A Story About Storytelling, Part Two

From "A Storyteller's Story"

Unlike Mr. Cantor, the substitute teacher, who obsessively popped "Tums" into a large, loose-lipped, spittle filled mouth, and loudly blew shiny missiles from his mucous filled nose into thin, brown paper towels of the type found in public bathrooms- consequently laying them flat out to dry on the small, hissing radiator while we continued to shiver in the heatless room albiet now with the image of snot-encased "tissues" imprinted forever on our childish third eyes- Mrs. Herskovitz, the regular teacher, inspired rather than grossed us out. But even the revolting machinations of the Tum sucker proved instructional in our own youthful quest for survival. For as soon as creepy Cantor turned his back, however briefly, if only to plant an overly large aleph, bet or gimmel on the rickety, standup blackboard that swayed on its skinny legs with each tap of the chalk, mayhem and bravado spontaneously ensued behind the teacher’s back. And it was exactly during one of these miniscule though significant respites from formal instruction that I learned from Mikey Kaplan the following precious truth: you could run your fingers- nay, the whole tiny hand!- stealthily through eight lit Hanuka candles in one fell swoop and not die or at least be partially immolated, providing you did this insane act of risk taking sure and fast. You would be fine. You would have cheated the grim reaper and eluded painful disfigurement as well. The worst you could expect would be the residue of a little soot on your small knuckles. This too could become a story, one you could tell your children and grandchildren. . . .

A Story About Storytelling

From "A Storyteller's Story"

People don’t just die. Sometimes they simply disappear, from sight, sound, memory, occasionally to resurface in the form of a question. Did Jean Arthur actually make it to the millennium? When exactly did Mary Pickford expire? How is it possible that so-and-so's obituary is in today’s paper- didn’t he die years ago? And why would anyone want to google away the day in hopes of contacting a childhood classmate from the previous century if not to hold onto a simpler, more youthful past? In truth, can anyone fully grasp the idea of annihilation and still remain sane?

These thoughts never fail to remind of the tragedy of Gilgamesh, a story I once attempted to teach to a few brighter than average though equally lackadaisical and similarly doomed high school seniors. . . .Generally considered the first literary “hero” of record, this ancient king from Mesopotamia -a reputed demigod- is the center of a story related in cuneiform, a myth rediscovered in the late nineteenth century on zillions of fragments of stone chards, a heroic recounting reappearing several millennia after it was first ambitiously embedded into chapters hard as rock by unknown authors. The narrative  was translated and re-assembled into quasi tablets by various modern scholars working over a period of decades, during which time some of the translators themselves were “no more”- or alternately, passed on, left the world, ceased to exist, in plain language, were lost to life. In the end, only the story and its fanciful characters achieved immortality, through the telling.

As the plot starts to reveal itself it appears that the hero Gilgamesh’s amazingly naïve tragedy lies in his obdurate refusal to accept the sudden realization that we all die. He is availed of this gruesome fact of mortality somewhat late in life, not as a child, but as an adult who loses his closest friend, an all-too-human alter ego known as Enkidu, after a rather nasty skirmish with a dragon-like monster, who in a brilliant flash of early onomatapoeia is named Humbaba.The hero's ensuing quest consequently becomes eternal life- a spurious journey, needless to say, and this king of Ur comes across some four thousand years later as a rather primitive soul. Come on now, every six year old whose gold fish has met with a bad end realizes the inexorable Fact of Life. But in truth guys, Gilga’s existential angst raises an essential question: Why bother doing your homework if all comes to naught? That unpleasant bevy of boring term papers, book reports, math equations, tedious science experiments, artfully devised crib sheets. . . In short, the students thus were motivated to read on until the very end. The answer to the story’s existential question incidentally, the moment  of truth at the end of the quest, turns out to be equally simplistic: eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow. . .  leading to the inevitable thought that looking back at all our yesterdays, you really have to wonder how far we've come.  

Be all that “truth” as it may, this epic tale of survival still touches a nerve several millenia from its inception, and denial of the ultimate horror still is nurtured from the early years onward through storytelling and various, small acts of defiance. As a curious little girl of seven for example, shivering away at a small desk in a freezing South Bronx storefront. . . I and my fellow bi-lingual first generation students were mesmerized by Mrs. Herskovitz’s stories. . . .

Valentine Fantasy

From "An Internal Affair"

Can one find true love later in life?

It is said that as we grow older our social circles diminish and our calendars begin to look increasingly empty. What complete balderdash! My dance card, I can assure you, is full on both sides. I have appointments several times a week with various doctors and practitioners of the medical arts. These assignations also require that I dress for the occasion, lest they think I am a naive, ill turned out ignoramus or worse, an uninformed partner in health that they can cavalierly throw on the dung heap of rhesus monkey experimentation, or ply me with maintenance drugs from their pals at Big Pharma while I dumbly acquiesce just to keep the relationship going. Hey, I was not born yesterday, far from it alas . . . . I prepare for these meetings with the utmost care to my clothes, hair and make-up. I aim to exude the sophistication of a mature woman who knows exactly what she wants and is willing to co-pay for it- perhaps not a long term commitment, but definitely companionship. Despite all this, I am still alone.

