One Hand Clapping – April 2004
— William Michaelian
Note: Each month of One Hand Clapping has been assigned its own page. Links are provided here, and again at the bottom of each journal page. To go to the beginning of Volume 2, click here.
March 2003 April 2003 May 2003 June 2003 July 2003 August 2003 September 2003
October 2003 November 2003 December 2003 January 2004 February 2004 March 2004
April 2004 May 2004 June 2004 July 2004 August 2004 September 2004
October 2004 November 2004 December 2004 January 2005 February 2005 March 2005
April 1, 2004 — Look at their faces. That’s all I ask. Look at them and study them, and you will find out all you need to know. For a good, long moment, don’t listen to what they are saying. Disregard their explanations and promises. Just look at their faces. Do you find the truth there? If you don’t, then you already know the value of what comes out of their mouths. You know they can’t be trusted. If you have trouble with this concept of faces, or if you question your ability to read them, then I suggest spending time in front of a mirror, and asking yourself the same question. Do you find the truth there? Does what you find vary from day to day according to your involvement with the world? What you see, and your willingness to see it, can make all the difference. Now, I realize this might sound as if I have a very high opinion of myself, and that I am preaching. But my direct form of expression isn’t due to a feeling of superiority; quite the contrary. I speak directly because I feel that what I have to say is important. Possibly better than anyone else, I recognize my shortcomings. I have made serious mistakes, and I continue to make them. I haven’t always acted responsibly, and still don’t. I try hard to tell the truth and manage fairly well, but there are things about myself that I either refuse or am afraid to acknowledge. I forge ahead just the same, hoping illogically that the damage I do will somehow turn out to be only temporary, when what I should really do is stop everything and force myself to admit once and for all that drastic changes need to be made. Simply put, I am selfish. And I am fully aware that saying so can also be interpreted and used in my favor. Who am I trying to kid? Who are any of us trying to kid? Only myself, only ourselves. And we are succeeding. Having said all this — and this will surely strike the innocent bystander as being ridiculous — I feel tremendously happy and optimistic — not about anything in particular, but about all of us being here. Who knows when the next Beethoven will appear, or when the next brilliant, mad genius will accidentally give birth to a new and ultimately meaningless religion? At this very moment, people are laughing all around the world. They are singing, dancing, carrying on, and making fun of themselves. There are young men and women smiling at each other, believing in their future. There are old people holding hands, believing in their past. Life is a miracle. Death is a sacred confirmation. What a shame it is, therefore, that these bastards with their ugly, lying faces take such joy in killing people, and in controlling them, and in mocking their beautiful, stubborn hope. We know who they are. Their names are unimportant. The fact that there are plenty more where they came from, though, most certainly is.
April 2, 2004 — The problem with — and also the good thing about — writing for daily, immediate publication is that there is no way to consistently hide one’s feelings, one’s ups and downs. I am not, of course, talking about the kind of writing done by nationally syndicated columnists and news people, the majority of whom are merely professional, and in some cases unwitting, mouthpieces for politicians, big business, drug companies, arms dealers, and so on. What they write is ad copy — a dangerously sophisticated breed of ad copy, but ad copy nonetheless. And so what they really amount to is a sales force, rather than the watchdogs for democracy they pretend to be. Trying to write honestly about what is on one’s mind, though, is a vastly different thing. Sometimes it’s easy, but often it isn’t. First of all, there are times when it’s hard to tell if there is anything really on one’s mind. There are also times when there definitely is, but one doesn’t dare bring it up. Privacy is important, and so are people’s feelings. Frequently, at least in my own case, it is surprising to find out what I am thinking about. That is one of the benefits of writing every day. If I didn’t, there are many things that wouldn’t surface, and that I wouldn’t pursue. Therefore, I can say with conviction that I know more about myself and the world because of my daily writing. I also recognize that it isn’t anywhere near enough. And what is enough? I don’t know. Everything, I guess. I say that with a smile, because, obviously, the threat isn’t imminent. And what of the ups and downs? On the one hand, there are times when I feel bad for foisting off my gloom onto other people. On the other, it’s possible that not trying to hide my gloom is appreciated. To some extent, after all, misery does love company. Again, speaking for myself, the last thing I want to hear or see is only a person’s good and cheerful side. It’s fine when we accidentally meet at the grocery store or library, but if I am to get to know someone, it is only possible if I am exposed to all sides, and vice-versa. Granted, the process can take years. But I have also known it to develop quickly, as if great currents of understanding freely flowed both ways. There is nothing more inspiring and rejuvenating than spending time with someone you feel you have known forever, though you have only just met. I do feel that if more barriers in our thinking were dealt with and removed, that this kind of event would become more common. We are far more closely related than we give ourselves credit for, or are willing to admit. For the sake of simplicity, we accept the barriers of language, culture, and geography, without realizing the implications. Any one of us might have been born anywhere else and under a completely different set of circumstances. That we weren’t is an accident of fate worthy of our recognition.
April 3, 2004 — Thanks to the over-zealous efforts of a demented neighborhood horticulturist, the house is filled with poisonous fumes this morning. It is my humble opinion that some people take their lawns and weeds too seriously. I can see mowing them once in awhile, or chopping them out with a hoe to keep them from the tomatoes, but when trucks bearing thousand-gallon tanks painted with a skull and crossbones are called in, and uniformed “technicians” deliberately saturate every square inch of turf with chemicals, I think it’s going a bit far. It’s spring, for crying out loud. Things are supposed to grow this time of year. Bah, anyway, I’ve said it a thousand times, so why repeat it? I like dandelions. I like their flowers, and I like their puffy blooms. I also like hairy vetch, thistles, chickweed, and all of the other so-called weeds. They are a pleasant reminder that we haven’t won yet, and probably never will. The real winners are the chemical companies. Through decades of training, they have succeeded in convincing people that they can’t live with a few weeds and bugs, and that their lawns must look like golf courses. My question is, Why? If you want to have a patch of grass to sit on and play on during the summer, fine. Throw some seeds out there and turn on the water. But don’t turn your private acre into a chemical test plot. If you have the time to fret over every weed and insect, then you have the time to be doing something more useful and productive, such as learning another language or reading about how people live in other parts of the world. Granted, that sounds anti-American, and is probably on Homeland Security’s List of Behaviors to Report and Stamp Out. After all, the first rule of Evil Government is that knowledge is the enemy. The second rule is, if enough people are distracted by weeds, Evil Government can do whatever it wants and get away with it. Patriot Act, anyone?
