Moments

Writers know that there is a special challenge in capturing with words the richness of a fleeting moment. To do it well and truthfully is damned hard. Sometimes it’s tempting to just avoid the detail and breeze by with a high-level summary. Of course, too much avoidance and the work will seem dead, a lie. Because what’s missing is the very thing that life is made up of: moments strung together like beads on a necklace.

Some moments are full to the brim with drama; they are complex, multi-faceted; they could take pages and pages to parse. Others (most) seem comparatively barren. But even the empty moment is far more pregnant than it appears, once we begin to look closely.

The enlightened masters tell us that any moment, the Now, can open up like a blossom to transcend time and space. I don’t doubt that, but I also know that such an experience is beyond the capacity of language. As writers, we toil on the plane of the mundane, but that shouldn’t prevent us from exploring as deeply as possible, treading the very boundaries of the inexpressible.

The old saw, “show, don’t tell,” which I don’t take as gospel at all, is probably good advice here, but what about the multitude of unshowable inner realities any human is experiencing at any given time? Poetry may be the best tool for this job: the sudden epiphany called out of nowhere by the perfect unexpected collision of words. But I’m a prose writer. I’m interested in how moments are captured in sentences, in the flow of a narrative.

I’m also a visual artist, and I’m interested in the foggy borderline between our preconceived notions of what is important or beautiful and that other place: the neglected, the bland, the everyday.

So “Moments” is also the name I’m giving to a rather casual, free-flowing art project: short spontaneous videos shot with my little Bloggie camera, with no editing except for trimming head and tail. As in writing, a video can put a selected moment on a pedestal by giving it a beginning and an end, slicing it out of the never-ending flow that we experience as actual life. That very act of differentiation illustrates the omnipresent Now by showing us its opposite: a fragment. In this project, I'm looking for a balance of random banality and ephemeral beauty, something that might fit the Japanese aesthetic called wabi-sabi.  

Wabi-sabi puts forth the wisdom that greatness exists in the inconspicuous and overlooked details, and that beauty can be coaxed out of ugliness. Based on observation of nature, it teaches us these three truths: all things are impermanent, all things are imperfect, and all things are incomplete. Leonard Koren says, "Wabi-sabi suggests that beauty is a dynamic event that occurs between you and something else. Beauty can spontaneously occur at any moment given the proper circumstances, context, or point of view. Beauty is thus an altered state of conscious­ness, an extraordinary moment of poetry and grace."

Here are my first three video moments (about 1 minute each). I don’t expect these to be “extraordinary,” but for me, they do point toward that “altered state of consciousness” that can turn a stone to a jewel, a thoughtless routine to an act of mindful aliveness. Perception is reality.

Moments: Eric Dolphy and Me, Crossing the Rhinecliff Bridge

 Moments: Sunrise on the Cell Block

Moments: Playing in the Park

Doing something similar with language is an entirely different proposition. In storytelling, it is not usually the banal moments that we choose to elevate by exploration. Or is it? Here is a moment within a moment, narrated by a sax-playing alcoholic in recovery, in my story “Blues for Jane.”

I get dressed; Jane doesn’t move.  I feel something, maybe good, tough anyway, leaving her flat.  This is not the first time.  She stands there naked, not sure what to do with her hands so she hugs herself, a tall girl with big sad eyes, looking at the wall, at vacation romance fading, a film’s end, black.  I button my shirt, slow fingers moving up like I’m playing a ballad on worn brass keys.

I remember there was a little of her look, the lonely part of her look, in those wide eyes the night I first saw her in the little club on Second Street in Jersey City, watching me solo.  Those eyes were lighthouse beacons piercing the smoke, headlights in the fog bearing down on me, a truck, a train of trucks, roaring like wind through misty midnight straight at me, me and my rambling solo, and suddenly I was caught, pinned in the glare, so self-conscious, every fingering suddenly suspect, my stance pretentious, my breathing so obviously faulty, and I closed my eyes and prayed, closed my eyes and fell away from that wide pure stare into the rhythm, and breathed, and finished okay.  As Joey began his piano riff, I opened my eyes to meet hers, wide again but with a little smile, a shy smile, no more trucks in the fog, just a girl, and she clapped her hands, and I made a small bow, and then I watched her move through pools of light and smoke, moving like a young racehorse, all legs, long legs rolling from the hip joint, the young awkwardness of big feet, big hands, big shy head, eyes down as she moved through the dimness in long steps, all odd grace, all awkward pieces joined into smooth flow, big eyes glancing at me once more from the bar, and I knew I’d see her after that set, and after that night.