The problem is that I cannot seem to find the perfect soul mate so to speak, an internist that I can live with, someone who can make my heart skip a beat without calling it arrhythmia. Some may say I may be too picky, but so be it- you only live and age and get sick and die once. I might have to consider going online eventually, an act of pure desperation as I am a traditionalist who believes face-to-face meetings are always best in terms of the “blink” factor. . . .

Winter

From "Raven Red"

When not thinking up intricate ways in which to elude the Nazis or trying to escape the icy, winter winds of the South Bronx Prairie, Lila and some last-ditch cronies from the next door apartment house play hide-and-seek on stair landings. They maneuver bikes and scooters in small, square hallways pretending they’re motorcycles, then solemnly revere Howdy Doody's fitful little image in the late afternoons; oh raffish early muppet, harbinger of the decline of the attention span with the power of near hypnosis! Howdy, whose entire name oddly means “Hello Feces,” Buffalo Bob and Clarabel comprise an uncanny cross between Punch 'n Judy, Fellini and secondary characters from a bad B Western, but the kids are not put off.  They cheer insanely as the odd, happy crew manufactures instant mayhem in the Peanut Gallery. 

. . . the commotion from the apartment above mysteriously subsides; there is complete silence from the other side of the ceiling. A frosty, pre-ozone depleted January sets in during that time when winters often plunged below freezing, and there are many more old movies being shown on TV; images of Joel McCrea, John Garfield and Dorothy Lamour are added to the little screen. Slowly over several weeks, the last clumps of blackened, peed-on snow will melt along the curbs, and a fragrant, misleading thaw will ensue. Once again, sounds are detected overhead in 4-C. . . .

New Year 2013

From "Raven Red"

.  . .apartment 4-C upstairs is home to a slightly different breed of pioneer. . .  . The elusive nightly bacchanals engender creative, pre-pubescent daydreams. . .  a scene straight out of the movie "Repeat Performance," where a dapper though dissolute Louis Heyward is about to welcome in the New Year with his lovely though murderously ticked off soul mate, Joan Leslie. As Lew stands frozen in fearful asymmetry, his wife whips out a dainty Saturday Night Special and plugs him real good.  She’s a gussied-up, slender female Shane in diaphanous evening apparel.  Here is a synopsis from Turner Classics for your enjoyment:

Brief Synopsis
Sheila Page, a Broadway star, shoots Barney, her murderous husband on New Year's Eve. She flees her apartment and goes to her Producer, John Friday. When she arrives, it is New Year's day, a year earlier. She has been given the chance to live life over and correct the errors of the past only to find that the end will be the same although the path will be different.

On the actual New Year's Eve however that the movie is being aired, it is Lila Mae who is being attacked, systematically punched, pummeled and pushed by Blood Brother for a prime viewing spot in front of the apartment’s sole, twelve inch, black and white TV.  Ineffectually she attempts to take retaliatory "shots" at him from behind a club chair. . . .  even as she is meticulously battered however, a miracle takes place on the small screen.  Louis and his gal get to relive the entire year exactly at the moment of truth— precisely at the stroke of midnight the clock mysteriously turns itself back twelve months and all the evil of the past is reversed!

This feat of noir film sorcery does not go unnoticed by Lila.   She too longs for the day when her lot will be vindicated and she'll be released from the odd mischance that has thus far ruined her young existence. She imagines it will ultimately come to light that she actually is residing within the wrong family because of a terrible mistake made on the day of her birth, when she and another infant are accidentally switched in their cradles by the well-meaning though harried nurses. These facts, when discovered, will prove that Selma and Frank are not her real parents, the dump she lives in cannot possibly be her rightful home and that Blood Brother is in no way a relation. The notion of clean slates and spontaneous transformations is very appealing because Lila realizes, even then, that no one is given a second chance. . . she dreams of deco palaces with breathtaking terraces overlooking glimmering city lights, closets bursting with filmy gowns, all in a scenario where Mother is unbelievably kind, Father filthy rich. . . sumptuous settings and exciting plot lines. . . . She has been left with no choice but to construct a perfect present from an imperfect setting. . . ."

