Wednesday,
June 20, 2012
A Cadenza of Dubious Inspiration
I don't know if Henry James or Samuel Beckett
had the most influence on this nonsense. I think it's the best of the
"stories" posted here, but that's not saying much! Ultimately, I
think, this is about the writer's awareness of the reader and the problems that
causes.
We were trying to quantify cheese, the three of us, as a group. Ah! Let me
begin again.
We were trying to quantify cheese, the three of us, as a group. Well, as you
can see, no matter how many times I re-write, it always comes out the same.
Nothing left to do, then, but continue. Anything else would be mere resignation
to futility. Which, please don't misinterpret, isn't meant to suggest that our
effort, that is, the effort belonging to Ernest, myself, and Bertrand, in that
order, was ultimately futile, or conducted under the black cloud or
resignation, for you really have no idea what it is we hoped to do, even though
I've told you. I suppose what I mean to say it that the difficulty, or
appearance of it, in attempting to express what it is that we tried to
accomplish does not in any way suggest that we might have had some problems in
verbalizing a valid hypothesis (deciding what to do) or in structuring a
legitimate analytical strategy (how to do it), although there is some truth in
each of these statements. Baby teeth, maybe, but they still have some bite to
them. It was not, after all, as if we were pencil-less, and some sort of
insufferable gloom descended like dense smoke in a small tepee. Neither is this
seemingly insurmountable difficulty the by-product of a reluctance on my part
to inform. To deny you the announcement of our "striking the mother
lode", so to speak. Like hiding the Christmas presents until after January
when the children have returned to school, or denying the existence of God
until all the atheists have surpassed their credit limits. Shostakovitch was
accused of such parsimonious behavior, but I would be the last one to
self-impose a gag order. Why else would I be here, locked into this particular
format, decoding odd configurations, if not but to divulge our findings?
Perhaps "breakthrough" would likewise be an appropriate term, though
it seems to make some inherent demands for further explanation. Perhaps, then,
the difficulty stems simply from the lack of a sense of connecting, of an
awareness of that sense of frustration which cripples even the noblest of
minds, the staunchest resolve; when something of unique and unquestionable
intrinsic value can find no representation in the world, no box, no beaming
face, no classical facade. That that which we set out to discover, to
pronounce, possessed such an inherent value is obvious, for we would not have
begun had we the least iota of doubt that we were "on to something",
as layman are fond of, if not downright addicted to saying. That it might not
find usefulness was a paranoia that only later developments could properly
determine -- either accentuate or obliterate. We would create it or bring it to
fruition, however best to serve its need, and only then look for a patent
office.
Or perhaps none of these at all. Just some gas, instead, or a recurring lapse
into infantile romanticism: candlelight and mothers' aprons, which Ernest
accuses me of occasionally, whenever the conversation has the smallest hint of
whimsy or frivolous speculation. (Ernest is the one over there with the long,
luscious eyelashes that would drive women absolutely bonkers if only he would
lift his head.)
Well, at least at two points in time the three of us, eyelashes and all, were
in complete accord: when we began-- charging arm-in-arm through a figurative
gauntlet that would have slain the less dedicated, the less persistent, if they
had even dared contemplate such an endeavor in the first place. And the second
instance when we departed from someone's house,success achieved, though whose
house I can't seem to recall at the moment; although it wasn't' mine -- after
all, why would I have left my own house at just such a time when a consensus
having been reached the only thing left to do was to go home and ponder the
ramifications of all that had transpired. To solemnly introduce new ideas on
top of old objects -- the tick of the hall clock, evening shadows searching for
a favorite corner of the room, ironing shirts while thinking of Bertrand's
assertion from that ridiculous pose of his whenever someone else's insight is
absorbed into his wild logic. Robbing the cradle, so to speak. Unless, of
course, I left my house to get a quart of milk, which I have done before,
certainly under less auspicious circumstances, usually under a darkened,
impatient sky. But the chief concern here is not milk, but cheese. See: rennet.
