My Face Is Like, Three Times Bigger Than Yours

I suppose I should start this with an explanation. I don’t normally review restaurants. In fact I don’t care to review restaurants, or at least I didn’t care to do so. But I found myself in a situation where it was necessary and I surprisingly jumped at the opportunity. This is because of an incident that transpired during my first weeks here in New York. I had just attended my graduate school’s orientation and the second year students offered to take the first years out to their regular watering holes. They first chose to take us to a nice, Parisian style establishment named Café Loup, I suppose since it seemed to be the most evocative of the writerly spirit. So we all made our way there en masse, guided by the tender prodding’s of our more experienced brethren. However the fact that we were all so excited to be finally involved with the program proved to be a point of contention for the staff of Café Loup. We were warned that if we did not quiet down we would not be served, followed shortly by a demand to pay our checks and vacate the premises.

Needless to say many of us were miffed by this. We were after all paying patrons who had a right to socialize with our compatriots. I, however, was incensed. I was so flippantly angry that I puffed up my chest and brazenly walked up to the man who had ejected us from the premises. Tapping his shoulder I made damn well sure we made eye contact and with the most indignant voice I could muster I told him, “Fuck you.” I then proceeded to storm out, foiled temporarily by a reticent door that consequently made me feel stupid. Damn door could have ruined the moment.

So when I found myself confronted by the option to write a review about a restaurant I immediately thought of Café Loup. What better opportunity to incite a hilariously disastrous dining experience than by returning to a place where the staff would undoubtedly remember me as the “fuck you” guy? What could go wrong? Well, everything. But that was exactly the point. Look, to put me in a mythological perspective, and to avoid the typical descriptions of “dick”, “POS”, “prick”, etc., I am the living embodiment of Loki. With mostly tamed social anxiety issues. But that’s beside the point. What is right on the point is how I failingly attempted to coax several ladies to dinner with me and then finally proceeded to cause what mayhem I could on my own. Aside from the absence of an oblivious date, the night was ripe for exploit.

Whether you believe me or not, I was not nervous. I was unclear on where exactly the café was and experienced a moment of shock when I found myself confronted suddenly by its ominous light blue awning; but again, I was not afraid. I will admit that I was a bit apprehensive entering the café as I expected to be yelled at and asked to leave, an outcome I had already decided to resist and force them to physically eject me from the premises as I yelled beautiful inanities.

But that wasn’t the case, unfortunately. I was met by a man who looked like he was prime for a midlife crisis, politely asking me if I would like a table. I was confused at first both by his pleasant approach and the fact that I initially took him for a customer. In any case I told him that I would rather eat at the bar since I was on my own. I don’t mind doing things on my own, but there’s no point in adding injury to insult. Yes, I meant to write it that way. Leave me alone.

What bothered me the most was the fact that the man who I had “Fuck You’d” did not appear to be present. Scanning the pleasantly lit dining room I only saw well-dressed baby boomers chatting over delicate plates of cuisine and glasses of wine. I took a moment to congratulate myself for dolling myself up for the occasion, otherwise I would have stood out like a cock in a bowl of noodles. But I was disappointed. Not having “Fuck You’d” man here essentially negated the entire point of coming. What was I to do now? Sit here, eat their food, drink their spirits, and then write a review about it? What a waste of life.

All that was left now was to sit at a fancily appointed bar and stare at myself in the mirror, which to an extent I was okay with. I wanted to make a few faces to pass the time but decided that the other patrons would not understand. Behind me, enveloping the old geezers properly picking at their orders, was the dining room. The entire space felt cozy with its low ceiling and dim lighting, an appropriately cultured soundtrack resonating softly as a final touch. I could see why these folks, who appeared to be regulars, liked coming here. This was as close to Paris as one could get beyond shelling out ones hard-earned money for a flight. What I could not understand, though, was how any of my classmates thought this would be a nice place to write. While a pleasant setting, Café Loup did not in any way seem to be conducive to creative inspiration. At least not in the way I imagined Henry Miller finding inspiration. Or Bukowski.

As I mused about the atmosphere and the copious amount of spirits on the shelf before me I suddenly realized that “Fuck You’d” man had appeared. For whatever reason he had stepped away from the bar, and now facing each other I could see a sudden moment of clarity in his mind. I imagined his internal dialogue going something like this: “Ah, another patron. Let me provide him with a menu and… oh great this prick!” I swear he took a double take, but he said nothing of the affair. I was slightly disappointed. I came for a scene, for some form of mild civil disobedience, or wait, I think it would have been more along the lines of unapologetic impropriety. Despite the fact that he had apparently recognized me, that I had the gall to return and put myself in a position that forced a confrontation, that I offered no apology or inkling of remorse, this good man handed me a menu and asked what I would like to drink.

So there I was waiting excitedly for him to yell at me as he had done to my compatriots before, and instead I was being served like all the other geezers around me. I would like to say that I felt relieved, but I wasn’t. Now I found myself in a position where I had to behave as an upstanding patron and actually order something. I had already come to terms with the fact that I was going to dish out a considerable amount of money, but to do so for a dinner void of excitement, well that was a travesty. Not only that, the bourgeois air was weighing so heavily on me that I now felt like I had to breathe it or suffocate. Therefore a proper dinner was in order.

The menu was quite sparse, to the point of my flipping it over to see if there were more options, which there weren’t. They did provide a “prix fixe” menu, which I took to mean “fixed price” by my modest deductive and French language abilities. For $32 I would be able to select an appetizer, an entrée, and a dessert, each consisting of three options. In a continued effort to find the diversity of their menu I proceeded to compare the prix fixe menu and the regular one. To my dismay the prix fixe menu consisted of select items from the regular menu, so that was that. I opted to go the $32 route, selecting a green salad with olive oil and cheese and a rotisserie style chicken with steamed vegetables. Noting that I was having trouble selecting what I wanted, “Fuck You’d” man kindly offered to bring the menu back after I had finished my entry so that I could select my desert.