Now, here, my hand is on the door.  She’s looking away.

“Blues for Jane,” besides being in my collection, The Principle of Ultimate Indivisibility, will be appearing this summer in an anthology called Tribute to Orpheus II, from Kearney Street Books.

If you’re a writer (or even if you’re not), I’m interested to hear your thoughts about the challenge of capturing moments -- especially those that would seem to have no inherent importance, but which, through the subtle power of suggestion and ambiance, enrich a story, define a character, or elucidate a theme.

Thanks!

(For more video moments as they arrive, see http://www.youtube.com/user/robisonbrent)

Not Like Other Mafia Novels

For the first time, my very small publishing effort called Bliss Plot Press is the publisher of a triple threat for one title: ebook, audiobook, and paperback editions of the novella Saraceno by Djelloul Marbrook. The vicissitudes of everyday life dictate that part-time publishing is for me a slow-motion process: ebook in 2010, audiobook in 2011, and now the paperback. But it’s a fine-looking little volume, if I do say so myself. I designed both the cover and the interior but I need to give much credit to Marilyn Marbrook for not letting my frequently lapsing attention neglect the highest standards, especially in typesetting and page format. Here is the full cover, and the title page is below.

But enough about me and my product; let’s talk about the content of Saraceno. This is not a “crime novel” nor is it a “thriller” nor is it an easy fit into any other of the silly categories with which today’s publishing industry straitjackets itself. This is a story about people who bring to mind the line from Bob Dylan’s “Absolutely Sweet Marie:” To live outside the law you must be honest.

Of course, honesty does not absolve one of murder. Absolution is not a concern here, but redemption is. I am not typically drawn to stories of crime and criminals, especially the violent sort, preferring to explore worlds (inner and outer) that are closer to my own. In Saraceno, most of the crime and violence take place “off screen,” leaving the pages open for investigation of the finer yearnings of the heart; of the universal benefits of human connection.

Billy Salviati (given the dark power-name “Il Saraceno” by the godfather) grows in this story, from a damaged young man leaving prison, through a murderous career as a favored soldier in the don’s army, to a higher state of awareness and spiritual freedom. His redemption is the result of two influences intermixed, each of which alone is never enough. They are: his own internal flame that flickers around a calm, watchful center; and the generous, perhaps undeserved, love of other people whose paths he intersects.

His best friend, the godfather’s grandson, on a parallel path toward his own true nature, arrives first and stays. Later we meet a lady bartender whom Billy lets into his life. But central to the book and to Billy’s transformation is Hettie Warshaw, an elderly Auschwitz survivor who opens to Billy an entirely new world. Her Hell’s Kitchen apartment is a fabulous museum stuffed with artifacts, books, maps, the wisdom and beauty of the ages, and on the roof is a rose garden. The place becomes Billy’s refuge, and it changes him.

Today, my context for the story is provided by a YouTube video I found to be dramatically paradigm-changing. It features Dr. Bruce Lipton, former medical school professor and research scientist giving a lecture called The New Biology: Where Mind and Matter Meet. I’m focusing on Part 2 (95 minutes). At the risk of drastically oversimplifying Lipton’s far-ranging message, here’s the relevant bit. At a cellular level, we live in a constant vacillation: Growth vs Protection. That binary fact is expressed at the emotional or consciousness level as Love vs Fear. In an environment where the default choice is the opposite, Billy chose Growth and Love, and that made all the difference.

And a final note: Saraceno is not like other Mafia novels for two reasons. Marbrook, an award winning poet, writes with an unusually powerful command of language that lifts both content and reader. And also because visible on every page is the author’s open-hearted affection for his characters, these humans with serious blemishes who are worthy of love simply because they share this world with us. That’s the quality of fiction I want to read, and to publish.

For more information about Saraceno and Djelloul Marbrook, read my blog entry from a few months ago. But even better, get the author’s fascinating backstory from this great press release: Mafia? What Mafia?.

Purchasing information is at Bliss Plot Press.

To Blog Or Not To Blog

To blog or not to blog? Right now, that is the question.

