Café retrouvé: Patti Smith's 'M Train' (2015)

Patti Smith, M Train. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2015.

A writer's life: Patti Smith's 

Peregrine

Pilgrimage 

Coffee

Dreams

Memory

Air 

Movement 

Stillness

Ink

Rain

Artifact

Time Regained/Le Temps retrouvé

El café veracruzano fue pionero para tener una denominación de origen en México

Inamorato, mother, son. "I made my coffee in her pot and sat and wrote at a card table in the kitchen by the screen door. A photograph of Albert Camus hung next to the light switch . . . My son, seeing him every day, got the idea that Camus was an uncle who lived far away . . . "(pages [71-72]). 

A quarter-mile from the canal house, coffee at the 7-11. The one at 25000 Jefferson Avenue, or the one at 23019 near the Kroger at Nine Mile, both in St. Clair Shores, Michigan? 

Confusingly, Patti Smith mentions the St. Clair River, but I think of it more as Lake St. Clair.  

I remember early morning runs, when it was cold outside, to pick up coffee at both of these 7-11 stores. And, when it was warmer out, an abandoned fish-and-tackle shop just off Jefferson.

"To me it looked like Tangier, though I had never been there. I sat on the ground in the corner surrounded by low white walls, shelving real time, free to rove the smooth bridge connecting past and present. My Morocco. I followed whatever train I wanted" (page [72]).

I remember all the people I met or knew around there. And social spaces. Steve's Back Room. Fishbones. Golden Chopsticks. Andiamo's. Pat O'Brien's. The public library and to the north, the Blue Goose. To the west, Shores Inn. Cedar Garden. The US Post Office. Hallmark's. El Charro. Grecian Table. The Bowling Alley and Linda's attached. Tim Horton. A connection with Van Morrison's father. Ice on the lake.

Snap! Ding the bell. You don't need to go home, but you can't stay here forever. 

My favorite coffee for some time, Peet's out of San Francisco, celebrates fifty years, or fifty-one this year, of making coffee. There's something about their blend and roasting process that makes me love the taste of their French, House and Major Dickason's Blend in particular.  

The best single coffee I ever tasted was in Italy -- espresso. The worst and weakest, in Pan Handle Texas and in Oklahoma. 

When I was growing up, my parents made coffee often, let's not forget.  On special occasions, a big percolator was set up to keep it flowing. 

Haven't missed a cup of coffee for more than a day since I was seventeen. Something to look forward to every morning, sort of like a little daily miracle of life, resumed. 

Today's Rune: Defense. Veracruz coffee: see El Universal Veracruz (9/9/2011), link here.

Every Jot and Tittle: John Bunyan's 'The Pilgrim's Progress,' Part the First (1678)

John Bunyan: The Pilgrim's Progress in the Similitude of a Dream (i.e. Part the First, 1678). 

Fun book, sort of like a Protestant Christian version of Dante's Divine Comedy, particularly The Purgatorio and Paradiso (1320). 

Even though the stakes are high (The Lady or the Tiger? Heaven or Hell?), we're so accustomed to apocalyptic stories (super heroes, politics, conspiracy theories, zombies), the plot is less interesting than it must have been in 1678. There are some cool touches such as a river that must be crossed in faith, or you will drown; and, outside the gates to the City Upon the Hill (The Celestial City), a trap-door that could drop you straight to Hell just when you think you're about to enter Paradise. However, what makes this particularly enduring and fun is the language. 

From my notes, some examples that impressed me, via The Pilgrim's Progress from This World to That Which Is to Come; Delivered under the Similitude of a Dream. (Wordsworth's Classics of World Literature). Ware, Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Editions Limited, 1996 edition. 

Let's start with "the apology," (page 2):

And some said, Let them live; some, Let them die;
Some said, John, print it; others said, Not so;
Some said, it might do good; others said, No.

Anther little ditty (page 38):

Difficulty is behind, Fear is before,
Though he's got on the hill, the lions roar;
A Christian man is never long at ease,
When one fright's gone, another doth him seize.

