Going to Market

Well, my Puddlers, we've made it to the end of another long week.  The blog will be back in full (and hopefully better) swing next week with plenty of posts.  However, its cold out there tonight so I am going to skip all of my clever little preamble and leave you with the man who knows how to warm all those hard to reach places. No, I'm not talking about Larry Sanders. I am talking about the one, the only, Mr. Mark (Aurelius) Jack!

Take it away, Mark!


The Debt Collectors

Mark Jack

 

Lately I have been thinking mostly of isolation, but not solipsism. Well, maybe a weak solipsism, one that isn't terribly true but is, still, somewhat inevitable, or inevitably felt. Something that makes the you think, “What's the other thing?” or “How's the other thing felt?” or “How's the other felt thing felt?”

Whatever it is, I think it may remind me of my childhood and what a horrible thing that would be, but then we are all old and sentimental in our own ways no matter our age or health or education or country of origin or sexual orientation or sexual disorientation or gender or not or even memory.

Just the other day I was discussing tire swings with a friend and we both paused for a second to be sentimental—sans twinkle in the eye.  It seems childhood memories necessitate an eye twinkle, but one's eyes never twinkle. The problem with my memory is that the tire swing in question was known to me only when I was 'round two years old. My mother doubts the veracity of my memory in this regard. Most other people don't give a shit. Am I simply remembering a picture or perhaps I am merely doubting my mother's memory? Is it possible to say I remember an other's memory? Am I remembering the telling of it or the memory itself?

Well, I don't know, and maybe these considerations lead absolutely nowhere. In fact, I'm almost certain that the lattter is true—at least as long as I have been formulating the questions. The problem, you see, is I've been reading Samuel Beckett, again. Actually, it's not a problem. This time I’m reading Watt. Honestly, I can't get enough of this guy. Watt is perhaps the funniest book I've read by Beckett; some of his plays are humorous as well, for instance, Endgame. There's some good comedy there. The problem for most people reading Beckett, I think, and it was my problem as well, is that one is told about his absurdity maybe or his mastery/distrust of language, maybe, or all number of things that build Beckett up into some unapproachable and maybe unapproachably weird writer. Well, he is certainly strange. Just look at this photo.

Trust me. Watt is a strange book, but is also funny. The one thing Beckett does not fool around with is sentimentality. He is perhaps the least sentimental writer I know. Actually, that's wrong; let me rethink that. Beckett loves to play with sentimentality. What he is not is sentimental. Watt, rather, is a book featuring a man who is so confused by memory's functioning that there is absolutely no possibility of sentiment being arrived at let alone conveyed. Early in the book, Watt, who is a servant in Mr. Knott's house answers the door and finds the Galls, father and son, who are there to tune the piano. The problem with this scene is that it is as Watt tells it to the author, and Watt is not sure about the workings of memory, but only that this incident, with the Galls resembles all the other incidents of note "in the sense that it was not ended, when it was past, but continued to unfold, in Watt's head, beginning to end."

Watt is a strange character "who had not seen a symbol, nor executed an interpretation, since the age of fourteen, or fifteen, and who had lived, miserably it is true, among face values all his life." So Watt, like many of Beckett's characters find fault in their memories and, more so, find difficulty in considering any symbolic interpretation of the events considered. Often, in Beckett's oeuvre, memory is presented to a character through another medium, such as the tapes in Krapp's Last Tape, and in this respect they are somewhat foreign to the character to whom these memories, these recorded memories belong. They are un-changeable and outside, rather than elastic and internal and meaningful. Although for Watt, memory is elastic in that it is merely a collection of surfaces, and his memory of the Gall's "gradually lost, in the nice processes of its light, its sound, its impacts and its rhythm, all meaning, even the most literal." In this way, the memory is something unincorporated and yet transferable, and prone to editing.

What then, is this process of writing? Memoir and the like seem the most suspicious forms if we think in these Beckettian terms, but all writing is suspect in these terms. We rely so much on the meanings we give to our memories. We learn from them in this way, or we tell ourselves that, when we think back and re-imagine some event that we have progressed in someway beyond it—because of it. Why?

