was Epictetus (50-135 AD). Here are the opening paragraphs to his most famous work, The Enchiridion:

There are things which are within our power, and there are things which are beyond our power. Within our power are opinion, aim, desire, aversion, and, in one word, whatever affairs are our own. Beyond our power are body, property, reputation, office, and, in one word, whatever are not properly our own affairs.

Now the things within our power are by nature free, unrestricted, unhindered; but those beyond our power are weak, dependent, restricted, alien. Remember, then, that if you attribute freedom to things by nature dependent and take what belongs to others for your own, you will be hindered, you will lament, you will be disturbed, you will find fault both with gods and men. But if you take for your own only that which is your own and view what belongs to others just as it really is, then no one will ever compel you, no one will restrict you; you will find fault with no one, you will accuse no one, you will do nothing against your will; no one will hurt you, you will not have an enemy, nor will you suffer any harm.

Aiming, therefore, at such great things, remember that you must not allow yourself any inclination, however slight, toward the attainment of the others; but that you must entirely quit some of them, and for the present postpone the rest. But if you would have these, and possess power and wealth likewise, you may miss the latter in seeking the former; and you will certainly fail of that by which alone happiness and freedom are procured.

Seek at once, therefore, to be able to say to every unpleasing semblance, “You are but a semblance and by no means the real thing.” And then examine it by those rules which you have; and first and chiefly by this: whether it concerns the things which are within our own power or those which are not; and if it concerns anything beyond our power, be prepared to say that it is nothing to you.

The Way Things Are

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English Poet, Writer, and Novelist Walter de la Mare (1873-1956)

Usually, during the month of January, I concentrate on reading the work of authors that I have not read before. Due to illness and wildfires, my reading this month has been mostly nil. As a result of reading an article in the New York Review of Books, however, I have decided on my next new “discovery,” Walter de la Mare. The following quote comes from his Memoirs of a Midget (1921).

Not that in an existence so passive riddles never came my way. As one morning I brushed past a bush of lads’ love (or maidens’ ruin, as some call it), its fragrance sweeping me from top to toe, I stumbled on the carcass of a young mole. Curiosity vanquished the first gulp of horror. Holding my breath, with a stick I slowly edged it up in the dust and surveyed the white heaving nest of maggots in its belly with a peculiar and absorbed recognition. “Ah, ha!” a voice cried within me, “so this is what is in wait; this is how things are”; and I stooped with lips drawn back over my teeth to examine the stinking mystery more closely. That was a lesson I have never unlearned.

The Ghost of New Years Past

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Lucky New Year’s Postcard

I’ve said on many occasions, usually around this time of year, that only a fool celebrates the passing of time. Every January 1, take a picture of yourself in your bathroom mirror and note the thinning and graying of your hair, the mottling of your skin, and the network of spidery lines demarcating the zones of your face. Oh, well, it’s all a natural process.

On a more positive note, let’s see what the youthful Charles Dickens wrote about New Years Day in his first book, Sketches by Boz:

Next to Christmas-day, the most pleasant annual epoch in existence is the advent of the New Year. There are a lachrymose set of people who usher in the New Year with watching and fasting, as if they were bound to attend as chief mourners at the obsequies of the old one. Now, we cannot but think it a great deal more complimentary, both to the old year that has rolled away, and to the New Year that is just beginning to dawn upon us, to see the old fellow out, and the new one in, with gaiety and glee.

There must have been some few occurrences in the past year to which we can look back, with a smile of cheerful recollection, if not with a feeling of heartfelt thankfulness. And we are bound by every rule of justice and equity to give the New Year credit for being a good one, until he proves himself unworthy the confidence we repose in him.

This is our view of the matter; and entertaining it, notwithstanding our respect for the old year, one of the few remaining moments of whose existence passes away with every word we write, here we are, seated by our fireside on this last night of the old year, one thousand eight hundred and thirty-six, penning this article with as jovial a face as if nothing extraordinary had happened, or was about to happen, to
disturb our good humour.