To maintain the image of a moneyed, young professional, I decided to drink wine. Not knowing how to pair any of the wines (again, the selection was modest), I asked “Fuck You’d” man to offer a recommendation. My request was met with a flair of frustration; it was apparent to me that he did not really know how to pair wines himself. After looking pleadingly at another staff member he finally suggested a pinot grigio, but as I preferred red he then recommended a pinot noir. The only pinot noir on the list. My first impression of the wine was that it was far too acidic and light. As the night would wear on and as I began working on my second glass, however, I would end up changing my mind. He did fill my wine glass to the absolute brim both times, so at least that was consistent. And much appreciated.

Food having been ordered I found myself in the awkward position of not knowing what to do while I waited. I spent some considerable time stink-eyeing myself in the mirror and giving the other diners bored looks. A basket with three types of bread was eventually placed in front of me. I have no way of knowing what was what so I will call them white bread, wheat bread, and rye bread. They were all enjoyable in their own right, but what was delicious, almost a delicacy, was the butter. While not direct from the bovine it was light and sumptuous. The salad was much like the bread: tasty but not quite noteworthy. The greens were good and bitter, the olive oil was just right, but what was heavenly was the brie. I think it was brie.

To be honest the cheese threw me through a loop at first. Upon setting eyes on it I could feel the flood of endorphins in my brain. I instinctively thrust my fork towards it, ready to enjoy its creamy goodness. But as soon as my fork hit I found that it was rock solid. I was utterly confused and momentarily angered. Was this a beet? How in the world, why in the world, who would do such a thing? Is not a love of cheese a universal truth? Never mind the lactose intolerant. Hell my best friend is lactose intolerant but refuses to stop eating cheese, therefore making him the most hilariously gassy person I know. And he’s about to become a doctor.

Once my momentary rush of anger subsided I grabbed my knife and resigned myself to not having my brie. But as I cut it I noticed that it was crumbling in a manner that a beet would never do, at which point my hypothalamus lit up once again. It was brie! And lord, was it the most angelic brie I had ever had. I can only guess that my physical reaction to eating that brie, along with the arugula, was akin to the rush a heroin addict must feel as they shoot up. It was heavenly (I suppose it is now apparent that I have a particular affinity for the udder).

Once I had finished my salad and sampled the breads I was finally brought my piping hot entrée. And when I say piping hot, I mean nearly infernal. I spent a considerable amount of time blowing my meat and looking like an imbecile before I was able to put it in my mouth. Look, I am all for bringing out a customer’s food as quickly as possible. Nobody wants to wait. But to have to sit with your meal in front of you, waiting for it to cool down, teased by the luscious odors that waft up into your nostrils is cruel and unusual. Waiting to eat your cake is worse than not getting your cake at all.

To make matters worse was, when I finally managed to taste the chicken, what had once smelled delicious turned out to be overly sweet. It was cooked well (and definitely thoroughly) but lacked any intrigue. I cannot say how disappointed I was by it. The one item that was supposed to be sweet, the mashed sweet potatoes, was perfectly balanced with understated notes of sweetness. The mashed potatoes were equally enjoyable; they had a definite buttery note in the manner in which my father prepares them. Additionally there was steamed broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, and some other stem like vegetable that I failed to recognize. They all tasted like steamed vegetables and I nearly forgot to eat them.

Aside from the disappointing chicken there was also the issue of presentation. One would expect that an establishment that models itself on French customs would serve appropriately sized portions. What you receive at Café Loup are bastardized American portions, by which I mean that they pile an inordinate amount of food onto your plate. It was so bad that I had to dig through the mashed sweet potatoes and regular potatoes to find the vegetables. In fact my plate was so cluttered with the food that I am just now remembering that I also had another cooked sweet veggie on my plate, which was surprisingly good. I don’t know what it was. Ultimately the presentation was nothing short of a hodgepodge of forgettable edibles.

What was not forgettable was the peach tart “Fuck You’d” man suggested I try. Remember my love for the brie on the salad? That was close to my reaction to the tart. The tart was capped with a generous dollop of wonderfully light whip cream and ringed with blueberries, pineapple, kiwi, and strawberries. The final touch was a sprig of mint which I found, when broken apart and arrayed on the tart, made the peach tart orgasmic. The desert would have been a dream if it were not for the fact that I had been overloaded by an entrée I was unable to finish. Due to that massive entrée, I struggled to remain focused on the subtle deliciousness of the peach tart and my accompanying black coffee.

When one goes to an establishment to eat, the hope is to leave sated and ready to relax. A good establishment will make you happy to stay and digest the food comfortably, perhaps ordering a few aperitifs or coffees. That is the ideal. However this is not what I experienced at Café Loup. Sure there were some high notes, but by the time I got half way through my desert I was already feeling the itch to skedaddle. Nothing about what I had experienced left me feeling satisfied. I felt bloated and disappointed. By the food on both accounts, by the lack of havoc on the second account.

So what I had hoped would occur never came to fruition. After watching “Fuck You’d” man ring up my bill on the archaic cash register that I had thought was decorative, I introduced myself, offered my hand and an apology. The specifics were not mentioned, just that I was sorry for what I had said. I suppose I can now return without any concerns, but honestly I don’t think I care to.

ps: the title is referencing a gay couple that was obviously desperate to talk to me the entire time I was there. As I was getting to ready to leave they both very blatantly began staring at me, which I ignored in an equally blatant manner. After a considerable moment and an awkward silence between the two, one of the lovers said to the other, “My face is like, three times bigger than yours.” I tried hard not to laugh.

Thursday night blues

November 1, 2013 By Andres in Rambling Leave a comment

It’s 10PM when I finally respond to her text. She’s asking me when exactly I’m leaving on Saturday, probably to see if there’s any way we can see each other. We’ve been trying to find time to meet since we were last together a few days ago, but she works and I’m going home so it looks as if there will be a weeklong gap.

“This kinda sucks.” I text her as I near my stop.

“what?”

I’m unable to hear any inflection, so her response gives me pause. “Busy schedules and all.”

“yeahhh. come over now?”