There is a strange and beautiful compulsion to understand our memories as metaphor, and in recording our thoughts and our imaginings we set up an economy of meaning, which pays, sometimes, suspiciously. We  are greedy sometimes, extracting whatever dubious self-knowledge we can from that which passes through our minds as the past. This is a curious communication.

Mark

Mark Bar

This was a slightly slow week, My Puddlers, but as December rolls along we will have some more posts up for you.  I am going to be unveiling a few lists in the spirit of the holiday season.  There won't be any annoying "year-end" lists because you'll be able to see those elsewhere.  What you'll get are some original Puddles of Myself styled lists.  Also, there will be one or two new surprise guest columnists to weigh in on whatever is moving their soul at a particular moment.  And, we should have the first posts in the Free Forest City Redemption Project so that you can impress your family members with some country music.

In addition, I want to weigh in on the Miami Heat so far, but I need to really organize myself to do that subject justice - so you sports fans may have to wait a little, or I could get inspired and drink a good glass of scotch one night and blast out a 5,000 word post.  You just never know and that's why you come here.

There is lots to come, so as I like to say, stick with me my Puddlers.

And, because today is Friday, you get to have your world rocked once more by Mr. Mark Jack who will make you think twice about how much you appreciate even the smallest details in the world.  This is a man who's glasses are really magnifying glasses into the soul of an object.  At least that's what the statement is press agent gave me says so I copied it and pasted it on here.  Anyway, here is his column for today, enjoy.

The Importance of Being Incredibly Still

Mark Jack

I have forgotten. No. Wait.

No, I have forgotten. It’s probably for the best, you’ll think to say, but then you don’t. You just stare. I’m just sitting for a moment and it’s not because I’m lazy. It’s…well…I am filled with strange regrets, and I do not know exactly where they lie.

I went for a walk again yesterday, but forgot to sit down. This is not one of my regrets, but it is a shame to overlook the importance of stillness.

I remember, now (and I am always remembering) that I sat once on a bench in the middle of Houston Street. What a strange place for a sit, I thought as I sat. The traffic was strongly present on either side of me, and in a moment threatened to send me spinning counterclockwise. So I guess I faced west as a young man was once told to do. It was nearing dusk, but now as I remember the day it may just have been two in the afternoon.

The bench looked terrible and I felt sort of terrible standing over it.  I looked at the bench where it sat—if a bench can be said to sit— and felt less terrible. When I finall sat on the bench, for a moment the bench seemed the same as me. Still, this was not the sedentary lifestyle I sought. Why did I sit? Why did it sit there?

Earlier—it is earlier now, in my remembering—I was in McGolrick Park, in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, and saw a series of people on benches. There was on average one person to a bench, but sometimes two. None of them would find it likely to be confronted with the attribute youth.

They sat mostly here.

I noticed that none of them were talking. They just sat. And I, being somewhat tired from a bike ride, and enjoying the park immensely, sat too. Also, I thought, vaguely, that if I sat I could better understand their sitting. So, on my way down, as my ass approached those green wood slabs,  I pondered a series of reasons. There must be reason. One does not just sit. Not for nothing does one just sit. I thought, as ass approached, maybe they sit in expectation: of a loved one? of a chance meeting? of a goodly number of birds? Or, maybe, given the average age, they sit and think about the loved one gone, the chance meeting passed, or the arthritis in the bird feeding hand. I was sitting now. I was not speaking. I was not awaiting a thing. I was not bemoaning a thing gone by. My past was not present. My future was not expected. I just sat and wondered what these people sat and did. They didn’t seem to do anything. And then it hit me. Was I not doing the same as them? Possibly? Were we all just sitting there, contemplating why everyone else just sat there?

Maybe.

But then I was still there, my revelation gone and not all that revelatory. It was good. I just sat.

In Samuel Beckett’s first published novel, Murphy, the title character sits. We are introduced to him as fiercely sedentary, secured to his rocking chair, which he never seems to rock. 

