1257
"Good morning, sir," a young man wearing a black baseball cap said when passing me on campus.Rascal! The Sleeptalker. He's still working but had Monday off so arrived on campus, said he had looked for me and was just about to leave when he saw me get off a bus. "I went to get food for the cats." He wanted some of their foodstamps mackerel and then ate most of my own lunch as well. Lady Grey stared at him, with her beautiful eyes.
I wish I could see these drawings from the Sleeptalker.
wrote my French Reader.
I replied:
I wish I could afford to buy the one of the hand, especially.
Far better use of money than buying a Gameboy.
(I might get it, yet, if he doesn't throw it away.)
"I threw it away," he said.
1258
The difficulty of writing these things, especially when one tries to write as honestly as possible, is that there are sometimes such gross, embarrassing moments in life that are almost impossible to "confess". (Oh yes, I have been aware of the connection between these enterprises and confession, all along, lapsed Roman Catholic that I am).And that's all I'm going to say about Thursday morning in this x equals time of August.
The week began in an unusual fashion, since Helen R kindly gave me a ticket to see a local production of Samuel Beckett's "Endgame". As I wrote in an email afterwards:
This was the third time I've seen a performance of Beckett's strange creation. The first, in NYC (oddly, also directed by a friend) was done almost as slapstick comedy. I wanted to grumble about pretentious crap but was deterred by Beckett's formidable reputation and my own cultural insecurity.
Some years later I saw it again in London where it was done in the absolute reverse style, a Greek tragedy.
I suspect your production is closer to what Beckett had in mind.
I am still not convinced Beckett was as great a writer as some folks think. And as I said further in that email, I was somewhat disconcerted when realizing I hear this kind of monologue/dialogue every night at [the Black Hole].
This means Beckett was a supreme realist or else I greatly under-value the words I hear?
Monday was, of course, made special by the appearance of the Sleeptalker on campus and the pleasure of spending several hours talking with him. Then he went away, but arrived again later at the mall at sunset time. I told him a little about the play, said I would have taken him had I seen him on Sunday, mentioned that the main character kept his parents in trash cans. "Why?" he asked. (I wouldn't mind hearing Beckett's response, but that alas is no longer possible.)
The largesse of my Christmas in August parcel continued with A Stranger in the Kingdom by Howard Frank Mosher, a rather grim but beautifully written novel about small-town America (in Vermont). And even though I have little interest in horses or in racing, I always enjoy the elegant little novels by Dick Francis and got a double-feature with Nerve and Enquiry. Then off to the ten-cent collection at the used bookshop where I found Go to the Widow-Maker by James Jones. Jones, like O'Hara, seems to be a bit under-rated now. Can't agree.
In the it's always something category, I seem to be developing a lactose intolerant condition in my old age, getting increasingly worse. A pity. Cheese has always been one of my favorite foods.
1259
A fortunate visit on Friday to the Hawaii State Library. Yes, the pockets are rather empty in this x equals time but I could've managed twenty cents for a couple of books from the used bookshop. But I thought I'd donate that strange Jones novel and at the same time save a few pennies by getting a freebie or two. They had A Great Deliverance by Elizabeth George, her first published work and the beginning of her wonderful series with Inspector Lynley. After having read, I am pretty sure, all the others, it was most interesting to get the more detailed version of the background threads of these characters.Fortunate Friday for the furry ones, too, because I received a ten-dollar donation for their feeding. They won't have to endure any more nasty human food this cycle. They sit waiting and watching for me every morning. Thimble dashes down the wall to meet me, escorts me to my bench, meowing all the way, sometimes gets so excited she goes back up the wall and then down again. I think she's actually a "lap cat" but won't let herself go that far. Still, she does often come down again after eating and settles herself on the bench next to me.
The little ones are so greedy and one of them is adamant about not sharing so usually gets most of a can of food all to what I think is herself. I considered ways of dealing with the situation, like maybe putting only one can of food down to begin with, so she'd be forced to share. But then decided, forget it, let them sort it out themselves.
They have already acquired a number of admirers from the incoming new students, so will probably have more than enough to eat during this fall semester.