April 4, 2004 — Yesterday morning we dragged our old couch through the kitchen and down the hall to our other sitting room, which these days is a store room for ancient family furniture, cardboard boxes, a 1950s set of Funk & Wagnalls Standard Reference Encyclopedia, and a thirteen-inch TV that doesn’t work. Once it was in its new place against the wall, it sighed, then shivered, as if it understood that it was being replaced. We took turns comforting it for the next several hours, until the truck that contained our new couch arrived. When the delivery men brought the new couch into the living room and put it where the old couch had been, it looked at least half again as big as when we had first seen it in the store. It will definitely take some getting used to. For one thing, the new couch is comfortable. For another, we can sit on it without feeling the floor. We bought the couch at a furniture store downtown. While we were there, we kept waiting for Mr. Bloom to pop out and give us the history of couches and their manufacturers. It never happened. Nor did he come for the delivery. Instead, there were three young men who managed a total of about eighteen words between them. They were fine, capable young men not the least bit interested in furniture. They would have been even less interested in the story of how we bought our last couch twenty-five years ago in Fresno from Bloom, or in Bloom in general. And so, choking back my emotion, I said nothing about it. I also said nothing about how hearty and ambitious I was back then. Not only would it have been silly and out of place, they would never have believed it. O Scraggly, Dilapidated One, how far you have fallen!
April 5, 2004 — In restless sleep I walked the sinewy streets of an ancient city, searching for someone or something I had lost. The stone walls spoke in great waves of scented color, bearing a message of music and light. Strangers knew me, and welcomed me into their homes. In an outpouring of kindness, they showed me the graves they had long kept hidden in their hearts. Perhaps what you are looking for is here, they said. I wandered among the graves. I found there all the strangers knew, all they remembered, all they had forgotten, everything they had said, the deeds they had done, and the promises they had yet to fulfill. But the someone or something I had lost, I did not find. I offered them my gratitude. We wept together and sang together. Then they followed me to the edge of the city and watched as I traveled on. And I wondered: who are they? And how is it that I know them so well, but still do not know myself?
April 6, 2004 — Literally no day passes during which I am not reminded of how little I know. But I have learned to take it in stride. That I have learned, though, disgusts and embarrasses me. In turn, this makes my ignorance harder to hide. Add to this my natural inclination to tell strangers what little I do know, or think I know, and you have a real formula for disaster. This, too, I have learned to take in stride. I have learned to accept that I must appear foolish, ignorant, narrow-minded, childishly idealistic, and egotistically outspoken — if not all at the same time, then at least by turns. Luckily, out of kindness or boredom, or possibly because it’s fun to see me squirm, no one has complained. Most likely, I am considered harmless. This is a humorous and mildly derogatory term our family has long applied to those who are nice but basically useless, and only a threat to themselves. Thanks to my father’s uncles, I learned at an early age that there were a great many harmless people in the world. A harmless person was earnest and hopeless, and at times even valiant, though to no end. Thus, while there was a hint of ridicule in the term, it was tempered by pity. As a rule, the members of our family have always been considerate and gracious with the harmless. In their presence, a joke is never uttered at their expense, unless it is absolutely certain that it will not be understood and recognized as such, or that it will be taken in the opposite sense. Simultaneously, we realize that we might be thought of in the same light. This makes the situation even more enjoyable. To be considered harmless by the harmless is a true honor. In other words, it is of no real value. For what is feeling honored but another way of admitting that you think highly of yourself, or of assuming that you are somehow less than those bestowing the honor?
April 7, 2004 — I’m still making my way through Look Homeward, Angel. Thomas Wolfe’s writing is not something to be hurried through, but savored. The following description is one example: Hugh Barton’s mother was in her seventy-fourth year, but she had the strength of a healthy woman of fifty, and the appetite of two of forty. She was a powerful old lady, six feet tall, with the big bones of a man, and a heavy full-jawed face, sensuous and complacent, and excellently equipped with a champing mill of strong yellow horse-teeth. It was cake and pudding to see her at work on corn on the cob. . . . When thwarted or annoyed in any way, the heavy benevolence of her face was dislodged by a thunder-cloud of petulance, and her wide pouting underlip rolled out like a window-shade. Since starting the book, I have read elsewhere that in Angel Wolfe wrote honestly and openly about himself, members of his family, and the people of the town in which they lived — so honestly, in fact, that he was worried to death about his family’s reaction once the book was published. Apparently, they accepted the invasion of their privacy far better than the townsfolk. To avoid the latter’s hostility, Wolfe stayed away for two years. Now, everyone who was offended is dead, and the author’s old haunts are tourist destinations.
April 8, 2004 — Someday, long after the bodies from both sides have been devoured by time and the rivers of blood have evaporated in the hot desert sun, people will realize that the war in Iraq was not a unique event rooted in politics and religion, but simply the continued manifestation of human greed, fear, and ignorance. We will realize that the war in Iraq was part of the larger, greater war that we waged upon and within ourselves. We will realize that all wars, however honorably they are justified, recorded, and named, were the result of our own actions, and that these actions were the deadly legacy we left, generation by generation, to our children. . . . At this very moment on the radio, a very smart and evil woman named Condoleeza Rice is lying to the world about the current administration’s forceful occupation of Iraq. What she says will be reported in the news, interpreted, and analyzed. After her, other liars will follow, just as she followed the liars before her. None of the liars will be concerned with the real causes of war, or with the common needs of all life on earth, or the earth itself. They will only lie to cover up or explain previous lies. In other words, they are poisonous and their lives are a complete waste.