"Then said Hopeful, Where are we now?"(page 91) ~ a very existential question, often worth asking regardless of station or circumstance. 

Ditto: "Then I thought that it is easier going out of the way, when we are in, than going in when we are out." (pages 91-92).

"Now, Giant Despair had a wife, and her name was Diffidence." (page 92).

Memorable discussion of suicide (see Albert Camus): "My soul chooseth strangling rather than life, and the grave is more easy for me than the dungeon." (page 93). The peregrines opt against suicide, however: "The time may come that may give us a happy release; but let us not be our own murderers." (page 94).

Christian with the Shield of Faith -- William Blake, 1820s

"Is the way safe or dangerous?"
"Safe for those for whom it is to be safe; but the transgressors shall fall within." (page 97).

"And did you think yourself well then?"
"Yes, for a while; but at the last, my trouble came tumbling upon me again, and that over the neck of all my reformations." (page 112). Applicable to an endless number of things -- human nature.

"Concerning that book, that every jot and tittle thereof stood firmer than heaven and earth." (page 114).

And that, my friends, is every jot and tittle of what I have to say for this post. Adieu, and ciao for now.

Today's Rune: Breakthrough.

Sarah Bakewell: 'At the Existentialist Café' (2016): Part One

Sarah Bakewell's At the Existentialist Café: Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails with Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camus, Martin Heidegger, Karl Jaspers, Edmund Husserl, Maurice Merleau-Ponty and others (New York: Other Press, 2016) delivers a masterful blend of biographical details and ideas. Fantastic! This is already my favorite ever book on the Existentialists and their "fellow travelers" -- and I haven't even finished reading it yet.

You want just a little bit of Søren Kierkegaard or Friedrich Nietzsche to get you in the mood? Check out Chapter 1: "SIR, WHAT A HORROR, EXISTENTIALISM!"

Additional teasers: "The topic of philosophy is whatever you experience, as you experience it" (page 16). You think about things, don't ya? You do live beyond making pitter patter, right? 

Sarah Bakewell: "I think philosophy becomes more interesting when it is cast into the form of a life. Likewise, I think personal experience is more interesting when thought about philosophically" (page 32).

And how about that time when Jean-Paul Sartre wanted to experience the effects of mescaline in the 1930s?  "The results were dramatic. While [Aldous] Huxley's drug adventure would be mystical and ecstatic . . . Sartre's brain threw up a hellish crew of snakes, fish, vultures, toads, beetles, and crustaceans . . . For months, lobster-like beings followed him just out of his field of vision, and the facades of houses on the street stared at him with human eyes . . . (page 99).

Seriously, comrades, anyone seriously interested in these folks and their experiences and ideas would, or will, love this book. 

Onward!

Today's Rune: Defense.    

Woody Allen: 'Irrational Man' (2015)

Through the scrim of an entertaining little story, Woody Allen's Irrational Man (2015) covers the basics of existentialist philosophy. This movie is more dramatic than comedic, but given its setting in academia (specifically here, a fictional college in Rhode Island), there's plenty of fun to be made on that score. There always is.

Enter the Nutty Visiting Philosophy Professor (played with some restraint by Joaquin Phoenix, though seeing him in action often inspires chuckles no matter what he does or says). Take his ennui, combine with a yearning for Spain in another professor (Parker Posey, also smile-inducing), add a curiosity-driven student (Emma Stone), connect with a Dostoyevsky-inspired triggering moment, and presto -- that's the basic set-up. Let the fun begin. 

 Wanna get existential? You betcha!

An added bonus: connect cleverly embedded references in Woody Allen's Irrational Man with William Barrett's nonfiction work, Irrational Man: A Study in Existential Philosophy (Anchor Books, 1990; originally published by Doubleday in 1958). 

By the way, I still have a fifth avatar of this book, having given away four other copies over the years.

