A Legendary House in Harlem

Nessa could not avoid walking through The Projects to get to the more affluent Striver’s Row neighborhood. She was heading home after an evening of rogue jazz mixed with oddball stand-up comedy at a local underground club. She didn’t fear getting mugged because she wasn’t carrying a purse. She was carrying, however—a baby. Already forty weeks along in the pregnancy, Nessa’s belly could crowd up a two-bedroom apartment in Manhattan. Now, as she walked past unremarkable buildings on Frederick Douglas Boulevard, Nessa feared any kind of assault less than she feared giving birth right there upon the mucky concrete. She already was feeling the early stages of labor and had laughed enough that evening to know that the child must be on its way, for she had read somewhere that laughter helps to speed child labor along.

At the corner of 134th Street she spotted Tony, the premier chef from Londel’s Soul Food Restaurant. He’s known for making soul food that could save any doggone soul; he was also known as a funny street poet. Nessa was ever grateful that early in her pregnancy Tony had shared his recipes for fried chicken and okra with her because her gravings could get pretty severe. About twenty weeks along, she ate one evening at Londel’s and ordered practically every dish on the menu. Then she had bared her teeth, ripped meat off bones; sniveled, shoveled, salivated, and snarled while she masticated. She was a starved jungle beast. Though it was difficult to embarrass Tony Jackson, Neesa’s manners were too much for Tony’s dining room, and when he knew she was pregnant and planned to dine at Londel’s often, as she lived only four blocks away, Tony decided to reveal his secret recipes so she could make them, and more importantly eat them, in her own home.

On this Spring evening, Tony was walking a pink dog. Pink! Why…how? A pink miniature poodle, or some cute and cuddly breed like that. Tony explained to Nessa that his dog was going to star in a YouTube clip about a day in the life of a True Style Dog. Nessa apologized that she could not bend to pet the wagging celebrity. Tony nodded at her bump and said he understood. Before Tony and his pink poodle let Nessa on her way, Tony thrust a book into Nessa’s hands. A book?

Tony said, “If you’re going to be white and live in Harlem, you had better read this…” She studied the cover of the book. It was by Wallace Thurman, entitled Infants of the Spring. Nessa looked at Tony, quizzical. She cocked a brow. She shrugged. Tony also added that if she knew her Black History, Nessa must know that she lived at an address that was famous during the Harlem Renaissance.

“Sure, I’ve seen tourists taking pictures of our place. The landlord lords it over everyone…the history of the address, I mean. And my neighbors throw parties these days that wake the dead. We’re talking NEO-renaissance, pal. We’re talking Zora Neal Hurston’s ghost doing the Charleston inside our plumbing.” Nessa boasted.

Then she rubbed her belly. “I’ll probably give birth tonight in the very place where Langston Hughes composed all that poetry. I’ll read the book, thanks, Tony.”

The two started in opposite directions then Nessa turned and was walking backwards. “Hey Tony, I couldn’t help but notice that your dog is pink. How does he feel about fitting into the Harlem color scheme?”

Without turning around, Tony shouted, “His bark is worse than his dark, lady. Ha! His bark is worse than his dark!”

Nessa returned home to 267 West 136th Street. To get her mind off labor pains, she read Thurman’s novel. She read about a Danish guy who moved into Niggeratti Manor during the early part of the Harlem Renaissance. She met bizarre personalities, such as Raymond and Paul, who all seemed to represent some element of cultural life: the singer, the writer, the poet, the painter: erotica enthusiasts, all. She enjoyed the part about the wild donation party they threw. She got to the part about the salon gathering when they all discussed Negro art and their plans to make black contributions to American culture. After that, Nessa had to put the book down because the labot pains were too intense and she felt the need to push.

She called her husband who was working late, again, at The Firm. He said he’d be home as soon as he finished just this one last 1100-page brief.

Next, Nessa called her midwife who said she was on her way. She had to travel from Brooklyn all the way to Harlem. Nessa clenched her teeth and hoped she’d arrive in time.

Nessa mixed herself a drink—a highball—gin and ginger ale in memory of the poison preferred by the bohemian personalities of Thurman’s Niggeratti Manor. The laboring mommy-to-be climbed into a warm tub and raised the glass to her Belly. “To nativity!” She knocked back her drink.

While gin worked its magic, Nessa surrendered her body to The Supreme Ache. Soon her mind started tripping on love hormones.

Nessa thought back to her former African doctor friend, a guy whom her husband always complained had only wanted to get into Nessa’s pants. Well, as usual, her husband had been right and Nessa’s friend had managed to do precisely that around the same time Nessa and her husband were working to get pregnant. Bam! Nessa got knocked up and suffered through an entire pregnancy accompanied by the nagging pain of paternal ambiguity. Humiliated, she shared this trouble with no one.

Soon after the third highball and a lot of otherworldly groaning, Nessa delivered a healthy girl in her bathtub. She cleaned the child, chewed off the umbilical chord and threw the afterbirth out the window to the starved stray that was always prowling around the trash.

“That wasn’t so bad.” She said to soothe herself and the nursing newborn as she hobbled to the king-size nest she prepared on the bed. The baby suckled while Nessa waited for the midwife and her husband. So, she opened Thurman’s novel and read to the end. The book has everything in it: gin, rape, laughter, suicide, abortion, poetry, all shades of carousing. It’s not recommended reading for new mothers, but then Nessa is not your typical new mother. Just as she closed the book and put it on the night table, The Mister and the midwife arrived.

Alfie’s face glowed with pride and relief when he saw his wife and daughter safe and cozy in bed. He didn’t notice anything untoward about the child until months later. He casually asked, “Does her skin look sort of dark to you?” Nessa, examined the child with feigned surprise; then she shrugged and pouted in that way that Alfie found so sexy. Nessa said, “Well, Alfred, we do live in Harlem, after all...must be something in the water."

California Route 163

“Observe perpetually.” These words echo through Sterling’s mind as she drives downtown on Historic Route 163. They are the words Hank repeated at the writers’ workshop. After another week and another twenty pages written, Sterling is heading back to the artist’s loft on 13th Street for a read and critique session. While driving, she grows frustrated. What can she possibly observe that is of enough interest to write down? The world passes at such speed. Hotel Circle. Old Town. Friars Road. University Avenue. There must be trillions of details she cannot observe, can only imagine: the woman reading a secret memo in the lobby of the Travel Lodge, the man bending over to pick up a wallet he finds in a saloon, the security guard at Bed, Bath, and Beyond scratching his balls when no one is looking, the men kissing in the “ladies” room at The Alibi; and these are only the surface details. Ah, what Sterling could do if she could actually observe these details and then probe the interior of each moment, each life, to get to the psychological mystery of the minutiae. Then she feels like she may be able to write, to put pen to paper and push upon something profound.