Which begins after the upcoming "Interim Week", a woe is me week for any Hamilton Library user since it will be closed on the opening Sunday and then, since Friday is a state holiday, it will be closed for three days! Woe is me, indeed. But at least, except for Friday, the little stand-up computer lab will remain open.
And then comes the deluge of more students than have enrolled for a semester since I have been spending time on campus.
I just want to say about "I am a gay American" ... well, so am I, but I wasn't dumb enough to get married, have two children, undertake a political career and then fall in love with a man to the extent I had to throw the rest of it away. No sympathy from me, Governor.
1260
I neglected to mention a major anniversary. Simple reason. I forgot about it. I knew it was in August, but didn't remember the exact date. When I looked in my long-expired American passport, I saw I had arrived in Honolulu on August the second. So I have now been here fifteen years. Definitely the longest continuous time I have spent in any one place in my life and most probably the longest time I've lived anywhere, since I think it has now surpassed the overall total for New York City.The Sleeptalker was in the courtyard of the Black Hole when I arrived on the evening of his court date. He asked for a cigarette and said, with great enthusiasm, "I won my case!" "No rehab, nothing?" I asked. "No, I WON MY CASE!" I patted him on the shoulder and said "well done", although I suspect the credit goes to a clever public defender. I am relieved. I debated about going to court, worried he might be embarrassed to have me there so didn't go, was very happy to hear so quickly about the outcome and that it was so favorable.
1261
Alberto Moravia: Time of Desecration (original, and better, title: La Vita Interiore).Extraord ..... ooops, promised myself not to use that word in connection with a novel for at least six months. So, okay, a most unusual work of fiction, written entirely as an interview. What an awful woman, the main character. Well, not just her, what awful people.
Paula Fox: The Widow's Children
Exquisitely written, exquisitely boring. What awful people. I'm grateful I wasn't at that dinner party.
Leaving those two aside, I have a great fondness for these contemporary writers who create wonderful characters and then continue writing books about them. I suppose one model must be the Sherlock Holmes books, but then as a child I had Nancy Drew and the Bobbsy Twins. The story in the latest book may be more or less interesting, but even better is continuing to spend time with people one cares about, even likes.
I especially enjoy the novels of "Amanda Cross" who is actually Carolyn Gold Heilbrun. That website says "her career as writer has only been moderately successful generating a niche audience". Damn, I'm in a niche!
1262
On the road to Mandalay ...I went to the discount clothing store to get a new teeshirt, found a black one with a Mandalay Beach logo, smaller print saying resort and casino under it. Didn't think it came from Burma. Tanioka confirmed that by telling me it's in Vegas.
Tanioka is such a sweetheart and so wonderfully crazy. He made a very rare visit to campus, found me in the secluded grove. A totally delightful time talking with him. I asked how it has happened that he lost his Federal welfare money and he told me a complex, highly improbable story involving a cellphone and a major Filipino drug ring, etc. etc. I did once prompt "what does this have to do with losing your SSI?" Well, I still have no idea why he lost the SSI but certainly enjoyed the story.
He thinks it very odd that the Sleeptalker got off but agreed that the security man who caught him was stupid to make the Sleeptalker break the pipe. Hello, what about "evidence"? (Maybe someday I'll hear the details from the Sleeptalker himself, but I wouldn't count on it.)
Speaking of sweethearts, RobRoy was outside Hamilton Library on Thursday. Shirtless. Sigh. "You're back?!" I said. Yes, he's trying again in this upcoming fall semester. A pleasure to have him back on campus, but I can't make him the Freshman of the Year, can I? "Repeat Freshman of the Year?"
My life, my long life ...
1263
Saturday, which began with that pleasantly bizarre conversation with Tanioka, continued to be quite pleasant with a rather burlesque performance of Leonard Bernstein's masterwork, "Candide". "Silly and burlesque," I wrote to Felix, but even so, the New York Philharmonic is one of the world's truly great orchestras, so no complaints, just a raised eyebrow at the person who took "comic opera" too seriously ... or not seriously enough.Prairie Home Companion, lazy sluts that they are, was yet another repeat but I hadn't heard it the first time. Even though it wasn't as good as the new, live broadcast they did the preceding Saturday, I did enjoy it.
