January 3: Climaxes and Thrills, Big Ideas, Plans for 2017

As a trafficker in climaxes and thrills and characterization and wonderful dialogue and suspense and confrontations, I had outlined the Dresden story many times.  The best outline I ever made, or anyway the prettiest one, was on the back of a roll of wallpaper.  

 

I used my daughter's crayons, a different color for each main character. One end of the wallpaper was the beginning of the story, and the other end was the end, and then there was all that middle part, which was the middle. And the blue line met the red line and then the yellow line, and the yellow line stopped because the character represented by the yellow line was dead. And so on. The destruction of Dresden was represented by a vertical band of orange cross-hatching, and all the lines that were still alive passed through it, came out the other side.

Vonnegut spends a lot of time at the beginning of Slaughterhouse Five discussing the difficulties he's encountered writing a book about his war experiences.  He stops and starts, drunk calls war buddies and old girlfriends, and tries to map out a path from word number one to "The End."  This struggle goes on for years.

I'm very much like Vonnegut when it comes to writing.  I have big ideas, but I'm not sure how to implement them.  Over the years, I've said that I'm working on a book about Catholic saints (still in progress); a collection of poems based on headlines from the Weekly World News (abandoned--somebody else had the same idea and beat me to publication); a collection of poems based on the Star Wars universe (on hold--can't let this one go just yet); a young adult series of books about Dante's nine circles of hell (plotted out and saved for later); and, most recently, a collection of Bigfoot poems (moving ahead). 

It's sort of what we all do at the beginning of a new year.  Vow to lose weight.  Exercise more.  Clean out the attic.  Learn how to oil paint.  Write a book.  Big ideas.  Big plans.  And then reality takes hold.  Work resumes.  School functions and dance recitals and birthday parties.  Throw into that mix unexpected events like car problems, health issues, deaths, Trump presidencies.  The locomotive of the new year quickly goes off the rails.

So, I have plans for 2017, but I am not going to broadcast them to the world.  That way, if I fail, I don't have to offer explanations.  I'll just curl up in the fetal position on December 31, 2017, suck my thumb, and mutter over and over, "I'll do it next year, I'll do it next year, next year, next year." 

Who knows what 2017 has in store for me and my family?  There will be great happinesses and great challenges.  I'm sure about that.  I may be named Poet Laureate of the U. P.  I may not.  I may get a promotion at work.  I may not.  My daughter may become captain of her high school quiz bowl team.  She may not.  My son may start eating fruits and vegetables.  He may not.  My wife may make the bed when she gets up in the morning.  She may not.  It's a new year.  Anything is possible.

However, I will make clear one small goal for myself this year.  Daily, I am going to name one thing for which I am grateful.  Starting now. 

This morning, Saint Marty is grateful for his sister who gave him an iPhone for Christmas.  He's grateful for her generous and loving spirit.

Me and my iPhone

January 2: Holiday Season, Silent Night, "All Hallow's Snow"

I am sitting in my living room right now, watching the first season of American Horror Show with my daughter.  It's our thing right now.  Not the most conventional father/daughter bonding experience, I know.  But we enjoy it.

I always have a hard time at the end of the holiday season.  The kids go back to school tomorrow, and this little bubble of togetherness and colored lights and warmth will evaporate.  Time seems to stand still for those few weeks of December.  And then, after the balloons drop and the clock strikes twelve on December 31st, the world turns back into a pumpkin.

I will leave my Christmas tree up for another month or so.  Try to hold onto these feelings of good will for a little bit longer.  Hark the herald.  While shepherds watched.  Away in a manger.

Silent night.  Hallow's night.

Here's another poem from Saint Marty, about another of my favorite holidays.

All Hallow's Snow

for the victims of Hurricane Sandy
October 30, 2012

All Hallow's Eve, the snow falls
Like volcanic ash on Pompeii,
Where parents curled around children,
Cocooned them against that instant
Of God unhinged, writing in magma
A poem of dinners uneaten,
Naps unfinished, men and women
Uncoupled, frozen in need,
Bodies joined forever under
The bright trumpet of disaster.

My son and daughter, in costume, greedy
For Milky Way and candy corn, don't pay
Attention to the snow this night,
Don't know we stand in a breath,
A punctuation of ocean and arctic.
Don't know that, last night, this wind drove
The Atlantic between mother and son and daughter,
Revised with wave and darkness, created
An elegy of salt and sea and ruin.
Here is what my children know:
They go to a door, hold out their bags
To strangers, receive sweetness.
I stand behind them
In the cold, listen for Vesuvius
To open its mouth,
To sing again.