We live exceedingly close to each other, and while I could very well walk I choose to take the train back one stop. There is something beautiful about being wanted like that, wanted to such a degree that she finds a way to get you over. And there’s something beautiful in the freedom of New York’s subway system. I’m on and off all day but never tire of the meandering purpose it gives me. No matter where I go or why, I always feel like I’m being taken somewhere important.

This sense of importance hasn’t quite given me an existential purpose though. Or at least a sense of purpose that I can hold onto without question. As I make my way to her place I realize that I’m still in a funk from the evening’s class. In class I find myself mute, flitting back and forth between internal musings and attempts at following the conversation. I want someone to stop and ask me what I’m thinking just so I can say that I have no clue what’s going on anymore. I think there’s some wisdom in that statement. It worries me that I can articulate so much, so effectively I imagine, through my writing yet fall dumb when in public. I don’t quite know what this means and I begin to wonder whether my sense of permanence as a writer is well founded. My anxiety is there of course but I can only blame it for so long, especially when I’m at a point where my confidence is near to overflowing. I suppose it’s burgeoning arrogance, not confidence.

This leaves me questioning what I’m doing with my writing; all of this self-exploration, and all of it in the public domain. I know that even if no one was to read these words I would still be punching them out. But this desire to examine every minute facet of my being, and to do so in a manner in which others can follow along, worries me a bit. It feels like the correct process, especially in those moments where I slip away from the world and find myself composing in my mind, the words flowing as easily as water. Still, what I’m composing isn’t literature, it’s this, what I have right here. The only redeeming factor, if it’s of any worth, is that it’s a small glimpse into the being of a developing writer, if in fact I am a writer and if in fact I am interesting enough to listen to. I don’t even know what worthwhile writing is. I only know what I feel, and I’m beginning to pour it out instead of letting it stew in my mind.

I’m reveling in this newfound freedom of expression because of how long I’ve lived in a personal shell. It helps that I believe I am somewhat capable as a writer, a belief fueled by hints from my peers and professors. Some say things outright, while others only in their behavior or fleeting exchanges that require a bit of interpretation. Part of what makes me wonder whether I am producing anything of worth is how some people appear to expect me to say things that validate my supposed writing abilities, yet I inevitably end up feeling like I have disappointed them in that regard. Many times I don’t have anything to say, and I discovered long ago that if I don’t have anything new or stimulating to add then I’d rather stay quiet. Too many people interject in conversations just so that they will have said something. To make matters worse, I can sit in class all day and listen to people discuss the intricacies and merits of writing but I can’t seem, or rather don’t care, to follow most of it. Is it me or is it the conversation? Perhaps we’re discussing the wrong thing.

I realize as I leave class with my classmate, a fiery redhead with whom I share a common mindset, that whether I am capable of understanding what is said in class or not, all I really want to do is push those academic thoughts aside and live. We as “artists” spend so much time sitting around glorying in our shared trade, distilling its every process so that we can find a magical method to genius, that ultimately we fail to simply allow ourselves to feel. Everything needs to be intellectualized for some people. Everything needs to be put in terms that provide dictionary definitions of what is being done. I want to get away from that, but as the redhead and I walk along together all I can think to discuss is writing, unsure of what to say or how to share a congenial moment before we part ways. The last thing I want to discuss, especially after class, is anything related to literature or writing. I want to live and experience but somehow I find myself stifled.

Maybe that’s why I’m going to see my texting lady now, because she’s as far removed from writing as I can get right now. Even so, as I sit down on her couch maybe fifteen minutes after our exchange, I slip back into an old and familiar state of insecurity. We’re exchanging awkward conversation even though this is our third time together. Perhaps this is all we’re meant to be, which I am ok with. I want the companionship but I’m not quite sure if I want the commitment, but I am woefully inexperienced when it comes to hookups. It’s the same with another classmate. We share so much in common that it makes our times together very easy and enjoyable, but I still hold back. I want to wander around I guess, experience more, but still have that nice warmth of female companionship, most clear to me when I wake up pulled up close to one in bed. It must be that desire to live freely, without an explicit societal purpose. To just experience and enjoy, and then spill it out onto the page if possible to see what there is to discover. That is about as clear as I can get it right now. I’ll just keep plugging away.

A Self Review of a Potentially Shitty Review of a Mediocre Piece

October 31, 2013 By Andres in Rambling, Review? Tags: David Sedaris, New Yorker 1 Comment

“Let’s open the floor to questions.”
“Boooring.”
“Is that so? Would it have been more interesting to you if I had murdered my sister?”
“It’d certainly make you more interesting.”
“… Who the hell do you think you are?”
“Thankfully not you.”

***

When you’re getting to know someone you should always keep in mind that there will inevitably be little surprises. It could be that you discover they’re impassioned pot smokers, or that they have a fetish for toenails, or maybe some other odd thing you can think of. Rest assured I don’t have a toenail fetish nor am I particularly interested in pot, for what that’s worth. Those would certainly be surprising revelations if applicable to me, but they’re not applicable. Nor is the fact that I have a subscription to The New Yorker all that surprising, at least not as surprising as the fact that I’m actually reading it.

So as I just said, there I was actually reading my New Yorker the other day and I happened to read David Sedaris’ long-winded piece called And Then There Were Five. If you haven’t read it, it’s all about his sister’s suicide and how it affected his family. It’s without a doubt a well written piece. Very heartfelt. A tour de force. Let’s all get together and “revel in ourselves because Sedaris is a genius and we understand him therefore we are also geniuses and everything he says has incredible meaning.” No one actually said that, I’m just making up what I imagine to be the unconscious mental processes that drives his readership.

I am quite clearly coming off as insensitive, but there is a point to this post, I promise. I feel that at some point the masses will ambush and flog me for my insolence. But that’s beside the point. Anyway, Sedaris’ piece is honestly a superbly written one, and through it we as readers are inclined to empathize and share. We are able to do this because of how he is able to invoke the familial spirit that, well, most of us are able to relate to. But this is also entirely beside the point.