Whether ‘tis nobler as an author to suffer the slings and arrows from that nagging little demon-voice saying: days and weeks and months are going by, you and your book are invisible, you can’t expect a following if you don’t post (not that there are any comments when you do anyway, ha!), and what’s the point since you obviously have no ideas in your empty head!

Or to take arms against that sea of troubles, and by closing my blog, end them. To sleep blog-free -- ‘tis a consummation devoutly to be wished. To sleep... perchance to dream. Aye, there’s the rub. For in that sleep of bloglessness, what dreams may come?

Suddenly ideas would arise that cry out to be shared but have no place to live. Joy-visions or nightmares or something in between, they need an audience. Suddenly a void would yawn open where once there were words, where once there was an author and a book. Not even a grave would be left. The horror!

So there it is... the dread of something after blog-deletion, the undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveller returns, puzzles the will, and makes me rather bear those ills I have than fly to others that I know not of. And thus the native hue of resolution is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought....

Okay, enough.

Certain internet marketing gurus would say that absolutely, blogging equals being. You don’t blog, you don’t exist. To be or not to be is really the question.

But that’s bull. My blog is definitely part of my attempt to let the world know about my book, The Principle of Ultimate Indivisibility, and maybe future books -- but it is more than that. It has a personal soul-value. It’s both a mirror and a record of my inner life. It allows me to test my own ideas, to hone sentences, to make cogent points. It’s a bulletin board where I can tack up my latest thoughts for myself to look at, if no one else. And if someone does read and comment, that’s gravy.

It feels good to offer a connection to others, and to occasionally get a very nice response. Sharing ourselves is the essence of community. My blog is a step toward you with a hand out in welcome. I enjoy your response, but I don’t depend on it.

There’s no reason for me to feel pressure about blogging. I’ll post a blog entry whenever there’s that wonderful conjunction of the arising of an idea with the time to explore it in writing. It will be “occasional.” There may be gaps, but there will not be a gap forever. And that’s okay.

It will be what it will be, and whatever it will be will be good.

Fine. I’ve decided to keep my blog. Happy New Year!

A Mafia Story in Sound

I’m pleased to announce the debut of the audiobook edition of the critically acclaimed novella Saraceno by Djelloul Marbrook, narrated by the author. It’s available for download from Amazon, Audible, or iTunes. I had a good experience working with Audiobook Creation Exchange (ACX) for distribution. Recording was handled by Julie Last at Coldbrook Productions of Woodstock, NY, with some fine saxophone licks added by Peter Buettner.

A year ago, through my small publishing company, Bliss Plot Press, I launched the e-book version of Saraceno, which is available in all formats from Smashwords and other e-book retailers, or in Kindle format direct from Amazon. By year’s end, I’ll be announcing a trade paperback edition.

Saraceno has had a difficult history. Its original publisher folded before the book actually entered the market, but a few hardback copies continue to be traded on Amazon. It earned some laudatory reviews, excerpted here:

"Not just another run-of-the-mill Mafia novel." —Small Press Bookwatch

"Saraceno is an electric tone-poem straight from a world we only think we understand. An heir to George V. Higgins and David Mamet, Djelloul Marbrook writes dialogue that not only entertains with an intoxicating clickety-clack, but also packs a truth about low-life mob culture The Sopranos only hints at. You can practically smell the anisette and filling-station coffee."
—Dan Baum, author of Nine Lives: Mystery, Magic, Death and Life in New Orleans (Spiegel & Grau, 2009)

"…a good ear for crackling dialogue… I love Marbrook’s crude, raw music of the streets. The notes are authentic and on target…" —Sam Coale, The Providence (RI) Journal

"Strongly recommended as a remarkably crafted tale." —Midwest Book Review

"This lyrical and violent, funny and sad, hot and cool novella haunts us. Try it.” —Ann LaFarge, Taconic Weekend

And what follows is my own original review of the book, from About Town, 2005.

A New Type of Mafia Story

In "Saraceno," Djelloul Marbrook has crafted an entirely new variety of gangster tale. The story of a Mafia hit man and his friend, the grandson of the godfather, as each searches for his own true path, this compact novella is also a glass through which we see its author. "Saraceno" is an unlikely artifact: a Mafia story sculpted with the most refined of sensibilities from the clay of high art and philosophy, and then thoroughly suffused with love. This love is, first, the mysterious affection of a creator for his creations, a compassion for flawed humanity that drives the best fiction and makes its consumption a healthy activity. Second, it is the love of the characters for one another, from which redemption finally comes.