Nightmare before Christmas . . .

January 2: Shot in Dresden, iPhone 7 Plus, Kurt Vonnegut

All this happened, more or less.  The war parts, anyway, are pretty much true. One guy I knew really was shot in Dresden for taking a teapot that wasn't his.  Another guy I knew really did threaten to have his personal enemies killed by hired gunmen after the war.  And so on.  I've changed all the names.

This is the first paragraph of Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five.  At the beginning of the book, Vonnegut talks about how difficult it has been for him to write about his war experiences.  More specifically, his difficulties with writing about the firebombing of the city of Dresden while he was a prisoner of war there.  When reality becomes like fiction, Vonnegut turns science fiction into reality.

I have spent the day becoming part of the 21st century.  Translation:  I now am the proud owner of an iPhone 7 Plus.  My daughter helped me set up a Snapchat account.  I have sent a "snap" to a friend.  (Or is that supposed to be "I snapped a friend"?)  I'm not sure.  I have always been a little bit of a Luddite.  Distrustful of technology.  That's why, until about a week-and-a-half ago, I was not on Facebook.

There is something about a constantly mediated reality that I distrust.  Even though I write this blog, I don't share everything.  I still have difficulty with some aspects of my life.  Things that are too painful or embarrassing to approach right now.  Sort of like Vonnegut struggling with his wartime past.  I may write about these experiences eventually, like Vonnegut.

I once met Kurt Vonnegut.  Really.  He came to the university where I teach.  It was a few years before he died, and age had diminished him a little bit physically.  He walked unsteadily, and his voice had the rumble of a lifelong smoker.  However, his intellect was intact.  He spoke of the importance of teachers, and the nobility of the classroom.  It was really inspiring. 

As I sat in the audience, I imagined Vonnegut in a zoo on the planet Tralfamdore with the main character of Slaughterhouse, Billy Pilgrim.  Vonnegut as a prisoner in Dresden as the bombs began to fall.  Vonnegut as a Vietnam War protestor, marching and raising hell.  I imagined all of the Vonnegut realities.

So, my reality has expanded today.  I'm still a little distrustful of things like Facebook and Twitter, but it's a healthy distrust.  I will still write things in my daily planner.  I will still carry around a journal and fountain pen, in which I will record thoughts and inspirations.  I have to keep in mind that iPhones and blogs and journals and Facebook are all tools.  Ways to approach reality.

I think that Vonnegut, if he were alive today, would own the latest iPhone.  He would be tweeting (or poo-tee-weeting).  He would be writing on a tablet, and taking pictures and posting them on his timeline.  In short, he would be the King of all Media. 

Saint Marty hopes that, some day, he will be a really cool old guy like Kurt Vonnegut, talking/tweeting/blogging/Snapchatting about peace and love and sex and extraterrestrial life.

January 1: "Slaughterhouse Five," Recovering, Thanks, Classic Saint Marty

A fourth-generation German-American

now living in easy circumstances

on Cape Cod

[and smoking too much],

who, as an American infantry scout

hors de combat,

as a prisoner of war,

witnessed the fire-bombing of Dresden, Germany,

'The Florence of the Elbe,'

a long time ago,

and survived to tell the tale.

This is a novel

somewhat in the telegraphic schizophrenic

manner of tales

of the planet Tralfamadore,

where the flying saucers

come from.

Peace.

If you haven't already guessed, the book I will be examining this year on Saint Marty is Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five.  It won the poll by a couple of votes, and I couldn't be happier.  I think it will be the perfect novel for the first year of a Trump presidency, since it focuses on a world torn apart by the lunacy of war and power.  It's an argument for peace, among other things, including life on other planets.

That is what's in store for the year 2017.  Vonnegut and the fire-bombing of Dresden and flying saucers.  It should be an interesting ride.  It's my hope that, by December 31st, we will still be living in peace, although I have my doubts at the moment.  Perhaps we will all be living on Tralfamadore by then.

Oh, by the way, I want to thank everyone who voted for me this last month.  I have no idea when the announcement will be made as to who will be the next Poet Laureate of the U. P.  I would have to guess it will occur at the beginning of April, which is National Poetry Month.  Regardless of whether I will hold the post or not, I appreciate all of the support I've received throughout the month of December.

Now, I do have an episode of Classic Saint Marty for you this evening.  It first aired on January 2, 2015.  Almost two years ago . . .