April 9, 2004 — If I were famous and knew lots of other famous people, think of the delicious rumors I could spread. But I’m not famous, and I don’t know anyone who is. I know a few people who are internationally known, but only in certain circles. They are hardly the type one gossips about, and anyway, I have never been one to gossip. Quite a few people know who I am, but they are scattered hither and yon. The chance of them coming together as an admiring, supportive group is further than remote. There is no imminent threat to my anonymity. I don’t need a secretary to answer my mail. I don’t employ a publicist to tell people how eccentric and wonderful I am. My wife and I buy our own groceries. When we are in public, no one rushes up to us and takes our picture, and no one asks for my autograph — although I have been asked a couple of times through the mail to sign something I have written. What it amounts to is, I have to muddle along like everyone else, but without the benefit of common sense. I certainly do so without money in the bank, although for the sake of appearance, and to prove I have a sense of humor, I maintain a small checking account. But it wasn’t always so. I have managed without for years at a time, dealing only in cash, on the rare occasions when some was available. Whatever money I earn was already spent years ago. Someday I would like to catch up, and maybe even be a month or two ahead, but I have come to suspect that this is possible only through a rare combination of fortuitous events. Clearly, I should have been a professional basketball player, or the head of a prestigious law, accounting, or brokerage firm. But I turned my back on these opportunities, and many others like it. Real estate tycoon. Congressman. Architect. Jewelry designer. Restaurateur. Barber. Plumber. Brain surgeon. Fisherman. Meteorologist. My trouble was, and still is, that I have never been very good at doing things that I am not interested in and which for me have no meaning. Granted, I have taken this to the extreme. Even so, the longer one follows this course, the more difficult it is to change, or even to see the need for change. One reaches a point where it seems change can be wrought only through the use of dynamite, or some form of cataclysmic upheaval. If I were living in Iraq, for instance, it is highly unlikely that I would be spending my time musing at a computer. I would be running for cover and burying murdered family members like everyone else. And I doubt very much that I would have the time or mental composure to hope there is a foolish writer in Salem, Oregon, who cares about what is happening to me, and about why it is happening.
April 10, 2004 — One must always make a conscious effort to not fall in with the herd. The herd is a deaf, blind, senseless, roiling mass of stupidity. But if one doesn’t fall in with the herd, then what? Well, it seems most of his or her time is spent trying to stay out of the herd’s way, to avoid being trampled, spit upon, taken to court, or, as is presently the case, killing or being killed in one of the herd’s wars. The herd mentality, the insecure craving to belong to something larger than oneself even if one’s self is obliterated in the process, is a frightening thing to behold. Over the years, I have watched in horror as it systematically seduces, then claims, young lives. Beautiful, laughing, intelligent children full of hope, goodness, and light gradually become idiots in their parents’ image. They believe what their parents believe, think what they think, do what they do, eat what they eat, go where they go, want what they want, and share the same paralyzing forms of dissatisfaction, illness, depression, and loneliness, all the while longing for escape. But there is no escape. There are many ways in which to hide, such as drugs, entertainment, and religion, but these only postpone the moment when one must be alone with himself and finally face what his life has become. And what a terrible thing it is if that moment is postponed until death. It is important to give thanks, therefore, if you are one of the lucky ones to have had real parents — parents, in other words, who were intelligent enough and daring enough to teach you that it is all right to think for yourself, and to pursue your own dreams according to your natural abilities. And it is just as important, if you are a parent, to give thanks for your children, who, with your encouragement and lack of small-minded interference, can make a positive, lasting difference in the world.
April 11, 2004 — The continued absence of rain, combined with the explosive rejuvenation of life, has transformed the atmosphere into a broth of perfume and pollen that is both intoxicating and devastating. People are sneezing great horse sneezes, but it doesn’t keep them from roaming around outside, or from pulling weeds and working in their flower beds. In a word, they are drunk. And on this sunny Easter morning, a great many of the drunkards will bathe and dress themselves up and go to church to listen with varying degrees of attention to a familiar message of timeless renewal, which they will somehow interpret as permission for them to carry on with their lives as usual despite the obvious need for drastic change. I’m not sure which is the biggest miracle — the resurrection itself; believing it really happened; or the amazing and often dangerous assumptions that follow. But it’s all fine, whatever we believe, or whether or not we believe. Although it seems to me that our nature is such that, even if we don’t believe, this, too, is a form of belief, because we believe that we don’t believe. This might be important, or it might be meaningless. It just seems impossible for a human being not to believe. Being born in itself is preposterous enough; thereafter follows the belief that we exist, and that we are who we are, and that our mother is our mother and our father is our father, and that it is only logical and right that we have been called forth from the void at this particular time to think our particular thoughts, even though they are remarkably similar to everyone else’s. Who doesn’t believe he exists? He can disbelieve it all he wants, but he still bumps into people and makes himself sandwiches. In my novel, A Listening Thing, the main character occasionally takes time out to read a puzzling book by Samuel Beckett called The Unnamable. The narrator of The Unnamable is a disembodied head, or a voice in someone else’s head — or something. I’ve never been able to figure it out. Had I actually finished the book, I might know more, but not necessarily. That’s the kind of book The Unnamable is. The key is, though, that the narrator questions everything, even his own existence. He is not prepared to believe that he exists. Instead, he prefers to wait, through eternity, if necessary. It’s possible he has already waited that long. It’s also possible that eternity is momentary, transitory, fleeting. Who the heck knows? Anybody who claims he knows, or feels he knows, believes. Or, to put it another way, if you doubt your own existence, who is doing the doubting?