“Seven scarves held him in position. Two fastened his shins to the rockers, one his thighs to the seat, two his breast and belly to the back, one his wrists to the strut behind. Only the most local movements were possible.”

Murphy is a character of local movements. He is always seeking the sitting or even the full, prone position. He seems to want to meditate, but Beckett never lets him do it. Somehow, meditation is movement. The stillness of meditation belies the flight of the mind away from the physical stillness. Murphy, on the other hand, is still, physically, which is to make no distinction between this and the mental. Beckett is not a dualist. He does not reduce the mental to the physical either. Murphy, on the other hand, does…at first.  Murphy “sat in his chair this way because it gave him pleasure! First it gave his body pleasure, it appeased his body. Then it set him free in his mind. For it was not until his body was appeased that he could come alive in his mind.”  As the novel progresses, which is not to say that it gets anywhere, Murphy does not mentally travel. He is not free in his mind. He sits still or lies flat and his pleasure in these positions is not the pleasure of his body as opposed to the pleasure of his mind, it is simply pleasure. He thinks the pleasure, then sits, and is pleased. The problems Murphy faces are problems of his dualist conception. He never reduces the mental to the physical. He is not purely a materialist.

Murphy’s attraction to the patients at Magdalen Mental Mercyseat, is not an attraction to their physical stillness or mental flightiness, but to the perfect combination of the two, which unfortunately implies that there is some reconciliation of two processes when in fact it is just the opposite. It is the recognition of their sameness. Murphy, hired as a nurse, quickly becomes enamored of the patients. “Skinner’s was the cockpit of the M.M.M.,” writes Beckett of the place Murphy is assigned, “and here the battle raged most fiercely, whenever it could be engaged, between the psychotic and psychiatric points of view.” Murphy begins quickly to detest the reduction of mental state to physical, distrusting “the complacent scientific conceptualism that made contact with outer reality the index of mental well-being.”

Try as he may, there is no resolving the different dualisms of the psychiatric-psychotic dualism, for Murphy. I think maybe the assumption of duality and conflict is, itself, the problem. I find it incredibly important to think around and within particular mental states, but I hesitate to speak of necessity, to continue to see my physical sitting as begetting mental stimulation, or, more simply, a physical state of any kind as being different from a mental state of any kind. Our terminology, here, is suspect.

I still recommend a good walk, but don’t forget to sit, and in sitting, be pleased, not just rested. Do not oppose sitting to walking. There is no fundamental opposition.

--Mark

Take a Walk in the Mark

Another week has passed, my Puddlers.  What an eventful week its been.  There is still a lot of stuff coming.  On Monday, you will get the NBA podcast I just recorded with Miles Debas and Paul Sicilian and then later in that week you will get another fantastic, long-winded column and music and literature from myself.

In the meantime, you get the man who could only bring you the material that he brings you.  A man you will save you from the banality of your thoughts and expose you to the complexities of the mundane.  There can be only one, Mr. Mark Jack.



On Methods of Disengagement


Mark Jack

There are far too many angles of conversation to be stuck into the rut of just using one or two. It is my belief that we don’t end up speaking a thing when we find ourselves so stuck to one means of conversing.   The same thing seems to hold true for moving in this world. We never end up actually travelling somewhere or reflecting our desire to move, if we continue to make the same turns and circuitous routes. The importance of the unexpected turn of phrase, or foot in this regard, is invaluable. Now, in my head so often—maybe too often—with all my thoughts structured like a conversation that can only go my way, but strangely never does, I’m making a right turn (as I walk) with little thought but to the mechanics of such a move.

And, slipping endlessly amongst these people of the world, I forget that the taxis, with their dorsal fin advertisements, are not strange dinosaurs; I forget that my tongue has been working constantly, all my life, shouting obscenities and philosophies at passersby. None of my endless language has brought me any closer to these people who swirl around, posing a confused current, leaving me with no safe, lee side. Perhaps, as we approach a greater globalization, our languages will consolidate, drenched in technology, perhaps we now experience the birth pangs of a new community. It's too early to tell. It's always too early to tell. We are in a constant state of telling ourselves that it is too early to tell. Language, maybe, is just a tool with which to create histories, thereby allowing us the relief of knowing that someday it will not be too early to tell, and excusing us from making a decision about now, now. Because of this, I am forced to wonder at all these people, squirming around, on foot, or inside those strange mechanical dinosaurs.