In Marbrook's narrative, "Il Saraceno" is the secret nickname given to the handsome and deadly Billy Salviati by his Mafia master, connoting both menace and respect--the historical view of the Sicilians toward their one-time rulers, the Arabs. Billy's life changes, as do the lives of his few friends, when he meets an elderly Jewish woman and is introduced to a library of the best writing and a rooftop full of roses. In an economical, erudite voice powered by an awesome vocabulary, Marbrook weaves bright strands of alchemy, art, literature, and religion into a dark Hell's Kitchen fabric.

If you're an aficionado of the recent spate of gangster yarns masquerading as psychological explorations while glorifying brutality, "Saraceno" may leave your bloodlust unfulfilled. This is no "Sopranos," no "Goodfellas," no "Godfather Part X." A nasty beating or two are in full view, but the much bloodier doings we know to be the currency of that world stay off-screen. In the same way that Paul Auster used the "detective" persona in his "New York Trilogy" to create works of art that delve into mysteries far deeper than "whodunit," and as a result got slammed by fans of the genre, so "Saraceno" takes higher aim, and may not be appreciated by those who prefer their reading tightly pigeonholed.

Djelloul Marbrook is the kind of writer I take real pleasure in discovering: a Hudson Valley neighbor and a mature artist whose rich body of work is finally coming to light. Marbrook's poetry collection, Far From Algiers, was the 2007 winner of the Wick Poetry Prize. His second poetry collection, Brushstrokes & Glances, was published by Deerbrook Editions in 2010, and his novella Artemisia’s Wolf by Prakash Books in 2011. His blog is always insightful: see djelloulmarbrook.com.

September Morning

For an American writer, especially a New York writer, the events of ten years ago today reverberate in the cells, whispering for expression, but the whispers are always accompanied by the doubt that language can do justice to the actual experience. In my story collection, The Principle of Ultimate Indivisibility, the event is woven into the fabric of more than one of the stories. But it's most explicitly expressed in the following excerpt from the story "Phoenix Egg: Three Vignettes." I wrote this specifically for a commemorative reading event on the one-year anniversary of 9/11, and its original title was "September Morning." Then it found it's way into the web-like weave of characters' lives that makes up the collection, and became something even bigger. Hope you like it.

Morning

Helen’s mind is not on business. It’s on a pinpoint, a potential, a something so microscopic it’s more a nothing. In her center, it hums.

Every morning there is this settling in, the transition from the crush and chaos of the street, subway, elevator, to the solitude of her office. The solitude that will last a precious three minutes before it gives way to another crush: the focus of work, the pressure of duty. She punches the power buttons: monitor then computer. She toes off her sneakers, still tied, and slides them with a nyloned foot under the desk. She’s not yet ready to put on the heels, the “torture-pedics” she calls them, so she stands in stocking feet looking out the window, a Starbucks cup still in her hand. Decaf, because it’s better for the ovaries.

She had woken before the alarm, in the still black time, and climbed out of bed without waking Daniel. His schedule was out of sync with hers; a dark gulf had opened between them. Daniel was deep in the final act of the novel he’d taken a year off to write, and often stared blankly into space, his lips moving slightly. Sometimes in conversation with her, mid-sentence, his eyes would glaze, his focus wander. Only rarely could she get him to let her in, and then he’d turn suddenly manic and pace the room, arms waving, acting out scenes in dialogue, changing voices—a villainous basso profundo, a girlish falsetto—and if it was a good day they would simultaneously realize the absurdity of this picture, and dissolve into laughter. Other times a black silence would descend.

But as his novel had grown, so had an irrational need in her, from somewhere deeper than she’d known before. Even this junior broker job she’d worked so long for, that had finally netted her these actual walls and a window, could fade away, and she could smile to see it go. Sometimes this was alarming, but less and less so.

This morning, in the glow of the night light in the bathroom, she had done her monthly test. She peed on the little plastic strip, on the Urine Collection Pad, holding it gingerly by the ergonomic Thumb Grip, then watched for the lines to appear in the Results Window. Yes—today could be Ovulation Day. Normally—the last three months—she would have waited until evening to take the next step, but this morning she felt a vague hormonal insistence that sent her back into the bed, naked, next to Daniel. She caressed him, and then it was as if their bodies took over.

