You didn’t answer for a while

Eighty-six degrees, high tide.

We were arguing about suicide.

Me, safe from the sun under the umbrella;

you, propped on your elbows in the sand,

your arms, recently iron-pumped, bronzing smoothly,

your short gold curls and strong nose almost

Roman coinworthy as you scanned

the water with restless air and announced

you’d kill yourself, you really would,

if you weren’t a coward.

While I maintained the wish to die

itself was cowardly.

And I didn’t believe you:

you didn’t really want to die.

Waht about speed and wind-

your long bike rides, tracing the harbor

on unknown roads? What about your pencil

setting a line on a clean sheet of drafting

paper? Women with small breasts

and certain customs you were said

to love in bed? At the very least,

the kind of happyness that’s purely physical.

The person whao wants to die,

you snapped, doesn’t care about

any of that. He’d give it all up

for a moment’s peace. Peace from

striving, from endless dissatisfaction

with a self that’s less than ideal.

I’d do it, you insisted, if I weren’t

shit-scared of pain.

If it’s pain you don’t like

you’d take pills, I said.

But I hadn’t won, and added lamely,

Aren’t you curious how your life

is going to Turn Out? That’s not

a question of being brave-

only mildly vain, which you are,

or so you claim.

You didn’t answer for a while,

and self-enraged (or was it half in love)

I watched your critic’s eye alight

on a black-haired figure clad in white

bikini as she ran lightly down

the hard-packed sand and dove

into a creamy wave.

Deborah Garrison, Perfectionist on the beach

Like she was hearing a lover

When her relatives from the south

came up for a visit,

they lamented her sorry state,

having to live in that little box,

having no fields nor trees,

having no hills to look toward.

She never told them

how she didn’t miss thoses things,

how she would lie awake at night,

her apartment window wide open,

and listen to the city

like she was listening to birds,

like she was listening to hymns,

like she was hearing a lover.

She never told them how hard it was

to wipe that smile off her face

each and every minute they complained.

Cynthia Rylant, Apartment

Laughing at what ?

The first time we flew in
It was cheap and cramped
The vodka running out half-way across the Atlantic
Even the steward screamed and joined in it
We didn’t think we were going to make it
Now we’re stretched out in wide, furry seats
Flicking through menus
A walk to the bar and there’s as much screw-top champagne as we can drink
We’re so easy
Taking turns having our photos taken
Sitting in front of small windows
Decanters of cheap whiskey in our hands
Drive into Manhattan on a date with a starlet who’s just talent
That’s what people pay the money to see
Who are we to argue?
Five hours now it’s been going on
And still we’re watching all of it
Can you really believe all this?
Can he really lie in bed at night and marvel at his own genius?
When do you lose the ability to step back
And get a sense of your own ridiculousness?
They’re only songs
Midnight, and it’s all over
Now it can really make us laugh
We’re standing on our heads drinking sours of Crystal Schnapps
Now we’re unable to step back or forward
Swallowing a swallow
Tasting it again, it’s not so unpleasant
Perhaps it’s an acquired taste
The first time, it makes you sick
Then, little by little, it becomes delicious
Showbiz people
Always there to be interested in what you say
We are artists; we are sensitive and important
We nod our heads earnestly
Already half-way down the champagne
On our way to leaving the place dry
A $2,000 bar bill
Showbiz picks up the tab
And we’re on our way laughing
Laughing at what?
Los Angeles, eight days in
And our sense of irony’s running pretty thin
All the friends we’ve made
It’s 2 am, it’s closing time at the Dresden
Marty and Layton play one last sleepy “Strangers in the Night”
And the last of the martinis dribble down our chins
We’re sitting, chasing the conservation around the table
Jesus, how long have I been in this state?
The limousine’s still waiting outside
Anything you want to do?
Anywhere you want to go?
We’re on our way to the airport and a plane to Vegas
So many nights lying in bed shaking
Dreaming of pushing my daughter around the supermarket
The joy of seeing all those colours and shapes reflected in her wide eyes
My head leaning on the window
And we’re driving through the empty L.A. streets
And everything seems silent and beautiful
A guy’s face hits the floor
Police revolvers glistening in the streetlight
Onto Melrose and lurching through a sea of Halloween transvestites
The flight’s cancelled, but it doesn’t matter
We turn this corner to a way that takes us wherever
Up to Sunset
We creep up the drive to the Shattuck
The suite Belushi died in
Or the one Morrison hung out of the window
Oh, I’ll go for Jim’s
I would fancy a little window-hanging myself, tonight, man
Straight over to the mini-bar
Open the champagne — one sip and it’s left to wake up to
Anyone hungry?
A team of uniformed waiters lay out an elaborate table for all us to ignore
Oh, the irony
How we’re used to living
Back in London on a cold Friday night
Do you want another drink?
Well, I could try
Perhaps we could make it to the Atlantic
600 yards, twenty minutes later
We’re pushing through the waiting crowd, all fish eyes
An exclusive door policy
Exclusively for arseholes
And tonight? Well, a nod of our heads, and we’re inside
Falling down the red, velvety stairs
Limbs flaying, hands searching for something to steady
Pick ourselves up, nothing broken
Just aches in the morning
No one seems to notice
I find a table, champagne arrives
I’ve been so drunk, I sit and look at you
We try and talk for the first time in a long time
Drunken confessions
You shiver, it made you feel sick
We use the rent money to pay the bill
Bumping shoulders, we stumble out into Soho
Slipping over the sleeping bags
Shouting for taxis