So I read the piece; that ponderous (I really like this word), uninteresting, lackluster essay. I’m still not quite sure why I even bothered slogging through it, but I’d bet it had to do with the fact that I recognized David’s last name and that it was The New Yorker. I was also feeling particularly generous that night as I looked through my digital copy of the magazine. But throughout my reading, and especially at the end, one word came to mind: boring. A resounding boring.

Being who I am, as soon as I finished reading the piece I found myself launching into one of my inevitable daydreams where I was able to express exactly what I was feeling. It just so happened that this time it took the form of a reading by Sedaris where the audience was finally allowed to ask questions and I instinctively, prudently, yelled out “boooring”. While I’d never read anything else by Sedaris, I did know that he was some form of humorist or satirist, and I imagined that his reaction to my outburst would be, initially, to assume that the only kind of person who would yell out such an inanity would be a simple-minded peon who only craved stupid titillation from their media. However I am at a point now that I have a certain amount of faith in my writerly abilities, and to a certain extent my intellectual capacity. So I figured that my sardonic response, to Sedaris’ snide retort about changing the circumstances of his sister’s death (and I imagined this response would be in his character), would effectively convey that no, I was not an imbecile, and that my objections to his piece were founded on something other than just juvenile boredom. Then he realized that he wasn’t necessarily dealing with an amateur, became offended, and by the end of it I effectively turned into asshole.

Now I don’t want to make it seem as if I don’t respect the grief an individual experiences when faced by such an unfortunate event. I am in no way judging Sedaris for it, or his family, or his legions of fanatics. Suicide is a terrible matter. But writing style and a heavy topic alone don’t make for worthwhile, engaging reading, at least not to Andres’ brain at that particular moment. Because really that’s what the piece came down to. It was just an expose of writing, an opportunity for a writer to spill his guts on a national platform. My initial thought process was that, fine, this was a great piece, he opened himself up and allowed everyone to get a glimpse into his life. But to what end? Emotional solidarity with the readers? Okay, okay, there’s nothing wrong with that. But in The New Yorker? I would have expected something more rewarding, not just a tug on my heartstrings.

Therefore it was my hope, or rather it was my belief, that in this little fictionalized exchange I would have effectively conveyed the lack of worth of his piece. My thinking was that people would catch on to the subtlety of my little review and see that it was a genuine response based on the fact that the writing was devoid of life (horrible pun not intended, I think) and uninspired. It lacked any intellectual stimulation in my mind, therefore making it unworthy of New Yorker real estate. But I soon found out that this wasn’t the case, that not only was my review too reliant on my own mind filling in the gaps, but that I didn’t understand Sedaris’ role at The New Yorker.

It just so happened that I shared my review with a non-fiction writer in my MFA program, and she subsequently took me to task for it. She’s one of those self-professed Sedaris lovers, and while she conceded that Sedaris’ essay was indeed boring as all hell, she argued that it had value beyond its simple narrative because of the relationship Sedaris shares with his readers. She explained to me that what was beautiful about the piece was that it allowed her, an avid Sedaris reader, to get a small glimpse into his life, in effect bringing him further to life. She also enlightened me to the fact that Sedaris is a regular New Yorker contributor which explains the massive amount of space the magazine gave him for the essay. I felt kind of silly after she told me all of this.

But the thing is my initial review, that six sentence extravaganza, was an honest to god, knee-jerk reaction of mine. Perhaps I’m an idiot and a son of a bitch for even entertaining this entire thought exercise. But it happened, and I want to acknowledge it. Which then, finally, brings me to the question of whether criticism necessarily has to be objective. Is it not meant to be a critical, natural response to something you are exposed to? Even after being told why Sedaris’ piece matters I still think it is boring and without literary merit. I appreciate it, but I don’t value it.

In any case if you can’t appreciate any of this now, it’s ok. Genius is hard to come by.

That’s a joke.

Mr. Pete – a true story

October 30, 2013 By Andres in Short Stories Leave a comment

Mr. Pete had a friend in Washington Square Park. His friend’s name was Shorty, although I’m pretty sure the fleshy projections from Shorty’s underside were tits, not tumors as I had originally thought. But it didn’t really matter. Mr. Pete gave me a walnut which I in turn gave to Shorty, and I felt honored by it all.

Shorty was nice, as was Mr. Pete. A congenial fellow is an appropriate description of him. He told me he was ninety to which I responded with, “You don’t look ninety,” because that was the truth. At most I would have taken him for seventy. He explained that the trick was regular exercise, a balanced diet (to include garlic), and the use of an electric shaver as it “stimulated the facial muscles and combated the drying effects of aging.”

“We’ll that’s good,” I said, “I use an electrical shaver now so I guess I’ve got a head start.”

Mr. Pete seemed uninterested and changed the subject.

He liked to talk, there was no doubt about it. As a painter selling his art in front of his studio, back in his seventies I think he said, he would talk to the passing dogs rather than their owners.

“Where is your ball, pooch?” he’d ask. “You better get your owner to buy you a ball.”

Then Mr. Pete would let them walk away.

He remembered the first time he saw a dog with a ball. It was a Dachshund, and boy was it proud. Mr. Pete took a moment from his story to demonstrate the happy gait of that little Dachshund.

“Boy, was that the most proud little dog I’d ever seen, hopping along with a tennis ball too big in its mouth. But that was its ball, and it was happy.”

I smiled at Mr. Pete and we fell silent for a moment.

“I suppose there’s something to learn from him,” I said, “taking joy in the simplest of things.”

And I meant it. Mr. Pete had enlightened me. He seemed disinterested.

I asked Mr. Pete about his art and he produced a fat envelope containing many photographs. They were pretty paintings, mostly of animals, and they made me think of Rousseau.

I liked one painting in particular, a depiction of a fair skinned girl with red hair looking in the mirror. I like paintings of the human form.

“I really like this one,” I said, to which Mr. Pete gave me a broad smile.