April 12, 2004 — I’m off to a slow start this morning due to a rough night in which I was drenched in sweat and plagued by nightmares. The one dream that I still remember was another strange one. For whatever reason, I had agreed to help out someone by doing some proofreading. I went to their office, and things started off okay, but then a man came in with a huge armload of stuff for me to go over and told me I’d better hurry or I’d miss the deadline, which was just a few hours off. This made me angry, because I had been told nothing about there being so much work, and certainly nothing about there being a deadline. A few minutes later, he brought me even more to do, then quietly left the room. The pages were covered with microscopic print. My vision was blurred. With great effort, I managed to finish one page. Then I left the room and went out into the hall, which was full of people scurrying around. I knew at once that they were trying to meet the same deadline that I had been given. When I saw how worried and preoccupied they were, I decided right then and there that I was through. I said something like, “If I don’t quit now, I will end up just like them.” I went outside. My wife was there. “This is ridiculous,” I said. “I can’t believe it. You should see what they expect me to do.” My wife was very concerned. We walked away from the building, which turned out to be on some sort of dock. Water was lapping up all around. Then I began to feel tremendously guilty, because I wasn’t doing the work. When it seemed we had been outside for about twenty minutes, we went back inside. The place was quiet. Everyone had gone home. I looked at the clock. It was midnight — at least six or eight hours later than I thought it should have been. “Well,” I said, “I guess they found someone else to do their dirty work. Maybe they learned something.” We went into the room where I had been working. The pile of unread material was still there. On top of it there was an insultingly neat, hand-printed letter from the man who had brought me the work. In it he expressed grave disappointment in my decision to abandon the project and my co-workers. I felt horrible all over again. I felt rotten, even though he had obviously tried to take advantage of me, and I had not agreed to do what he had asked. I no longer remembered who had requested my help in the first place. That person never appeared. I put down the letter. I woke up with a strong sense of failure, wondering where I went wrong.
April 13, 2004 — The simple truth is, I haven’t written enough. I have written quite a bit in a fairly short amount of time, but I feel strongly that most of my work remains undone. If I were to die today I wouldn’t be ashamed of what was accomplished; but if I were to go on living for many more years and I didn’t continue writing, I think I would be ashamed. I will definitely not retire. I might be forced to retire due to poor health, blindness, or the further erosion of my faculties, but until that happens I plan to work. The work might include more than writing. It could branch off into music, painting, film, or photography. Along the way, I might even learn patience, which in itself is an art. Somehow, I have to learn to express what needs to be expressed in a language as powerful as that spoken by flowers and understood by bees, or as spoken by the wind and understood by the smallest blade of grass. I don’t want to spend my whole life hitting people over the head with a hammer, as I so often do. I want them to gently take the hammer from my hand and — hit themselves with it. Then I know I will die a happy man.
April 14, 2004 — A narrow-bodied, long-legged, almost blond spider is crawling around on the wall near the art calendar I’ve left up for the last four years because I like looking at the picture for April, which is Marc Chagall’s The Glowing Bouquet. Little does the spider know that I once wrote a poem while admiring that picture, and that the poem is called “Papa’s Song (clam chowder blues).” The spider, which is now partially hidden by a an oversized bargain volume of Renoir’s paintings, also doesn’t know I wrote a story called “A Way to Survive” based on another picture on another calendar, this one on the wall to my left. The painting, Christmas Eve, is by Swedish artist Carl Larsson. It shows a sumptuous feast, which is just beginning to attract the attention of what appears to be a family that knows little want. The Carl Larsson calendar, a gift from my mother, has been hanging there on a tiny nail since 1998. And little does the spider know — wherever it has gotten to by now — that one day soon I am going to dismantle this entire corner and give everything in it a serious, long overdue cleaning. Just a few days ago, our oldest son was marveling at how I’ve let my work area go. “You used to clean off your table every Saturday,” he observed kindly. “What happened?” I told him the only thing I could tell him — that I was conducting an important writing experiment. “One shouldn’t have to depend on ideal conditions to write,” I said. Then I pointed out the artistic side of the equation. I had him look at the dust, lint, and spider webs that have formed drifts at the base of my lamp. Then I blew gently on the table, and he watched in amazement as the surface was transformed into a desert scene, complete with blowing sands. “What we have here,” I said, “is Nature in miniature.” But I did have to confess that it has been getting harder lately to sit here without sneezing every five minutes. And so, little does the spider know that it just might get slurped up by our old Electrolux one of these days if it’s not careful.
April 15, 2004 — I hate to part company with Thomas Wolfe’s Look Homeward, Angel. Having finally finished the book the night before last, I can say that it is easily one of the best novels ever written by an American writer. That it was Wolfe’s first, and that he wrote it while still in his twenties, makes this autobiographical work all the more impressive. The language is powerful, richly poetic, and at times harrowing, so vivid are Wolfe’s descriptions. It is also full of laughter — not the cheap kind served up in nightly sitcoms, but the hard-earned kind achieved through yearning, suffering, disappointment, and survival. Now, when I eventually stumble across it in a used book store, I know I won’t hesitate in buying the book that followed, Of Time and the River. But I’m not in a hurry, because I still have a mountain of stuff to read here on my dirt-encrusted work table. Last night, for instance, I read another of Henrik Ibsen’s plays, Ghosts, which I understand caused quite an uproar when it was first performed in the late 1800s, as did another of his well known plays, A Doll’s House. Ghosts is a fine work, very simple and direct. Like all good writers, Ibsen hated the hypocrisy in the society of his day. In Ghosts, he took aim at the fraudulent relationships of men and women, protected and codified within the context of marriage. He was outraged that a woman was expected to suffer silently and do her duty no matter what kind of behavior her husband engaged in, and that he should nonetheless be able to hold his head high, while if the situation were reversed a woman was treated as an outcast. When Ghosts was performed, Ibsen found himself hated by some and idolized by many — a nice measure of his success. Next I am going to read Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms. My son read this not long ago and wasn’t too impressed. When he finished it he started on Thornton Wilder’s The Bridge of San Luis Rey, upon which he immediately remarked that it was far better written. I’ve read Wilder’s book, and from the little I’ve read of Hemingway over the years, I can see where this is probably true. One thing I liked about The Bridge of San Luis Rey was Wilder’s old-fashioned use of English, which sounded almost as if it had been translated from Spanish. This served the story well. An interesting coincidence is that Look Homeward, Angel and A Farewell to Arms were both published in 1929, and that The Bridge of San Luis Rey was published in 1927, and that they were all written at roughly the same time. Or maybe it isn’t interesting. Maybe it’s just a coincidence, and it doesn’t mean a darned thing.