Topically, under this topic, that is, cheese, we remained constant. Had a tour
bus stopped out front of the house -- which could not have been Ernest's, now
that I think about it-- the guide could have buzzed confidently into his
microphone, not that all was "fine" or "beautiful" or even
"authentically preserved" -- for we had not reached such grandeur
even in our own minds -- but that everything was "constant"; just
like the hum of the tour bus, the drone of his voice, the rising and setting of
the sun, the part in the bus driver's hair. Why, the endless undulations of the
oceans belie a sense of order (almost of planning) as well. Ernest would
comment in a rather off-hand way, like announcing a preference for Camembert
over Brie, that we seemed to reflect more of the Atlantic than the Pacific
whenever we gathered to discuss. I had no idea what he meant by this, and
resolved immediately upon hearing it NOT to ask Bertrand what he thought Ernest
might have been trying to intimate. Was he trying to intimidate? Momentarily
fluster? Seize the upper hand at what might have been a propitious moment in
our arguments? Bert's face showed nothing. I said nothing; perhaps I nodded.
Yet one night in bed, before sleep, I found myself feeling what could only have
been the warm trade winds of the Indian Ocean caressing me, the gentle rocking
of the waters from Madagascar to the Nicobars, like the whispering of a
contented heart.
But we did not gather to establish either personal or collective hierarchies
for cheese, but rather to give it, cheese, collectively, a number. There have
been many before him, no doubt there will be many after him, indeed, I misspell
his name so as not to make proper mention, but there is a certain "Mr.
Stinton" who published a piece of paper numbered from one to one hundred.
I suppose that he would look more the part of the lunatic if I failed to
mention that placed beside each number the name of a cheese. From best to
worst. His methodology was secretive, so we could only speculate as to the
level of professionalism under which his effort was conducted. From the set of
his eyes, we concurred that he was nothing more than the sort of phenomena that
finds its most relevant articulation in supermarket tabloids. I mention him
here barely in passing, paling before my eyes like a scolded ghost, mostly
because he sought to do what some might find logical, but what we found beneath
contempt. Indeed, his name never even came up during our conference, not even
as a whipping boy, not because of his scurrilous penchant for rating, but
because of what is now commonly referred to as the "goat problem".
That there are over one hundred kinds of cheese, of course, is obvious; this is
something every first grader in America learns on his or her first day of
school. That some people choose to pull the parameters of their selective
criteria tightly around themselves like a frayed shawl is something most of us
learn only after we each experience the world as a single individual, a
pilgrim, a foreigner, even in our own backyard.
By way of introduction, I suppose I should explain exactly what it was that
"set us off", moving in the same direction toward a common goal, this
number for cheese. Just as years later, upon reflection, Henry James would
attempt to ferret out the spark of a particular story (he usually called it a
"germ" or a "mote", I think) that sent him racing -- if one
could picture that -- for pen and paper, the picture or the anecdote or turn of
phrase that began the creative process from which an exquisite story would
blossom, we, too could point in unison to an event that caused us to congregate,
to huddle, to brainstorm -- to establish and make known that which needed to be
established and made known: a quantitative tag, if you will, for cheese.
Chocolate. Well, of course, you're saying, it's so obvious. How foolish to
dwell, almost in suspended animation, when all the time your feet have been
flying across the pavement, conscious of what's going on even if your brain
isn't. The numbering of chocolate. Fourteen. Yes, yes, you read the papers,
too. Not a day goes by it seems that someone doesn't ask you for the correct
time and you give it. Now that's control! Power. So, I'm not telling you
anything new by revealing that chocolate is represented by fourteen. Or so some
say. At least one. Who that person was or persons were escapes me. For just as
the inventor of the locomotive could not put his finger on the name of the
person who invented the wheeled cart, nor could the inventor of said cart come
up with the wheel's inventor, I am unable to think of that individual who just
recently set the world on its ear, re-wrote a chapter of history, indeed added
a page or two while at the same time pulling out of its carton, factory fresh,
a new perspective, a new game board with which to re-assemble the past. It
wasn't Eisenhower, I know that much. It seems that technology possesses its own
inherent amnesia-- warm, gooey, thicker than syrup, more like hot fudge.
Imagine drowning in hot fudge: the ecstasy, the sweet womb, the suffocation.
But inevitably someone always throws out the lifeline, terminating our
exhilarating demise, and so we move on, back to the starting line. Perhaps, if
we wish hard enough, there's a new car waiting for us in the driveway when we
get home; our heart pounds as we walk past and peer inside before we climb the
front steps and go inside to shower. Such is the nature of progress.