Hackney-coaches and carriages keep rattling up the street and down the street in rapid succession, conveying, doubtless, smartly-dressed coachfuls to crowded parties; loud and repeated double knocks at the house with green blinds, opposite, announce to the whole neighbourhood that there’s one large party in the street at all events; and we saw through the window, and through the fog too, till it grew so thick that we rung for candles, and drew our curtains, pastry-cooks’ men with green boxes on their heads, and rout-furniture-warehouse-carts, with cane seats and French lamps, hurrying to the numerous houses where an annual festival is held in honour of the occasion.

We can fancy one of these parties, we think, as well as if we were duly dress-coated and pumped, and had just been announced at the drawing-room door.

Psychological Experiments

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John Cleese on Lawyers

I just finished reading John Cleese’s Professor at Large, which reprises a number of talks he gave at Cornell University while he was a visiting Professor-at-Large there over a period of some eighteen years. I broke out laughing when I read the following:

CLEESE: I had to switch to law [at Cambridge University] because there was almost nothing else I could switch to:

INTERVIEWER: So, you’re saying law is easier?

CLEESE: Well, law was kind of easier for me because I am fairly precise with my use of words and I can think in terms of categories, which is all law is—until you start practicing, and then it’s about villainy and low cunning.

I’ll tell you my favorite joke about lawyers because it actually involves universities. The psychological departments of universities are using lawyers now, instead of rats, in their experiments. There are three reasons for this. One is that there are more lawyers than rats. Second, there are some things that rats just won’t do. And thev third is is that there was a bit of a problem because sometimes the experimenters got fond of the rats. And I want you to know that joke has nothing to do with the fact that I am going through an expensive divorce at the moment.

Inoculation

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I am currently reading William S. Burroughs’s The Ticket That Exploded, and what a ride it is! As Anthony Burgess wrote, “Burroughs seems to revel in a new medium … a medium totally fantastic, spaceless, timeless, in which the normal sentence is fractured, the cosmic tries to push its way through the bawdry, and the author shakes the reader as a dog shakes a rat.” Here is a little sample for your delectation:

In this organization, Mr Lee, we do not encourage togetherness, esprit de corps. We do not give our agents the impression of belonging. As you know most existing organizations stress such primitive reactions as unquestioning obedience. Their agents become addicted to orders. You will receive orders of course and in some cases you will be well-advised not to carry out the orders you receive. On the other hand your failure to obey certain orders could expose you to dangers of which you can have at this point in your training no conception. There are worse things than death Mr Lee for example to live under the conditions your enemies will endeavor to impose. And the members of all existing organizations are at some point your enemy. You will learn to know where this point is if you survive. You will receive your instructions in many ways. From books, street signs, films, in some cases from agents who purport to be and may actually be members of the organization. There is no certainty. Those who need certainty are of no interest to this department. This is in point of fact a non-organization the aim of which is to immunize our agents against fear despair and death. We intend to break the birth-death cycle. As you know inoculation is the weapon of choice against virus and inoculation can only be effected through exposure … exposure to the pleasures offered under enemy conditions: a computerized Garden of Delights: exposure to the pain posed as an alternative … you remember the ovens I think … exposure to despair: ‘The end is the beginning born knowing’ the unforgivable sin of despair. You attempted to be God that is to intervene and failed utterly … Exposure to death: sad shrinking face … he had come a long way for something not exchanged born for something knowing not exchanged. He died during the night.

Maxim Gorky on Anti-Semitism

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Anti-Semitic Cartoon from 1892

I have been reading Maxim Gorky’s Fragments from My Diary (Заметки из дневника) published in 1924. Here are two excerpts.

SUBSTITUTES FOR MONKEYS

Professor Z., the bacteriologist, once told me the following story.

‘One day, talking to General B., I happened to mention that I was anxious to obtain some monkeys for my experiments. The General immediately said, quite seriously:

‘“What about Jews—wouldn’t they do? I’ve got some Jews here, spies that are going to be hanged anyway—you’re quite welcome to them if they are of any use to you.”