It was quick but good, better than it had been in a very long time. At first, just blind urgent fumbling. Then in the dim light of dawn his eyes opened, clear, and locked to hers. The prodigal ecstasy returned, the inexplicable merging, the goodness that was pain just too sharp and sweet to bear. She melted, lost in him and in all of everything. After they came together and he kissed the tears that ran down to the pillows from the corners of her eyes, she knew that these were the moments of her life that most closely resembled prayer.

Now, she hears the beep and whir of her computer booting up. She drains the cup and stretches a long yoga stretch. Hand on her chest, she feels the pendant that hangs under her blouse, against her skin; the gift from Daniel last May for their fifth anniversary; the glowing egg shape that she knew was his unspoken way of empowering her inner alchemy with a magic amulet. She’s sure, yes, quite sure she feels the tiniest buzz in her belly: excited cells, busily dividing. She takes one more long look out the window at the view she loves: this incredible city spread out below, with her its goddess gazing down with overflowing tenderness from the 93rd floor. And somewhere in that far tiny tangle of roofs that may be Chelsea, her dear Daniel is just waking up, and now sun glimmers on both the big rivers, and the graceful bridges are like toys, and the city seems impossibly silent and peaceful. This is a moment that is almost like flying. And way out there to the north there’s a plane approaching, just a bright little dot in the cloudless blue sky.

Why the World Needs Fiction

Today I can say nothing better about writing than what I just read in George Ovitt's essay Fiction and Empathy in Atticus Review.

Why, in this bizarre circus of a world, do we even need fiction? My answer is that it might just be hardwired into us by evolution, to help ensure our species' survival, because, as Ovitt says, it "keeps us from committing the acts of cruelty that come so easily when we keep ourselves at an empathetic distance from others."

I hope you'll read this excellent article, and my thanks go out to George Ovitt and the good folks at Atticus Review!

A Splendid Time is Guaranteed for All

I’m happy to be in good company when I read selections from my book at an event being billed as “A Midsummer Night's Fiction,” Saturday July 30, 6:00 pm. The fun will be happening at Oriole 9, a restaurant on Tinker Street in the center of Woodstock, NY.

Also reading his fiction will be my friend Robert Burke Warren, whose son once married my daughter in a mock Indian wedding at summer camp. The last time I heard him do a music set (at ‘Cue) I was wondering who gave him a list of my favorite songs. And he writes some darn good book reviews on Goodreads too. Here's his bio:

Robert Burke Warren has held down bass duties in rock bands, written songs with Rosanne Cash, performed the lead in the hit West End musical Buddy: the Buddy Holly Story, and introduced legions of families to interactive music via his award-winning, Grammy-nominated “rock of all ages” persona Uncle Rock (“Buddy Holly meets Shel Silverstein.” - LA Times).His prose has appeared in Texas Music, Brooklyn Parent, the Woodstock Times, vulture.com, Chronogram, and the Da Capo anthology The Show I’ll Never Forget.

The third member of our fiction threesome is Alethea Black. I’ve never met Alethea, but I do know that she’s done something difficult: she got a literary short story collection traditionally published in the current marketplace. Plus, I like that she called me a "splendid hipster" on her website (that calls for a "LOL," doesn't it?). More about her:

Alethea Black's debut collection of short stories, I KNEW YOU'D BE LOVELY (Broadway Books/Random House), has been called "smart ... full of heart" by Joan Silber and "downright brilliant" by Robert Olen Butler. Her work has won the Arts & Letters Prize, has been cited as distinguished in The Best American Short Stories, and has been read at venues around the country by such talents as Campbell Scott and Michael Cerveris.

I have no doubt this will be an entertaining evening!

Wine, beer, coffee, tea, lemonade available for purchase from Oriole 9. Flasks frowned upon.
Oriole 9: 17 Tinker Street, 845-679-5763

The event is co-sponsored by The Golden Notebook and is a presentation of Rock City Readings, curated by Teresa Giordano and Jana Martin.

About Rock City Readings:
Rock City Readings began in 2009 when, after spending a week in her Saugerties summer home, founder Teresa Giordano realized that although she was surrounded by opportunities to hike, kayak, and bike, what she really wanted was to hear good stories. So she started Rock City Readings. With some persistence and an introduction to Chronogram Books Editor Nina Shengold, she was able to host and present such authors as Helen Benedict, Jon Bowermaster, Cornelius Eady, James Lasdun, and more. Jana Martin became a welcome and frequent reader, a loyal audience member and in 2011 a partner and co-curator of the series. Jana's energy and vision brought the series to a new level of creativity.