“Ass Cheeks Aimee!” he said excitedly, and I laughed. “She’s just come out of the shower you see, and she’s hot. That seat she’s sitting on is red velvet and she’s rubbing herself on it.”

I looked at the painting again. I had only seen a girl admiring herself in the mirror, but I liked Mr. Pete’s story better.

“Is Aimee someone you knew?” I asked. Mr. Pete didn’t respond.

Mr. Pete spoke disparagingly of the French art gallery on Bleecker Street. It was all abstract art, he said, art they were trying to sell for two-hundred bucks apiece. He thought abstract art was shit.

“I’m trying to get the elderly home over there to display my art,” he said. I made mental note to check for his exhibit. I wanted to buy Ass Cheeks Aimee.

Mr. Pete had done many things in his lifetime so he listed them off to me: an artillery man in the Army where he saw action in Europe; drilling for oil as an engineer; a science and math teacher to high school students. He had even been a brass instrument musician and played under the direction of Leopold Stokowski. The name meant nothing to me but I gathered that this was someone important.

“Let me tell you a story,” he began. “You see, Leo was unhappy with the way this piece was sounding, so he told me to supplement the bass section. But the bass section was only this one old guy, this Australian, and this poor old guy was incredibly hurt. He didn’t understand why Leo demanded I play along to his part.”

Mr. Pete looked solemnly out at the park.

“We’ll I found out later that the poor old guy threw away his instrument after that performance and never played again. He was so depressed that he died that way.”

We shared a moment of silence.

“You see that’s the tragedy of ego,” he continued. “Leo was so caught up in himself that he failed to realize how he affected others. We all looked up to him, and by not giving this poor guy an explanation, by not telling him that all he wanted was a more powerful bass section, this poor old guy gave up and died.”

I didn’t know what to say to Mr. Pete. I sat and thought of myself and felt a sense of guilt flow over me. Mr. Pete didn’t know it, but he’d enlightened me.

We sat silently, longer than one would normally allow. Finally Mr. Pete pointed to Pigeon Man across the way, feeding a flock of excited pigeons and surrounded by pretty young women.

“That guy’s a bum,” he said, “I don’t know how he isn’t covered in pigeon shit.”

I laughed in agreement. Pigeon Man did look like a bum, and I couldn’t understand how he wasn’t covered in pigeon shit, either.

Mr. Pete sighed and began packing his things.

“Well it’s been nice talking,” he said.

“I’m sure we’ll see each other again,” I responded as we shook hands.

So left Mr. Pete. Father of two daughters and friend to a squirrel. An old fashioned man who believed in hard work and doing as your told. I watched Mr. Pete walk away, slightly relieved, slightly sad, but better off than I was before.

The Things He Loves

October 27, 2013 By Andres in Poelms Leave a comment

I love girls petite girls with slim bodies and nice breasts and cute pussies whose lips I put to mine and taste their flavor as they blossom, and feel their nipples and their mouths meet mine and know that I am giving them something that any man or any woman can give them yet only I am able to give them now. Of how their naked bodies are all mine all of its supple beauty as it curves along as various nerve endings that only I get to touch and explore. Of how their breath responds to mine and how they bring me in deeper and deeper wishing it not to end and I not wanting it to end and keeping it alive as well as I can until I come, lying atop them wondering if I did my job but feeling satisfied and yes I did my job even if I didn’t. Of how they think I’m so beautiful in how I talk and the eyes I have seeing in me what they want to see or hope perhaps and maybe being disappointed but maybe not, thinking that maybe I could be more or maybe I’m just another man sharing the covers.

I love men for how old and dirty they are and how they’ve untied my tongue or maybe liberated my tongue or maybe given it back, for what we share and how they know me and I know them in the way a woman can’t ever know me or know them, because we’re men. For the gay men that want me but won’t ever have me because I won’t have them but I still wonder and pander because it feels nice to be womanly sometimes and not a man.

I love my family for fornicating and birthing me and birthing my sibling for always being there and allowing me to live a life in this world of agony and joy and absolute confusion. Of being given the chance to wander and see and maybe discover, never actually owning or understanding but still taking and playing playing as if this place isn’t so alien and not all that wrong.

I love war for what it is and for how I don’t know it and how it doesn’t know me. For how I watch in horror as it rips the face off another and watch his blood spill out on the dusty streets all too foreign but all so close, and how I listen to the brother’s brother cry in agonized pain as he watches his brother’s blood stream down into the potholes of his home and how I suddenly love war again for its simple destruction, its abject beauty that I still don’t know nor understand but want to feel and embrace, to be a man like what men are in war, toting guns and playing games, being brave and deadly but dead. Of how one day I will know war and war will know me and I will lose myself in its embrace and maybe be wild and powerful and finally dead, my face ripped off and my blood flowing into the cracks of a world that I don’t know.

I love myself for all my arrogance and beauty and will to live, and for the anxiety that brings me down and makes me grovel and howl, curled in a ball on my bed because of my arrogance and blindness until I pick myself up and think and think and think and another day comes and I’m back in the world. For what my genius is but isn’t and how I imagine that soon others will see my genius my genius that isn’t because genius isn’t never was and never will be. For how I’m not sorry, sorry I’m not sorry, not knowing what sorry means nor does anyone know what sorry means. Sorry I, is, sorry, sorry is a lie. A kids game nothing else.

But I don’t love you and I won’t ever love you because I don’t care to love you.

Now We Are Five by David Sedaris in The New Yorker

October 26, 2013 By Andres in Review? Tags: David Sedaris, The New Yorker 1 Comment

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Need more? Read this piece.

Ain’t No Jazz In Writing

October 26, 2013 By Andres in Rambling Tags: Jazz, passion, writing Leave a comment

He had nothing of the clerk in him and all writers need something of the pettiness of the clerk, the diligence of the proofreader.

How do I begin this? As always I don’t know, but what I do know is that I have, for the first time in my life, been so affected by a piece of writing that it has started a fire in me. It starts with a claim by Geoff Dyer. He stated something that attempted to counter everything I have hoped for in writing, to discredit writing in such absolute terms as to make it obsolete. There is irony in this as, in the very same creation that holds this assertion, he has in a way disproven that exact claim. That claim is that somehow Jazz is greater than any other form of expression and that writing will forever be a petty endeavor, the product of contrived minds.