The beautiful thing about existentialism is that -- like the concept of karma -- it works with or without a religious framework. That is to say, you can be an agnostic, a Catholic, an atheist or whatever else, and its ideas still apply, so long as one believes in the core ideas of free will and choice. 

Today's Rune: Partnership. 

Albert Camus: Algerian Chronicles (1958, 2013)

Given the recent release by the US Senate of "The Torture Report" (detailing American torture and general abuse of prisoners during the Bush-Cheney administration for several years after 9/11/2001), reading the new English translation of Albert Camus' Algerian Chronicles becomes more timely than ever. Why? Because Camus, writing of Algerian realities, and most sharply about La guerre d’Algérie / The Algerian War of Independence (1954-1962) -- during which the majority of Algerians broke away from France and formed an independent nation -- spends a lot of thought and energy trying to figure out practical ways to safeguard the lives of civilians (especially women and children); guaranteeing the civilized treatment of prisoners; and seeking to minimize both terrorist attacks and revenge repression. 

This was a big deal for an Algerian Frenchman, but he died in a car accident at age 46 in 1960, two years before Algeria became independent, which he had hoped would not have happened with such abruptness.  

Camus' observations sound very contemporary. Apply them to just about anywhere in 2014, substituting "France/French" and "Algeria/Algerian" with any place or people you like. 

Camus in 1945: "French colonial doctrine in Algeria since the conquest has not been notable for its coherence . . . No historical situation is ever permanent. If you are unwilling to change quickly enough, you lose control of the situation . . . Because French policy in Algeria ignored these elementary truths, it was always 20 years behind the actual situation . . ." (pages 102-103).

In 1955: "The inexcusable massacres of French civilians will lead to equally stupid attacks on Arabs and Arab property. It is as if madmen inflamed by rage found themselves locked in a forced marriage from which no exit was possible and therefore decided on mutual suicide" (page 115). 

Camus' stance was  unequivocally against the use of torture by anyone for whatever stated reason. (Let me state here that I, Erik Donald France, agree with Camus 100% against any justification for the use of torture).

". . . how can one be outraged by the massacres of French prisoners if one tolerates the execution of Arabs without trials?  Each side uses the crimes of the other to justify its own. By this logic, the only possible outcome is interminable destruction" ("A Truce for Civilians," page 142).

It's all a fascinating and still urgent existential response to the "actualities" of the world. 

For more, here's a fuller citation: Albert Camus, Algerian Chronicles. Translated by Arthur Goldhammer with an introduction by Alice Kaplan. Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, England: The Belknap Press of Haravrd University Press, 2013. Originally published by Gallimard as Chroniques algériennes, 1939-1958 (1958 and 2002). 

Jean-Luc Godard: For Ever Mozart (1996)

Even a few minutes of Jean-Luc Godard's For Ever Mozart (1996) would probably scare most people off. Maybe even more so than "actual" archival footage of the Bosnian War (1992-1995) or the current Syrian Civil War, or fighting in Sudan and South Sudan, or in Kenya, or Iraq. 

Art collides with killing. We know what killing is, but what exactly is art? What does it do? What makes it different? What difference does it make? Is it entertainment, or remembrance, or bearing witness, or something both grounded and transcendent to either, or both, the creator and the beholder? You tell me. Godard asks the questions. Sort of. Maybe. (Does he? What about his answers? Are they provisional?) Does "the average person" care about Bosnia, or Syria, or art? And if not, why not? And if so, why?

Then there's linear time. And looping time. I was intrigued on first look during For Ever Mozart -- which for the most part felt maddening, like a special remix of Godard's Les Carabiniers (1963) and Week-end (1967) in part with dashes of the future-made Notre Musique (2004) -- about an explicit statement illuminating the Bosnian War (and other related post-Yugoslavian slaughter of fellow Europeans) as being the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s, a prequel to what followed (World War II). 

As if time is in a reverse loop, with Bosnia first, then Spain, and then WW2. Strange. But true enough, I suppose. 