April 16, 2004 — Yesterday morning I dropped off some of my mother’s old clothing at Goodwill. Afterward, since I’ve been needing another book shelf lately, I wandered into the store to see if they had something I could use. There wasn’t, but there was a strangely attractive couch with a tangled, leafy pattern that made it look like it was overgrown with ivy, and that it had been recently uprooted from the porch of an abandoned farm house. There were also a couple of old student desks, as desks that have no room for anything but a box of crackers, a pencil, and a copy of Mad Magazine have come to be called. While I was looking them over, a scraggly fellow nearby picked up a tall glass thing I thought might have been a shadeless lamp. He turned it over, releasing an avalanche of purple beads, which clattered and rolled all over the floor. With no change in expression, he put it down and headed for another part of the store. I decided not to follow him. Instead, I entered the aisle where the cups and glasses are displayed. Right away, I found a nicely shaped little glass that could be used either for wine or for rooting sprigs of mint or various house plants. It was only forty-nine cents, so I decided to keep it. Then, on the next aisle, I found a two-quart crock, complete with lid and in perfect condition, by its looks probably never used. It was only two dollars and ninety-nine cents, so I decided to keep it. Then I went for a look at the book section. There was nothing really worthwhile, but on a rack nearby there were sunglasses for four dollars and ninety-seven cents each. And since mine are scratched and mangled and keep sliding down my nose, I decided to keep a pair of those as well. Later, when our son came home from work for lunch, I showed him my new sunglasses. When I put them on, he started laughing. “Those are Eighties sunglasses,” he said. “You look like Jeff Lynne from the Electric Light Orchestra.” I said, “You mean they look that good? Great! I had no idea.” We have long admired Jeff Lynne’s rather large sunglasses, which he has stayed with over the years. I am glad such glasses still exist. Some of the sunglasses for sale now are so small that they barely cover the eye, and make people look like insects or aliens, or alien insects. The day wore on. I made a cup of coffee and returned to work. Before long, I began to feel tremendously stupid and useless. Or, to put it more accurately, I couldn’t get over how tremendously stupid and useless I really was. I don’t know. Did Peter Pan ever feel this way? Or Mozart? What about Henry Ford, or Ford Madox Ford, or Austin Ford, who lived, once upon a time, around the corner from where I grew up, and who had foolishly planted his Emperor vineyard in rows running north and south instead of east and west? What a shame they were never interviewed by Oprah Winfrey or Larry King, and allowed to spill their guts to a hostile, unlistening world miraculously held together by random acts of kindness and intelligence. Bah, it is hell being stupid and useless; but it is even worse knowing it. Did Huck Finn ever feel this way, or Odysseus? We will never know. But with luck and the right blend of youthful eagerness and honesty, we might someday come to understand why they are in some ways more real than we are, though they never existed.
April 17, 2004 — Not long after we left Dinuba, California, for Salem, Oregon, back in 1987, one of the Armenian old-timers, an alcoholic bachelor farmer who as a boy had won foot races at Mooney Grove in nearby Visalia, told my father, “He’ll be back.” It was quite a statement, especially since he and I had exchanged only a dozen words or so in the thirty-odd years that we lived in the same area. Yet somehow he thought he knew me well enough to make such a prediction. In his narrow mind, I had abandoned ship, which, in a sense, I had done, though not in the way he thought. Quite simply, he was an Armenian, the son of Old Country refugees who, along with so many like them, had managed to scrape together a living far from home, building a deep feeling of relocated attachment in the process. My father’s parents did the same thing. My father could never have pulled up stakes and moved to Oregon, unless it was a matter of safety for his wife and children. His home was his farm in Dinuba. His life’s work was there, and, quite literally, his blood, sweat, and tears. And though I was well on the way to joining him in that status, I still felt it imperative that we leave. The air was foul. The water, so sweet and wonderful during my childhood, was laden with chemicals and going from bad to worse. Clearly, it was no place to raise our children. So we jumped ship and left. Ironically, in the process, we became refugees. I mean this in the fullest sense of the word. We knew the language, but that was about it. We left home; we left everyone we knew behind; we were complete strangers who knew nothing of our destination save where it was on the map and that it had fresh air, clean water, and cooler weather. We started over. Fortunately, our children, who are now almost completely grown, are doing well in their new home. But in many ways, their parents are still starting over. This is especially true of their father, who has been pushing his horseless cart uphill through the mythical streets of Never Land for the last seventeen years, and who is now bent, haggard, and prematurely aged, and who, in his weary, stubborn delirium mutters insane curses under his breath. Where it leads, I have no idea. I will be the first to admit that I was in just as pathetic mental shape long before we left Dinuba. Still, I miss our three poplar trees, and our pomegranate tree, and our olive, apricot, and fig trees. I miss our barn, our goats, and our chickens, some of which even had names. “He’ll be back.” Did he ever leave? Where is he now? Lost — as usual, as always, as he might well forever remain.