‘And without waiting for an answer he sent his orderly to find out how many spieas were awaiting execution.

‘I tried to explain to His Excellency that men would not be suitable for my experiments, but he was quite unable to understand me, and opening his eyes very wide he said:

‘“Yes, but men are cleverer than monkeys, aren’t they? If you inoculate a man with poison he will be able to tell you what he feels, whereas a money won’t.”

‘Just then the orderly came in and reported that there was not a single Jew among the men arrested for spying—only Rumanians and gypsies.

‘“What a pity!” said the General. “I suppose gypsies won’t do either? … What a pity …!”’

The second is a paragraph excerpted from a fragment labelled:

ANTI-SEMITISM

I have read, thoroughly and attentively, a number of books which try to justify anti-Semitism. It is a hard and even repugnant duty to read books written with a definitely ugly and immoral design: to brand a nation, a whole nation. A remarkable task indeed! And I never found anything in those books but a moral ignorance, an angry squeal, a wild beast’s bellowing, and a grudging, envious grinding of teeth. Thus armed, there is nothing to prevent one from proving that Slavs, and all the other nations as well are also incurably depraved. And is not this the reason for the violent hatred of the Jews, that they, of all races of mixed blood, are the ones who have preserved comparatively the greatest purity of outward life as well as of the spirit? Is there not more perhaps of the ‘Man’ in the Jew than there is in the anti-Semite?

One May Be Dreaming

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For Halloween, I’ve decided to excerpt as short short story in its entirety from Thomas Ligotti’s excellent collection entitled Noctuary.

One May Be Dreaming

Beyond the windows a dense fog spreads across the graveyard, and a few lights beam within hazy depths, glowing like old lamps on an empty street. Night is softly beginning.

Within the window are narrow bars, both vertical and horizontal, which divide it into several smaller windows. The intersections of these bars form crosses. Not far beyond the windowpanes, there are other crosses jutting out of the earth-hugging fog in the graveyard. To all appearances, it is a burial ground in the clouds that I contemplate through the window.

Upon the window ledge is an old pipe that seems to have been mine in another life. The pipe’s dark bowl must have brightened to a reddish-gold as I smoked and gazed beyond the window at the graveyard. When the tobacco had burned to the bottom, perhaps I gently knocked the pipe against the inside wall of the fireplace, showering the logs and stones with warm ashes. The fireplace is framed within the wall perpendicular to the window. Across the room are a large desk and a high-backed chair. The lamp positioned in the far right corner of the desk serves as illumination for the entire room, a modest supplement to those pale beacons beyond the window. Some old books, pens, and writing paper are spread across the top of the desk. In the dim depths of the room, against the fourth wall, is a towering clock that ticks quietly.

Those, then, are the main features of the room in which I find myself: window, fireplace, desk, and clock. There is no door.

I never dreamed that dying in one’s sleep would encompass dreaming itself. I often dreamed of this room and now, near the point of death, have become its prisoner. And here my bloodless form is held while my other body somewhere lies still and without hope. There can be no doubt that my present state is without reality. If nothing else, I know what it is like to dream. And although a universe of strange sensation is inspired by those lights beyond the window, by the fog and the graveyard, they are no more real than I am. I know there is nothing beyond those lights and that the obscured ground outside could never sustain my steps. Should I venture there I would fall straight into an absolute darkness, rather than approaching it by the degrees of my dying dreams.

For other dreams came before this one—dreams in which I saw lights more brilliant, a fog even more dense, and gravestones with names I could almost read from the distance of this room. But everything is dimming, dissolving, and growing dark. The next dream will be darker still, everything a little more confused, my thoughts … wandering. And objects that are now part of the scene may soon be missinfg: perhaps even my pipe—if it was ever mine—will be gone forever.

But for the moment I am safe in my dream, this dream. Beyond the window a dense fog spreads across the graveyard, and a few lights beam within hazy depths, glowing like old lamps along an empty street. Night is softly beginning.