Maybe we are all The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008) -- even though I haven't seen that particular movie version of time yet (nor earlier nor later nor evermore). I have seen Michel Gondry's (and Charlie Kaufman's) Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), which may bring up similar musings on time and memory and desire. Can you dig? Could you then or now or in the future? If not, forget all that is here. Maybe the next post will be more spot on, or spotless, or equally spotty. Who can tell until it's done?  

Today's Rune: Signals.     

Dreaming in French, Part V: Angela Davis

There's a new film out about Angela Davis, which reminds me to put up a handful of additional notes about her from reading Alice Kaplan's Dreaming in French: The Paris Years of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, Susan Sontag, and Angela Davis (The University of Chicago Press, 2012). Besides, the book's due again after renewing it three times from the library already, so . . . here we go.

Angela Davis' (b. 1944) development as a thinker and activist embraces a lot of territory, including French and German philosophy. In addition, when imprisoned, she received moral and some support from engaged French philosophers, poets, and general fans.

Some of the people we encounter in Dreaming in French who connect to Angela Davis include a German boyfriend, Manfred Clemenz. "Intellectual passion is a kind of love, and the love she might have had for Manfred Clemenz would be hard to separate from her discovery of philosophy" (Kaplan, page 179).

In 1964, Davis began a thesis on Alain-Robbe Grillet (1922-2008), the novelist and scriptwriter for indie films such as L'Année dernière à Marienbad / Last Year at Marienbad (1961); he went on to direct his own films, such as Trans-Europ-Express (1966). Grillet wrote fiction and about fiction; he wrote about film, and he wrote about Michelangelo Antonioni, the Italian director often discussed on this very website. In approaching Grillet's work, Angela Davis utilized both existentialist philosophy (freedom and responsibility) and the "new" anthropological structuralism. Kaplan notes of Davis' emerging thought: ". . . in addition to her attentiveness to structures and signs, she maintained a deep commitment to the idea of human freedom;" she paid close attention to both "conciousness and concept" (Kaplan, page 180).

To make a long story short, other influences on Davis included Herbert Marcuse and the Frankfurt School, Theodor Adorno, Albert Camus, the civil and human rights movements, the US-Vietnam War, Cuba, the Black Panthers and all the other interconnecting frisson of the 1960s. Some additional characters that come up: Ronald Reagan (as governor of California), Jean Genet, Jean Seberg, Jane Fonda and Yolande DuLuart (Angela Davis: Portrait of a Revolutionary, 1972). Even the Rolling Stones came to her support as needed with an eccentric song, "Sweet Black Angel" ("Exile on Main St.," 1972). 

More to say, but that's it for now except: Happy Earth Day!

Today's Rune: Protection.       

Jill Sprecher: 13 Conversations About One Thing

Jill Sprecher's Thirteen / 13 Conversations About One Thing (2001) dovetails nicely with the work of existentialist writers like Søren Kierkegaard, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Albert Camus and Hanna Arendt. On the one hand, we can do certain things, make certain choices; on the other, we take our chances anytime we wake up and get moving. Besides that, there's an uncertain amount of randomness and entropy at play in the universe.

A snippet of the Roxy Music song "Editions of You" (1973) covers the gist of it:

They say love's a gamble, hard to win, easy lose
And while sun shines you'd better make hay
So if life is your table and fate is the wheel
Then let the chips fall where they may
In modern times the modern way . . .

And the rejoinder:

Love me, leave me
Do what you will
Who knows what tomorrow will bring?

When somebody came a knockin' at her door, Dorothy Parker would occasionally mutter, "What fresh hell can this be?"

In any case, the film makes clear that kindness is rarely a bad thing, certainly preferable to cruelty, violence or indifference. As Tennessee Williams put it, attention must be paid.  

 

Thirteen Conversations About One Thing is not a documentary. It's a dramatic film structured around statements made by characters, unspooled in nonlinear form. The disjointed structure invites a second look, once the basic contours of the storyline are better understood. 