Nondual Auster, Metaphysical Detective

As I look further into both ancient and modern philosophies of Nonduality, I'm feeling obsessed by the challenge of embodying those ideas in the fiction I'm writing. Just creating the kinds of stories that once satisfied me (a sort of literary humanist realism) is no longer enough. Besides believability, poignance, and craft, I need something deeper, a sense of meaning that hides behind "reality" like a face behind a mask.

In my story collection, The Principle of Ultimate Indivisibility, I began to peek behind that mask by linking characters and their separate stories in subtle ways, implying the Net of Indra as a vision of background truth. In my novel-in-progress, I hope to go further, manifesting the mysterious workings of a Unified Field that paradoxically contains the dualities necessary for not only human drama but also the language required to tell the stories. I'm inching forward like a man newly blind.

But I'm grateful to have guideposts, in the form of old friends, favorite authors. With a buzz of recognition, I'm discovering new explanations for the elements that hooked me long ago on the early work of Paul Auster--in particular, The New York Trilogy. As I walked the streets of Manhattan at the beginning of the '90s, my head was often full of the deliciously strange mysteries in that slim volume, which is made up of three novellas that interconnect like an Escher illusion. In City of Glass, a novelist poses as a detective and gets entangled in a case that consumes him. In Ghosts, a private eye's surveillance of his subject leads him to existential crisis. In The Locked Room a man obsessively follows his missing friend into a labyrinth of blurred identity. This is work that borrows conventions from mystery fiction, then proceeds to subvert the genre--by some estimations failing to satisfy, by others succeeding through transcending predictable outcomes. The trilogy can be seen as a prototype of "metaphysical detective fiction," in which the world is one of questions, not answers; interpretations, not solutions; and the sleuth is seeking not "Whodunit" but "Who am I?"

Much academic ink has already been spilled dissecting Auster's work, much of it dense analysis of postmodern complexities that are intriguing but don't lead beyond the ivory tower. My reading has just scratched the surface, but occasionally I've spied threads of higher meaning that I'm attempting to trace here. I won't footnote the following ramblings, but you can follow the links if you want to go deeper.

One of Auster's primary themes, the primacy of language-based narrative, comes out of Lacanian psychoanalysis: (in Wikipedia's words) "We observe the world through our senses but the world we sense is structured (mediated) in our mind through language. Thus our subconscious is also structured as a language. This leaves us with a sense of anomaly. We can only perceive the world through language, but we have the feeling of a lack. The lack is the sense of a being outside of language. The world can only be constructed through language but it always leaves something uncovered, something that can not be told and be thought of, it can only be sensed."

For me, this is a pointer toward a nondual Absolute that cannot be captured in language, since language is inherently dualistic.

Here are a couple more writers who explore the language issue, and take it even further: Alison Russell, in Deconstructing The New York Trilogy: Paul Auster's Anti-Detective Fiction leans on Jacques Derrida when she says: "Logocentrism, the term applied to uses and theories of language grounded in the metaphysics of presence, is the "crime" that Auster investi­gates in The New York Trilogy. In each volume, the detective searches for "presence": an ultimate referent or foundation outside the play of language itself. This quest for correspondence between signifier and signified is inex­tricably related to each protagonist's quest for origin and identity, for the self only exists insofar as language grants existence to it." And Richard Swope’s article (recommended) in the journal Reconstruction adds, "the questor can never arrive at his desired destination, for in this world signifiers are not attached to signifieds, while the distinction between self and other no longer holds."

Presence... the quest for identity... no distinction between self and other... hmm... sounds familiar if you read current nonduality writings.

In an article called Mirrors of Madness, Steven E. Alford writes, "The New York Trilogy holds a mirror up to our own madness--the assumption of our hermetic individuality.... " and "The particular contribution of The New York Trilogy is that in each story, we see the realization of the "substancelessness" of the self in its psychological dimension...." And he quotes Anthony Paul Kerby, Narrative and the Self: "One cannot become 'I' without an implicit reference to another person, an auditor or narratee--which may be the same subject qua listener. 'I' functions in contrast to 'you' in much the same way as 'here' refers linguistically to 'there' rather than any fixed location."