Tindersticks, Ballad Of Tindersticks

A town she ached to be out of

when I encountered the Star’s stand-in

as the elevator doors slid open

and I was stepping out

as she was stepping in

at 4 a.m.

and I saw that she was radically stoned

I asked her what on

she said 6 Valium and White Wine

because this was our last day of shooting

so she thought she’d celebrate

by balling someone in the crew

and getting zipped

since this was her home town

and she’d be staying right here

while we’d be moving on

and the agony of being just a local stand-in

left behind

in a town she ached to be out of

was bearing down on her now

with real force

and it made me suddenly re-ashamed

of being an actor in a movie

at all

and provoking such stupid illusions

so I took her to my room

with no designs on her body

at all

and she was desperately disappointed

tried to throw herself out my window

I said look it’s not worth it

it’s just a dumb movie

she said it’s not as dumb as life

1/11/81

Seattle, Wa.

Sam Shepard, in Motel Chronicles

What can you teach me ?

She’d been pickin em up and layin em down, moving to the next town for a while, needing a rest, some moss under her feet, plus a solid man who enjoyed a good fight with a brave woman. She needed a man who didn’t mind her bodacious manner, varied talents, hard laughter, multiple opinions, and her hopes were getting slender. He had great big eyes like diamonds and his teeth shined just like gold, some reason a lot of women didn’t want him, but he satisfied their souls. He needed a woman who didn’t mind stepping down from the shade of the veranda, a woman capable of taking up the shaft of a plough and throwing down with him side by side. They met in the glistening twinkling crystal light of August/September sky. They were both educated, corn-fed-healthy-Mississippi-stock folk. Both loved fried fish, greens, blues, jazz and Carmen Jones. He was an unhardened man of the world. She’d been around the block more than once herself, wasn’t a tough cookie, but full grown woman for sure. Looking her up, down, sideways he said, ” So tell me baby, what do you know about this great big world of ours ? ” Smiling she said, ” Not a damn thang sugar. I don’t mind telling you my life’s not been sheltered from the cold and I’ve not always seen the forest or smelled the coffee, played momma to more men than I care to remember. Consequently I’ve made several wrong turns, but with conviction I can tell you I’m nobody’s fool. So a better question might be : what can you teach me ? ” He wasn’t sure, confessing he didn’t have a handle on this thing called life either. But he was definitely in a mood for love. Together they were falling for that ole black magic. In that moment it seemed a match made in heaven. They walked, not hand in hand, but rather side by side in the twinkle of August, looking sidelong at one another, thanking their lucky stars with fingers crossed.