 

The one thing?  That state of being/perceiving called Happiness.

 

Jill and her sister Karen Sprecher have here woven together a meditative, sometimes brooding film, but physical events do occur, significant ones in the lives of the characters played by heavy hitter actors, including Alan Arkin and Clea DuVall (both now in Argo), Amy Irving, Matthew McConaughey and John Turturro. The last named reminds me that Thirteen Conversatons has a similar sort of take on life as the Coen Brothers' A Serious Man (2009).

 

Today's Rune: Joy.   

Unfortunately, It Was Paradise

This will be the last post inspired by Jean-Luc Godard's Notre Musique (2004) -- for now.

In panning for more gold, another found nugget is Jean Racine's Phèdre (1677). This connects to contemplation of suicide by a main character in Godard's film. "Suicide is the only truly serious philosophical problem" - derived from a statement by Albert Camus (1913-1960): "Il n'y a qu'un problème philosophique vraiment sérieux: c'est le suicide" -- from Le Mythe de Sisyphe (1942) / The Myth of Sisyphus (1955). And then there's this eerie announcement: “Tonight I will be in heaven.”

Claude Lefort (1924-2010), a social-political theorist like Hannah Arendt, also pops up. Lefort wrote about, among other topics, Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527) and Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859), the butt of many pot jokes in American high school classes. I'm not sure if this is from Lefort, but around this time in Notre Musique, the following statement is made: "The life of man is but a battle for existence with being vanquished the only certainty . . .”  How will each person conduct that battle in the meantime?

Finally, there's Palestinian poet-writer Mahmoud Darwish (1941-2008), born in Palestine, died in Texas. Given his arc, the title Unfortunately, It Was Paradise: Selected Poems (2003) makes perfect sense. Displaced, exiled, with no hope of return, in Notre Musique, he speaks of being a Poet of Troy, the city overrun near the end of the Trojan War. The thorny Palestinian-Israeli relationship has been at the heart of many a Middle Eastern dilemma for as long as I can remember, with no out in sight. 

  















Mahmoud Darwish discussing poetry and life in Bosnia links to the arrival of American Indians (aka Native Americans) at the Mostar Bridge, pointing to a feeling of similar displacements in North America. It could be that reconstruction of the bridge after the Bosnian War will parallel reconstruction and reconciliation for "First Nations" here in the 21st century.

Today's Rune: Separation (Reversed).
 

Jean-Luc Godard: Notre Musique

Jean-Luc Godard's Notre Musique (2004) is set in Bosnia-Herzegovina less than ten years after the Bosnian War (1991-1995), a savage conflict involving three main factions: Bosnians, Croatians (Croats) and Serbians (Serbs). Sounds and images of significant contemporary documentary value depict street scenes in Sarajevo and Mostar. Without getting into the film proper (yet), a primary image that leaps out from the film is the functioning electric tram. Here it is so soon after the bloodletting, yet trams are humming along.

I couldn't help but think how Detroit used to have a major streetcar/trolley system and may again; how in Fort Worth, Texas, there is currently a discussion over reinstalling trolleys along 7th Street and other thoroughfares. In 1907, there were sixteen streetcar lines in Fort Worth. Today, Dallas runs trolleycars and other light rail, as do other North American cities such as Philadelphia, New Orleans, San Francisco, Mexico City and Toronto.

What does the electric tram represent in Notre Musique? I'm not sure, but it's worth remembering that Orpheus is a tram conductor and the god Hermes runs a tram station in Marcel Camus' Orfeu Negro/Black Orpheus (1959). Perhaps the electric tram represents a hope for the reconstruction of a well-woven social fabric after periods of mass violence and destruction, the kind that makes one think of Syria today, or the Gordian Knot of Israeli-Palestinian relations, which is another key topic in Notre Musique. Or perhaps it's simply making some of notre musique -- "our music."  

Today's Rune: Possessions.         