But she spends most of her time behind the wheel. When she is not writing, she’s driving a cab. And life presents little more to her than perpetual signs, perpetual signals, perpetual lanes, perpetual windows, perpetual lots, perpetual shocks of trees and buildings and seaside that may be empty for all Sterling knows of the life in them. There is no psychology. Only blink, blink. A pot hole. Some jerk merges. A car spins out of control and seems to head straight for Sterling’s face. She screams and sees red for a moment. Then more crashes and a weird thud heard around the world. When Sterling was scratching her head over what the hell there is in this world of interest to observe, she should have been observing her speed, or the “two-second” rule, or any warning signals from the other lousy drivers. But how could she have observed that the six-car pile up on this rainy day was caused by a man in an old Dodge Magnum, a guy named Fats Cajon who was listening to Jazz 88 and attempting a circle of fifths, T. Monk style, on his dashboard while using his knees for the steering wheel. He had been imagining jamming the solo when he swerved. Then he overcorrected. Six cars involved were all following one another too closely. Not only is Sterling a careless observer of the details of the road, but she also lacks an informed historical consciousness. Little does she know that in the very place where her car slammed into the wall of the Cabrillo Bridge is where there used to be a man-made lagoon into which seventeen people threw themselves to their deaths in the early 1930s. At the time, the locals called this method of suicide “the leap into eternity.” When Sterling crawls out of her mangled cab with minor bruises and bumps and checks in with the other victims of the crash and the cops and gets the story of Fats Cajon’s carelessness, she feels sorry for the guy. Then the police officer writing the accident report introduces Sterling Smith to Fats Cajon, right there on the side of the road amidst barricades, flashing lights, and crawling traffic. When Sterling meets Fats face-to-face, she sees eternity in the Jazzman’s eyes. She feels an urge to leap.

I-5 South

They feel zoom in their skulls and through their bones. Sunday afternoon. Coast and freeway. Zona Mona on the stereo. The surf, a symphony against rocks; waves play the dangerous cliffs then curl up and calm in the coves. A girl named Calafia and her mother head south on I-5 in their convertible Ejacula, a sports car that runs on pure sex juice. They’ll get a fistful for making Calafia’s father wait. He’s counting the nickels and dimes wasted, but let him count for the rest of his life. Mother and daughter could care less. The migrating season for whales is coming to an end, and these women agree it’s a great time to skip town—the border is just too damn close to this city, too close to this sly wife and her fragrant daughter. Illicit destinations call to Calafia and her mother. And their vehicle is so fast and fuel-efficient. They can make it to their Mexican lover before sundown, though neither will ever admit to the other the physical liberties they have allowed good old “Uncle” Zorro. Still, the two are convinced they’ll find freedom.

A year later, Calafia heads north herself. When the Ejacula gets a flat in Tijuana, a friendly Mister Fix-it gives her a hand, so she offers him her trunk. Though it’s tight, he accepts. Distracted, she forgets her stowaway, and Calafia keeps driving all the way to Canada.

Thinking Through Intercourse

In May 2007, I posted a piece inspired by Robert Olen Butler's Severance. Here's the link to my entry Voices of the Beheaded

Now I've read his latest Intercourse, published by Chronicle Books in 2008. I am so pleased that his work continues to inspire me.

Today I post a short piece of intercourse that is my own imagination engaged in a little Olen Butleresque playfulness, spinning a flash piece that is a complete knock-off of the award-winning writer's ideas. Cheers to R.O.B. He's given us another juicy collection. Before reading Intercourse, I wondered if he could pull it off what he did with Severance. He does. For those of us who tend to get a bit lazy and say things like, "there are no words to describe...", Robert Olen Butler finds the words. He gives us all of the threads of words that are going through a person's head during such moments of heightened emotion such as losing one's head or enjoying orgasmic sex. His collection of stories in Intercourse spans history and reveals what is going through lovers' heads during the act, a decent collection of all things indecent. It's a joy to read.
Here's my addition, two lovers I've chosen to explore in the way Robert Olen Butler does.

The Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe 300 and some years old
Old Father Gander 300 and some years old

The Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe
Please come in--watch your step around Buzzy's skates, Clara's headless horsemen, and Davy's X Box--I've warned them about tidying up I've given them broth without any bread I've punished them, pet them, and put them to bed You go on and lie upon that Sponge Bob sleeping bag I've spread over the carpet because I'd hate to have to remove our stains but you can remove your own square pants (I hope) and You can relieve me and fill me fill my gaping womb satisfy my desire for more and more children I have an insatiable urge to multiply to give birth to go through these exhausting motions again and again and again my pussy ripped open again and again to push forth new life because I want and want and want to die and let live to rip and let live to give and let live. It is not your seed or more children I want but without an infant to suckle my milkfull moonboobs and a feeding schedule orbiting my body I am a lonely planet; even if They want to put my picture on the cover of Good Shoekeeping and they have they recently interviewed me regarding my steel-toe approach to discipline and my straight lace approach to teaching my infants to read The twins, Mitch and Max, are already through War and Peace, and they're only 24 months old! And they say I don't know what to do. Hah! I know what to do with you I can fit your square pants in my round hole because I am older than Methuselah and menopause means nothing to me

Father Gander
The old nursery rhyme never mentioned me by name, but I'm the one I'm taking credit and responsibility I've spilled seed and can keep spilling Who do you think pays for the mortgage on the shoe Whose investment banker brother got us out of a pinch when we nearly defaulted on the loans because the twins needed reading glasses and Bessie needed braces Rico needed his own wheels and Guy needed golf clubs? The guys at the office wonder how I even find the time to embrace with these late-night hours I pull They don't seem to understand what a no-nonsense organized woman you are They don't seem to understand that your prayers to the Divine Mother are always answered and your ovaries have an endless supply of eggs My colleague, Father Christmas, has been trying to get his old lady pregnant for centuries They've even tried the high octane fertility clinic--those classy health care cafes that are popping up on every corner like Starbucks these days But he kept shooting blanks and then she started giving birth not to children but to elves. I love every one of our wee ones and I intend to send them all to college too because I intend to make one thousand dollars for every last sperm I spill to honor every last tiny one, even if the poor fellow never had a chance to penetrate The Egg

Book Review of I Was Wrong: The Meanings of Apologies by Nick Smith

Alfred Kinsey’s work elevated the conversation about sex. Timothy Leary’s work elevated the conversation about drugs. Now, Nick Smith gives us his thorough study of apologies, a work that promises to elevate the conversation about what it means to say “I’m sorry.”

I Was Wrong: The Meanings of Apologies exposes how contemporary gestures of contrition demand our critical attention. Smith, who teaches Philosophy at the University of New Hampshire, examines the significance of various forms of regret. From collective apologies for the holocaust to a pet owner’s apology for forgetting to fill his dog’s bowl, all remorse receives scrutiny. Smith writes with the learning and patience of a benevolent professor. His message persuades a reader that today’s public and private apologies are playing fast and loose with morality.

Smith wants to move the conversation beyond what he regards as the juvenile exchange of “I’m sorry.” “No you’re not.” His book challenges readers to consider the moral force, or lack thereof, behind any act of contrition. His purpose is to guide a reader through an exercise that assures her moral sensibility will grow more sophisticated upon confronting the meanings of apologies. Smith leads us on a journey through a quagmire of questions. For example, who--precisely--is responsible for the 2006 Abu Ghraib torture scandal, and what would be the most suitable redress to those who were injured?