January 2, 2015:  So Many Memories, At the Hospital, Quiet Fairy Tale

Years ago, in the 1950s, as a young man working for a Madison Avenue advertising agency, Ives always looked forward to the holiday season and would head out during his lunch hours, visiting churches, to think and meditate, and, if he was lucky, to hear the choirs as they practiced their hymns and sacred songs.  Often enough, he walked along the burgeoning sidewalks, crowded with shoppers and tourists, and made his way to Saint Patrick's Cathedral, where he'd become lost in a kind of euphoric longing--why he did not know.  And in a moment, he would find himself, as a child, attending Mass with his adoptive family again, so many memories coming back to him:  of standing beside his father during the services and noticing, as he looked up at his father's kindly face, just how moved he seemed to be by the prayers, and the Latin incantations, and the reverential chants; so moved, especially during the raising of the host, that he almost seemed on the verge of tears.

The opening paragraph of Oscar Hijuelos' Mr. Ives' Christmas.  It reads almost like a prose poem.  I remember the first time I read this novel.  I was living in Kalamazoo, Michigan, at the time, attending graduate school.  It was the end of the fall semester, around the second week of December.  I was slaving away on a research paper on F. Scott Fitzgerald's Tender is the Night.  I was surrounded by stacks of library books, sitting at my desktop computer, pounding away at the keyboard.  Late in the evening, I took a break, made myself some dinner, and sat down to read the book reviews in Time Magazine.  One of the books was Hiljuelos' newest effort, a book described as "...a spare, moving meditation of the spiritual life."  I was immediately tempted to drive to my local Barnes & Noble to purchase a copy.  But I didn't.

Instead, I made a deal with myself.  When I finished my Fitzgerald research paper, I would allow myself to buy Mr. Ives' Christmas in celebration.  Well, that was enough motivation for me to sit back down at my desk and finish my work.  A day-and-a-half later, I was standing in line at the cash register with that slim, green hardcover edition of Ives in my hands.  I drove back to my apartment, changed into my pajamas, and spent the rest of the night reading.  At 4 a.m., I read the last paragraph of the book, closed it, and cried myself silly.  I was that moved by it.

Over the years, I have reread it several times.  I've used it in various classes that I have taught.  I've given it to friends as presents.  It's a book that has greatly influenced who I am as an artist.  It was a serious work of literature dealing with themes of religion and faith and hope.  Each sentence is gorgeous, and the cumulative effect of the entire narrative is devastatingly beautiful.

Okay, I'm gushing.  But you get the idea.  I love this book.  When the 911 attacks occurred in New York City, I reread Ives.  I was looking for solace.  Comfort.  Peace.  I found it.  When my wife and I were separated for a year, I reread Ives.  Solace.  Comfort.  Peace.  It has saved me from despair on several occasions.

Tonight, my sister is at the hospital again.  She has been struggling for over half a year with surgeries and infections and more surgeries and more infections.  She's really sick again.  I'm still waiting for a phone call to find out what's wrong with her this time.  She was incredibly weak, dizzy to the point of passing out.  I'm hoping it's a matter of dehydration or an electrolyte imbalance.  Something easy to treat.  Considering my sister's recent difficulties, I'm worried that it might be sepsis.

So, here I sit again, finding comfort in Mr. Ives' Christmas.  I have my Christmas tree on.  The house is silent.  My kids are spending the night at my parents' house, and my wife is working.  I am alone and enjoying the solitude.  I've been praying.  Staring at my Christmas lights.  Closing my eyes every now and then.  Reflecting.  That's what this book does to me.

Once upon a time, there was a man named Frank who lived on a mountain top.  Frank didn't like the noise and hustle and bustle of everyday life.  All he ever wanted to do was sit on his front porch with his favorite book and read.

Eventually, stories of Frank's wisdom and quiet life spread throughout the kingdom.  Pilgrims began climbing Frank's mountain to sit on the steps of his cabin and ask him questions.  This annoyed the hell out of Frank.

One day, a young man showed up at his front door.  Frank invited his young visitor to sit on his front porch.  "You may ask me one question," Frank told him.  "Only one."

The young man thought long and hard about what he was going to ask Frank.  Finally, he said, "I have my question, Wise One."

Frank closed the book he was reading and said, "Go ahead.  Ask."

The young man cleared his throat.  "What is the greatest book ever written?"

Frank gazed at the young man for many long moments.  The young man gazed at him expectantly.  Finally, Frank said, "I really love the Twilight series."

Moral of the story:  even wise men can have crappy taste in books.

And Saint Marty lived happily ever after.

Even smart people can be dumb