Here in the coffee shop I sit, I overhear conversations of no consequence. School teachers speaking of extracurriculars, college students bitching about visits to family during the holidays, and mothers, talking about being mothers.
I got a croissant. I don’t normally like to eat while I drink coffee. I also don’t like eating when I drink liquor. I prefer one thing at a time. I’ve always been a slow eater anyways.
The transience of a moment comes to mind hearing all this talk. How many of these conversations will be remembered? I wonder if any of these conversations are “important?” And if any of the “important” ones will be remembered? And what makes a conversation “important?”
It’s one of those questions you can only answer either incorrectly or incompletely. And you, you’re reading this. Which means you’ve probably read other things I’ve written; how much of that do you remember?...
You’ll have to forgive me for breaking tone. I’ve just gotten back to California from about a week in Vienna, Austria. Something about travel makes one more reflective. I’ve also started reading Proust. Something about that makes one more reflective too.
They say it’s the longest book ever written. They also say it’s the best novel of the 20th century. I’ll let you know when I’ve made up my mind, but so far so good.
…I thought the girl next to me was cute, in an understated sort of way. No sooner had I thought that that I heard her say something about “the church I go to…”
It seems all the women I get to liking are either christian or some vague style of hippie. I wonder what that’s all about?
In a biography about the French writer Gustav Flaubert I read a while back the author quoted him as having said “only animals and insane people are attracted to me.”
I don’t know why I remember that. But all too often it rings true for me. Maybe the Gods are playing tricks on me.
…Sometimes the Stream of Consciousness runs like a river. Sometimes it drips like a leaky faucet sink. What’s it doing now? I suppose that’s up to you.
I read Spinoza this year. I wish I was as smart as he was. He pops into my mind randomly from time to time. Maybe I should go to The Hague. But I doubt there’s anything of interest for me there.
I read Thucydides this year too. At very improper times that famous line comes to mind: “the strong do what they can, the weak suffer what they must.” They say that’s foreign policy in a nutshell. In one sentence from a very old book. In the same book Pericles says “happiness comes from freedom, freedom from courage.” That comes to mind a lot too, but there’s no improper time to think that.
I wrote a magic trick based on a line I remembered from Italo Calvino’s If On a Winter’s Night a Traveler. About watching the falling of Ginko leaves…
What did I do in Vienna? I saw some Caravaggio paintings, up close in person. I saw The Third Man, twice. That makes three times I’ve seen it total. Great film. I went to the Opera to see La Boheme. It was a sensation, but I’ve never seen a cast of players take so many bows. You got the uneasy feeling that if you didn’t leap for a standing ovation they might jump into the crowd and enact one of their tragedies upon you.
I went to the Narrenturm. It’s an old insane asylum converted into a research center and museum for bad things that can happen to the human body. There were babies in jars with brains that busted through their skull. Conjoined twins. Preserved penises and vaginas with all sorts of STDs. Deformed skeletal figures. I kept reminding myself “these were real people, human beings.” It made me queasy.
…What are we doing here? Maybe too much asking isn’t helpful. I’ve noticed that I only think to ask in the stolen and silent moments. But really what is it? What are we doing here? Every time I ask I have the same answers.
The point of life is to live. That’s it, that simple.
But you can’t realistically live every moment. And when life’s temperature drops and you reach the frozen hour… what then?
I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to derail things again. The Stream might be dripping.
My brother is studying international law, he invited me to go out with him and some part time friends, fair weather types, to go to dinner. It ended up being one of my favorite nights in Vienna.
I told the group that I was going to the Cafe Mozart that night if they wanted to join for late night espresso. We went. I had my eye on one of the French girls. Primarily because she seemed to express an interest in me. Yes, I really am that easy, most of the time.
I spent some time at Cafe Kafka. It really tugged at my heartstrings. The exact kind of scene I wished I could find in the US. Or near me wherever I was. The perfect Cafe. Bohemian, open for coffee and alcohol and open all through the night. Everyone smoked and spoke of things they didn’t understand. There was nothing not to like. Everyone there was into some kind of “ART” of which they spoke so solemnly.
I’ve been performing a new magic trick of mine about meaning. It’s called The Meaning of Meaning. I think it’s one of the best things I’ve written. And yet here I am still thinking: “What’s the meaning of this life?” As if it needs one. Joe Campbell, the myth guy, was once asked in an interview if the myths have anything to say about the meaning of life. His answer, from memory: “A lot of people think they’re looking for the meaning of life, I don’t think they are, I think what they’re looking for is the feeling of being alive.” And like I said, I only find time to ask the question in those silent and stolen moments… The point of life is to live. But can it be that simple?…
What is it about the wind that makes everything poetic? Do you like poetry? Have you read Baudelaire? I highly recommend Le Balcon. Arthur Rimbaud’s My Little Lovelies hits from an angle unidentifiable.
Pale white in private moonlight, Like round-eyed sores Flap your scabby kneecaps apart My ugly whores!
Some lines you can’t forget. Sometimes one single thought makes a poem good that otherwise might have been forgettable. Maud Muller is that way.
Of all sad words of tongue or pen The saddest are these: “it might have been!”
I’ve missed writing to you. It might be nice if the dialogue were more two-way. There’s probably a way to set that up. You can always reach out to me, I’m not that hard to find.
I’m going to change my name. This one doesn’t suit me anymore. It hasn’t suited me for a long time, if it ever did. What good is a Dutch-German last name when I’m American with no Dutch or German in me. It’s just long and hard to spell.
Well, I’m going for another coffee. Then I’m going back to reading Proust. I hope everything’s good in your corner of the world. There’s enough going on without us finding a reason to be distressed. And maybe it’s true, the point of life is just to live. Maybe it really is that simple.
From,
James M