draw things, paint things, write things, make things … number 236 … doors
Good morning. How was your summer? Mine was not bad. ‘Not bad’ is what you’re supposed to say (and keep saying) during a pandemic, remember — no bragging, no complaining. It’s a polite non-answer. The one memory I keep coming back to is how, almost every day, there was a certain point where I had to press reset, where I had to push myself away from my desk or whatever half-assed thing I was doing, where I had to stand up and mime a proper stretch and say, Okay — enough, let’s move, let’s try to rescue what’s left of the day. Perhaps ‘rescue’ was not the right word but the idea was certainly about turning things around, or at least turning hard against sliding time or degrading personal orbits or certain flaws in coherence or emerging feelings of lameness (such an 80’s word) or mushrooming self-to-self-pity-stations or otherwise obsessively pointless thoughts. This is, after all, how most basements get cleaned, parcels get mailed, children get taken for bike rides and the week’s shopping gets done.
Still: I am always amazed at how quickly I can lose a morning.
I did manage to read some books — The Drowner by John D. MacDonald (dated, pulpy, with a misleading title and remarkable, ahead-of-its-time villain), Cool for America by Andrew Martin (young men slouching towards meaningless significance), Firebreak by Richard Stark (a re-read, actually — part revenge thriller, part art-heist) — and listen to some others — To Start a War by Robert Draper (war crimes for old men and Texans) and Talking to Strangers by Malcolm Gladwell (horrific episodes semi-illuminated by demonstrating how little people understand each other). We watched some old noir — House by the River (1950), Pickup on South Street (1953), Night and the City (1950), Sabotage (1936), Time Table (1956), Dishonored Lady (1947) and probably a dozen more that I’m forgetting … it seemed like Richard Widmark or Gene Tierney was always running across the edge of capture or some hysterical breakdown. C and I also watched Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, which I both enjoyed (sunny, quiet storytelling, lots of blind alleys) and found perplexing (for the berserk violence, which I thought had been removed from the cultural menu). Brad Pitt is finally beginning to age.
There was an Olympics but I didn’t see a minute.
We visited the National Gallery where I tried to look at smaller works and enjoy the quiet corners and cathedral-like spaces. We visited the Toronto Zoo where I got to watch giraffes. How else will I see them? Le Kid went to camp a lot, both day and sleep-away, and both were immensely good for her. And finally, towards the end of summer, she was eligible for vaccination.
Meanwhile, out west, they’re planning to Make Alberta Great Again.
Sunday night in No Frills (I try to go around supper time, to flatten the curve on the crazy) and on the sound system they’re playing, weirdly low and almost haunting (it’s country music that always gets a bigger volume) The Reflex by Duran Duran. I first heard this song played on cassette in a ghetto blaster this too-clever kid brought to Air Cadet camp. I think I was fifteen. I call this kid too-clever because he was always pulling pranks, like when he thought it would be funny to hold a pencil sharp-end-up on our shared pew as we sat down to a late afternoon lecture from the base chaplain; I got the ‘joke’ straight in the right buttock. I stood, pulled the pencil out, took a look at the bloody end, and marched off to the infirmary. The doctor cleaned it up and advised me that I should not let this affront go unpunished. Right! Who was I to argue with a medical professional? The squadron was back in barracks for the evening so I went straight to the too-clever kid’s room. He saw me coming and locked the door. I tore it off its hinges. Really, I just kind of walked straight through it. I can still remember that crack-ripping noise. To be fair, this was less impressive than it sounds; the entire building was so dilapidated that they advised us not to use the fire escapes. Still, I had every intention of killing anyone in that room. But then one of the NCO’s burst in behind me and took the too-clever kid away to drill up and down the parade square for a couple of hours. “You should be thanking me,” he told him. No one ever said anything to me about the door.
I still like that tune. It’s one of those big ridiculous tinny songs — like Go West or Always On My Mind by the Pet Shop Boys — that is a drum machine away from a Broadway musical.
I spend a large part of the next day, Labour Day, trying to get Le Kid organized for going back to school: backpack, stationery supplies, personal items, clothes. What do we really need when we have to carry it all day? For two days running we get her up at six a.m. so she has a chance to acclimatize to catching the bus at 7:30 (her previous wake time). I also have her make a calendar for the next three months. I’m trying to promote some general idea of planning and organization, some vague sense of having-it-together-ness, or at least avoid the worst of the first-week gong show, but it is a brain-melting exercise when all she wants to do is look in the mirror and argue for her right to wear shorts and halter tops every day.
Back to school also means back to the fight over devices. The new school is BYOD, apparently. Le Kid tells me that it’s not fair, all her friends have smartphones, and I’m not smart at all, in fact I don’t know anything, I’m just old-fashioned, etcetera, while her mom goes into Dream Team mode, filing the usual spurious motions on her behalf (it’s different now, it’s a safety issue, it’s about learning, etcetera). It’s all bullshit. Devices do not help learning. Even with adults, devices are highly problematic, instruments of disruption and distraction, and trying to teach responsible tech to a bunch of twelve year-olds is like trying to teach responsible meth. These same kids don’t even make their own beds, and while they might know a lot about why McDonald’s or Exxon is evil, most of them think France is one of the prairie provinces (I’m not kidding) and believe J. K. Rowling would be a lot more successful if it wasn’t for the patriarchy. Smartphones help concentration the same way hand grenades help a barbecue. And devices are just another fashion marker to set apart the cool, rich kids from the rest. I hate it. Can we just learn to read and do math, please? And run some laps and draw some fucking pictures? How about we do that?
There’s a federal election, apparently, so C and I go for a bike ride to an advance polling station. It’s mobbed by nerds and old people but no one from our neighbourhood so we get to skip to the front. We make our x’s and go home. Why is this so complicated in the States?
Have a good Tuesday,
djb
This week’s Tinyletter has been brought to you by the vanity license plates …
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Just wait until now becomes then. You’ll see how happy we were.
— Susan Sontag
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E / T / C / E / T / E / R / A —
Death isn’t worth your worry. // The Poetry Archive // 30 Movies That Are Unlike Anything You’ve Seen Before // The Met Collection // The ‘melancholic joy’ of living in our brutal, beautiful world // Everything is fine. // Tony Benn, 1998 // cigar-tin stories // A Dandy Goes to War // masks with original artwork // Anne Enright reads John Cheever // OH MY GOD, IT’S A COLLAGE // Stop Pretending We Can Save the Planet // American Illustration // How to Deal With People Who Undermine Everything You Do // Top 10’s // pictures in the cloud // Rabbit’s Review Is Interrupted by an Air Strike // Oscar magic // Fake Fliers // TODDLER T-SHIRT SLOGANS // Some Things At the End of January // New York Public Library Digital Collections