And then I saw the Sleeptalker at the Black Hole.
Yes, not at all a bad Saturday.
On Sunday I met Helen R to see "Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle". As I said on hawaiithreads.com, "It's very silly and thoroughly enjoyable, mainly because of the charming actors who play the title characters. My favorite scene was definitely the cheetah exhaling."
Interspersed with all this was Daphne du Maurier's Rule Britannia, quite unlike anything else I've read from her, light years away from Rebecca. Then I had William Goldman's Magic, and now I have a truly weird novel by that truly weird writer, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul by Douglas Adams.
The performance of "Candide" was too contrived to get a tear from me, but Michael Lasser's show of "cowboy songs" or "songs of the prairie", whatever he called it, surely did. Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings, you buggers, made me cry.
The competition for "Freshman of the Year" is fierce in Anno Domini 2004. And I shall try to get over sighing for the quiet days of summer when the campus wasn't swarming with all these young bodies.
1264
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver is a splendid work, if somewhat depressing. At the moment, that's fine, because the pendulum is jumping back and forth like crazy so a little ballast on the down side is not unwelcome.Except for Egypt, I've never had much interest in Africa. I did for a brief time in the early seventies think of visiting Morocco. Then a young English friend of mine got stabbed to death there, the only person I have actually known who got murdered. Whatever Morocco's tourist bureau may have done by way of promotion, that was quite enough to put me off the idea of going there. (Most fortunately, I never directly knew someone who was murdered in India or Nepal. Or Hawaii.)
But the Kingsolver book is as close as one can get to having experienced Africa firsthand, belongs right on the shelf beside the Dinesen books.
For two successive nights at the Black Hole, I've been burdened with thrashers, men who can't stay on their own mat. Then I had to smile when I left on Thursday morning to see Tanioka, who had thrashed himself off onto the floor, at right angles to his mat, arms straight out. Spare me sleeping next to Tanioka, please!
Several readers are puzzled about my attitude toward John Kerry. (I did have a letter from Felix recently in which he also said, "I just can't vote for Kerry.") My own reason is that the man is just so utterly, totally insincere. His acceptance speech at the Convention absolutely reeked of insincerity. Bush2 is misguided, possibly even certifiably insane, and I can't vote for him either, but I think he's actually a more honest man than Kerry.
My French Reader wondered if we weren't talking about voting for a "team", not necessarily the lead character. What team? All Kerry has is his "pretty boy" VP candidate. (I actually got a laugh at the bar after the acceptance speech when Kerry brought out his proposed VP and I said, "oh, there's his pretty boy"). Tanioka felt the same way, he told me in our recent conversation.
My country 'tis of thee .....
1265
"I don't smoke that stuff," the Sleeptalker said he told the judge. Claimed he was just holding the pipe until a friend who owned it returned. Nice judge. Perhaps a bit gullible, but nice.The Sleeptalker arrived on campus early on Sunday morning, said he had to check on me now and then to make sure I was still alive. "Don't die on me."
I told him the stand-up computer lab we've been able to use is no longer available, now requires a UH-ID, and that Hamilton Library didn't open until noon, also mentioned that I was meeting Helen R at eleven for a movie. "Can I come?" Yes, of course.
So we talked until it was time to go near the cinema and share a beer beforehand, then met Helen and saw "Hero", as reported in hawaiithreads.com.
I took him to have something to eat afterwards and then we returned to campus. He went to Hamilton to play Seventh Circle, lingered so long I ran out of cigarettes (especially after supplying him all morning). I left, bought more tobacco and went to the sunset bench at the mall where he eventually arrived.
An entire day with that young man is wonderful but somewhat exhausting.
The next day RobRoy stopped to chat. I discovered during the conversation that he's 21, is concentrating this semester on geology and mathematics, has no idea what he wants to do with his life so far as a profession is concerned. I didn't discover, since I already knew it, that he's just adorable.
Well, there's nothing at all impossible about having two adorable men in one's life, is there?
the tales