April 18, 2004 — Phase One of my massive Workspace Reclamation Project is now complete. My table is clean, and the stacks of papers and folders have been filed in a new heavy-duty plastic tub with a securely sealing lid — something I should have done years ago. My most recent and ongoing correspondence has been gathered, roughly organized, and put into a cardboard file holder I had on hand, as has all material pertaining to my novel, A Listening Thing. This leaves the books, which I dusted and rearranged in a towering stack to the left of my computer monitor, with their spines facing out so they can be properly admired. I still need to find a small book shelf, though, especially since I bought four more used books yesterday afternoon after my son and I went to the office supply store to get the plastic filing tub. The new titles are: Peer Gynt, by Henrik Ibsen, a nicely illustrated hardbound volume that ran three dollars; The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, by Henry Fielding, another hardbound volume, this one with its own sturdy slipcase, with illustrations by Lawrence Beall Smith; Essays of Michel de Montaigne, selected and illustrated by Salvador Dali; and The Tragedy of King Lear, by some guy named Shakespeare. On the inside cover, one of the book’s former owners made a nice pencil sketch of either Lear or Shakespeare, I can’t tell which. It is a wonderfully depressing drawing, itself worth the dollar I paid for the book. The Montaigne book cost two dollars; the Fielding book was two-fifty. And so for a mere eight-fifty, I can continue searching for answers and clues to my own ignorance, as eloquently revealed by the ignorance of others.
April 19, 2004 — I’m so inspired by having a clean place to work that I can’t work. I was afraid this would happen. Yesterday morning I bought a small book shelf, the kind you assemble yourself. It only took me half an hour of hammering and cursing to put the thing together. But I succeeded without doing any damage. I even followed the directions. It’s nice and sturdy, with an imitation cherry finish. Now all the books that were on my table are on the new shelf. But to make room for the shelf itself, I had to wrestle the shelf I already had, which is much larger and heavier, into a new spot in the corner. Now the shelves come together at an inviting angle, beckoning the reader thither — or is it hither, or yon? Go thither with your zither, or I’ll tell your mither. The good news is, there is still room on the shelf for a few more books. The bad news is, I am probably only a month or two away from running out of space again. After that, I’ll have to go back to stacking them on my table. Or is that really bad news? It’s pleasant to have a clean place to work, but there is something comforting in being surrounded by piles of books. This reminds me of a poem I wrote almost four years ago, called “The Books by My Bed.” It goes like this: 1. The books by my bed / are full of words / I do not comprehend, / yet how I love them, / like people I know / whose hard shells / hide a thousand shades / of complexity, / that once revealed / become rivers of light / and dreams that penetrate / the farthest depths of space. 2. The books by my bed / are full of people / I do not comprehend, / yet how I love them, / like words I know / whose hard shells / hide a thousand shades / of complexity, / that once revealed / become rivers of light / and dreams that penetrate / the farthest depths of space.
April 20, 2004 — In his televised campaign advertisements, he looks you straight in the eye, and with the serious gravity due his stolen office, says, “I’m George W. Bush and I approved this message.” The leading Democratic candidate for president uses the same approach. Well, thanks, boys. I’m glad to know you approved your messages. It brings a new heartfelt dimension to the lies you tell, and the truth you conveniently forget. Speaking of the truth, here’s one the Mighty W could use at the funerals of fallen soldiers: “I’m George W. Bush and I approved your son’s death.” Or here’s one he could beam to Iraq: “I’m George W. Bush and I approved the occupation and destruction of your country.” Or, to those feeling abandoned as they stand in the unemployment line, he could say this: “I’m George W. Bush and I approved the corporate rape of the United States of America and the exportation of your silly little two-bit jobs — suckers.” Anyway. It seems we’ve come along way from “I cannot tell a lie. I chopped down the cherry tree.” Indeed, with the current George, it would have to go like this: “I cannot tell a lie. I logged the holy hell out of the old-growth forest to protect it from fire.” Or this: “I cannot tell a lie — as long as I’m asleep.” Or this: “I cannot tell a lie. Whee-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!” But seriously, folks, I’m William Michaelian, and I approved this message.
April 21, 2004 — I finished reading Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms yesterday evening. I found the sentence structure somewhat annoying, though I got used to it after the first few pages and was able to proceed. Over all, the writing was decent and even shined briefly in spots, but it relied too much on what to me felt like a gimmick of calculated understatement. I think this betrayed the two main characters in the end, mainly because the language didn’t reflect the urgency of their situation. I also think the novel would have been better treated as a short story. But, what do I know? Hemingway was a world famous prize-winning author, and I am a pea-brained hack who publishes himself on the Internet. I will definitely give “Papa” another chance — out of fairness and curiosity, and to show what a magnanimous guy I really am.
April 22, 2004 — The escalation of violence in Iraq comes as no surprise, though the politicians like to pretend it does, and many people in the news business like to play along with them. People don’t like it when another country takes over their own, especially when the aggressor supports and gives a green light to the exact same tactics it claims it wants to bring to an end. Witness Israel. Through their arrogant, evil actions, the U.S. and Israel have made themselves the most hated nations on earth. This is quite a distinction, when you take into account all of the other countries vying for the job. That’s one reason it is nice to see that Spain, Honduras, and the Dominican Republic are withdrawing their troops from Iraq. According to news reports, their combined number is around 2,000 — small potatoes compared to this country’s 135,000, if that or any other figure can be trusted. But that doesn’t make their withdrawal any less right, especially since it was countries like these that the monsters in Washington have been referring to as “allies” and “coalition forces.” Sadly, as long as the U.S. and Israel continue along the present lines, which they surely will, the turmoil in Iraq and the surrounding countries is guaranteed to increase. It is impossible to set something like this into motion and expect otherwise. The millions of people who protested worldwide over a year ago, and who were ignored, knew that. This country’s soldiers are like an infected thorn in the body of Iraq; it is only logical for the body to retaliate and try to expel the thorn. The thorn is deeply embedded and painful to remove, but there are millions and millions of people in and around Iraq, a sufficient number of whom are willing to give their life to be rid of the disease this country represents in their minds. And now, months too soon, there are reports that the war is costing far more than was expected. My, my, another big surprise. And just where is the next round of funds going to come from? Are Bush’s tax-exempt buddies going to step up and pay the bill? And where is the money going now? To death, destruction, and an ever more violent future ruled by hatred and sorrow. Think of it. And think of the food, housing, medicine, and education that kind of money can buy. Knowing this, the president has the gall to stand before the people, his brow arched in mock concern, and say he is fighting for freedom?
