Read This Book

Book Thoughts


I am haunted still by The Road, a book by Cormac McCarthy that I sadly finished last night. It is a book I would not stop reading, that I did not want to end.

It is story of a man and a boy embarking on a road in an American landscape devastated by a cataclysm in which no animal, vegetation and system—human or otherwise—remain. Little is known of anything: What kind of destruction is this? Is it localized or total? The humans that remain are a dangerous assortment divided into "good guys" and "bad guys." The latter stop at nothing to survive.

The language of "good guys" and "bad guys" is simple but not simplistic. It is the only thing that describes this world in which no rule of law or decency is left. There is one reality and one relationship shown and that is between a nameless man and boy, between father and son.

The namelessness of the characters poses questions: What identifies humans? What connects us? What governs us? The father and son talk in a telegraphic, beautiful and totally unadorned way. This language and their care for one another may be the only thing that separates them from the animals that no longer abound and from the wild and animal within them.

Re-Discovering

Surreal gets more surreal. I'm on a ferry heading to Bainbridge Island, and then to Poulsbo. It turns out Poulsbo is a hop and skip away from the island. Poulsbo is on the peninsula of Washington state. I'm actually leaving Seattle for a week's time.

By tone and tenor, the Bainbridge crowd on the ferry from Seattle bears resemblance to the Staten Island crowd heading home from Manhattan: Calm and assured in the knowledge that whatever happens in the City, their island home remains secure.

By appearance, the ferry crowd is a world away from that of Staten Island and for that matter that of New York: They wear fleece coats, backpacks and sneakers; Their brands are Patagonia, Marmot, and Timbuktu. They are Microsoft culture and New York is Wall Street culture.

The ferry makes way into the pier at Bainbridge. The automated voice that signals our arrival is pleasant and decidedly not irritating. I can't say the same for New York's automated and subway voices. Surreal.

Photo by BM01 under creative commons license http://www.flickr.com/photos/bm01/2291928329/

The Underwear Report

New York, NY - If women are supposedly the squeamish sex, then why do they brave discussions of intimate topics like underwear more often than men? They shop for underwear together and compare notes about lingerie. If men are supposedly more fearless, then why are we so shy about talking about underwear? I was so grateful for a recent lesson on underwear.

While waiting for my pasta entrée to be brought up at my neighborhood Italian restaurant last night, I called up a friend, Ben, to catch up. Ben reported on his vacation. I talked about my own hiatus---a 3-week hiatus from laundry. I apprised him that tonight doing laundry was an absolute must. I told him I was wearing my “last resort” underwear: A pair 5-year-old Jockeys.

I told Ben that the holes around the waistband of my Jockeys were embarrassing when I noticed them at the gym earlier that day. Being intrepid, I asked Ben how long his underwear usually last and whether he replaces them at the first sign of holes.

He said he replaces his “generic” BVD underwear at the first signs of stress. We discussed whether it was harder to part with worn out underwear than it was with items like shirts. (We concluded that since underpants are less public we make them serve longer.) We talked about why underwear collects holes more often than other clothing. (They’re elastic and bulge.) We talked about the uneven quality of underwear and whether Calvin Kleins hold up better than Jockeys. (I say yes.) I worried about my underwear contributing to landfill. (No worries, Ben said, cotton disintegrates.) Ben was supremely pragmatic: “Do not give your used underwear to the thrift shops…No one wants them!” With generic underwear, Ben added, there are no qualms, no attachments.

This then was the crux of it: The more expensive the underwear, the harder the leave taking. Throwing out underpants that out-lived their use sounds like good self-care for the grown up man. Holey underwear is admittedly unaesthetic. Not to mention what it does to your social life. That night I did managed to do my laundry. And I threw out those old Jockeys too.



Photo by TLVshac. Creative Commons License
http://flickr.com/photos/73516598@N00/

3 Boxes

Seattle, WA - Two weeks ago I went to Seattle to do personal business. A top item of business was looking through boxes of my belongings that my Mom had been storing for me. I had to decide to take them with me to Brooklyn or discard them after five years of cold storage. I wanted to not burden my Mom with my possessions.

Looking through the past—and making decisions about what from the past to bring into the future—is one of life’s important and necessary things. We have to decide between the utility of keeping something and the futility of having it sit for so long. Humans are gifted with the ability to give meaning to objects. We give things significance of all kind and sometimes believe our possessions say something about who we are. Perhaps they do. But carrying them from place to place and holding on to them for years in boxes in attics—or in a damp garage in Seattle in my case—say something else. Is everything of the past worth keeping?

I discarded with glee old statements of financial aid given to me by my college—I’m well aware of the schools loans I owe. I gave away oversized sweaters from the time oversized was in. From 4 boxes, I was able to get rid of one box. Sentimentality won out over practicality in the decision perhaps. My mom will continue to shoulder my things for me. The past turned out to be hard to part with.

So what things survived my plunder? Three boxes. Within them are books whose authors I knew, journals and photos of years lived abroad, and little things whose weird beauty I might not find again: a stainless steel decanter that plays a tune when wound up from its base, a silver ash tray in a strange, sensuous shape. They return to the damp sleep of the garage. They are part of the past and they have place in the future.

The Body

Manhattan, NY - I've taken up karate and have gone to two classes. It feels nice for once to listen, to obey, and to be an absolute beginner. To obey and to be guided by those who know better is a new experience. From what I see, practicing martial arts is about the constant improvement of technique and constant focusing of attention and intention. There are so many moves to learn and hence its practitioners meet several times a week. The attraction is that I can constantly get better.

Fresh from class, I ran into S. in front of the gym's community space. I met her recently through church. She's been practicing jujitsu. It's clear to me she's been at this for some time. I asked her what made her choose jujitsu as a form of martial arts. She said she fell into it and loved it immediately. She said the discipline has taught her about boundaries of all sorts. The body is a weapon her teacher told her and this has made a tremendous impression upon her.

The body is a weapon. The metaphor startled me. When I see S. in church, I've always remarked to myself how calm she is. Is the body a weapon or a temple, I asked. She went on to say that knowing that the body is a weapon has made her aware of boundaries of all sorts. And yes, the metaphor holds. If her body is a knife, she would not let anyone hold her knife. She is in total possession of it.

In truth, I came to karate to empower myself, to learn self-mastery through body and hopefully through mind. S. made me realize that her metaphor was in fact not just a metaphor. The body is a temple, a sacred thing. For such it needs protecting. So martial arts can come to the service of its protection. In fact, in these arts, there's a healthy respect for the body as form and as tool. The body, then, can be the finest and sharpest expression of our intentions.