A Fan Letter to Molly

Ms. Schuyler, you are something fierce
I saw you eat two 72 ounce steaks with two baked potatoes and shrimp in 15 minutes
Your 125 pound frame held 9 pounds of cattle
That's 13% of your body weight!
I was a little turned on, a tiny bit repulsed, a little in love, but mostly in awe

You use hands like God meant humans to
Seeing you tear into that steak reminds me of a majestic wild cat feeding frenzy

Your surroundings seem to melt away while you eat

Watching you concentrate reminds me of a Zen monk I used to know

You answer dumb questions about women in competitive eating with a "because I can"

A better feminist icon you are than those pretentious twats who write them monologues

Ms. Molly, here's to your health and a bright future for your incredible gullet.

Sincerely,

An ardent supporter

Yuppie's Incantation

Dear Lady of Perpetual Despair,
Please heed my desperate prayer
I've been waiting 20 minutes in this line to buy heirloom tomatoes
But what if the Fromagerie closes in the meantime?
How can I face my friends without the mozzarella? What will I drizzle oil on?
You maybe a virgin, but my oil is even  more so
Don't let it all go to waste
See that woman at the front of the line, wearing those aviators and last season's Tom's?
Please make her go away hurry it up
Thou art blessed amongst women, but somewhat lacking in perception
When I said "give us this day our daily bread",
I didn't mean the sliced variety. I thought you knew.

The Man Who Wasn't There

Who is it?

Like a day at the beach or an office party
You won't see him come in & sap you of all your energy
Probably born into the House of Medici in a previous life
Out of place, out of his element and out of line in the current one

The Others

A state of fugue is his ball & chain
Why am I here, Where am I going, How do I...
As a man, they say you should know about real estate
He barely manages to find his way home
You understand what it's like to be one of those bastards who trains a majestic grizzly bear for Hollywood

The Wish

Sometimes when he comes close to killing himself or those close to him or after another year has passed
Casually he express a desire to clear the fog
You don't believe it for a moment, but nod along anyway
And sure enough, the movies are eventually paused, the exits forgotten, the tests failed

The Goodbye

I suspect he doesn't need to be told and that he already knows
The present is for losers anyway - the worriers, the plebeians, office goers and such
The Man should have been perched somewhere high in the Rockies or swimming with the salamanders deep in a cave in the Ozarks
Can someone please show him the way?

Lost and Found

In late 2007, I found myself in the middle of a J D Salinger binge. I read 'The Catcher in the Rye', 'Nine Stories', 'Franny and Zooey' and 'Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters' back to back and in some cases, twice over. Almost immediately after reading the last sentence in the last book however, I was done with all things Salinger - like shutting off porn once its purpose has been served. The melancholic nature of the books was what drew me to them, but not finding much breadth beyond that, I was repulsed by the uni-dimensional nature of the work - privileged kids going through an early life crisis. I told myself that If I ever made a few million dollars, but for some reason felt the need to walk into traffic, I'd pick up a Salinger again.

I have neither acquired my first million, nor do I particularly wish to die, but I did read 'A Perfect Day for Bananafish' from Nine Stories again yesterday and enjoyed it very much. Although I still think that JDS's works lack variety, what I read has a depth to it that my own words fall short in expressing. My reading list recently has mostly consisted of the non-fiction and stream of consciousness genres, so the simple but striking narrative of 'Perfect Day...' was like a breath of fresh air. Above all however, I love how JDS treats kids.

The profound, muted sadness of a child, be it Sybil or Esme' or Charles, forms the leitmotif of most (all?) of JDS's work. In a time when kids are treated like a fucking cliche', Salinger reminds you to have a heart and show some respect to the newly spawned in your life. His protagonists do not talk down to children, neither do they pander to them. I can't, for example, imagine Seymour pontificating to Sybil, telling her to be nice to animals. He instead finds an elegant way of communicating this to her. Perhaps there's a lesson to be learnt there that could apply to old and young alike, but a tactless word can cause one group more harm than the other.

Steinbeck can write too - link

Dear Diner

Your short order cook looks a little hot under the collar
Most of your waitresses are balding but they divert attention with their long nails and pretty faces
Your menus are laminated and propped up behind the napkin holder
Your offerings have extravagant names - Split Decision, Grand Slam, Freedom Toast, Mickey's Sputnick
I always get the coffee and the eggs
The coffee is as bitter as my mother
The eggs are great - all they need is a generous slathering of something or the other
You are generous with your potatoes and always send some over even when I haven't asked
I thank you for that
From Tulsa to Santa Fe to St. Louis - you are the familiar among the foreign

Wall Climber

Presented below (unedited) are two passages I found in my drafts folder from August 2013.

It kneels on the bamboo floor and arches its back until all the hair is off its face. It then ties what it can gather into a knot high up on the head ... almost near the forehead like. Once done, it rests its palms on the floor. No, that won't do. The palms need to face up. There we are. On all fours, just like God intended.
She starts to spin. The weight is now on the left palm, now on the right knee, onto the right palm and then...yeah. The hair knot comes undone, but that's the whole point. She who spins on the floor with upturned palms, needs loose hair on the face.