April 23, 2004 — Both Shakespeare and Cervantes died on this day in 1616, but Don Quixote, Sancho Panza, and King Lear live on. When a character in a book outlives its author by 388 years, the author must have done something right. He must have understood something of human nature. It’s inspiring to think of the generations that have come and gone in that time, and how they have all held these works, and others like them, in common. And yet it is also true that countless millions of those who have lived and died never so much as heard the names of Shakespeare or Cervantes, though quite a few might have uttered the phrase “tilting at windmills” without knowing it refers to the starry-eyed knight in rust-bucket armor, Don Quixote. But whether they have known or not, I believe they have benefitted. Life without great art, music, and literature would be even more barren and frightening than it sometimes is. It would be like a forest without trees, or the night sky without stars. People who don’t read also don’t realize that their lives have been shaped in great part by the written word. Whole religions have been based upon it, and nations have gone to war over its interpretation. To remain ignorant of it, especially in these times, is to invite suffering on oneself. Literature is not the answer, however, any more than is religion or politics. Literature is a question. Great literature asks. It asks us to listen, to wonder, to pay attention, to look without, and to look within. It asks us to ask. It is our gift to ourselves, given in the hope that we may one day understand in a way that is beyond language, beyond superstition, beyond selfishness and fear.
April 24, 2004 — Yesterday morning our second-oldest son, Lev, rumbled into the driveway in his most recently acquired automobile, a 1987 Lincoln. He was all smiles, because the car is basically a worn-out piece of junk with a bad muffler, though still solid and with a good engine. And of course it’s loaded to the gills. This is the third car he has owned. He sold the first car, a 1985 Oldsmobile, around four months ago, a short time after buying his second car, a 1993 Ford Escort station wagon, which he apparently plans to hang onto, since it’s in good shape and gets him where he wants to go. But he had to have that Lincoln. And since he knows people who know how to fix cars, and who do the work almost for free, he should be safe until something major happens — except, what am I saying? He probably won’t have the thing that long anyway. The kid loves cars, and to buy and sell them, the way my father and his brother did. And since today is my uncle’s birthday, I will mention the time my father watched him tearing down the little road they lived on before the Second World War, in which his brother lost his life, in a souped-up 1932 Chevrolet at sixty miles an hour, when suddenly and without warning, he spun the car around and headed off in the opposite direction. I wish I could have known my uncle. I wish he had not been killed. I wish he wasn’t buried in a military cemetery in Italy. I wish he could have come home and married the girl he loved, and had a family. I wish I could have known my cousins who were never born. I wish I could have known my grandparents before their son had been taken from them, and my father, before his brother had been taken from him. I wish I could make people understand the waste, folly, and ignorance of war. I wish the wishes of those who wish the same thing would somehow rise up and overwhelm the poisonous, ugly wishing of the people who propagate and use war for the short-term profit it brings them, and the long-term profit it brings their descendants.
April 25, 2004 — In one letter to the editor in this morning’s paper, someone took exception to the president’s glib reference to the most recent escalation of violence in Iraq as “a couple of rough weeks.” The letter writer responded by saying, “For all those families who will be burying their young sons and daughters in the coming days, the rough weeks have just begun.” The paper is full of similar letters, and yet for the past few days the front page has been used to trumpet the so-called heroism of a professional football player who was stupid enough to quit football, enlist, and get himself killed in the war. “He gave up all that money to serve his country,” the news people chirp in unison, even though he had already earned enough to keep his family in beans for the rest of their lives. The reason he gave in an interview for going was incredible: his daddy had fought in a war, and other members of his family had fought in a war, and so he figured to be worth anything he had to fight in a war. And now that he is gloriously and stupidly dead, the government says he’s a hero and his picture is in the paper and on every TV news show — when the pictures they should be showing are the forbidden ones of flag-draped caskets lined up and waiting to be shipped home, or the heaps of wounded soldiers, or the thousands of dead and wounded people who made the foolish mistake of being born in Iraq instead of here, under the red, white, and gas-guzzling blue. Think: Who gains in this equation, and who loses? The tiny country of Laos is still picking its way through the millions of pounds of bombs that were rained on it back in the days of Vietnam. Children there have to be taught what to look for and where to walk, and the next several generations are faced with trying to defuse their land. Who made those bombs? Did they produce them for free? Who got the money? Who is it that is always so willing to trade life for cold, hard cash? Who is it that is so willing to destroy a country and the people in it just to get their hands on some oil and strategic real estate? Who are the people who over the years have smirked their way through mock news conferences, telling lie after expedient lie, knowing full well that their actions are the surest guarantee for continued misery and strife? Who are they? Why do so many people pretend not to know? Why do so many people fall for their lies? Why are they willing to go along with it and think a football player is suddenly a hero, when the fact is, his lame kind of thinking is what helps wars come about in the first place?