I realized the full urgency of Smith’s work when considering blame, redress, and emotions. Smith illuminates the contemporary practice of blaming corporations for wrongs when culpability lies with individuals and their complex social associations. Blaming an automobile manufacturer for a death caused by an SUV that rolled over, or blaming a television network for one commentator’s sexist comments, appear to be comparable to X throwing a rock that injures Y and Y asking the rock to apologize? Corporations, like rocks, cannot be held morally accountable for injuring someone. Can throwing money at the loss of human life or dignity restore moral decency? These are some more issues that Smith’s work helps us approach with clearer thinking.

I Was Wrong also gives a reader a fresh perspective from which to read the newspaper. All the lip service people pay to newsworthy remorse reveals a glaring shortcoming—most apologies fail to address moral culpability. For instance, a recent article in the San Diego Union-Tribune reported the misdemeanor of a City council candidate John Hartley. Two women complained Hartley was masturbating and urinating into a cup inside his truck while parked in front of their house. The paper reported “an apologetic mailer [in which] Hartley admitted he had to ‘take a leak’ but denied he was masturbating.” Hartley’s apology rivals an excuse a potty trainee might give when nature calls. The news article simply relates that Hartley said the voters will decide whether or not they accept his apology. Beyond the question of whether the apology will be accepted, Smith’s work encourages one to wonder to what degree the candidate’s apology contributed to the dropping of an indecent-exposure charge.

Another example from the local news here was a story about Chinese Americans rallying outside CNN’s Hollywood office to demand the firing of Jack Cafferty for calling China’s goods “junk” and its leaders “a bunch of goons and thugs.” The article reports how China “snubbed an apology from CNN over the remarks, which Cafferty said were in reference to China’s government, not its people.” This snubbed apology raises all kinds of problematic issues discussed in Smith’s book. First, for CNN to apologize for remarks made by one commentator raises questions about whether a collective can or should apologize for one person’s remarks. In this situation, CNN’s apology looks that much more suspicious when Cafferty further tries to justify the target of his comments. This is a clear case in which an apology is only making matters worse.

Anyone who has a moral debt to pay, or is owed a moral reckoning will want to read this book and embrace its wisdom. As Smith suggests, the work of a satisfying apology for many injuries and injustices in the world could take lifetimes to fulfill. Those committed to moral justice will want to begin this tremendous work with I Was Wrong.

LMP

For the past eight months, Leslie Strange has been cowed by this acronym: “LMP.”

First of all, Ms. Strange despises acronyms; to her, they are like Dixie cups or swizzle sticks, things once intended to be useful but eventually inadequacy renders them kitschy. She doesn’t think it’s cute the way the newspapers refer to an institution as NATO or the UN. Why not just write out the whole stinking phrase to avoid confusion? NATO could stand for “North Atlantic Treaty Organization” or “National Association of Theater Owners” or the name of that Queen album “Night at the Opera.” Likewise, UN might stand for “United Nations” or “User Name” or “Uranium Nitride.” Acronyms and abbreviations might seem convenient and cute, but they can cause confusion, especially if a reader only gives the content a cursory eyeball. Considered in this way, acronyms reveal themselves as unstable little beings that might be diagnosed as Bipolar or Schizophrenic if they were to pay a visit to Doctor Dictionary.

Leslie Strange cringes when she reads LMP.

To Ms. Strange, this acronym stands for both “Literary Market Place” and “Last Menstrual Period.”

Ms. Strange is a struggling writer who also happens to be eight months pregnant. When she fills out medical forms, the box asks “Date of LMP?” She assumes the doctors want to know when she had her last menstrual period, not the date of the latest rejection she received from the Literary Market Place.

But as Ms. Strange’s pregnancy nears its final stages, well-intentioned women, who like to offer advice, warn her about PREGNANT BRAIN. “Pregnant brain,” referred to by some as PB, is a mythological condition in which the pregnant woman is supposed to experience some sort of clumsiness in her intellect; she loses her normal mental focus and turns into a veritable dumb dumb. That hasn’t happened to Leslie quite yet. But supposing it may happen, Leslie Strange is likely to get confused about the meaning of “LMP.” Perhaps she’ll start to worry that the Literary Market Place has ceased altogether on that fateful day in March when she ceased needing a tampon. She’ll assume there’s no use writing another word or trying to get published because her pregnancy is the equivalent of the financial industry’s Black Tuesday market crash. She thinks about this prospect with some narrative distance: "The writer Leslie Strange’s menstrual cycle is on hiatus; consequently, the Literary Market Place experiences a Great Depression." Now, Leslie thinks, that’s not a bad beginning for a wild-minded story.

The Ethical Drinking Game

Doctor Viagrossi and Senator Novote are two men who have built reputable careers that make their mothers proud, but they turn to Drink if they cannot resolve all the ethical dilemmas that arise in Medicine and Law.

Now, these two high-strung brothers-in-law are eating dinner at a local pub in Hell’s Kitchen while their wives are at The Ballet and the kids are with The Sitter. The men engage in one of their favorite drinking games: they have a talk about some work-related issue that arose that day, and for every ethical dilemma they face and fail to overcome, they agree to take one sip of drink.

“Darkface, my sly man at the Justice Department, told me all about the simulated drowning, head-slapping, and frozen temperatures, but I’ll be damned if I’m taking what I know to the press.” Senator Novote turns the tumbler around on a coaster. “I’m sticking to the official line: the US does not endorse torture.” The good Senator sips his Scotch.

“Today, I refused to sign medical exemptions for parents who felt religiously and philosophically opposed to vaccinating their children. You know, the US is the only country in the world that does not allow parents an informed choice in the matter of how and when to vaccinate their children? Parents have no choice about which vaccinations to give children and which not to give? Still, I am loath to break the law and sign risky medical exemptions. What about my reputation?” The good doctor sips his beer.

“Torture is one thing, and vaccination a completely different thing all together. Mandating certain vaccines before a child can enter school does not qualify as torture.” The Senator thinks the Doctor’s dilemma does not qualify as ethically volatile. “Of course kids need vaccines.”

“There’s no scientific proof they work. It’s all a ruse cooked up by the medical profession and the pharmaceutical industry. Parents are coerced into vaccinating their children!”

“So. That’s not torture!”

“Perhaps not. But how do you know that the ingredients in certain vaccines are not torturing your child’s immune system or neurological development in the same way a detainee is tortured through waterboarding at the prison in Guantanamo?” The Senator is not sure he understands the Doctor’s analogy, but the Doctor continues growing more passionate, “…vaccines are administered recklessly and have adverse effects that we may not be aware of.”

“What kind of recklessness and adverse effects are you talking about?”

“For instance, the state of New York requires newborn babes to receive the vaccination for Hepatitis B.”

“Well? There must be some scientifically sound reason for it.”

“Nope. Think of this. How does a person acquire the Hepatitis B virus?”

“It’s transmitted through blood…?”