Christmas Post

From “Daddy’s Little Girl and the Old Book”

. . . . I found a discarded Christmas tree on West Eighty-fourth on one of those metallic gray days late in January, and the overturned decoration was not a tree at all but something artificial, a fake cluster of branches no more than three feet high, and seriously, though somewhat unevenly, sprayed silver. It was the quintessential appearance of the appearance. When you touched the nettles on the piteously skinny though eternally glittery stems, random twigs and flecks of silver paint came off in your hands. I fell in love with it instantaneously and hauled this painted shard of simulated forest back to the apartment. Then I placed it on a dresser and kept it there until May, when most of the “foliage” had fallen onto the floor, creating a nostalgic, formless little carpet of bright needles. It made me feel good to do something my mother would not have dared. Once, at Christmas time, as a small child in Europe between the two wars, she had attempted to sneak into her house a tiny, toy evergreen, elaborately festooned and  no more than six inches high-  nonetheless it was the ultimate forbidden signifier of despised and feared Goy-dom next to all those nasty little crucifixes- and apparently it did not end well. . . .

A Few New Yorkers, Part One

Excerpt from the classic “A Few New Yorkers Have Sushi”

(soon to be adapted for PBS as “Upton Shabby”)

“It was the oddest thing,” she murmured, half to herself, in a voice barely audible to her guests. Mindlessly pushing back a wisp of meticulously ironed bang from a wan forehead, Vidalia Tartine adjusted a pair of rimless eyeglasses on the bridge of her nose and sighed; the lenses gave off the slightest tint of lavender, having long faded from the more robust violet hue that everyone had so fervently sought the summer before; replacing them now of course was out of the question.

Vida, as her friends preferred to call her- ever the life of the party they cajoled in deference to an innate, dolefully contemplative nature- suddenly grew pensive, as if recalling something of deep significance as she gazed distractedly at her guests and absentmindedly began clearing the faux “Melmac” plates. Was it possible she mused that once upon a time in New York there truly had existed a bevy of servants for those even of simple means, small battalions of proud house workers at the ready to assist the recently anointed middle classes with their every burgeoning albeit nouveau domestic whim? And had it indeed been a noble, if not sought after employment she further mused, this uniquely crafted metier as it were of preserving someone else’s priceless set of china? The entire notion now seemed an incredible fantasy and untoward extravagance in an age where even a humble trip to the dry cleaners was prohibitive for the newly unemployed. Vida liked to muse and have notions.

One of her dangly silver earrings, Vida’s only adornment, a simple and inexpensive affair inset with miniscule blue plastic triangles intended to evoke lapis lazuli or something of the like, moved ever so slightly as it caught the glaring halogen beam of a hugely discounted, pointlessly oversized floor lamp; this fixture she mused once more had been purchased on final reduction at Home Depot and offered the only real illumination in the tiny apartment. The earrings, like the lamp, were a rare indulgence. Vida had treated herself at a crafts fair near Edith Wharton’s restored Berkshire “cottage” one summer during a rare weekend away from the sullen, desultory air of the August metropolis- Vida liked the word "desultory" a lot but was not sure how to pronounce it. Alas it had clouded over for the duration of the seventy-two or so hours she had spent musing in those beloved forests of Arden. But oh, how long ago that now seemed, and how life had changed so irrefutably since that brief, pastoral sojourn. She momentarily flashed on her present position as evening shift caller for a particularly and stringently soulless telemarketing firm and realized ruefully how precious nonetheless these few dreary weekly hours had become to her financial and spiritual well being.

Vidalia’s thoughts were jarred back to the present as dinner concluded, amid the clack of plastic forks as the last of the Fairway spicy shrimp sushi was consumed after having been meticulously doused with green mustard and scallion teriyaki. The Britta water jug stood empty and somewhat forlornly nearby, a reminder that it was time to relocate her guests to the seating area a scant foot or so away from where they huddled in those awful and hard little chairs. She imagined what it would be like to have a formal library of one’s own, with leather bound volumes filling polished oak or satin mahogany cases, overstuffed chairs and the smell of musk, a tiffany lamp or two, tea cozies and intricately embossed game tables where perhaps one could engage in a spirited hand or two of whist. She noticed that several “After Eights” lay scattered along the cheap hemp mats and that the diners were rosy with organic wine. Of course there would be no cigars or brandy, and the coffee was of an inferior pre-packaged brand, but still, was it not essential for certain traditions to prevail if civilization were to continue? Behind where she stood, on a wall shelf of white pressed board edged with gold leaf contact paper that she had applied herself -albeit somewhat unevenly- several nineteenth century novels in the Penguin edition, their shiny belle époque covers gleaming though somewhat dog-eared, leaned lazily to one side. In a vain attempt to secure this unruly, obstreperous cadre of turn-of-the-century narratives, “House of Mirth,” “Portrait of Lady” and “Washington Square” were all lying flat and piled on top of each other to form a decidedly pell-mell bookend; a copy of “The Bostonians” had fallen to the floor unnoticed. The small space’s decor emitted a parsimonious insouciance, a kind of mock drawing room ambience more suited to the gilded, earlier years of a previous century than to a millennium recession worthy of a stockbroker’s ransom. It was undeniably the perfect moment in which to settle in and partake of a good, old-fashioned ghost story. . . .