Jean Cocteau's Orphée / Orpheus: Take Three

Jean Cocteau's Orphée / Orpheus (1950) continues to creep into my thoughts and imagination. Early yesterday morning, one scene was transposed into a dream, a waxing moon pushing me out into REM sleep of some kind or another. In the dream, I was escaping a big storm or flood by canvas-covered military truck but later found myself detained and isolated in a room full of Scientologists. They would not allow me to leave or make calls. Eventually, I escaped and ran to freedom -- and woke up with the chills.

In Cocteau's film, there's a lot to delve into. One major strand gets into the "War of the Poets," rivalries of style and substance. There's also a split beteen the idea of being "a writer" and "a poet." Are they different entities, or overlapping?

Then there's the contested essence of art and aesthetics through publication. One minor exchange between an older writer and Orpheus the poet:

She's* not from here, but she needs to be among us. Here's her review.
Every page is blank!
It's called Nudism.
It's absurd.
Less absurd than if it were full of absurd writing.
No excess is absurd!

*The "Princess" (Maria Casarès, pictured above), an apparent agent or avatar of Death. In "real life," one of Casarès' paramours was no less a luminary than Albert Camus.

Juliette Gréco (pictured above) as Bohemian Aglaonice (Aglaonike in Greek), enemy of Orpheus and leader of the Bacchantes (or Maneads in Greek). In this particular Cocteau variant on the Orpheus myth, Eurydice is Aglaonice's friend and a former Bacchante herself, drawn into domesticity by Orpheus, who is now more absorbed than ever in the mysteries of creativity and art -- at times, to the point of sometimes comical neglect of everything else. What's remarkable about Aglaonike's character is how much more cagily she'd fit in today, in 2012, than in 1950, when Orphée / Orpheus was first released. In addition, there was a "real" Aglaonike, a noted astronomer/astrologer of her time (second century B.C., some 2100-2200 years ago) in Thessaly, Greece, one of the so-called "Witches of Thessaly." Watch out, more strange dreams may ensue . . .

Today's Rune: Journey.
           

Marcel Camus: Orfeu Negro / Black Orpheus, Take 2

                                                                                                                                         

Let's consider a few more aspects of Marcel Camus' Orfeu Negro / Black Orpheus (1959). Orefu's overbearing fiancée Mira (Lourdes de Oliveira) provides plenty of conflict and pursuit. Like one of the Banshees or Maneads (mainádes), Erinyes or Furies of mythology, Mira adds a lot of tension and pressure to the evolving situation, for "Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned . . ."  (William Congreve, The Mourning Bride, 1697). To amp the story arc even more, Mira has another competitor -- Death.     

 

Keep an eye on Hermes. (Pictured above on left: Alexandro Constantino as Hermes.). Hermes, Orfeu's supervisor on the trolley line, has a hand in moving the main characters in fatefully freighted directions. What's he up to really?  He seems to be aiding people with directions and directives, but the way things turn out, one has to wonder. Note: the Roman version of the Greek god Hermes is Mercury.   

Other things to look for. What is the role of Zeca and Benedito (the two boys)?  They are both intrigued by Orfeu's movements and talents. At one point, Orfeu holds up his guitar, inscribed Orfeu. He quips that there have been Orfeuses before him and there will be Orfeuses after him. The boys begin to learn his ways, his music, his guitar playing. They say that his guitar will bring the Sun up every morning. Indeed, the Sun has its role, the Dark has its role. Music, light, electricity, movement -- it's all in there somewhere.

Finally, Orfeu follows the Myth of Orpheus by going down into Hades -- or in this case, a basement where a roomful of folks are mesmerized and speaking in tongues in a Voodoo or Voudon-like Umbanda ceremony. Orfeu is looking for Eurydice and soon hears her voice. Indeed as they say, the rest is mythology, if not history . . . 

I can see why mythology is a favorite topic of Surrealists: mythical stories and situations are like dream tales of the roaming unconscious; they're a little on the eerie side usually, but strangely compelling.  

