Fresh Direct is a grocery-delivery service which is the key to a decent life for me here in The City. As most of you know, shopping (of all kinds) is a most-unattainable effort for me now; having someone else shop for me is too expensive and I never get exactly what I want. With Fresh Direct (Unlimited Delivery Pass for $10 per month) delivery is free for every order, and I can choose _exactly_ what I want.
*Poem*
Tall Paul
I knew a fellow when I was 17.
Tall Paul we called him.
He was one of those guys
I hoped some day to be as cool as.
Later in life, when we were in our
early twenties, I met Paul
for a beer. We were talking
about what we'd been reading.
Paul said he was into Truman Capote.
Ignoramus that I was then
(and maybe still am),
I thought he was talking about
Al Capone. "You mean the guy
with the vault?" I asked.
I will never forget the look
on Paul's face. No, he explained,
he meant the writer. He eyed me
suspiciously, not yet convinced
I wasn't pulling his leg.
Here he'd taken me for a literate
person. I wasn't, not nearly so much
as I made out. And in this way, I have
blundered my way through my life,
hopeless, helpless, just barely
making enough sense for folks
to believe I'm compos mentis.
Bullshitting is my game.
The truth is I've lied to
everyone I ever met, aggrandizing
my life to some extent or other,
augmenting my experiences
as necessary, making myself out
to be whatever person was needed.
I lied on every job application
I ever filled out, and I filled
out hundreds. The fact that I
couldn't have told you
the difference between
Al Capone and Truman Capote
was just one outward sign of
the blind ignorance which once
hid precariously beneath
the surface of my skin.
Still, the ignorance is there,
though in not nearly the over-
abundance it used to be, and
still, I blunder my way, proudly,
head held high, hoping no one
figures out what a fool I am.
If bullshitting is an art,
then I have taken the art
to heights it never knew
it could reach. I've always been
an artist. If, in some
absurd universe, I had to choose
just one art, I have little doubt
it would be bullshit.
*Engineering*
As hybrids and other "alternative" vehicles begin to be sold in earnest, I'm hearing a whole lot of hogwash; as hybrids are the key to transport in the interim, widespread misunderstanding of them is a serious problem. Having driven an all-electric car for a year, and having owned and loved two hybrids over the last eight years, I would like to offer a few important points:
1) In one TV ad, an actress declares, "It actually doesn't feel like you're driving a hybrid." What?! As if you have loads of experience with hybrids? Did you assume it would be like driving a golf cart? In fact hybrids/electric cars have 100% of their available torque at stall, whereas combustion-engine cars have exactly 0%. In fact, one can burn rubber much more easily in a hybrid or electric than a regular car. It's all because of the electric motor.
2) Know that an "eco" button on a hybrid just makes it automatically shut off at stop lights. "Eco" mode sets the electric motor in action--and that doesn't mean you have less power! At lower RPMs in fact you have much more. When my father first drove my hybrid it took him a few minutes to get used to it; he was screeching and yanking our heads back and finally he said, "Wow, this thing is hot!"
3) When you hear GM talking about "100 years of engineering excellence," know that they're lying. Internal-combustion-engine (ICE) cars are in fact not 100-years worth of better. There is oil-car industry collusion which has kept MPGs at the minimum. We've been able to make cars that get 75 MPG for many years. GM released the EV-1 years ago that was the nicest electric car ever made, but they did _everything_ they could to stamp it out quickly (ever heard of it?). Their main interest is in maximizing oil profitability, during the waning of the Age of Oil, as gas steadily becomes too expensive even to get at.
The first car ever to get a speeding ticket in New York was an electric car in the 1890s. Imagine if we'd spent that last 100 years doing R&D on electrics, instead of the cash cows that are ICEs; we'd have electric cars by now which could circumnavigate the globe twice on a single charge. As I've said before, where we get electricity from makes all the difference; if it comes from coal-power plants, there is no gain over what we have now.
*MS*
Don't know the original author but this essay has circulated widely. Those who care will please pay attention; every bit of this is my life. As much as I wish it weren't so, these are the cards I've been dealt:
Open letter to those without MS
"Having MS means many things change, and a lot of them are invisible. Unlike AIDS and Cancer, most people do not understand even a little about MS and its effects, and of those that think they know, many are actually misinformed. In the spirit of informing those who wish to understand, these are the things that I would like you to understand about me before you judge me:
"Please understand that being sick doesn't mean I'm not still a human being. I have to spend most of my day sitting on my arse, and if you visit I probably don't seem like much fun to be with, but I'm still me stuck inside this body. I still worry about stuff and work and my family and friends, and most of the time I'd still like to hear you talk about yours too.