Yet, now here I am, suddenly, having been walking this whole thought through, on Gerry Street, walking north towards Broadway. There is not a soul around me but cat souls and rat souls I imagine. There is an overgrown, fenced-in lot half way down the block, which for all the surrounding attempts at destitution and all the assertions of halted construction, is beautifully insect and bird song filled, like some strange misplaced slice of nature loudly asserting its development of unfocused identity. The street is somewhat unnerving in its ugliness, though. On one trip down the short block or two that is the entire street, I was forced into the middle of the pockmarked road by an inexplicably huge, sidewalk-sitting pile of garbage, astir with the strange forces of putrefaction. The next day it was gone. This may not seem surprising, but this is not a street that speaks of diligence, but rather negligence, as in, where was the trash-responsible party on such a destitute un-lived on street? This kind of occurrence - a set of antagonizing forces harmonizing unexpectedly - is exactly why I have enjoyed this street. The fault in my antagonizing the forms that feed me, what my misplaced vehemence is missing is simple: it is this mysterious element of harmony.  Simple disengagement is not enough, ever. One must constantly re-engage with the words that seem so dead and over-used and re-assert their potentiality, lifting them into sentences that are like foreign land - using those words to reach some insight where previously there could be none.

I invariably think of Beckett, and his trio of novels, Molly, Malone Dies, and The Unnamable, especially, in this regard. They are brilliant, but people more talented than I have said enough, and I am also reminded of a contemporary author and his bewildering use of language, Gary Lutz. I saw the man recently at a reading and discussion thing at the Center for Fiction, an obvious and overly busted old building up in the Diamond District.

It was one of the more awkward panels I’ve seen, and brilliant, particularly on the parts of Gary Lutz and John Haskell, the latter an author I was not aware of but with whom I intend to become familiar. Christine Schutt, also fantastic, was also there but mostly hid behind a nervously brooding Ben Marcus.

Gary Lutz is a sentence writer, and his stories are often vastly un-storied, but minutely communicative. By this I do not mean that he communicates only small things or in a small way, but, I mean to say, he is precise, and yet, somehow not. He has an almost prohibitive—to a reader’s understanding—understanding of English grammar and employs his understanding in the most unlooked for ways to approach a subject and/or object. His descriptions do not rely on average cues, visual or otherwise, instead opting for the unexpected modifier, writing things like, “My sisters turned out to be women who wore their hair speculatively, lavishing it forward into swells… ” I don’t think anyone is lost as to the hairstyle discussed here, and what I find exciting about Lutz’s use of “speculatively,” for instance, is that he is able to describe his sisters via a hairstyle but without necessarily only invoking what the reader will generally understand by such a styled character. That is, the narrator’s sisters are not simply characterized by having hair, lavished “forward into swells,” which speaks a great deal to the kind of people they are, but they are also people who style themselves not simply in a manner, but in a mood also. “Speculatively” modifies the way in which they wear their hair but seems to seep into a description of the hairstyle itself as well. Lutz is almost disorienting, and after reading him I find myself paying attention to language so closely, almost as if it were not my own anymore.  I pay attention to the language and it becomes something new; an object once familiar not taken for granted. Almost as though I were suddenly looking at my own hand with all the wonder that such a complex device completely at my disposal should almost always incite. Maybe a Lutz fiction and an unplanned walk a day is perfect medicine for that old conformity concern.

Gary Lutz has written a few collections of stories and I recommend them all, but the one I have in my lap as I write this is a small, “zine-like” one called Partial List of People to Bleach and as I wrote this post and thought of Lutz, I opened this little chapbook and found, “I kept waiting for someone to say something in a language that wasn’t shot.”

-Mark