All done. Now it's time for Routine #2. Off to the dresser! It likes the candy apple nail color. That's all there is anyway, so what's not to like. By shrewdly observing the manicurist (manicurian?), she has learnt the correct nail color application technique. One stroke to cover the left, one to the right and finally the center. Fuck this, this sucks. It only manages to paint 3 of its nails. Is this a bad time to jerk off? Probably. The last time he saw candy apple stains there, he wasn't thrilled.

The Korean Man

I slip into a pair of old jeans, a black sweater with a hole or two and beige flip flops
The Korean man & I don't need to dress to impress each other
He's too old for that & I'm too young for it
It's time to go see my man, my Korean
It's 5 in the morning as the famous Frisco fog rolls in
I see my own breath as I walk past the cafe, the art supplies store and yet another cafe
They are all closed. They are not mine & I'm not theirs.
But I know that he will be awake, he will be open and he will be expecting
I pass the homeless man on his cardboard bed. He's been asleep since 7:00 pm last evening.
Past the frames of old stolen bicycles and yesterday's trash due for collection
At long last, there it is! The place where we rendezvous when we feel like it.
The bells chime as I cross his threshold
I like to imagine that this happens only for me, but deep down I know that to be false
My eyes take in his repository, his uh...stockpile
The sugary treats, the energy potions and the colorful what nots
I venture deeper inside his lair
He has erected a barricade that I cannot cross
I'm certain it is for others, but all the same, it stops me in my tracks
I stand behind, waiting to catch a glimpse of him
My eyes frantically scan the area for a hint of movement
There he is! He was under the counter the whole time
Oh he knows I've arrived. We exchange wistful glances.
He finally emerges from behind the counter like a snake at the beckoning of its charmer
"Oh hey! Good morning!"
"Good morning! How are you?"
"I'm good. I'm good. Haven't seen you in a while huh?"
"Eyyeah, I'm trying to cut down y'know"
"Ah yes yes. Here you go"
"Six seventy five, right?"
"Yes. Six seventy five"
I give him exactly what he wants
"Here you go"
"Thank you. Have a good day huh?"
"Thank you. You too"
Sometimes there's a Korean lady, but it's not the same.

A Streetcar named Desire - The Movie

Karl Malden’s Mitch first lays eyes upon Vivien Leigh’s Blanche DuBois while in the middle of a poker game and is gently goaded into beginning a conversation about a cigarette case (a silver one at that). His increasingly irritated game buddy urges him to return to the game, in response to which Mitch yells - “Deal me out! I’m speaking with Miss ...uh” and looks to Blanche for help. She reclines, one hand under her chin, the other daintily holding a cigarette, does her best impression of a theremin and replies - “Du bwah”.

And just as easily, I was in love with a character who, among other things is a former prostitute and an implied child molester.

Having watched this film well into the double digit number of times, I've come to the realization that I came for Stanley, but ended up staying for Blanche. Stanley certainly hasn't aged badly, but Blanche gets increasingly mesmerizing with each viewing. There are theories abound about what these two characters are meant to symbolize, but I like to imagine their interplay as a match between the old & the new. Blanche comes from old money, a once eminent family and a background in education, while Stanley has to use his physicality and an army record to defend his immigrant ancestry. Despite the obvious difference in class, if I imagine these two characters in twenty years time, I can see Stanley poring over his retirement plans, spouting a tirade at his son and waiting for the microwave to beep. Blanche on the other hand is on her third mint julep, quoting Whitman’s raunchiest lines, wearing entirely too much makeup and elegantly hitting on the nearest twenty year old. Yes, she does wear powerful shackles which force her to live in a place which she alone inhabits with occasional intrusions from undesirables. The same shackles however make her rise well above the plebeians...she never has and never will feel the need to learn about the Napoleonic code.

Blanche also rarely indulges in self pity in the presence of others. Apart from the one occasion when she bursts into tears in front of Stanley as he hands her a ticket back to Auriol, she keeps her emotions in check. She also does whatever she needs to, to get by - a scalding bath, a drink or three, the rhinestone tiara are all part of her elegant coping mechanism. And whether anyone buys it or not, she is peddling an image of herself as the heroine of her own tale of tragedy, romance and ultimately, redemption.

My preoccupation with the details in this movie have over time made me somewhat indifferent to the ending. There is no denying that it is very poignant and moving and so on, but I find myself zoned out during the last scene when things go south for everyone involved (except Eunice. I think Eunice deserves a movie of her own). I like to think that the heroine of this movie would appreciate the fact that I reach for a bottle of bourbon instead of a box of tissues.

The Hobbyist

No, you cannot stop reading Paz's Sunstone after a couple of paragraphs
Yes, you've got to finish reading his entire repertoire of poems
They were "collected" for a reason y'know
But I dabble, it's what I do
It's what gives me great pleasure
I dabble in people too
She doesn't hold my interest anymore
I got all I could from him
But you've got to have drive!
I mean, you have no ability after all
Hey! You forgot intention!
But how could I ever trust you if you never cross a finish line?
What's the humming bird equivalent of a lycanthrope?
No one ever accused a humming bird of being a dilettante