“Here’s how a person gets the Hepatitis B virus: Intravenous drug use. Tattooing. Sex with someone who is infected. Contact with blood of someone who has the virus, particularly among health care professionals.”

“Hmm. Yeah? So?”

“When Tessa and Sylvester were newborns, did they engage in any of those activities?”

“Hah! I see your point.”

“You know the ingredients in the Hepatitis B vaccination?”

“Can’t say I do.”

“Aluminum hydroxide, Thimerosal, yeast. And according to a 2006 physicians desk reference of studies compiled by a former FDA investigator, the ingredient Thimerosal is a ‘recognized developmental toxicant.’ You should see what it does to lab animals.”

“What?”

“Makes them have small brains and small penises.”

“This is just a load of alarmist crock.” The Senator wants to win this drinking game, but he feels himself on shaky ground. How can he top complicity in the epidemic of shrinking heads and dicks? “Capitalizing on the public’s fear of terror and authorizing secret torture is more worrisome than whatever little damage some chemicals might do to a kid. People are living longer than ever these days. It does no harm to require immunization for school children. It’s the law. Not signing those exemptions, you were just biding by The Law. The Bush administration is acting as though it is above the law.” He knocks back the last drops of his Scotch and waves to the barmaid. Another round.

“Alarmist crock? Well, if terrorists don’t get us first then the next generation of leaders may be autistic, asthmatic, allergic, and ADHD. Future presidential candidates will campaign on issues of whose neurological development is most stunted. Hey, maybe we’ll find a way to turn it into sport.”

When the waitress comes, the doctor orders something much stronger: Vodka, neat. He has a strong feeling he will be out-drinking his brother-in-law tonight.

Fine. Don't Bring Them Home.

Agent Winks has been spying on the Revolutionary Guard Corps facilities in Tehran. Today he is called to report to his Superior Officer about the level of threat Iran poses to the US. The Superior Officer would never doubt Agent Winks’ credibility on the matter because he’s the Officer who promoted Winks after this good-ol’ Brooklyn-boy sniffed out the hiding places of a group of cave-dwelling extremists who hinted at their terrorist orientation in Afghanistan.

The Superior Officer would never expect Winks to disappoint him. But today, Winks reported that the Tehran facilities pose little more than a “wee threat.” The only thing Winks had discovered was an underground arcade where members of the Corps were engrossed in a video game that simulates an attempt to rescue two Iranian nuclear experts kidnapped by the US. The Superior Officer screwed up his face into a scowl and commanded that Winks think carefully over the wording of his report. The word “wee” was misspelled, the Superior Officer explained, and it should be spelled i-m-m-i-n-e-n-t. And, the Superior Officer gave Winks his most patronizing glare and asked him if he didn’t know that the phrase “nuclear experts” was code for “terror cell” and “video game” code for “death to America.” The Officer asked if Winks was trying to get himself dishonorably discharged. Winks hung his head and said nothing. He'd nearly gotten himself killed gathering what he thought was near-useless intelligence.

That night, Winks, who was in the throes of considering what an awful bad day he’d had, received a letter from his young and gorgeous wife, Julia, whom he had impregnated just before being deployed. Her letter was a rambling account of how she had just joined the New Mom and Pop Strollercize Workout Group in Prospect Park. The mission of this group was to “prepare parents to push”—a far cry from Winks mission abroad, the young agent thought with sadness. Julia’s letter went on to give him a running account of all the “baby loot” she had acquired from the shower and how now she was rearranging the furniture. There was just enough room for the Baby Schwarzenegger Playgym to fit their one-bedroom, so now “it’s looking like a wee Kiddie Land ‘round here,” Julia wrote.

Winks concentrated on the word “wee,” a word Julia was fond of using in her letters to him: I’m blowing you “wee” kisses, my darling. I’m more than a “wee” bit in love with you, Beef Cheeks! Can’t wait for your return, so we can be together with the “Wee” One as we push through a Strollercize workout.

After all Thomas Winks has been through, he had to admit to himself that he did not know how he would ever again be able to readjust to life back in US if this war should ever come to an end. No. Please. Let the fighting continue indefinitely as it has become such a comfortable habit. After all, what sane person could ever reconcile Iranian video games and US military anxiety with baby playgyms and Strollercize outings in Brooklyn?

In No Mood for Mahmoud

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, president of Iran, appeared at Columbia University in New York today. The whole city buzzed with various reactions to this event.

Some nodded approval: a civilized and free society should allow even the most despicable views to be expressed; it’s up to each individual if he so chooses to lend an ear. Others got their panties in a bunch: how dare a respectable American university give the floor to the leader of a nation that is known to harbor terrorists!

Columbia students and elected officials held a rally to protest the event. I attended Columbia from 2000-2002. During that time, I recall only one professor ever expressing his surprise that Columbia students at that time did not protest the results of the 2000 election or the Bush v. Gore Supreme Court decision. At that volatile time, not a hint of vibrant nor even visible political activity existed on campus.

Why now? Why this?

This morning, WNYC’s “Brian Lehrer Show” featured a discussion about Mahmoud’s Columbia visit. One part of the talk focused on academic institutions as places to exchange ideas, and radio talk show guests expressed their concern that by having Mahmoud speak at Columbia, the institution was tolerating his ideas. Columbia’s president Bollinger defended the decision, proclaimed it a reasonable gesture in an open society that extols the virtues of free speech. The talk radio guests didn’t buy this argument. The whole discussion made me wonder why Columbia’s President Bollinger is challenged with such passion by the community and today’s students? Why no news of students taking equally passionate grievances to President Bush that denounce his continuing campaign to destroy the U.S. with thoughtless foreign policies that show no regard for the possibility of civil dialogue? It would seem that Bush’s “might is right” approach to foreign policy threatens the core existence of Columbia’s School for International and Public Affairs. What distorted legacy runs through the veins of that university that allows students and the press to give voice and go nuts over certain objections and not others? The vigor that this event stirs seems to reveal a host of misplaced attention and energies, the symptoms that we are one hell-of-a distracted and deluded nation.

I wasn’t surprised by Hillary Clinton’s claim that if she were president of Columbia, she would not invite Mahmoud to speak. But her original vote to go to war with Iraq shows that when she’s in office she will not be able to come up with an effective diplomatic approach to the problem of Iran. A vote for her would be equivalent to voting for “More Of The Same” for the future. Is she eager to occupy Iran, too? How will she confront this enemy and encourage it not to pursue nuclear weapons when her approach is likely to be no less reliant on brute force? Unfortunately, Hillary comes off as showing no reverence for conflicted discussion in the academic arena; hence, this Flash Fiction blogger is loath to endorse her.

Hillary is a bit off subject, so back to Mahmoud: I would argue that after the bloodbath of these past six years, I am a tiny bit relieved at Columbia’s bold gesture: someone out there is attempting the Talking and Listening approach. Cynics won’t think it’ll work, but encouraging the dialogue approach must survive somehow!

WNYC’s “Brian Lehrer Show” invited listeners to call in with a question they’d ask Mahmoud if they could attend the talk at Columbia. One listener suggested this: it’d be even better if Mahmoud were questioned by an excellent trial lawyer rather than fielding questions from heads-in-the-clouds academics. According to the caller, a trial lawyer has the skill to use the art of questioning to make the interviewee look bad.