Today's Rune: Separation (Reversed).     

Marcel Camus: Orfeu Negro / Black Orpheus, Take I

Marcel Camus' Orfeu Negro / Black Orpheus (1959), set in 1950s Brazil and delivered in Portuguese, retells the Greek Myth of Orpheus and Eurydice in modern times. There's something particularly cool about the way it does so. Orfeu, a trolley conductor in Rio de Janeiro, encounters newcomer Eurydice and mentions the coincidence of their meeting. After a brief explanation of their mythical namesakes, the two then go on to recreate the arc of the original myth unwittingly. How this works, I'm not sure, but it works very nicely indeed.

Eurydice (Marpessa Dawn) preparing for Carnival in her cousin Serafina's costume. Offscreen, Orfeo (Breno Mello) is looking forward to the festivities.   

Orfeu Negro is an energetic film, with flashy Carnival (Carnaval) music, costumes and dancing followed every so often by eerily quiet scenes (such as above). Much of the story occurs on the heights of the Morro da Babilônia as well as in the urban Rio streets. The Sun and darkness play major roles, too.     

Death (Adhemar da Silva) in a white mask -- very effectively portrayed. "So long," he quips at one point. And Happy Hallowe'en to you!

More to delve into here in a separate post. 

Today's Rune: The Mystery Rune.    

The Man in Black Revisited

Here's another selection culled from the first five years of "Erik's Choice." This one was first posted on June 8, 2006:

Johnny Cash (2/26/1932-9/12/2003) was a man of faith, an American, a country and pop icon, a tortured but compassionate singer and songwriter. He sang songs -- partly originals, partly written by others -- that cover the range of human behavior and emotions. I’ve always thought that he was a close spiritual cousin to bluesman John Lee Hooker, coming from another world and yet essentially coming from the same world. And while I admire Johnny’s later work, the resurrection as it were, I can’t help but go back to the ones that grabbed me as a kid, songs like “Folsom Prison Blues,” “I Walk the Line,” “Ring of Fire,” and even “Hey Porter.” Not to mention a zillion others. My parents used to play Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison (1968) quite a bit, and I loved (and still love) every minute of it.

When I was in college, I read a lot of Albert Camus and Fyodor Dostoevsky, and have always wondered whether anyone else has drawn direct comparisons between a song like “Folsom Prison Blues” by the Man in Black and the short novel The Stranger (L'Etranger, 1942) by Camus or Crime and Punishment (1866) by Dostoevsky. It always seemed clear to me, anyway.

But I shot in man in Reno
Just to watch him die. . .

Some people find this chilling, but I find it merely honest – seriously, there but for the grace of God go I or any of us. I’ve certainly had fantasies of blowing away people I detest, and in the fantasies, at least, I’m more than happy to watch them die. Think of Ruth’s fantasies if you’re a Six Feet Under fan, taking out each of her exes, one at a time, with a happy little smile; or any other fantasy sequence like it. Johnny Cash never killed anyone, yet he could obviously understand and empathize with the impulse. So, too, Dostoevsky with the set up of Crime and Punishment, and with even closer alignment, Meursault’s killing of an Arab in Algeria also just to watch him die in Camus' The Stranger.

But I know I had it comin',
I know I can't be free,
But those people keep a-movin',
And that's what tortures me.

Meursault understands that through his exercise of freedom, he’s committed an act that is condemned by the laws of society, and thereby has lost his freedom. He only fully understands the idea of freedom when he is in prison, condemned to death.

In all truth, perhaps the only thing holding back mayhem is civil society, the existence of a legal system and prisons, and religious codes that proscribe killing, leading to haunting feelings of guilt and remorse for those who believe yet kill anyway.