But it is not technological advances in the art (science) of cheese-making that
has brought me here, though I do not deny the possibility that such could be
one possible ramification of our spectacular pronouncement. After all, in one
sense we did create a beautiful dove whose whole being was destined for
liberation, tossed from an upstairs window where the whole world could pause,
observe and comment. Even the cruelest of bird lovers would candidly admit that
once such a bird is in flight, one's ability to control it is non-existent.
Such is the price and terror of freedom. And even Ernest, that inflexible
Aristotelian, would have to concur with this image, as all-consuming as it is
regarding the whole situation. He might have phrased it differently to suit his
own taste, his own view, but it would have meant exactly the same thing. After
all, a hunk of cheese is a hunk of cheese. All it needs is a number. And that
is what we did. What others do with what we did, I suppose, is left up to Fate,
to Chance, to a frantic spin of the Big Wheel; we can only stand and watch and
wait, either for disciples or derision. Bertrand may not stand and wait,
particularly during his nap time, but this is all fanciful speculation anyway.
Alas, the images have consumed the imaginer-- doves and cheese and Aristotle
round and round in endless circles, until the circles threaten to form an eddy
sucking all this information and whatever relevance there might be down and
away, like a wicked slider, into an unknown dimension. And a knock at the door
on top of all that! Through the peephole it looks like a Stintonite armed with
a clipboard (and what appears to be a blank list), striking the invigorated
pose of the confirmed populist. After giving him a sound thrashing, I'll return
and perhaps then we can talk cheese.
Part Two
Alas, census years being what they are, one begins to wonder if perhaps they
don't have some kind of implicit need for this kind of misunderstanding on
occasion. Not that a smidgen of social chaos is meant to act like a double
blind in an experiment, insuring valid results -- a precise head count up until
the moment the number is published, but rather as a means of authenticating the
research. Bruised knuckles tell the story of an immigrant family that came
looking for a better life but found only squalor, exploitation, and the nearby
liquor store. Disheveled clothes, an emaciated recluse poring over tiny print
in a large dusty volume. The word "misunderstanding" here seems to
topple in on itself, unaware of its own contradiction-- the meaning and the
action meant to represent it stretching out for opposite poles until what is
meant bears no resemblance to what was said. Your tax dollars at work.
Misunderstanding on his part, obviously, for
if he had only known who it was he was coming to count, no doubt he would have
realized the pathetic, farcical nature of his knock. For I, and the others as
well, Ernie and Bertrand, I mean, have supplied a number of so much more
relevance and stature, one wonders, especially in long, warm crepuscular
moments what could possible be gained by putting a number on me. This is the
kind of pondering that causes me to lean against a wall. Not that we think we
wear crowns -- three wise men in search of stardom -- but clear at the other
end of the line, that we build our towers to affect another kind of
illumination. We sleep contentedly at night, even during the months of debate
and disagreement, the floor around our beds -- mine at least -- resonates with
the challenges of the new day, a world re-made, completely unique. My wife,
though in the same bed, is oblivious. Which, for the well-being of everyone
involved, is probably best. The impracticality of other men's rational thoughts
is not lost on us. Perhaps that is why we were not hired by the government to
arrive at a number. So if you were wondering whether we had a certain grant,
perhaps one denied a close relative, to tabulate per capita consumption of the
number of tons of cheese consumed annually -- all the while stashing away
curious totals that might be deemed classified, whose publication would cause
certain officials' hair to grow -- the answer again is NO. The ache in the
belly, the acceleration of pulse must continue; if it's proper nouns you're
looking for, you're stuck. Here is the factory where words to replace pronouns
are tested. This is Bertrand's faith, but we became quick converts.