I’m not a trial lawyer, but in that spirit I did try to think of a question that might reveal Mahmoud as a crackpot-clumsy-drip of a leader. Here’s my question:

What useful end does Mahmoud’s “death to America” campaign serve his own economically poor people in Iran? Is this campaign misplacing his energies and effectiveness as a leader and distracting and deluding his people?

I realized through my own question and those of all the callers to the radio program that questions have a similar reflective quality as the surface of a mirror. All questions revealed as much about “Us” and about “Them.”

Review of Tinling Choong's novel FireWife: A Story of Fire and Water, Nan A. Talese / Doubleday, 2007, $21.00, 206 pages.

Tinling Choong's debut novel tells the story of a woman named Nin who lives as a dutiful daughter and wife. Beneath her respectful demeanor, Nin copes with an overwhelming feeling of guilt: she holds herself responsible for the drowning of her younger sister, who fell into a tapioca mud well while the girls played an innocent game as children.

Now, Nin is a grown woman who holds a high corporate position and lives with her loving husband in California. But the death of her younger sister still haunts her, making Nin restless in her cookie-cutter life. She yearns to travel, and resolves to document the lives of unnoticed women and women involved in the sordid sex industry around the world.

This past April, Tinling Choong told a crowd at a PEN-sponsored New York Public library event that her idea for writing the novel came from a photograph she saw of a woman in Japan who was lying naked and being used as a table in a sushi restaurant. Men ate delicacies off the woman’s bare flesh. This photograph affected Choong, and that night she started writing. This writing blossomed into her main character Nin—a guilt-ridden, fledgling photographer who travels to Taipei, Bangkok, Tokyo, Singapore, Amsterdam, and New York. In each city, Nin encounters women who endure some form of degradation, whether it is commercial exploitation or prostitution. Through these encounters, Nin comes closer to the essence of her dilemma, which turns out to be one of mythic proportions. She grows ever more determined to learn the truth about women.

The novel is structured with Nin’s story framed by a death—that of a woman named Lakshmi in India who was burned on a pyre as a sacrificial wife—and a “prologue misplaced”—a creation myth about Nuwa who cracked open the egg at the start of time and bonded eight women to one another for eternity. Though in the present-day story with Nin and the photographed women, the eight incarnations of these ancient women only encounter each other for the instant it takes to shoot a photograph, through these encounters they are restoring the balance of fire and water that sets women free.

Tinling Choong’s novel is written in English, but it celebrates qualities of the Chinese language, revealing Choong as an accomplished “threshold writer.” For instance, happiness is described as “pinkpink” and a woman’s devotion is described as her “forgetting-own-stomach type of giving.” These phrases echo the way descriptive phrases are used in Chinese. This fresh and poetic use of the English language fills Choong’s first novel with lyrical prose that makes it a purely satisfying read. Please visit Choong’s website for more details about this author and her novel.

Jihad: The Musical; the show must go on

In Mark Twain’s Notebook, he once wrote, “American[s]...are irreverent toward pretty much everything, but where they laugh one good king to death, they laugh a thousand cruel and infamous shams and superstitions into the grave, and the account is squared. Irreverence is the champion of liberty and its only sure defense.”

It’s been six years, 10 months, and 19 days since the tragic events of 9/11. Finally, I have heard of the first and only authentically American comeback to that terrifying blow, and this properly irreverent response to the tragedy was not even created solely by Americans, but by a community of international artists who will stage a provocative performance at one of the Edinburgh Festival’s Fringe events, that is, if this performing troop is allowed to go on with their show.

The show is called Jihad: The Musical. This musical is described as “an all-singing, all-dancing madcap gallop through the world of Islamic terrorism.” The chorus line performs The Can-Can in pink burkhas while holding automatic weapons (probably supplied by an arms deal negotiated with the U.S. president). The story is about an unlucky Afghan peasant who winds up with a group of wanna-be Jihad terrorists who sing catchy tunes to lyrics such as “I Wanna Be Like Osama,” described by shock theater enthusiasts as a real show-stopping number.

The Guardian Unlimited quoted protestors of the performance from the government’s petitions website: “The idea of making light of Muslim extremism is extremely offensive, most especially for its victims.” However, BBC World News interviewed one of the creators of the musical who hoped the production will help audiences talk about the provocative topic of terrorism in a fresh way, and they believe satire is a good lens through which to look at things that frighten people most. Unfortunately, because the world seems too far removed from Mark Twain’s irreverent spirit, people actually need to debate about banning this musical. How sad! It is the trend nowadays for everyone—terrorists, victims, and nobodies alike—to take themselves way too seriously.

This blogger firmly believes that Jihad: The Musical’s show must go on precisely because it is already way too late for this kind of reaction to the terror plots the world over. Besides, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival prides itself on showcasing artistic license that cannot exist in any other realm.

In Pudd’nhead Wilson’s Calendar, Twain wrote, “[t]rue irreverence is disrespect for another man’s god.” If these extremists, whether they are Muslim or not, take violence and death as their god, perhaps the most effective way to fight them is for the entire world to poke fun at them with thoughtful mocking and good ol’ song and dance. The musical comedy is one artistic form that can effectively deal with sham, superstition, and religious drivel in ways that no geo-political context can ever manage. If we do not allow the irreverence of musical theater and Jihad: The Musical to thrive the world over, then we have already experienced, without even knowing it, the death of human liberty.

What Good is Google's "Street Views" Function?

Lauren Jackson worked as a bank teller on Chicago’s West Side for twenty years. She owned her own home, had no family, and bothered nobody. Then she became ill with ulcerative colitis, the same disease that got her mother. Consequently, Lauren missed lots of work and lost her job. Alas, mortgage costs have no regard for human illness and unemployment, and Lauren inevitably fell behind. Hard times forced Lauren into desperate need for help with her mortgage payments. She heard of a company called Home Happy Financial that would allow her to sign the deed to her home over to their trust fund; they’d refinance her home and invest that money in a lucrative real estate deal that would earn a handsome some so that in five years Lauren would be able to pay off her entire mortgage. Meanwhile, she could stay in her home and make small monthly rent payments directly to HHF. She felt conflicted, but Lauren decided to go along with the deal. Though she had diligently researched the legitimacy of the company and consulted a lawyer before opting in, the HHF plan turned out to be a scheme cooked up by a guy named Felix Daniels whose office was based in Detroit. Lauren’s suspicions started to rise months after entering the deal when she received a letter from an unknown woman named Doreen Lyle, stating that there was foreclosure on Lauren’s house, and it was up for sale; Lauren could buy it from Doreen if she wished. Lauren flew into a ladylike rage. She bought a whip (because, cops told her, you can’t own a handgun in the city of Chicago), and she drove all the way to Detroit. She arrived at the address posted on all the letters from Felix Daniels’ HHF company and found the location to be nothing more than a UPS drop box. She didn’t get a chance to use her whip, so now Lauren Jackson is suing for fraud.