Carrie Mae Weems, text with photographs, untitled, 1990

Play back the day’s tape

For the rest of the time Maria was in Las Vegas she wore dark glasses. She did not decide to stay in Vegas : she only fealed to leave. She spoke to no one. She did not gamble. She neither swam not lay in the sun. She was there on somme business but she could not seem to put her finger on what that business was. All day, most of every night, she walked and drove. Two or three times a day she walked in and out of all the hotels on the Strip and several downtown. She began to crave the physical flash of walking in and out of places, the temperature shock, the hot wind blowing outside, the heavy frigid air inside. She thought about nothing. Her mind was a blank tape, imprinted daily with snatches of things overheard, fragments of dealers’ patter, the beginnings of jokes and odd lines of song lyrics. When she finally lay down nights in the purple room she would play back the day’s tape, a girl singing into a microphone and a fat man dropping a glass, cards fanned on a table and a dealer’s rake in closeup and a woman in slacks crying and the opaque blue eyes of the guard at some baccarat table. A child in the harsh light of a crosswalk on the Strip. A sign on Fremont Sreet. A light blinking. In her half sleep the point was ten, the jackpoint was on eighteen, the only man that could ever reach her was the son of a preacher man, someone was down sixty, someone was up, Daddy wants a popper and she rode a painted pony let the spinning wheel spin.

Joan Didion, Play It As It Lays, chapter 65

Avant propos / Foreword

AVANT-PROPOS

« Dans la vie, l’essentiel est de porter sur tout des jugements a priori. Il apparaît, en effet, que les masses ont tort, et les individus toujours raison.Il faut se garder d’en déduire des règles de conduite : elles ne doivent pas avoir besoin d’être formulées pour qu’on les suive. Il y a seulement deux choses : c’est l’amour, de toutes les façons, avec des jolies filles, et la musique de la Nouvelle-Orléans ou de Duke Ellington. Le reste devrait disparaître, car le reste est laid, et les quelques pages de démonstration qui suivent tirent toute leur force du fait que l’histoire est entièrement vraie, puisque je l’ai imaginée d’un bout à l’autre. Sa réalisation matérielle proprement dite consiste essentiellement en une projection de la réalité, en atmosphère biaise et chauffée, sur un plan de référence irrégulièrement ondulé et présentant de la distorsion. On le voit, c’est un procédé avouable, s’il en fut.

La Nouvelle-Orléans, 10 Mars 1946 »

Avant-propos à “l’Ecume des Jours”, Boris Vian.

FOREWORD

« In life, it’s essential to have preconceived judgments on everything. It turns out in fact that the masses are wrong and that individuals are always right. One must be careful not to infer rules of conduct : they do not need to be formulated to be followed. There are only two things : love in all its forms with pretty girls and the music of New Orleans or Duke Ellington, it’s the same. The rest should disappear, for the rest is ugly, and the brief demonstration that follow gathers all its energy from the fact that the story is entirely true, because I imagined it from one end to the other. Strictly speaking, its material realization consists essentially of a projection of reality, in a biased and heated atmosphere, onto an irregularly undulating reference plane, resulting in some distortion. Clearly, it’s a respectable method if ever there was one.

New Orleans, March 10, 1946 »

Foreword to “Foam of the Daze”, Boris Vian.



Maybe

now, listen, when I die I don’t want any crying, just get the

disposal under way, I’ve had a full some life, and

if anybody has had an edge, I’ve

had it, I’ve lived 7 or 8 lifes in one, enough for

anybody.

we are all, finally, the same, so no speeches, please,

unless you want to say he played the horses and was very

good at that.

you’re next and I already know something you don’t,

maybe.

Charles Bukowski, “forget it”, You get so alone at times that it just makes sense