We are not sealed off from each other... the self has no substance... as here is there, so I am you... hmm... the echoes continue.

Interesting how much all of this sounds like a favorite website of mine, Science and Nonduality. Here's the description of their annual conference:

It seems agreed upon by spiritual masters of all traditions that the main reason for our suffering is the identification with the “I” and the way to dissipate this pain is to merge with what is beyond the “I”, to merge the looker with what is looked at. Science, on the other hand, can help us to understand how we construct and experience the “I”, as well as the states beyond it. ... Some of the topics we will explore are:

--Observing and experiencing how the “I” arises (Neuroscience, Psychology)
--Looking at the Macro (Cosmology) and the Micro (Biology, Quantum Theory) to reframe the “I” and give a different perspective and bring it “beyond”
--The collapse of concepts, identifications and models (Experiential)
--Glimpses of nondual awareness, no-state states beyond words and ideas (Satsang, Poetry, Art, Music and more...)

To repeat a reference from an earlier post: Alan Watts said that “I” is just the universe “eyeing.” We have met the vastness, and it is us.

Who am I? Auster asks the unanswerable question by blurring the distinctions between author, narrator, and character. In City of Glass he introduces a character named Paul Auster who is virtually identical to his “real” self, and gives a twist ending that leaves the identity of the story’s narrator entirely unknown. Maybe that narrator is the same as in the subsequent novellas, maybe not. You decide. It meshes well with a book I just finished, Biocentrism by Robert Lanza and Bob Berman. They use quantum physics to support the conjecture that life creates the universe rather than the other way around. That there is no reality without a conscious observer. You are the author, which is to say, each of us is the author. The universe is omnicentric, as cosmologist Brian Swimme has stated.

In the early '90s when I first read The New York Trilogy, none of this was in my awareness. I only knew that there was a sense of metaphysical or ontogical mystery woven into the fabric of these three stories that I found incredibly compelling. To give a thorough sample, to really make you feel it, would require quoting the whole book. But here are a few clippings that give a hint of what Auster was doing that grabbed me then and sticks with me still.

From City of Glass:

[Why the hero, Quinn, likes detective novels] Everything becomes essence; the center of the book shifts with each event that propels it forward. The center, then, is everywhere, and no circumference can be drawn until the book has come to its end.
...
Each time he took a walk, he felt as though he were leaving himself behind, and by giving himself up to the movement of the streets, by reducing himself to a seeing eye, he was able to escape the obligation to think, and this, more than anything else, brought him a measure of peace, a salutary emptiness within.... By wandering aimlessly, all places became equal and it no longer mattered where he was. On his best walks he was able to feel that he was nowhere. And this, finally, was all he ever asked of things: to be nowhere.

From Ghosts:

For in spying out at Black across the street, it is as though Blue were looking into a mirror, and instead of merely watching another, he finds that he is also watching himself.
...
Something happens, Blue thinks, and then it goes on happening forever. It can never be changed, can never be otherwise.

From The Locked Room:

My true place in the world, it turned out, was somewhere beyond myself, and if that place was inside me, it was also unlocatable. This was the tiny hole between self and not-self, and for the first time in my life I saw this nowhere as the exact center of the world.

This discussion doesn’t approach Auster’s other writings that build on the same themes, nor does it touch the issue of Chance, that slippery sliding scale of coincidence vs. fate, which is another key element in the Trilogy and most of Auster’s other work. But for now, it’s all I’m able to tackle.

For a couple of years now, I’ve been fascinated by how nonduality can be expressed in literary storytelling. This little essay has been part of that study. So... it seems my next task, now that I’ve ingested so much theory, is to drop it all and just write.

In other words: to get on with being the Author, and to observe the universe as I create it.

Do you like book trailers?

While my two novels-in-progress lie fallow and my subconscious chews on them, I’ve found myself drawn back to more visual forms of self-expression. The lion’s share of my work life has been in the field of video production, after getting a film degree and aspiring to make movies -- the serious artsy drama kind. Also, I was a photographer before I was a writer, and before that I loved to draw -- which often took the form of narrative, as in comics and storyboards.

So I’m feeling fortunate these days to be able to connect my literary and visual interests by making short video commercials for books: “book trailers” as they’re called. I started with a very short one (meant to be the first of several) for my own book, The Principle of Ultimate Indivisibility (see this new review). Watch the video here: http://blissplotpress.com/indivisibility.html.