Geoff had come to my weekly seminar to discuss his book, But Beautiful, and field the usual questions, all polite and quotidian inquiries into the purpose and process of that seminal Jazz book. For the hour and a half before he joined us I had listened as the conversation revolved around the particular strengths of certain passages, the manner in which they had strengthened his supposed argument, and how evocative his writing style was. We were all enchanted by his writing; in how his fictive tale of the Jazz greats had managed to reach beyond the normal scope of criticism to capture the spirit of what the music was. People were happy.

But, despite the explicit purpose of the class being the analysis of the varying forms of criticism, I found myself stuck on one passage in particular that had little to do with what we were supposed to be examining. In the afterwards, almost an afterthought in fact, Geoff threw writing under the bus and stated that the only genius achievable was in Jazz. It was here that he made the aforementioned claim that writing is hindered by the necessity to edit and review, thus robbing it of any actual worth as a means to express the actual reality of being human.

I managed to build up the courage, in the awkward silence after a question had been satisfied, to ask him to elaborate on that passage. In his book he had used Mingus as an example, harping on how this beautifully belligerent man, whose music belted out of his every pore, was unable to transfer his genius to paper, arguing that the sole reason was because writing lacked the ability to capture that same purity of being as Jazz. To put it bluntly, this one example, this one passage, pissed me off. Pissed me off enough to make me underline the offending lines and scrawl “fuck you” beside it, as childish as that may sound.

And the response I got from Geoff when I asked him about that passage didn’t quite change my sentiment. Even his physical reaction to my question left me wanting. I vaguely remember, as I struggled to formulate my question from my trembling words, his sly, almost arrogant grin as he realized what I was touching on. It seemed to me that this was something that had been asked before and that he didn’t quite know how to defend it, and the answer I got about how Jazz’s penchant for improvisation gave it the truthful quality that no other art form could reach sounded practiced, canned, without soul. Very quickly the subject then morphed into something else, not even a specter of what I had initially asked about.

Perhaps he had a genuine point in stating that Jazz’s improvisation was what lent it the touch of humanity that no other art could hope for. But to my ears that argument was as superficial as my internal counterargument that, like the writer’s process of revision, so did individual Jazz songs go through varying forms, moving from initial formulation to the “improvisation” of the varying band members. To me there was hardly any difference between the creative process of writing and Jazz. Nor did I believe that the soul that poured into Jazz was somehow more powerful, more honest, more immediate, than what a writer poured into their work.

Geoff’s belief that writing was incapable of capturing the honesty of the human spirit, that in effect it had been dead on arrival, led me back to his claim that Jazz was also now dead. I would argue that the issue here isn’t that Jazz, and writing, are dead, but rather that people have stopped believing that they can be reincarnated. Hell, it was even stated during the seminar that somewhere along the lines, as an individual becomes smothered in recognition and leveled by age, the pioneering spirit becomes weary and cautious, and therefore what new horizons lie ahead are masked by the clouds of complacency and comfort. This was part of what made me so mad. For so long I had been searching for a means to use my writing to capture what was actually fermenting within me, to find a way to push writing beyond the point at which it stood and take it to new forms of expression, and to not only be told that writing was dead, but to be told that writing was never alive to begin with, incensed me.

I suppose I also found myself aflame because I suddenly knew how to verbalize what I had been feeling and wanting for so long. Through Geoff’s abject denouncement of the purity of writing via the lens of Jazz, I realized that I had the means to speak about what was burning within me. For the past few years I had been telling people that I wanted to capture movement through writing, an incredibly vague and meek attempt at describing what I felt writing could accomplish. And when I provided samples of attempts at this, at pure expressions of being, my supposed compatriots would simply give me horrified deer-in-the-headlights look. I felt demoralized, as if I was somehow not correctly aligned with the world and that what I was feeling was some form of dementia that I would have to learn to subdue. Even after arriving in New York City and beginning graduate classes the feeling lingered.

As I examined Geoff’s book, though, I realized that what I was feeling was mirrored beautifully, almost perfectly, in the stories of the Jazz players he brought to life. It didn’t make sense to me at first, at how I was apparently drawing a parallel between what these musicians experienced and what I yearned for, and then it hit me. But Beautiful isn’t at all about Jazz or the Black American experience, it’s about passion. It’s about the raw passion that drove all of those great Jazzmen to pick up their instruments and quite literally blow the wind out of their own sails. It’s about the nascent passion that burst forth in Geoff himself as he discovered their ecstasy and set him about writing his opus on Jazz. It was about the passion that kept me up until four in the morning mulling over a text because the author had tried telling me that writing couldn’t ever have any Jazz in it.

So this is where I end. I have been set afire by writing that has both paradoxically denounced itself and yet has helped breath new life into the essence of what it assumed was only true to Jazz. I truly hope this great irony is not lost on Geoff.

Music as a representation of America. Or a deconstruction of America. Or a rebellion. Never mind I don’t know.

October 23, 2013 By Andres in Rambling Tags: America, Crystal Castles, enculturation, music, The Residents, USA 1 Comment

I was recently asked to find a particular song that captured the zeitgeist of American culture, and in preparing I found myself desperately scouring my mind for a suitable song to write about. While there were a couple groups that I found personally exciting I was concerned with the notion that, despite their music potentially having deeper implications for me personally, they said little about the country as a whole. What I did identify in both of them was a deep seeded desire within myself for a release from enculturation and the normative. So I went along with it and wrote about Crystal Castles and The Residents.

