Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
I'm pretty familiar with David's fables (I help edit a 'zine that's been
running them for - jeez, it's a couple years now, isn't it) and this seems
to be one of those that's less "ha-ha" funny in the joke sense and more
funny in the in the "isn't it funny how we sometimes overlook the obvious"
sense.  Individuals might differ on the validity of the premise based on
their experience, but the story pretty much describes the collapse of my
first marriage (she never went away for a week, so it was only later
reflection that allowed me to see the process of falling apart clearly) and
the lessons I learned that have made my second marriage so damned good.

So I think the humor here is more related to peculiarity than hilarity.
  

    
And that the woman is the one who does all the misjudging....
  

    
Thanks for sharing that with me Shaun, I didn['t realize that this
fable struck that close to him. It's very dificult to figure out what
people will laugh at or not laught at. Like they say,"One man's ceiling
is another man's floor." And that's the case with how Sharon and Gail
see things. Anyway, diferent things appear to different people, and for
that matter some of the fables that George Ade wrote (see FAbles in
Slang and More Fables in Slang) didn't hit on all six all the time
either. There's no accounting for tastes, each person ses things
differently which we all know. As I writer I just have to follow my own
instincts, write what I think it a true representation of what's in my
head, or what I've seen or experienced, and make sure it all hanngs
together in a nice way. The couple in this story wasn't supposed to be
a Nineties couple, a sexually correct-coupled, the portrait of a sexist
marriage or anything like that. Normal people who love each other who
are living their lives as best they can, trying to make due---that's
what I try to capture. If I could please everyone I"d probably be on
the NY Times best seller list, or have a book like PJ O'Rourke---
  

    
Well, I am laughing, but perhaps not for the reason you intended.
  

    
I'll take laughs any way I can get'em. BTW, what way did you think I
was intending?
  

    

I thought it was quite charming, actually.  
  

    

I think it's crap.  And now I no longer think you're clueless, David, I
think you are an actual sexist.  And I victimized-feeling sexist at that.
It's too bad.
  

    
I thought the man in that fable did quite a bit of misjudging (which is why
I saw some of my own experience in it, because I sure as hell did) and I
really don't see the sexism in it at all.  Is it really sexist to think that
human beings get caught up in their own lives so much that they forget to
check in with people with whom they've purposed to share those lives?  Maybe
David has a tendency to reflect couples whose lives demonstrate "traditional
" gender roles a bit more than some of us prefer, but there's actually a
reason that those roles are perceived as "traditional."  I think it's
because traditonally, that's how most people have lived, and a lot of women
expect men to fulfill their side of the assigned equation as much as a lot
of men expect women to fulfill theirs.  They might all be wrong, but for
every man who expects women to be, for instance, the primary child care
provider in the family, there's probably a woman who expects the man to keep
the cars in repair and mow the lawn.  Whether or not that should be the case
has little to do with the reality that in many cases, that *is* the case.

And this, David, is more of the drift that the Well is famous for.  Didn't
come here to talk about any of this, did ya?
  

    

I just thought the part where she was "poisoning her sex life" was pretty
odd.
Vindictive bitch.
  

    
Having just re-read part of 134, I want to make it clear that I didn't mean
to imply that mowing the lawn and changing the oil are in any way equal in
effort or importance to raising kids.  I was a custodial single dad for too
long to believe that...
  

    
YOur really are a stitch, Cyunthia, guess that means I"m not longer
your new best friend---how fleeting are friendships in
cyberworld---sigh!

"poisoning her sexlife" is a kind of cliche, isn't it?

No Shaun, I really didn't come to talk about this, but since I'm here,
I might as well join the party, well it's more like a mugging. How
about this? sexist talk is like commercial packaging, and the problem
with feminists is that they want to control the ad content of their owm
commercials, and people who don't agree with them are shunned---which
is quite similqar to the level of political discourse that went on in
the Sixties in cretain high-falutin' radical circles---when all of this
stuff was re-discovered by women who were busily re-disvoering the
feminist roots of American cultural history, feminism and civil rights
and also temperance have all been part and parcel of the American
cultural scene since the early 19th century.

I mean Cynthia can sneer and snort all she wants, but it's my story, I
wrote it like that, (and BTW, I wrote it a long time ago) and
furthermore, since I'm married and I ver all my stuff with my onoly
wife, if I was being  sexist, she'd have told me about it long time
ago. So I don['t really payu it no nevermind what you say Cynthia
though it's fun seeing how pissy you can get at a simple fable. Anyway,
love, you're far more in the public eye than I am, and you've been a
master media manipulator for years---not that that's bad, that's just
the way it is in this world. Anyway, like TNB, thesefables were
supposed to spark controversy, because it would be a damn boring world
if everyone agrees about every little thing all the time. Thank
goodness, the doctrine police stay out of Western Massachusetts. And
another thing, my new best friend, I have not a clue just what has
excised you to such an extent. REading is like tv, if you don't like
it, you turn the page. ON the other hand I'm delighted that you give my
simple little fables so much power; if that was the case I'd have
bigger advances and go on book tours like someone else I know :-))) no
hard feelings.