Then I made two videos each for the two poetry books by my friend Djelloul Marbrook. They can be seen here on YouTube:
Flutes of the Djinn: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7xW7kC4YiE
Autobiography: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yR6vnMg7U8
Canvas: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BrdZKdfsjA
Adeline Compton: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEXXMCWTds8

I just finished this 2-minute trailer for a new novel published by a small press in Maryland, Atticus Books:
(Go to YouTube to see it bigger: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdQcgJhRHsw)

It seems that book trailers are rapidly becoming a required weapon in the book marketer’s arsenal. But do they really work? Do you watch them? Do you seek them out? Do you feel influenced to take a closer look at the book, or even buy it? Do they ever have the opposite effect? Do you resist the whole idea?

What do you think? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

All Fool's Day

In 1392, in the famous Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer named a date that we can interpret as the 32nd of March, or April 1. Set on that day was the "Nun’s Priest’s Tale," in which (in a story within a story within a story), the Chanticleer (a rooster) and the Fox are each fooled by the other. That was the earliest recorded association between the first of April and foolishness.

For the animals in Chaucer’s fable, vanity and pride were their undoing. For the humans in my story collection, The Principle of Ultimate Indivisibility, there are other ways of being foolish.

Harold, who appears in several of the stories, is perpetually bewildered about why his life feels broken and his marriages crumble. His self-image as a family man does not match apparent reality. He has buried his grief and guilt over his brother’s death.

Sid doesn’t like to face any big questions. He wants a God who is an office manager, with easy answers. He’s happy when things are simple, but having a son in a coma does not fit that picture.

Marv may be the holiest fool in the book, a plumber who dreams of popcorn farming. He’s frequently clueless but has occasional inadvertent flashes of real wisdom. Too bad it’s so difficult for him to communicate them, even to his friend Sid. Marv is introduced in this little sketch from the story "This Handful of Pebbles":

Tender

When Marv's girlfriend Polly told him he needed to get his finances in order, he went out that very afternoon and bought a money clip. Shiny brass with cherrywood inlay.

It didn't work; she left him anyway. But it wasn't because of his disorderly finances. It was because of his distinct lack of gift-wrapping talent. At every holiday that demanded paper-and-ribbon dexterity, his appalling ineptitude became more clear. “I can't bear this, TM.” she said on Christmas morning. “I have to go.” After two years of living together, she moved out on New Year's Day.

Polly is the only person who ever called Marv “TM,” and it has always rung in his ears with a faint derision, especially now, when during each of their frequent phone conversations, she hints at the presence of other men in her life. He finds himself able to shrug off those oblique references, but the repeated “TM” digs at him like a claw.

Marv is a plumber. Naturally, he does not tell the guys at the supply house that at night, sometimes he weeps.

When Marv carefully makes out an estimate for a client, in triplicate, his official signature reads “T. Marvin Felch.” His first name, Tender, he keeps strictly to himself.

As I look objectively at my own work, I find it interesting that none of my female characters qualify as fools. Or maybe that’s a facile generalization. There are at least a couple of women in the stories who are less than exemplary. Still, it would appear that in my view, the women are the wise ones. So there's something I need to look at: my streak of self-deprecatory sexism.

Also, I’ve written many other male characters who make bad decisions but cannot be called fools. They might be young and wild, old and tired, alcoholic, lonely, self-deluded in some way, but they have just enough of their wits about them to escape foolishness. With Harold, Sid, and Marv, I have an authorial relationship that is subtly different, especially when I’m telling their stories in the third person. They lead me by their own unconsciousness toward intuitive lessons. They are the blind leading the blind, where walking in darkness is precisely what is needed.

The Holy Fool is an archetype in every culture. Sometimes a savior (St. Francis), sometimes a clown (Coyote), sometimes a nasty killer (The Joker), he is usually portrayed as behaving outside the bounds of “normal” society. His rule-breaking opens gateways to deeper truths that the culture needs. He is both a bad child and a tool in the hands of a God who might be loving, or might not.

My fools are different: their behavior is not outrageous, but they are still instruments in the hands of the Author, me, to open doors. I can’t say how readers will feel, or what they might learn. But for me, Harold, Sid, and Marv are friends for whom I feel a little pity and a lot of fondness. They are boys, not men, and they need my love. They embody my own inner fool, who teaches me how to be wise.