If only Google had offered its “Street Views” function for the city of Detroit, that would have saved Lauren Jackson a heap of trouble. She could have zoomed in on the physical location of the Home Happy Financial from her own home right at the start to see if such a place existed; she would have realized then she was being tricked. While Lauren is in the suing mood, she might as well sue Google, too, for discrimination. Why is it Miami, New York, San Francisco, Vegas, and Denver get the privilege of “Street Views?” Even if Lauren Jackson doesn’t sue Google, maybe people like Caitlin Jones, a low-profile New Yorker, won’t feel their privacy is being violated by “Street Views” zooming in on their buildings when they realize the function could be used to check up on addresses used by people concocting fraudulent schemes.

An Achamenid Battle-ax and The Pomegranate of Love

The Words Without Borders online Magazine for International Literature features an Iranian author today. Her name is Goli Taraghi. I read a great story of hers, and I wanted to share it with anyone in the blogosphere looking for something fresh and powerful to read. If you’re someone who has ever been irritated, delayed, humiliated, or upset by the security checks at today’s airports, this story will stimulate you. If you’ve ever had a chance encounter in an airplane that turned into a drama larger than you expected, you will identify with the characters in this story. Most of all, if you are a parent who knows what it means to love your children with excruciating ardor, this story will strike a resonating chord. Even if you do not fit any of the abovementioned description, the story will give any reader a memorable tweak.

The story is entitled The Pomegranate Lady and Her Sons

I appreciate Goli Taraghi’s work, and I am grateful that Words Without Borders makes her stories available to read online. Would love to hear from others what they think of her.

Peace.

We Never Met Online

Tracey started out doing this strange work as favors for friends, but her college sweetheart encouraged her—she had a special gift and a fresh idea; she could make some money. She decided to set up her own small business that customized and distributed “How We Met” stories and scripts for couples that have already picked each other up online and know each other well, but who are too ashamed to admit they met over the Internet. Tracey got the business started a little over a year ago: she placed an ad in the yellow pages and set up her own website. Soon she was writing “How We Met” narratives for hundreds of customers and charging each a modest fee. The customers placed orders for a fascinating Meet-Up story that they could tell people whenever someone asked, “How did you two meet?” And for a slightly higher payment, the couple received a script adaptation of the story so that in case they wanted to re-live their first encounter in the real world versus carrying around the memory of their lame virtual “love at first byte,” they could do so according to the situation Tracey scripted for them. Tracey made up all varieties of tales about the first time her lovers / customers encountered each other. Some involved elaborate and clumsy run-ins where, possibly, one party sustained an injury. Other scripts detailed dramatic entangles in which both parties were in the process of ending previous long-term relationships when they happened to encounter the “new” love at unlikely times and place, such as while creaming their coffee at The Starbucks or while gassing at The Pump. The scripts ranged from simple encounters in local bars to lewd mistakes at mask parties and risky dares on nightclub dance floors. The idea was that the customers would receive their stories, pretend as if they had never met, put on a ruse for one evening as if this were the first time they were ever meeting, and then engage in that activity set up in the premise of Tracey’s story. The couple would follow Tracey’s narrative and script to a T, and then fall in love after that “first” real world date. Later, if people asked, the couple could safely say, “We never met online.” Tracey was also able to claim that hers was a GREEN business; some of the "How We Met" stories narrated love at the recycling plant or portrayed urban neighbors helping each other out with separating paper from plastic and consequently falling in love. After a time, Tracey’s business went on to bring her much success, culminating in Yahoo and Google entering a heated bidding war to buy her out. Google won. Tracey made millions. Now she’s married, pregnant, and filthy rich. She has no friends because they all envy her too much, and the guy who originally encouraged her to make money off her idea died last year in Iraq; unfortunately, he’s not around to celebrate and share Tracey’s wealth. But these days you’ll find a lot of couples out there who are quite content with the lovely stories of how they met. Thanks to Tracey’s efforts, no lovers need to feel ashamed of having met online.

A Good Read

Phillip Dietrich lives on 73rd Street. Every morning he walks to the subway in his well-shined horsehide shoes, and he is always careful not to step in the piles of dog droppings that proud dog-owners leave fermenting smack in the middle of the sidewalk. Phil is especially disgusted by this situation when the temperature outside reaches the 90s and a sticky walker in the city can see steam rising off the neglected feces.

Phil has been riding the subway from the Upper West Side down to Wall Street every weekday for fifteen years and often on weekends when there are big deals in the works. His usual subway reading? The Wall Street Journal. His life is peaceful and predictable. However, he did go through something of a crisis after his wife left him for a class action prosecutor who has more money, and after winning a few big cases now he’s got more leisure too. The Ex-Mrs. Dietrich took their eight-year-old son, Max, just when Phil felt he was secure enough at the job to start spending more time with his boy. In the wake of the separation, Phil decided he didn’t care about the woman, he was always so much better dealing in unit trusts and investment trusts; he never really grasped the idea of spousal trust, but did she have to be so cruel when she used bribes and coddles to turn the boy against his own father?

Recently, Phil attended a wedding of one of his junior colleagues where he was assigned to the same table as a guy named Tom, a retired editor and CEO from some fancy literary press. The guy was talking to a woman—decidedly attractive to Phil—named Marlene Kelly, who said she was a budding novelist. While Phil listened in on their conversation, he heard Marlene asking Tom if he ever came across a novel that he felt didn’t need a whole lot of editing work. He gave her a title he did little work on: All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot. The two became so engrossed in discussing that book that Miss Kelly didn’t notice the way Phil studied her lips, neck, hair, tits, etc.

The next day, Phil couldn’t get the woman out of his mind. Filled with renewed joie de vie, he practically skipped out of his apartment building in his horsehide shoes. Instantly, he stepped into a hot pile of dog stuff, probably dropped by something as big as a Doberman. Phil cursed, flew into a rage, and tossed his shoes into a nearby fermenting garbage heap. He ran home in his dress socks and decided not to go into work today. Instead, he visited a Barnes & Noble, determined to buy a book written by that young woman he had met at the wedding. He asked around and looked around, but there was no novel and not a soul in the crowded bookstore had ever heard of a writer named Marlene Kelly. Crestfallen, Phil wandered around the store until his eyes fell upon a copy of the James Herriot’s 1970s novel All Creatures Great and Small. What the hell? Phil thought, and he bought a copy.

Phil spent the rest of the day drinking an herbal detox infusion tea and engaging in odd bathing rituals that involved insane amounts of aromatherapy. He cracked open the first novel he’d read in years, and he was surprised to find that James Herriot’s story was about a struggling, young veterinary surgeon working in the Yorkshire Dales in the 1930s. Though he didn’t think the topic was his cup of tea, Phil did feel moved by the hardships of a veterinary surgeon’s life—all that need for putting a strong arm up a cow’s or a horse’s rectum to feel for the causes of an illness! Reading the easier-to-stomach parts of the book, Phil appreciated the descriptions of the taste of fresh bacon from the newly-slaughtered pig; and he adored the description of a “family’s house cow’s rich yellow offering that finds its way into the family porridge every morning or appeared heaped up on the trifles and fruit pies or was made into butter, a golden creamy butter to make you dream.” The novel treats farm life with a fair balance of the rough and the delightful, not to mention Phil’s relish in the descriptions of the beautiful landscape and scenery of the Yorkshire Dales in the 1930s.