That chocolate was the spur, so to speak, is well-documented. And of course,
I'm referring to pure chocolate, not milk chocolate, if perhaps you were
anticipating a "dairy" theme. As mentioned before, someone had been
bold and unafraid-- ready to accept a task that up until that moment, except
for in the back pages of struggling journals, no one had seriously considered
attempting. Once it had been completed -- and please don't let a mere five
words mislead you into thinking that this pronouncement was the result of a
weekend resort village summit with boisterous, sunburned children on paddleboats
in the bay, or worse yet, a midnight revelation -- the gauntlet had been thrown
down. Likewise, I've pointed out that there was not a race (even for a
charitable cause) to pick it up, to take the next logical step in the
furtherance of mankind's awareness, his knowledge, his liberation. And it was
not a kind of "one-upmanship" on our part; we did not play the role
of crosstown rival, either under our own initiative or under the auspices of an
anonymous patron interested in possessing a rarer jewel, a closer forgery, a
stolen relic -- any and each possessing but the most specious value. But we met
because we met. And although we are not quantifiers professionally, we shared a
common creed: the need, the drive, the desire to say all that had yet to be articulated,
and has yet to be. Nobility is not dead, chivalry is not a four letter word;
and although we do not wear fedoras or drink lemonade, such notions fill our
heads, coming to life, flickering like cartoons around the room. And cheese,
then, must have a number. Even logic, as tempered like a sword, marbled like a
steak as it is, still finds itself cornered by mysterious vapors of
undecipherable origin. That these gases possess no credentials, claim no party
affiliation, secure no preferential treatment at major sporting events in no
way diminishes their effect. Indeed, they may even be used in the aging process
of fontina, let's say. They make the floors vibrate also. Bertrand's parquet
buzzed most assuredly while we sat there, buzzing ourselves, zeroing in-- if
you'll pardon the pun -- on our cherished goal. We gathered, it's safe to say
-- and by now you've gathered it, too -- when the spirit moved us. That was the
source, though we said no prayers, nor did we wear horsehair coats or eat fish.
It could be construed as a dance, a frolic, though what you think might be a
maypole is in actuality our center of energy from which tentacles of
inspiration extend and return.
How then did we proceed, get from there to here? The usual way. But if you
think it would have been completely logical to have set a piece of cheese --
four and a half ounces of New York cheddar, for example -- on the table and
then proceeded to slowly pace, each of us at a similar pace, round and round,
losing all track of what was meaningless and frivolous going on outside the
door until someone, anyone, stopped, cleared his throat (protocol) and
announced, "Seven. Most definitely seven," then you would be sadly
mistaken, or else you misinterpreted what you saw through the window what was only
an amusing variation on "Charades" performed to lighten the tension.
Breakthroughs come about unexpectedly but only after deliberate exertions --
just how big is a pile of sand? So everything we did, though deliberate and
plodding -- brought about unanticipated results; the more unprepared we were,
the bigger the surprise. This corollary presents a challenge of its own, though
the ethereal quality of the words -- "surprise",
"anticipation" -- do not lend themselves readily to the manner of
straightforward, intensive exploration of which we were accustomed. But cheese
does, and now it has a number. So our efforts have been rewarded; circles are
round again, one more piece of the puzzle is in place, and I can walk down the
street, and even leafless trees twist and hum in rapturous delight.
We all shook hands before we left, this numbering committee that we were,
though I'm not sure why; I suppose closure is still a ritual, even among the
well-informed. But now I'm looking at a piece of cheese, the processed kind --
square and flat and lifeless, like some fictional voices. Indeed, in many ways
and from numerous perspectives, a piece of processed cheese can relate more
about life than an entire story. It is a mirror, though somewhat opaque,
reflecting the wishes for convenience, for tidiness of the peoples of the new
world. Like the parade of ghostly kings in Macbeth, who or what will come next? How can such comfort be surpassed?
And there is a number scratched on this piece of cheese, by human hands,
certainly. (For to suggest otherwise, to say that this imprint is of a more
ghostly origin would mean taking this fact from its safe haven, its holding
tank, before it's indexed and cataloged and finally placed into an
encyclopedia, and placing it among the milk pails and barns and screen doors
that dot the countryside where the ever-faithful flock to see an image, a face
of a holy child or holy mother, looking for confirmation, looking for
realization where none can exist).
It is the number "3", though not the number three. For one reason,
the number three has already been used, enshrined, adopted almost to the point
of exhaustion, long before cheese and chocolate. It is a three that is a part
of something else. Perhaps thirty or three hundred something. Or twenty-three.
All of these sound logical, plausible certainly. Yes, of course, I have the
number, I arrived at it; but forgive me now, for weeks and weeks of our
exhaustive inquiries each and every Monday evening that we met have left me
"holding the bag" so to speak, resting on the certainty of a plain,
confused, meaningless number. Even under refrigeration if left unwrapped,
processed cheese will harden and lose its consumable qualities. And if left out
on a table where just anyone can abuse it, or merely left to itself, this piece
of cheese can only fall into disrepair and eventual ruin.