I think Sahun is onto something here, and I'm glad he's my editor at
Cosmik Debris (I'll have a fable in the next April issue which everyone
can uderstand, even Deej, Shaun)
  

    
It seems that the guy in the story is always noble,
compassionate, and ready to give.  The woman is always
edgy, neurotic, and self-destructive.
  

    
yup. that's how it came off for me, as well. man good. woman bad.
  

    
Well, there ya go.  I didn't see it that way at all.  More woman dedicated,
industrious and overburdened, man wanting to be concerned but generally
oblivious.  He could have been more help if he'd known what she needed, but
she wasn't in his face about it, so he let it slide.  Not a particularly
noble approach, IMO, but a pretty human one.  She could have gotten more
help by being more confrontational, but chose not too.  Maybe she was
a victim of socialization into traditional roles more than she wanted to
admit, maybe she really liked taking on so much responsibility and was proud
of her ability to do so.  There was a price for her commitment to those
responsibilities, though, and a price for the blinders he chose to wear.
That price was the quality of their relationship, and because of some
fortuitous circumstances, they weren't forced to make a final accounting.
They both learned something and improved the quality of their mutual life.

Or maybe I just like and respect David quite a bit based on my familiarity
with his stuff and don't want to see him dismissed as mindlessly sexist
because I'm pretty sure that that's not true...
  

    
>>the problem with feminists

uh oh.
  

    
If I may be forgiven for getting a bit drifty and philosophical here, I know
o know other medium which has such a capacity to connect emotinally.  It's
different than a book, a tv show, rock n roll radio.  All of those can make
you weep.  But here we sit at our keyboards, often writing as if far away
and reading as if naked and close.

It is very hard for the poster to know if words about feminists, sexists or
whatever group one is tarring will hit home.

(often on the WELL it is libertarians, statists,  flacks, quacks and
others of other flavors being gored, by the way.)  

I imagine that many people who feel themselves to be free to pick and choose
from the philosophies of our times have spoken in anguish to a friend or a
therapist about their spouse or lover, without poisoning anything, even if
figuring out what's happening can be painful.  And relationships end.

On paper the words might look like a yawn or a cliche, and somehow on line
they almost *OUCH* in readers minds.  In a way the author sometimes can't 
perceive without the Say Ouch/Cry Foul feedback function.  
 
The cop reference made me think of all the real people locked up for 
the second in the triad of SEX DRUGS & ROCK n ROLL.  Being arrested is
a whole nother thing from being criticised.   No PC police here, one 
has to BYO internal arbiter of truth, kindness, candor and justice, and 
listen to fellow humans reply "OUCH" in their own often sharp-tongued ways.  
Folks can give you feedback but they can't lock you up and feed you 
leftover loaf here, and they will NEVER all agree on one reaction.      

Goodness.  All those caps above.  Forgive me for shouting.
  

    
mmkay. 'man good, woman bad' a tad overstated and vague. read more like 'man
has no angst, does effortlessly for a weekend what has been wearing woman
down for years, woman anxious and untrusting, with a little passive
aggression thrown in for frosting.'

and i'm not even a very good feminist.
  

    

>But here we sit at our keyboards, often writing as if far away and reading
>as if naked and close.

Nice, Gail.
  

    
nice Gail---VERY nice and you too Shaun, double-glad you edit my stuff
when it comes over the transom. All I know about writing it that yuo
con't pleawe all the people all the time. And what's more, if you do,m
thenyou're not doing your job. Art is really not an agreement,
something which is approved on by a committee, that was the problem
with the "radicalism" of the Sixties: everyone knew the way and the
path, and those who din't, well firk'em. So there wasn't room for
cultural radicals, all one had to be was a political radical. I watched
it happen at the Eawt Village Other from 1968-10972, watched the whole
movement go into the toilet because people lost their focus about what
was important. No gray, just black and white, no discussions, only
action. If you were going to be, for argument's sake, a "feminist" that
only meant one thing, and so on. As for the arts, everyone was so
intent on being doctrinally pure (qand that's stikll the case) that no
one realizes just how bad and destructive Socialist Realism was in its
time. These days dialogues are out and harrangues are in, harrangues
preferably with statistical numbers underneath, because everyone
believes in statistics and surveys.

Maybe it comes down to the fact that, like it or not,"We ARE the
people our parents warned us against", and part of the problem that
"boomers" are having whether it's on the pages of magasines or in the
media, is that they haven't gotten to that realization yet. There's
nothing wrong with change and growth and movement. What is missing in
all of this is a sense of "grace" however you define it, grace and a
sense of timing.
  