While reading, Phil forgot all about his divorce. The promising young woman from the wedding slipped completely out of his mind. All Creatures Great and Small transported Phillip Dietrich to another time and place, softened his heart just a bit, and worked a subtle transformation in the bitter man. The next day was like any other: Phil engaged his usual stride to the subway station, avoiding the smears of dog do that stained the street. In days past, he would encounter such piles and curse the dogs and their owners; however, today—basking in the euphoric aftermath of finishing a good novel—Phil looked down at those filthy piles, smiled, and said, “All creatures great and small, whether in city, dale, ‘burb, or beer hall, let every big and little beast shit our dwellings. Shit them all!”

Blood & Thunder

Rain in New York City keeps most of us indoors this afternoon. However, there is a madwoman sprawled and clinging to the top of a red Buik Terraza that happens to be speeding down 73rd Street; the madwoman is imitating the sounds of a fire engine while the falling rain soaks through her hair and clothes. Lightning flashes and thunder claps as the Buik passes a certain residential building. Inside the building, one being is experiencing a profound life change that is likely to make one feel trapped in a real-life Doctor Frankenstein moment. Is the change happening to Lady Leisure, who is playing her piano in the fifth floor apartment? Is the change happening to the college kids making love on the fourth floor? Is the change happening to the stray cat that is flicking a roach with its paws in the deserted apartment on the third floor? Is the change happening to the nanny who forces a red-eyed child down for a nap on the second floor? Is the change happening to one of the Bruscoe twins who are arm wrestling on a card table set up in the first-floor apartment? Or is a change visiting one of the three plumbers in the basement who are arguing about the statistics of Pat Venditte, trying to weigh the pros and cons of the Yankees drafting an ambidextrous pitcher? No. The change is not happening to any of these characters. A dramatic change is happening to one adolescent female, Lady Leisure’s pupil, Tamara. Tamara is using Lady Leisure’s powder room. The moment the lightning strikes and the thunder claps, Tamara looks down between her legs at her white satin panties, and she discovers The Blood. Now, how is she going to explain this to her old hag of a piano teacher? What should she do? What should she say? The old woman is engrossed in Beethoven’s piano concerto No. 3 in C minor, as if she chose that perfectly haunting piece to scare a girl who is being visited by her first blood. Tamara sighs; she sits on the toilet, listening to the storm and the piano. She tries to be in this moment, so she might remember it into her old age. She tries to absorb everything going on in this tenement building. This puts her in a contemplative mood. She looks down at her panties and thinks about the monster that is her menstruating uterus. She hears the madwoman’s siren cries in the distance and suddenly Tamara feels the urge to squeeze her fists and cry out, “It’s alive!” There's more lightning followed by another clap of thunder. Tamara hopes the piano teacher didn't hear her outburst. The girl stuffs wads of toilet paper in that discreet place then dashes out of the old woman's apartment. The woman rushes to the door and shouts down the stairwell to Tamara, "Where are you going? Hey, don't forget: more practice with those finger exercises before the next lesson!"

Orgasmic Birth

It is not easy to find quality literature that examines the sexual and intimate nature of giving birth; there's little about about home birth and water birth. One has to dig to find such sources. Also, there are only about five midwives in the New York City metropolitan area who attend home births. Today, during my research about childbirth and home birth, I came across this website describing the documentary film in progress called Orgasmic Birth.

I have been disciplined about my pelvic floor exercises. I have been taking long walks around the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis reservoir pond in Central Park. My diet is simple: fruit, nuts, rice porridge, H&H bagels, eggs, and PB&J. I am mentally and physically preparing myself for a quiet home birth experience. I hope this documentary film will be complete and ready to view before I deliver in December. But the filmakers seem to be needing some help with funding to finish the project. This film is certain to challenge ideas society imposes on us regarding childbirth. As far as I am concerned, this documentary is as essential, if not more, as that one with Al Gore, An Inconvenient Truth. Some say that most healthy women can birth their babies in a beautiful, loving, and ecstatic way without drugs and medical intervention.

I was thinking that these Orgasmic Birth filmmakers should even shoot a scene in which a woman is giving birth in a water birth pool that is set up right on top of the John Lennon shrine in Strawberry Fields, right on top of that word IMAGINE. Wouldn't that be a fabulous scene? Maybe the filmmakers should petition Yoko Ono with such an idea; that chick's got a wad; she funded Strawberry Fields anyway. Do you ever wonder why it is so easy for us to watch people killing each other, but when a birthing video shows a live birth scene, they display warnings before the show about the graphic nature of what you are about to see? Childbirth is not ugly or frightening. Why do we turn our heads from it and refuse to talk about it honestly? Feelin' good: a rush, a push, and a primal ROAR! Welcome human life!

Film: "Spider Lilies" Directed by Zero Chou

Last Friday was the New York premier screening of this extraordinary film, directed by Zero Chou, “Spider Lilies.” The story involves two Taiwanese women: Takeko is a serious tattoo artist who owns and runs her own parlor; Jade is an eighteen-year-old, barely post-pubescent, cheerful girl who entertains curious patrons who visit her webcam sex site. Jade encounters Takeko when someone urges Jade to get a tattoo in order to make her strip-tease act more colorful. In the tattoo parlor, Jade meets Ah-Dong; he’s another tattoo enthusiast who regards Takeko as a genius and is constantly begging her to tattoo samurai blades on his arms. Ah-Dong asks Jade what tattoo she wants, and she points the elaborate image of spider lilies that hangs framed on the wall amongst thousands of other Takeko designs.

“That is real skin.” Ah-Dong informs Jade, meaningfully. He is referring to the material that unique tattoo is printed on.

When Jade tells Takeko that she wants the spider lilies tattoo, Takeko looks stunned and refuses to give her a tattoo.

“The spider lilies are the flowers that grow along the path to hell.” Takeko gives this vague, folkloric excuse. Then asks Jade why she wants such a tattoo. Jade explains that she had a friend from her childhood who had that same tattoo. “You must be mistaken.” Takeko insists. “Childhood memories can never be trusted.” Jade leaves the parlor that day, but not before giving Takeko her card and urging her to visit her website.

The next time we visit Jade’s website, it is through a cop who is assigned to cracking down on sex sites on the Internet. When he visits, Jade believes her visitor is Takeko. Jade launches into a sweet story about her first love complete with a heartfelt song about jasmine flowers. Here the narrative turns for the lovely. When she was nine-years-old, Jade danced into the road in front of Takeko’s bicycle while wearing a shocking green wig. The older Takeko asked where Jade’s mother was and Jade told her that she had died in the recent earthquake. Feeling sorry for Jade, Takeko rode her home on the back of her bike. That’s when Jade fell for Takeko and when she saw the spider lily tattoo on the older girl’s arm.

