“The thing was to keep four walls around you. If you had four walls you had a chance. Once you were out on the street you had no chance, they had you, they really had you. Why steal something if you can’t cook it? How are you going to screw something if you live in an alley? How are you going to sleep when everybody in the Union Rescue Mission snores? And steals your shoes? And stinks? And insane? You need four walls. Give a man four walls long enough and it is possible for him to own the world.”
Charles Bukowski
1983
*******
It appears that a 4.7 magnitude earthquake struck south-east Los Angeles this evening, causing some significant shaking. I learned this by logging into my Twitter account; since most of the friends and colleagues I follow are Angelenos, they were quick to comment. My friend, journalist Cletus Nelson tweets that “the couch started ominously shaking for what seemed a long time — but it was probably 15-20 seconds.” Celeste at Witness L.A. said the quake was felt strong in Long Beach, “not so much where I am in Topanga.” And Will Campbell asserts that anything less than a 5.0 “barely phases” him.
*******
The Filipino physical therapist noticed the boxed set DVD of season one of “House, MD” on my bookshelf as he stretched my left leg in a position that made my hamstrings sing like electrified wire. We began talking about the show and the progressive arc of the character of Gregory House and the PT asked if I thought that House and hospital administrator Lisa Cuddy would ever sleep together during the life of the television show.
“Impossible!” I proclaimed. “David Shore, the creator of the series, has already said that House is a 21st century update of Sherlock Holmes set in the medical world. Gregory House is Sherlock Holmes; James Wilson, House’s best friend, is a stand-in for James Watson; and following the cryptology there from Arthur Conan Doyle’s characters, that would make Lisa Cuddy the Professor Moriarty to House’s Sherlock Holmes. And that would make her the enemy of Gregory House. So, no, they will never sleep together. They can never sleep together. Talk about sleeping with the enemy.”
“Uh-huh. I see.” He tried to pull my leg over my head by way of my elbow. ”Does that hurt?”
“It’s causing some strain on my shin, yeah.”
******
what was wrong was never
understood
and what was right
never lasted
Charles Bukowski
******
“The important thing,” the portly medical social worker advised, “is that you guys do not seperate. It’s rough out there. Maybe you should return to California. Don’t you have family out there that can help you out or take you in for the short term?”
We exchanged a blank look as if we had been asked to describe the physical surface of Jupiter.
RJ channels Bukowski:
“The thing was to keep four walls around you.”
An island – of concrete…
By: Plug Nickel Outfit on May 18, 2009
at 1:13 am
I think I recommended Ballard’s “Concrete Island” to you, didn’t I? Or did you pick that one up on your own?
By: Rodger Jacobs on May 18, 2009
at 10:30 am
I’m not sure if you recommended it – but we did discuss it briefly. A friend had included a copy along with a grab bag of news clippings and ephemera which I’d plopped on a shelf and only discovered months later. We discussed it first (IIRC) when I’d mentioned I was going to be starting the book soon after I’d discovered it in the grab bag.
That Bukowski quote did bring the novel to mind though. In my mind – holding the quote against the book – I’m left with a less than comforting feeling about the solace that four walls alone can provide.
By: Plug Nickel Outfit on May 18, 2009
at 12:26 pm
An interesting and very compelling literary counterpart to Bukowski’s observations.
By: Rodger Jacobs on May 18, 2009
at 12:33 pm
Was the Filipino physical therapist aware that Hugh Laurie has been fixated on you?
And what was he suggesting with Maybe-you-should-return-to-California? Is LV trying to punt you two back to LA or something?
..
By: Kitty on May 18, 2009
at 5:45 am
The PT and the MSW are different people, K, but as for your question, I cannot say much right now as everything is in a manic state of flux; one of the issues, though, that the MSW was confronting, is the fact that neither Miss L nor I have any kind of support network here in Las Vegas. We have absolutely zero friends here and no family. It creates a series of problems such as how to pick up my prescriptions at the pharmacy 2.5 miles away when the heat is in triple digit temps and we have no vehicle; the same with fetching groceries. We are literally on our own here and for two mature people with a myriad of health and income issues, that’s a problem.
By: Rodger Jacobs on May 18, 2009
at 10:32 am
Fours walls and a roof over your head Rodger, a while back here, the act by some people of just moving into vacant repossessed homes and claiming homestead privilege’s was mentioned, I heard yesterday that there now exists a political action group that is advising and assisting people in this regard.