_____
"Please understand the difference between "happy" and "healthy". When you've got the flu you probably feel miserable with it, but I've been sick for years. I can't be miserable all the time, in fact I work hard at not being miserable. So if you're talking to me and I sound happy, it means I'm happy. That's all. It doesn't mean that I'm not in a lot of pain, or extremely tired, or that I'm getting better, or any of those things. Please, don't say, "Oh, you're sounding better!". I am not sounding better, I am sounding happy. If you want to comment on that, you're welcome.
_____
"Please understand that being able to stand up for five minutes, doesn't necessarily mean that I can stand up for ten minutes, or an hour. With a lot of diseases you're either paralyzed, or you can move. With this one it gets more confusing.
_____
"Please repeat the above paragraph substituting, "sitting up", "walking", "thinking", "being sociable" and so on ... it applies to everything. That's what this kind of illness does to you.
_____
"Please understand that MS is variable. It's quite possible (for me, it's common) that one day I am able to walk to the park and back, while the next day I'll have trouble getting to the kitchen. Please don't attack me when I'm ill by saying, "But you did it before!" if you want me to do something then ask if I can. In a similar vein, I may need to cancel an invitation at the last minute, if this happens please do not take it personally.
_____
"Please understand that "getting out and doing things" does not make me feel better, and can often make me seriously worse. MS may cause secondary depression (wouldn't you get depressed if you were stuck inside for ages on end!?) but it is not created by depression. Telling me that I need some fresh air and exercise is not appreciated and not correct--don't you think that if I could possibly do it that I would?
_____
"Please understand that if I say I have to sit down/pee/lie down/take these pills now, that I do have to do it right now--it can't be put off or forgotten just because I'm out for the day (or whatever). MS does not forgive.
______
"If you want to suggest a cure to me, DON'T. It's not because I don't appreciate the thought, and it's not because I don't want to get well. It's because I have had almost every single one of my friends suggest one at one point or another. At first I tried them all, but then I realized that I was using up so much energy trying things that I was making myself sicker, not better. If there was something that cured, or even helped, all people with MS then we'd know about it. This is not a drug-company conspiracy, there is worldwide networking (both on and off the Internet) between people with MS, if something worked we would KNOW.
_____
"If after reading that, you still want to suggest a cure, then do it, preferably in writing, but don't expect me to rush out and try it. If I haven't had it suggested before, I'll take what you said and discuss it with my doctor. He's open to new suggestions and is a great guy, and he takes what I say seriously.
_____
"In many ways I depend on you--people who are not sick--I need you to visit me when I am too sick to go out, I need you to shop for me, I need you to cook and clean for me, I need you to take me the the doctors, sometimes I need you to support me so I can walk to the bathroom without falling over.
"I need you on a different level too: you're my link to the outside world, if you don't set up my recliner in the lounge-room I can't watch TV and if you don't bring home a newspaper I can't read it. If you don't come to visit me then I won't get to see you. And, as much as it's possible, I need you to understand me."
*Prose*
My Ex
I realized that you never saw my troubles. MS, as it is for most, was completely invisible to you. I thought that by telling you about my numb feet, about the debilitating vertigo, about the impossibility of crowds, I thought as my wife you might understand and sympathize. I couldn't have been more mistaken. You said to me once, "It's not like you're dying." Do you know how much that hurt? Do you know there isn't a day that passes that I don't wish I were dying (more than we all are)? Do you know how much more awful it is to watch your body steadily disintegrate, until you can't do anything for yourself, until you can't remember why it is you keep pressing on, until you can't do anything that would make you feel like a whole person? Of course you don't, and you never had the courage to wonder what my life was like. Within two years of your deserting me, I got to a point where I can only barely walk a half a block; as I have a heavy disease-burden I knew this would be the case. Now walking is only the tip of the iceberg of my disability. If you'd had the courage to say no before we started, I wouldn't have this massive, gaping hole in the middle of my life. I can't work anymore, can't go to poetry readings alone, can only just barely make it to the coffee shop on the corner, so I wonder if you can tell me how I'm supposed to meet women now? I'm trapped at home with an ailing heart and a faulty body. I wonder if you knew when you left that you would be the last woman I ever loved.