The story of the present follows Jade persisting in convincing Takeko to give her a tattoo, while the younger girl also tries hard to jog Takeko’s memory about their encounter nine years before. Will they end up lovers, or will the opportunity be lost? Will Jade be busted by the Internet police? Will Takeko’s own past haunt her to the point that she decides to abandon her tattoo art? We do learn all this, plus the truth about Jade’s family and Takeko’s spider lily tattoo.

The developments of the plot get more surprising and more revealing as the film progresses, and in the end this film conveys a well-developed tale that is accompanied by images of both tenderness and horror. If you’re learning to speak Mandarin, I urge you to feast your eyes on this indie film along with the more well-known titles directed by Zhang Yimou, Chen Kaige, and Tian Zhuangzhuang. Zero Chou is in their league.

(This blog post is dedicated to the memory of the massacre that took place at Tiananmen on June 4, 1989. Regardless of pro-Beijing Hong Kong leaders’ denials, people do remember that sad day.)

Boycotting a Bestseller

Riva Djinn is attempting to organize a boycott of book #28 on the NY Times hardcover Non-fiction bestseller list. That book is entitled Kabul Beauty School by Deborah Rodriguez. Riva Djinn encourages friends and members of the Scribble Bitch Book Club not to buy this book because content in this book has put Afghan women’s lives in danger. The consequences of writing such a book brings up issues of the ethical responsibilities of authors and publishers in the U.S. Where should an author draw the line when exploiting other people’s lives for sensational material that will surely secure a fat book deal? Random House gave Rodriguez an impressive advance that she did not share with her sources, as they claim she had promised (though Rodriguez claims the women are mistaken); when she knew there would be great risk in revealing these women’s stories, why would she do it in such an artless way so that the women would get into trouble? This brings Riva to her second point, which is this: doesn’t this whole indignity reveal something about the American reader? In the U.S.’s current bestselling literary climate, could Rodriguez have secured an equally fat advance if she had written something more subtle, more subversive, more underhanded in such a way that the same story could be told while maintaining some level of recognition and respect for the fact that it is dangerous to Story-Tell-All in an American way about women living in a utterly different kind of culture? Riva Djinn distrusts an American readership that is so hungry for an intimate glimpse into the lives of women in cultures that American mainstream culture knows so little about when the American glimpse comes with the high price of endangering women’s lives. There must be a safer way to communicate, express, and artistically represent Afghan women’s lives without exploiting these lives in a memoir that is going to put their lives in danger. Finally, Riva would also argue that it is the genre of the memoir itself that is the problem here. In fact, Riva would go so far as to say that The Memoir is an artistic cop-out. Memoir stories exist in the realm of the evasive True. These days, it’s not so hard to record a “true” story, change names and hair color, and hawk it to a nation full of voyeurs. Try writing something more creative, more sophisticated. C’mon! At least try to write something that will escape the detection of stupid extremists in a far-off land! Riva is getting riled up and interested in starting a mission to expose the shortcomings of that hip and hot-selling genre—The Memoir. And when the battle against The Memoir is through, Riva believes her story would make a juicy epic poem.

Film: "The Picture of Dorian Gray" Directed by Duncan Roy

The 2007 Newfest LGBT film festival opened with a modernized revision film adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s late 19th Century novel. This story is frightening. Dorian Gray (played by David Gallagher), young and innocent, attends a party where artists and art enthusiasts are indulging in philosophical talk and cocaine. Inspired by Dorian’s beauty, the artist Basil Hallward gets his camera rolling—which in itself turns into a very erotic activity. This early scene gives the audience a powerful sense of the pleasure an artist gets from being behind a camera, having license to gaze upon another human being as if the gaze is not intrusive, being allowed to “shoot” at someone with the intensity and sensual indulgence that, say, one might use during tender touches of sexual foreplay, and confining the youth and beauty of the gazed-upon being to a recorded mock-up. From this erotic video session, Basil creates a film installment capturing the purity, allure, and beauty of Dorian Gray, a kind of beauty that could get people to do almost anything for him. Basil and Dorian fall under the strange influence of this masterpiece video installment, and it changes their lives for the worst. The beauty and aesthetic pleasure of the video installment juxtaposed with the horror story that unfolds creates an unusual movie-going experience.

To start the descent, the prominent Henry Wotton tells Dorian that his best asset is his beauty and the asset will inevitably fade. When his beauty is gone, Dorian can be sure he will be rejected by the world. Dorian wishes the installment would grow old, not he. He gets what he wishes for, and the consequences of maintaining youth translate into a life of cruelty that descends further into evil. We witness Dorian committing a series of cruel and horrifying acts through a ten-year period. Basil falls victim to Aids; Henry ages; as for Dorian, however, not a wrinkle or a scar sullies his lovely brow. Some wonder how he’s done it while others know his secret. Dorian grows gradually more deranged as the changes within his soul do not reveal themselves on his face. Of course, Dorian blames the video installment, and the film gives a final philosophical wink and nod to the idea that “all art is useless.”

I was interested and surprised to learn that Oscar Wilde drew some of his ideas for his novel version of The Picture of Dorian Gray from Daoism and his exposure to Herbert Giles’s translations of the Chinese philosopher Zhuang Zi. In his journals, Wilde wrote about how the honest men and healthy families mocked the philosophers, but if they only looked beneath the surface and realized what these philosophers were saying, they’d be terrified by the “Inaction” someone like Zhuang Zi preached. According to Wilde, common man would be terrified by Zhuang Zi’s message that all is meaningless. I was fascinated to read this because Oscar Wilde got it all wrong. Wilde read a poorer translation of Zhuang Zi than those we have today (Burton Watson is more approriate for today) because Wilde’s interpretation is not precisely what the old Daoist was saying. Zhuang Zi’s message is more one of be in the world but not of the world and that message was supposed to liberate not horrify. One could do a most thorough study on how Westerners of the past misread the Chinese, but I’d rather use this opportunity as an example of why translation is so important and why it is such a difficult, slow, grueling, never-ending process; the practice of translation could always use more attention, appreciation, precision, and patience. That’s all I wish to preach, if I preach anything. When I have a child, I’ll discipline the child by lovingly saying something like: “Brush your teeth, and learn to translate…”

Getting back to Duncan Roy’s new film version The Picture of Dorian Gray and the ideas and sources he drew from: The director claims he took much of the content of the film from Wilde’s more pornographic writings as well as the earlier version of the Dorian Gray story as it appeared in 1890 in Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine before it was revised and published by Ward, Lock, and Company in 1891. This earlier Lippincott version contained more blatant homoerotica. So the director’s idea in creating this movie from this particular novel was to put the homosexuality back into the story and bring the characters out of their 19th century Victorian society and into the 21st century New York City art scene.

If you like a film that explores the major themes of aestheticism, obsession with beauty, hedonism, and homosexuality, you’ll appreciate this film. And upon writing this blog entry, I catch myself wondering how old Zhuang Zi might have directed this film. He probably would have included some random scene about how to subsist on a diet of clouds and morning dew.