Existentialists, of course, often wore black, as did nihilists, Beatniks, and punks. Johnny gave several reasons for his donning of the black, including that it made choosing outfits a lot simpler. I can go with any and all of his reasons. I also love black, as anyone who knows me well can attest. It may seem a bit funereal sometimes (like on a sunny afternoon), but so what? It’s a tragic world and we should always be thinking of the dead: let the dead bury the dead. Camus won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957 while still in his forties, but died in a car accident three years later. Dostoevsky was lined up to be shot in a firing squad in Russia, then given a last-miniute reprieve. Imagine what that does to a person – talk about post-traumatic
stress. . .

If you haven’t picked it up by now, I’m a strong advocate for mixing up genres and art forms, blending, and thinking beyond categories and ratings that have been, when you think about, handed down to us by God knows who. The canon and all – better a loaded cannon than a load of canon. Which is one of the things I love about the internet – it’s a free for all!

p.s. The Cure’s “Killing an Arab” is a short single cover of The Stranger. And since everybody in our immediate Michigan blogland seems to adore Johnny Cash, too, I’ll put in an additional vote for “Cocaine Blues,” as well. Among a zillion others.

I hear that train a'comin' . . . . .

Today's Rune: Joy.

Victoria France Stavish Interview

Here's a written interview with Victoria France Stavish, who happens to be my sister. Vickie's stories about Detroit and Gale have always inspired me existentially -- I even ended up moving to Detroit and doing some freelance work for the Gale Group (now Gale, part of Cengage Learning). Also, I utilized her detailed article on Camus mentioned below to organize an approach for reading all of Camus' work in the 80s. Thanks, Vickie!

Erik: What do you best remember about your time in Detroit working for Gale Research?

Vickie: I remember the interview for my editing job at Gale, when the company was in the Book Tower in downtown Detroit. I was 23, and it was my first foray into the city by myself, having recently moved there from Charlottesville, Virginia. I knew nothing, parked in a city parking lot, and emanated fear as I walked to the building. The kindly British Human Resources Director at Gale had me take a general test to confirm a knowledge of English and editing, then gave me a typing test on a regular typewriter (not even an IBM Selectric II). She also gave me a cup of tea.

As I typed away diligently (not near as fast as nowadays, but aiming to pass the test), I noticed that my tea cup was moving to the tapping. I didn't want to miss a stroke, so I kept on typing. As I was finishing, the cup had made it to the end of the typing table and flew off! Tea splattered the floor and wall.

Luckily, the Director liked me despite my faux pas, I passed all the tests, and was offered a job in the Contemporary Authors Department.

While working at Gale for two years, I did have some amusing experiences. I thought that I would meet many famous people, but as it turned out, I simply corresponded with some (including Maria von Trapp and some international poet laureates) or talked with them on the phone. One author, however, called about me. It was Harlan Ellison. He called the head of my department to ask, "Who the f... is Vickie .......?!" When I wrote about him for the series, I had called him a science fiction writer, and he had taken umbrage to that description. Hey, I liked getting some attention from a well-known writer, even though I didn't intend to insult him.

The sketch I enjoyed writing the most was one on French (born in Algeria) philosopher and writer Albert Camus.I also got into writing about the family of ground-breaking (pun!) archaeologists, the Leakeys.

I would probably laugh at my style of the time, but it's nice to know this series is available in English speaking libraries all around the world! It was fun when in the New York Library one time with my sister in law who had worked as a librarian there, I picked out one of the Contemporary Author volumes to see if it was one I had worked on with a byline (which was looooong ago!). It was! She and my youngest brother hadn't known I had done that.

Erik: How did you become interested in the arts?

Vickie: It's a natural bent. I have loved books since I was a toddler and that has never waned. I love telling stories and sharing them with others, especially children (of all ages). Besides that, I love language -- the look and sound of words; their meanings and their beauty. And not just English (French, Swedish, Hindi, Sanskrit, Arabic, Spanish....)!

Then the visual arts convey information and feeling, too! Color, form, movement, beauty, and more. It's a spiritual thing with me, like a prayer. I feel an energy that is working through me when I create art. People like it, so that makes me very happy. It's all experimental to me. My approach is, "let's see what happens."

Today's Rune: Protection.