*Quotations*
If it sounds like writing, rewrite it.
--Elmore Leonard
I who know the smallness of my voice and the tiny stink of all our journalistic voices repeated wonder if any words of mine could matter much.
--Stark Young
When I feed the poor they call me a saint. When I ask why so many people are poor they call me a communist.
--Dom Helder Câmara
In spite of illness, in spite even of the arch enemy sorrow, one can
remain alive long past the usual date of disintegration if one is
unafraid of change, insatiable in intellectual curiosity, interested in
big things and happy in small ways.
--Edith Wharton
Personal disintegration remains always an imminent danger.
--Christopher Lasch
When one's character begins to fall under suspicion and disfavor, how swift, then, is the work of disintegration and destruction.
--Twain
Civilized society is perpetually menaced with disintegration through this primary hostility of men towards one another.
--Freud
Just carrying a ruler with you in your pocket should be forbidden, at least on a moral basis. The ruler is the symbol of the new illiteracy. The ruler is the symptom of the new disease, disintegration of our civilisation.
--Friedensreich Hundertwasser
The loss of sex polarity is part and parcel of the larger disintegration, the reflex of the soul's death, and coincident with the disappearance of great men, great deeds, great causes, great wars, etc.
--Henry Miller
We construct a narrative for ourselves, and that's the thread we follow from one day to the next. People who disintegrate as personalities are the ones who lose that thread.
--Paul Auster
*Music*
I downloaded three albums this week: David Gray's latest Draw the Line, Eilen Jewell's latest Sea of Tears, and an earlier Andrew-Bird album The Swimming Hour. I have never heard a David-Gray record I didn't like, but Draw the Line is a real winner. If you're a fan, this record hits all the right notes. It's not quite as stellar as White Ladder but it's excellent, with numerous deep hits. Favorite tracks are Fugitive, Nemesis, Kathleen (featuring Jolie Holland), and Transformation, but this is certainly a recording that's easy to listen to from beginning to end. Evocative, intelligent, and lovelorn.
Sea of Love is another winner. Both it and also the above record offer the listener exactly what she or he would want. Ms Jewell's bag is americana-rock/alt-country. As such, the guitar playing on every track is dynamite. Favorite songs are Rain Roll In, Sweet Rose, Shakin' All Over, and Nowhere in No Time. "I'm just passing through; don't pay it no mind. I'll be nowhere in no time." The only one I don't like is I'm Gonna Dress in Black. Another success from one of my favorite artists.
Andrew Bird's Swimming Hour is fascinating. It shows an artist still experimenting with sonic possibilities. It is not quite of the caliber of Armchair Apocrypha or Noble Beast; on those records, Bird had discovered his latter-day musical identity. Swimming Hour is a great portrait of a musician on his way to becoming what he is today. It's very straight-up rock n roll, but as with Gray's music in general, Bird (a violinist) shows himself unafraid of any and all sorts of instrumentation. Favorite tracks are Headsoak and How Indiscrete. Whereas the first two albums listed here are predictable in a very satisfying way, Swimming Hour is all over the map, from an artist still discovering himself.
_____
Lyrics to The Minnow and the Trout by A Fine Frenzy/Alison Sudol. "What we're made of was all the same once" is a really stand-out lyric:
"'Help me out,' said the minnow to the trout.
'I was lost and found myself swimming in your mouth.
Help me chief.
I've got to plans for you and me.
I swear upon this riverbed
I'll help you feel young again.'
Not your every day circumstance,
hummingbird taking coffee with the ants.
"Please, I know that we're different.
We were one cell in the sea in the beginning,
and what we're made of was all the same once.
We're not that different after all.
"'Help me out,' said the eagle to the dove.
'I've fallen from my nest so high above.
Help me fly.
I am too afraid try.
Now saddled with a fear of heights
I'm praying you can set me right.'
Not your everyday circumstance,
elephant sharing peanuts with the rats.
"Please, I know that we're different.
We were one cell in the sea in the beginning,
and what we're made of was all the same once.
We're not that different after all."
Peace love and ATOM jazz
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