    
Do you think boomers as a class haven't figured out that they/we are the
beast (or at least the establishment/parents/elders) now? 

or is it that the mediated vision of boomers, that funhouse mirror of
ads and must-sell-infotainment, attempt to con and flatter us by calling out
to some small part that is in denial?
  

    
I'm intrigued by the first vision, that boomers haven't figured it out
and at the same time it could also be part of the denial---as I said,
I don't even identify with the term, the term is one used by people in
the motivational psychology part of the culture, the advertising part
of the culture which seems to have free run on everything and
everybody. I don't choose to categorize myself as a boomer, and I think
that people who do have some severe difficulties, like the fact that
they never got over being in high school, that somehow considering
onsellf is a boomer with rights and privileges accured, that is IS
important, very important to hold on to that bit of identity when it's
really not a real identity only one cobbled together form the nostalgia
of goods and services, of pictures and images that have been so
homogenized that they have lost any sense of reality, that some people
have decided that they are going to be satisfied with the labels put on
them by advertising, that being in some kind of age-differentiated
cohort is preferable to just being there, or being here. Does that make
some sense to you Gail, man am I glad that you're actually paying
attention, so this whole exercise in tyuping and thinking has been
really worth it for me, and that there are other people out there who
are just looking in that are not only being amused but are thinking,
because again, thinking is a subversive activity, someth8ing which the
people who keep shoving the "boomer" concept down our throats, don't
want us to do---

whiew! that's enough of a rant for Sunday night!

Any other quesitons, statements, illuminations people?????
  

    
I like the idea of cultural borderlands, or badlands,  and of scouting
around for anything that undermines the consumer-driven ad-talk that
rules the media--and the bedroom for that matter.  And the bedroom's
annex, the therapist's office.  Like I'm not real impressed with all
this jawing back and forth over who suffers more in the kitchen or the
bedroom.  Like somekind of moral spa, it reeks of a strange kind of
privilege and oblivion.  I'd rather talk about real prisons, or
corporate environments.  Corporate cultures.   But it's even later on
my Sunday night in Maine to think straight, and I have to get up early
tomorrow to go up to Orono  for a couple of days.  Later.  

    
  

    

david, I liked you at first.  this isn't a game.  I really was stunned by
what you've been saying about feminists, like all feminists think in one
voice haha anyway.

You remind me too much of Asa Baber, who, if criticized at all launches into
a sniveling yet sullen viciousness.

So I will officially forget this topic and let my more affable cohost deal
with the bigoted blather.
  

    
Bigoted blather eh? when you don't get your way, that's when you fold,
or resort to name-calling or pin the category on the rube, or any
number of other things. I still don't know what you're on about: there
are feminist thought(s) and feminist thought---though it seems to me
that within the movement there are many diffuse strands and even they
don't agree, and if that is the case, than why a mere man, should have
even a clue what the issues are. It's too bad you personalize this
Cynthia, it's more my observation that as long as the conversation
revolves around you and your issues, thjings are fine, everybody's
friends--haha--and when there's even the slightest wiff of disagreement
(and it's more bemusement than disagreement), then things change. But
maybe you do this to women too who don't agree with you or have
different opinions. Ultimately you don't serve your own cause that well
(whatever it happens to be)---jeez maybe there are male-ists out
there. Whatever happened *really* happened to foreplay, Cynthia?
Must have gotten what it deserved. Or maybe you jsut like fixed games,
fixed intellectual games that is.


Nice to see you're back in Maine, Carol, I was supposed to be there
for a few days this week but I've been laid up with the flu. So I
assume you've been following the above in some fashion (though if I
were you I"d have cursored through it looking for a point). As I think
I said previously, I now understand your enthusiasm for TNB as I'm
reading your book, I understand where you're coming from and in some
ways we're two parts of the same thing, because some aspects of "head"
culture coincided for a moment with the "Dead" culture, thus the
Deadhead manifestation---and waht I was getting at is that when 'head'
culture became massculture, when the artifacts could be easily
replicated, when soap, automobiles, clothes were clothed in the
ideological underpinnings of 'head' culture, and that seemed to me to
be around 1969 or early 1970, then the game changed. 

Maybe it takes another political catastrophe for "us" to pull
together. Vietnam was that full field metaphor before the "me"
gene4ration took over, when political issues became narrow-casted, whre
people lost sight of the whole picture---this is what has happened
with my dialogue or discussion if you can call it that that I've been
having with Cynthia--- consumerism produces a kind of intellectual
selfishness which leads to a narrowness of vision, which leads back to
the fashionable idea (again) that "greed is good".

For asyou know TNB IS about corporate culture, all that stuff which
thinking people are intrigued about, which thinking people try to
mediate or change---what is it that Lev Bronstein said? "Revolution is
a way of life"; and like freedom in the words of EE Cummings, it is not
a "breakfast food"---
  

    
Well, I dunno, David, when the conversation wasn't going *your* way you
decided it wasn't something you wanted to talk about.