Interesting developments, lots of homeless and disposessed people and at the same time lots of empty bank owned homes.
Capitalism as a sore thumb.
By: don quixote on May 18, 2009
at 6:50 am
I’ve been dealing with HELP of Southern Nevada, which is a sort of umbrella organization for all social services aid groups that are not run in whole by state or federal systems; they just announced that beginning in July their organization will be expanding from four 8 hour days a week to five 10 hour days per week. Lots of people in need of help out there.
By: Rodger Jacobs on May 18, 2009
at 10:38 am
Rodger — I continue to think all positive energy your way, for what it’s worth. Your friends may not be present in physical form, but we’re with you in what I have to believe is more than spirit.
When things reach their bottom, there has to be an uptick, yes? I am eternally hopeful, for you, for all of us.
And now I am also contemplating the surface of Jupiter.
By: Geoff on May 18, 2009
at 1:32 pm
When one falls down and gets back up as many times as I have, Geoff, one sometimes latches onto the paranoid feeling that as you get older your luck may not continue to hold up, that there are only so many rebirths available in any given lifetime. It’s a nasty thought pattern I have to get away from.
By: Rodger Jacobs on May 18, 2009
at 1:36 pm
(postscript)
As an aside, my current personal journey has led me to the Washington, D.C. area. There seems to be uncertainty everywhere, but the words can save us, always.
By: Geoff on May 18, 2009
at 1:34 pm
Have you moved there yet?
By: Rodger Jacobs on May 18, 2009
at 1:37 pm
Yes, at least for the short term. Have computer — will travel … as long as the words follow or lead.
By: Geoff on May 19, 2009
at 1:12 am
If I may say something about writing for a moment, this is an instance where a mosaic works far better than a conventional narrative. The things disclosed here would be artless as a journal entry or listed as a series of challenges faced; instead, the reader is invited into the whole hazy cloud.
I heard recently that the center of the mind that brings pleasure is located very close to the one that wants revenge. A straight narrative when the walls are caving in channels a reader towards a single clarifying blow, climax, or payback. But an atmospheric cloud of grief enables the reader to sit back and decide if there aren’t finer, more minute opportunities to re-align a crisis-in-progress.
Lately I have much admired Dr. Zhivago, and this post shares a lot with it. DZ is full of the minutiae and while devoted to history treats history more as an intrusive villain than a friend. Even the ignominious death—trying to open a Moscow trolley window—is a small but shining fragment, indifferent to fitting into the narrative.
DZ is really a mosaic, not a narrative, of a man and of a life. It looks like a narrative because it is synchronic, but it really is a big Russian mess of a nineteenth century novel made into a glistening twentieth century mosaic. The twentieth century, when human life and the narrative fractured, and the best arts documented the fissures.
By: joseph on May 18, 2009
at 1:38 pm
this is an instance where a mosaic works far better than a conventional narrative. The things disclosed here would be artless as a journal entry or listed as a series of challenges faced
Astute as always, Joseph. I’ve been writing an awful lot of artless material here of late and wanted to get back on track a bit and, further, I simply don’t feel like bludgeoning my readers any longer with posts like the recent ones concerning Colonial Bank. I much prefer hints and allusions, suggestions and asides, put the reader’s imagination to work a little bit. It’s much more effective, as you kindly point out.
By: Rodger Jacobs on May 18, 2009
at 1:51 pm
I’m not really wild about the revenge-pleasure contiguity. It sounds a lot like the old Stalin quote about the happiest moments in life being when one has put into effect an elaborate and vicious plan for murderous revenge and then gone to sleep on it. Sociopathology, of course, but it looks pretty silly from far enough back. Of course, I don’t know the modern psych references.
I’m not sure why DZ is a mosaic instead of a narrative, and War and Peace isn’t. Lots of books have multi-multiple POVs. I have nothing against the word, though, if one finds it useful.
By: John Shannon on May 18, 2009
at 5:14 pm
i believe jupiter doesn’t have a surface; it’s one of the ‘gas giants’ but i hear you, nevertheless.
and geoff, dc is my ol’ stompin’ ground. hung in with those swines for almost 20 yrs. reconsider moving there; nice place to visit, but it’ll rob your soul otherwise.