Crystal Castles, by far the most commercially viable of the two, has managed to find a comfortable intersection between dark, ambient noise, the sharp and grainy sounds of 8-bit, with the uptempo beats and melodic flowing of more pop style electronic genres. Its final touch is Alice Glass, an almost childlike and ghostly figure, whose vocals vacillate between primal screaming and brooding yet sonorous dirges. The resulting music is what I have come to view as a somber celebration of a desire for escapism. Crystal Castles’ music invites its listeners to strip themselves of notions of suburban propriety, that subversive social order that masquerades as egalitarianism and open-mindedness yet manages to lock its youth into a system of regimented life. Suburbia does so not by force feeding ideologies but by emphasizing self-serving mores and by slyly frowning upon other opposed values. In essence it is faux-freedom, and Crystal Castles invokes escapism from it through its call to primitive movement. It’s not a call to arms, nor a call to action, just a call to movement.

Unlike many genres of music that are reactionary to the societal system, punk as an example, Crystal Castles has a far more subtle form of rebellion. In fact I would say that it is not the conscious aim of the artists. Rather than a total rejection of the system it takes ownership of the culture from which it is born. By using musical devices that prove reminiscent of the old days, of the days of my generation’s youth, by use of the 8-bit music for example, they are encouraging not an absolute division from society but rather a rebellion through ownership. This is a patently different form of rejection of the norm.

This rejection is most evident when you are present for a live performance. Glass is a truly mesmerizing artist to watch perform. She routinely steps out onto the crowd, screaming her lines with an honest abandon while writhing and pulsating her body. As she careens across the crowd you begin to feel a sense of holy communion. Through her physicality and presentation you experience a break with the enculturation of society, all of it emblematic of the liberated being.

The Residents came to life sometime around the mid-seventies. Very much like punk’s “buck the system” attitude of unpolished sounds and short, brutish songs, The Residents produced music that took America’s commercialization to its extreme. What you had were bizarre, vaudevillesque tunes that promised neither rationality or normalcy as traditionally prescribed by the industry or society. To an extent there were narratives within each song, but the narratives were not in anyway directly recognizable to the comfortably cultured or classed. The Residents were, and still are, a celebration of the absurd.

Like Crystal Castles, the true essence of The Residents is experienced while at live performances. This is where the world is turned upside down and you are presented with an incredibly bizarre yet exhilarating experience. Set against garish props that look like they’ve been plucked off the suburban world’s lawns or dollar store shelves, The Residents perform anonymously in the most brazen and irreverent manner possible. Their performances lie somewhere between concert, theater, and deranged preacher, creating a sort of suburban Bermuda’s Triangle that entraps you with a sense of childish giddiness at seeing all that was held proper being thrown back in your face, without apology.

I suppose that the main attraction of both The Residents and Crystal Castles is what I perceive as an almost subconscious recognition that the societal norm is a prison. The latent message could be the break from enculturation, to release oneself from the demands of proper sociable behavior, and to move about the world freely and without preoccupation. This preoccupation is something that became readily evident to me as I struggled with social anxiety, a state of mind that took everyday concerns to gargantuan levels of immediacy. In such a state the most insignificant daily customs and behaviors that we entertain are suddenly thrust to the forefront of our minds in a horribly debilitating manner. In a tale tailor-made for a horror story, I found myself divested of the natural ability to be human, unwillingly forced to break down its essence into individual components and consider them independently, attempting to understand what was the most normative expression and how to capture it successfully.

This subtle control over our beings is, I believe, the modern world’s dominance over our mental and physical sovereignty. In a way social anxiety, and depression, can be viewed as the only normal response to a patently irrational and arbitrary system. True, as human beings we have certain characteristics that are derived apart from the constructs of humanity and civilization. Simple things like movement and social interactions are largely habituated responses that have come about over time, becoming reinforced through our continued social interactions. To that extent we can assume them to be normative. But many other aspects of our lives are governed not by what might be considered normal, from an evolutionary standpoint, but what we as a group have come to term “normal” within the guidelines of civilization. And while one might not immediately be punished by society for moving from the norm, it has become so ingrained in who we are as individuals that we end up battering ourselves mercilessly for any infraction. In an unfortunate turn of events the system has turned us into our own worst enemy. We are in effect keeping ourselves in line.

So I suppose both bands have become representative of my desire to break away from the America that I know: subtly regimented, psychically stifling, impossibly proper. Through their music I am able to explore a more free side of myself, even if only vicariously, as if I have been too conditioned, I imagine, to allow myself the freedom to explore the world on my own terms. I also imagine that my attraction to the absurd has less to do with it somehow being more “true” to the nature of the world, but more of an extreme reaction in the face of such a standardized world. I guess that in some odd way I see both Crystal Castles and The Residents as a celebration of the deconstruction of the American way of life.

Look Ma, I’m writing!

October 22, 2013 By Andres in Rambling Leave a comment

I came to write fiction. First I wrote nothing. Now I write journal. Andres no write fiction no more.

Somehow the laziness that had initially kept me from writing is now giving me a heavy “nonfiction” bent. Actually this isn’t all that illogical. Fiction requires a lot of a writer. In order to write it you must contend with a creative mind constantly being drained, yet hardly ever being replenished. You’ve also got to deal with the paralyzing fear that what you’re creating is absolute shit, or even worse, not creative. Then there are the fiction purists who demand you adhere to certain guidelines for plot and character and all that other shit I can’t name since I got a degree in psychology. It turns out that the “creative” in “creative writing” is referring to fanciful stories, not the exploration of syntax and grammar and all that other shit I can’t name since, again, I got a degree in psychology. I suppose I’m not particularly well suited to comment on these matters considering my lack of traditional training (“these” because I don’t know the proper term, or terms, fucking psych). In fact I always detested English classes, all the way back to high school. In those early years it was because I hated learning about the technical aspects of language. In college it was because I didn’t want to write all those assignments. Now it’s because I’m an adult, damn it.