April 26, 2004 — What a beautiful day. Days like this make me want to write a novel about a novelist who writes a novel about a novelist writing a novel about a novelist who is writing a novel about novelists. As I picture it, the book would go like this: in the beginning, the novelist is inspired by what a beautiful day it is and he cheerfully dives into his work. But by the middle of the afternoon, the weather has changed and a storm is brewing. At first, the novelist, whose bloodstream is full of caffeine, doesn’t notice. Eventually, though, he hits the scotch and the day unravels. It gets worse when he realizes he has already introduced three main characters, and they are all novelists who are writing novels about novelists. Bah, he says, this is what I get for attending the Acme Writers’ Workshop. But he presses on, because his writing “instructors” and “mentors” have promised that if he sticks to their formula, he will be giving readings and signing novels in book stores in no time. And then he has a brilliant idea: one of the novelists in his novel about novelists goes to a book store and quietly starts signing other novelists’ novels. Pretty soon, he has signed every novel in the store, leaving behind him a trail of signed first editions. Then the manager sees him and says, Hey, what are you doing? You can’t go around writing in books. You’ll have to pay for all of them, now, buster, or I’ll call the police. Instead of answering, the novelist kicks the manager and runs out of the store. When the manager finally recovers, he says, Man, these novelists are a pain. That’s the fifth one this week, and it’s only Wednesday. Then he looks outside and notices that a group of about 300 novelists are walking back and forth in front of the store, carrying signs. Unfair to Novelists, the signs proclaim. No More Signed First Editions. Behind the novelists, a crowd of novel-buyers gathers. What’s this? they say to each other. By gum, I’m through buying novels from this store. I’ll go to the store up the street. When the manager hears this — his hearing is very sensitive when it comes to such matters — he rushes outside armed with coupons for free espresso. Here! Here! he cries. When the novel-buyers see this, they create a stampede that scatters the protesting novelists. Coffee! they scream. I want mine! Give it to me now! While they are drinking coffee, the manager ups the price on all the incorrectly signed novels, waves them under the novel-buyers’ noses, and makes a killing. Meanwhile, the novelists go home in defeat, where they begin writing novels about novelists who wring their hands and say, Where, oh where, did I go wrong?
April 27, 2004 — For the gardening record: I planted tomatoes late in the afternoon two days ago. It was seventy-eight degrees. Yesterday it was eighty-three. All twenty of the plants look great. Now, as is typical after we’ve had a little warm weather, a breeze is puffing in from the southwest, bringing cooler ocean air. Today’s temperature will probably be around ten or twelve degrees lower, but the tomatoes won’t mind. For the family record: today is our youngest son’s seventeenth birthday. For the musical record: a few days ago, he and I went to a music store and I bought him a harmonica holder, which is a metal contraption worn around the neck that leaves the hands free to play the guitar. It works. For the household record: I rolled our garbage bin and recycling bin out to the curb yesterday evening so they would be ready for this morning’s pick-up. For the sleep record: I have had very little the past two nights, due to mental distress brought on by futile attempts at thinking. For the business record: today I don’t expect a swarm of publishers, editors, literary agents, and talk show hosts to storm the house and carry me off to New York and take me to the swankiest restaurants and clubs and wave multi-million-dollar contracts under my nose. But I can be ready at a moment’s notice — after I’ve had some more coffee and put on a decent pair of pants and a shirt.
April 28, 2004 — Finally, I got some sleep — and just in time, too, because, as I was telling everyone in the house yesterday evening, I had had an idea earlier in the day about having an idea that I wanted to spend some time thinking about today, and had even written a note on the back of an old business card to remind myself to not only have the idea, but to flesh out the details. Now that I’m rested, I can go ahead with yesterday’s idea and have the idea. But first, I can’t help wondering: if I had not been so tired the last couple of days, would I have had the idea to have the idea in the first place? Possibly so, because I tend to have ideas quite often. But a great many of those ideas quickly vanish, or are so impractical that even I can see they are hopeless and not worth pursuing. What was exciting about yesterday’s idea is that I could sense something very complete hovering just beyond my weary mental reach, and I knew, moreover, that it was something I should have thought of a long time ago. This is where I think being exhausted might have paid off — although, that begs another question: will being rested prevent me from having the idea in its truest, fullest form? I don’t know. Maybe I should put off having the idea at least until later in the day, when I am more tired. On the other hand, I could be pushing my luck. I might already have squandered the idea by talking about it, despite the fact that I haven’t had it yet. But, we shall see. We shall see.
April 29, 2004 — In the blink of an eye, another ten soldiers are dead. Here, meanwhile, we muddle along. The gas prices continue to rise, and are now well in excess of two dollars per gallon. People who still can, pay the price and keep driving. How high they will be willing to go remains to be seen. How many lives they will be willing to spend to maintain this country’s most-wasteful-nation-on-earth status does also. Judging by past performances, the number could go very high. It isn’t just gas. It’s everything. America might easily be known as the Disposable Nation, or the Disposable Society. Enough waste is created in this country to feed and fuel a disgusting portion of the world’s needs. I don’t know what the figures are, or if there even are figures. But I do know what I see, and multiplied several million times over, it amounts to a lot. For many decades we’ve been taught and encouraged to squander; now we think it is our right. And to a great degree, we are trapped by our own lifestyle and technology. We live too far from where we work; we are often too lazy or too physically or mentally exhausted to walk to the corner for a loaf of bread and a gallon of milk, both of which are full of chemicals and impurities; TVs and computers do our thinking for us, as we spend hours slumped before them, our brain waves slowing to meet the lack of demand. This is America. This is the modern world, where poisoned lawns take the place of bountiful gardens, and where pavement comes between our children’s feet and the wonderful earth from which all life springs. Where does the sidewalk end? In a desert several thousand miles away? In the nearest cemetery? Or both?
April 30, 2004 — Yesterday, the president and vice-president of the United States met with the commission charged with investigating the events of September 11, 2001. They told their lies off the record, behind closed doors, and later called the meeting “cordial.” Today, while they snicker and count their money, how many more will die?
March 2003 April 2003 May 2003 June 2003 July 2003 August 2003 September 2003
October 2003 November 2003 December 2003 January 2004 February 2004 March 2004
April 2004 May 2004 June 2004 July 2004 August 2004 September 2004
October 2004 November 2004 December 2004 January 2005 February 2005 March 2005
Also by William Michaelian
POETRY
Winter Poems
ISBN: 978-0-9796599-0-4
52 pages. Paper.
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Another Song I Know
ISBN: 978-0-9796599-1-1
80 pages. Paper.
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Cosmopsis Books
San Francisco
Signed copies available
Main Page
Author’s Note
Background
Notebook
A Listening Thing
Among the Living
No Time to Cut My Hair
One Hand Clapping
Songs and Letters
Collected Poems
Early Short Stories
Armenian Translations
Cosmopsis Print Editions
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Highly Recommended
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