“chinaski, chinaski, you truly are a great man”
By: (S)wine on May 18, 2009
at 6:49 pm
I’ve had “novel reading burnout” lately, Alex, between personal reading and reading for my Pop Matters columns. When that happens, there are only two authors I can read who can restore my mood and concentration to full novels: Bukowski and Hunter S. Thompson.
By: Rodger Jacobs on May 18, 2009
at 6:59 pm
wow, me too. absolutely the only two authors to whom i come back to fill the glass.
By: (S)wine on May 18, 2009
at 7:05 pm
That’s because Buk and HST make writing look easy.
By: Rodger Jacobs on May 19, 2009
at 9:53 am
Alex, I’ll be sure to protect my soul. I’m already checking to see if it’s intact. I’ll wave Bukowski like a crucifix. No one will dare come for me. (I hope.)
By: Geoff on May 19, 2009
at 1:16 am
Let’s all pray for Geoff.
By: Rodger Jacobs on May 19, 2009
at 9:53 am
I’m not really wild about the revenge-pleasure contiguity. It sounds a lot like the old Stalin quote about the happiest moments in life being when one has put into effect an elaborate and vicious plan for murderous revenge and then gone to sleep on it.
To be honest, I don’t know how you got so far out based on what I said. Maybe first look at what I said. Then…
On revenge and pleasure, here’s a scientific article summary that points in the direction:
Scientific American, Dec. 2004: The Pleasure of Revenge
There are lots of others. That doesn’t mean we need to turn into bloodthirsty genocidal maniacs when we’re slighted. It means that when we root for the Lakers, we’re happier when they beat the Celtics than we are when they beat someone else. To go from a statement on the way the general neurological response responds to victimization to the Stalinist purges is disingenuous.
As per whether or not Pasternak offers something that might be called a mosaic more justifiably than Tolstoy might, I’ll first compare/contrast the fact of the deaths of Anna Karenina (a dramatic horrifying climax, suicide by public transportation) v. Zhivago (a quietly muddled anticlimax, heart attack taking public transportation).
Pressures build in Tolstoy, dementia and jealousy accelerate; it’s a narrative in every sense. In Pasternak, the only thing that makes it a narrative is faithfulness to chronology. Otherwise, things are broken but fall apart, reassemble, and fall apart again anyway; characters pop up and meet unexpectedly, often by chance; coincidence is rampant but irony not so much (which to me is a very refreshing view of coincidence, as too many authors confuse it for irony), the affair is at the beginning and simply fades, and politics are always an intrusion. I was really taken by surprise this time around by how modern DZ is.
By: joseph on May 18, 2009
at 7:27 pm
I love it when you and Shannon respectfully spar. Very entertaining.
By: Rodger Jacobs on May 19, 2009
at 9:55 am
Indeed I am a contentious fellow.
By: joseph on May 19, 2009
at 12:14 pm
You like a good hearty discussion. Nothing wrong with that.
By: Rodger Jacobs on May 19, 2009
at 12:16 pm
I’ve had “novel reading burnout” lately, Alex, between personal reading and reading for my Pop Matters columns.
Maybe try Crowley’s <iThe Solitudes?
By: joseph on May 19, 2009
at 12:15 pm
I would love to read “The Solitudes” someday, Joseph, but right now I’m having trouble finishing Bolano’s 960-page novel so I don’t think I can commit to a work as large as “The Solitudes” just now.
By: Rodger Jacobs on May 19, 2009
at 12:19 pm
Lisa Cuddy the Professor Moriarty to House’s Sherlock Holmes.
I haven’t seen the show, but maybe she’s Irene Adler?
Sorry to miss you this weekend, RJ. Had some personal drama, though from the post it seems like it was very small in comparison. Let’s make sure we have something solid before July, okay?
By: David N. Scott on May 19, 2009
at 1:23 am
Let’s try for something on your next trip, David. My PT yesterday was tiring and I didn’t feel up to going anywhere after that.
By: Rodger Jacobs on May 19, 2009
at 9:51 am
Yeah, sounded like it.
Hey, let me know if you want to launch an anti-PR blitz on your bank. I’ve become pretty familiar with how to do it from my working with our Customer Service Director (albeit from the opposite end). You can make all kinds of problems for a company from the privacy of your own room / computer.
By: David N.Scott on May 19, 2009
at 1:35 pm
Send me an e-mail about that, David.
By: Rodger Jacobs on May 19, 2009
at 1:38 pm