Somehow, somewhere, I managed to develop a decent grasp of the written language, “the” being English, not “our” because I’ve been taught that assuming your audience is incorrect, although I think that comes from my psych research methods classes, however my English classes did teach me that a sentence like this one isn’t proper syntactically and ought (not aught, I’m such a dilettante (thank you GRE flash cards for that D word)) to be broken into further sentences but I want to get back to my initial point which I already forgot what it was supposed to be. So if I don’t know jack about proper punctuation; or grammer, or syntax. or whatever else is out there (see what I did there? Eh? Eh?) then what right do I have to challenge the norm in that regard? Hell I was confusing “its” and “it’s” until recently when my uncle told me to “get my fucking its in line for fuck’s sake!” Nor am I particularly inclined to put much forethought into what I am writing, which I assume is an important part of experimental work.

What I like about writing isn’t so much the product as it is the process. Everyone wants to create work that will be idolized by the masses. They want the world to recognize their genius or their incredible abilities as authors and they therefore strive to manufacture something “amazing”. In this way these writers become fixated on the final product to the detriment of the process, or to be cliche, they forget or fail to realize that joy and discovery are in the journey, not the destination.

I write as a means of exploration and play; exploration of myself, my world, and the manner in which I interact with the world. I prefer to keep my writing fluid, without conscious drive if you will, as I find that what comes out to be far more interesting than anything I could purposefully create. I am after all a creature molded and guided by the unseen cultural dictates that constitute my psychology, and those dictates make for very contrived and uninteresting work. This is what happens when people set out to write “a believable character” for example. They try to think of what makes a certain person disagreeable, or smart, or flawed, and then use the stereotypes they’ve been taught to try and capture those personages. But we’re human not because of our traits, we’re human because of the manner in which these traits interact with and affect others and our environments. In other words, process over product (the analogy needs a little bit of logical leaping, but think about it).

I also find that the unwitting personal notes left behind in writing are far more true to form, and intriguing, than what is actually in the work. Whether it’s fiction, nonfiction, or poetry, every letter, word, intonation, punctuation, formatting choice, all of it, is an extension of its creator. It’s a subtle clue into the mental workings of another human being, someone just as mundane or inspired or dumb or smart as yourself, someone who has the same desire to express him or herself and to try to make sense of this crazy world. It’s a way to get behind the civilized persona we all assume as we leave our homes and to see the raw, true essence of being. Sometimes I think that the only way to get the unadulterated truth is to read behind the lines.

Ultimately my hope is that in writing free form crap I will see something new, something enlightening.

Late night writing

October 20, 2013 By Andres in Rambling Leave a comment

‘Cause I ain’t know what else to do. My life in a not-so-nutshell: stay up ridiculously late, wake up never, lay around in bed, then stay up ridiculously late again. Throughout all of this I am busy doing nothing. Life’s hard, no? And here I am thinking I’m a writer or something. Oh no wait, I’m a graduate student enlightening myself through diligent writing and voracious reading. Yeah, that’s totally the truth. But if appearances alone determine the truth then nobody will be the wiser, excepting my self-esteem.

You see, I’m currently living through what is supposed to be the creative, personal, and professional renaissance of my life. I’m in New York City, that glimmering jewel of the global arts community, where we all come to seek inspiration and camaraderie and sex. It’s all supposed to be here, sitting on every curb and waiting for you to fall into its arms. What more could I ask for?! No work involved! Just get my ass up and move around a little, maybe do a twerk for some undeserved attention, smoke a cigarette or two as well, and then drink a respectable amount. And you know what? It’s kind of happening that way. Without even trying I’ve found myself developing professional and creative connections. Without even thinking I’m now suddenly surrounded by pretty smart people, all of them equally as eager to develop their writing. I’ve even been able to make inroads into the publishing world just by being a noisy little shit. People know who I am and seem to be alright with me. Fuck yeah!

But the kicker is that I’m still finding a way to squander all of this newfound good fortune. Somehow I find ways to lie around in bed until 4PM and, even after getting out, do nothing but twiddle my thumbs. Hell, I’m not even twiddling my diddle. You know a man’s hit some obscure level of inertia when he isn’t even playing with his junk. Can I argue that it takes an incredible amount of conviction to lie in bed until 4PM? And to not play with your junk? I like thinking of myself in grandiose terms. As you can see it’s not like I’m sad or anything. I’m actually quite happy to be here, even if things aren’t perfect. Then again perfection is a never ending journey that can surely only breed disillusionment. Or is that a good thing? I’ve found that I’m most productive when I’m bored. As they say, boredom is the mother of invention. Or wait was it something else? Who fucking cares.

What I want above all else is to create something of intellectual worth. I want to be the next Camus, or Kafka, or maybe even Foster Wallace. None of whom I’ve actually read. Maybe a bit of Camus. Starting this program I was initially quite intimidated by how well-read all of my peers were. It was like sitting with my friends back home as they talked sports.

“Jordan is the best.”
“No Kobe is.”
“Shut the fuck up Tyson epitomizes the true athlete.”
“What about Roy Jones? He had class, style.”
“Yeah but he didn’t capture the spirit of his time like Maradona did.”
“Well now we have Messi, and he isn’t even jacked on coke!”

So I’ve spent the last six weeks or so listening to my writing buddies and biddies blabber on about the genius of so and so writer, and how their writing is like this famous person’s, or how they aspire to be like this other famous person. Quite a few of these blabbering writers are actually quite good, too. I read their work and think to myself, “Wow, I’m a simpleton.” Nobody wants to think this of themselves, you know? It was quite frightening at first. Here I was thinking that my writing would revolutionize the world and instead I’m realizing that I’m not all that bright. My dad told me so.

But like the changing seasons, so our lives do go. A continual cycle of birth and life and change and death, interspersed with a healthy amount of masturbation if you can’t find someone to get you off. But unlike that horrible metaphor my life is slowly mutating into what I want it to be. First I dispense with the idea that I’m a genius. In spring did he first spray pesticides. Then I begin to wander around and act like the irreverent bastard I’ve always wanted to be. In summer did he prance about the sunny fields and kick bunnies. As I discover the gremlin within I more readily embrace its colors. In the fall did he wipe his ass with the falling auburn, and orange, and yellow leaves, claiming it all as his own. It all comes full circle when I become inured to the machinations of this crazy world. In the winter did he point and laugh at the freezing bum.

God I’m a fucking strange.