For a few moments he wanted to stay in bed and linger over the numbers, roll them around his mouth, chew them with as much ease and relaxed satisfaction as a sneaky child munching candy on the sly, far from the stern gaze his rigid parents. (Who among us does not want to ease into, and endure, such moments for as long as possible?) However, as clearly as the numbers tasted to him -- as startlingly fresh and vital as cold river water on a hot summer's eve -- clear, too, was the realization that the world was waiting. Out there. For him. Something to see and taste around every corner.
Within seconds after this realization Brody was up, showered, dressed and out the door, almost in a single bounce of joy and glee and simple possibility. He wondered if this was how the most content of rabbits must feel as they hippity-hopped their short little lives away amidst a forest of grass and green. Today's day was a beautiful day -- sunny and vibrant. The city was still quiet, as it should be at five after five on a Sunday morning. The occasional red newspaper delivery truck rounded a corner every few moments as Broday walked along, wandering nowhere. As he studied the stack of rope-bound newspapers that hurtled through the air, he wondered if the newsprint, too, seen from a distance, would have a certain tangible taste. If numbers could open up a world of delectable possibilities, perhaps letters, too, had their own intrinsic nourishment?
Brody stopped at the corner of 15th and Haverly, a few blocks up from his apartment, suddenly struck by a thought that was both tantalizing and more than a little stunning. (He was 'stunned' often, Brody was.) What if it all went away? Even now, with the fresh air feeling good and clean as it cleansed out his sleep-struck throat, he realized that he hadn't tasted any numbers for a good two, three minutes. He shut his eyes and tried to get a grip on fifteen, a grasp of twenty-six, a little nibble of ninety-two. Nothing. Not even an aftertaste. (Or was it more like a foretaste?) Perhaps those rocking moments of only a few minutes ago (had it been so short a span?) were merely the remnants of the certainty that one acquires only after the deepest and truest sleep. The world's problems have been solved, the atom has been split, the Torah decoded and comprehened once and for all. The pillow, in that weirdly magnificent realm where sleep ends and awakeness starts to intrude, is the garden on which one plants the fruit of eternal knowledge. Until you lift your head and open your eyes.
Had he taken himself for a ride?
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Monday, June 21, 2010
THE VERY AIR
Canadians -- as we will offhandedly, nonchalantly, repeatedly, insistently inform you -- are a modest people. We don't waste our time waving the flag, or plastering the maple leaf onto our rear bumpers. We never brag about the greatness of our vast nation to groups of uncomfortably fidgeting strangers who nod politely, robotically. There is not an iota of hubris or vanity hurtling through our bloodstreams on its way to our underinflated psyches. (Indeed, we may not even be sure what, precisely, 'iota' refers to! No flaunting our intellectual prowess -- not us Canucks.)
We know who we are: simple (though not stupid) people.
Or so we tell ourselves, and often others.
Every country is a world of one. Canada's universe is one that relies on the wilderness to garnish our national myth. Even those us raised in cities, reared in strip malls and concrete, feel an elemental, even mystical pull towards the rivers and the trees, a tug-of-war between who we are becoming in this electronic age, and the past that keeps bringing us back to where we started. (This is what we remind ourselves.)
One wonders if the concrete, physical content of the earth -- its dust and soil, its rock and weed, the sap of its trees and the chill of firm, packed snow -- has somehow been integrated, over time, into our actual DNA. How little we understand of ourselves! It's not outrageous to assume that one sperm and one egg, remnants of even the most lacklustre lay, somehow passed along into each of us some environmental gene that mutated upon itself after generations spent sucking in and breathing out the very air of our Canadian north.
What else, after all, do we have going for us, if not the inherent synthesis of ourselves and our land?
To the outdoors we must return and retreat.
A not altogether ecstatic destination, for us 21st century pioneers, because there is something almost sinister about such a story, the national story, the story of a nation known all around the globe for the beauty of its nature. For if we link ourselves in a chain that extends from coast to coast, wrapping us so tightly in the grip of our outdoors, certain reminders of life's debt to the outdoor life gradually emerge even as we grip each other's hands all the harder.
Is it not to the earth that we return, in the end? Does not the dirt welcome home us home, finally? (Even ashes are inevitably returned to the ground or flung into the sea.) Perhaps our attachment to all things green and brown originates from an earthier, more basic place, that practical aspect of our interior life, our own individual physical plane, that intuitively recognizes that the harshness of a life in the outdoors leads, ultimately, to one place, and one place only.
Americans may have their 'manifest destiny', forever seaching for that bigger, brighter, better place that lies ahead just a little further west, beyond the next mountain, across the higher hill, but we have a destiny that tends to dampen any oversized ambitions. One that instills a kind of modest, morbid, reserved modernity.
We can't get excited about all that much. The dark forest is closer than we know. The wind is fierce. The snow doesn't seem to be stopping. Spring is far off, but it will come, short as it may be. There is that.
Usually, that's enough.
We know who we are: simple (though not stupid) people.
Or so we tell ourselves, and often others.
Every country is a world of one. Canada's universe is one that relies on the wilderness to garnish our national myth. Even those us raised in cities, reared in strip malls and concrete, feel an elemental, even mystical pull towards the rivers and the trees, a tug-of-war between who we are becoming in this electronic age, and the past that keeps bringing us back to where we started. (This is what we remind ourselves.)
One wonders if the concrete, physical content of the earth -- its dust and soil, its rock and weed, the sap of its trees and the chill of firm, packed snow -- has somehow been integrated, over time, into our actual DNA. How little we understand of ourselves! It's not outrageous to assume that one sperm and one egg, remnants of even the most lacklustre lay, somehow passed along into each of us some environmental gene that mutated upon itself after generations spent sucking in and breathing out the very air of our Canadian north.
What else, after all, do we have going for us, if not the inherent synthesis of ourselves and our land?
To the outdoors we must return and retreat.
A not altogether ecstatic destination, for us 21st century pioneers, because there is something almost sinister about such a story, the national story, the story of a nation known all around the globe for the beauty of its nature. For if we link ourselves in a chain that extends from coast to coast, wrapping us so tightly in the grip of our outdoors, certain reminders of life's debt to the outdoor life gradually emerge even as we grip each other's hands all the harder.
Is it not to the earth that we return, in the end? Does not the dirt welcome home us home, finally? (Even ashes are inevitably returned to the ground or flung into the sea.) Perhaps our attachment to all things green and brown originates from an earthier, more basic place, that practical aspect of our interior life, our own individual physical plane, that intuitively recognizes that the harshness of a life in the outdoors leads, ultimately, to one place, and one place only.
Americans may have their 'manifest destiny', forever seaching for that bigger, brighter, better place that lies ahead just a little further west, beyond the next mountain, across the higher hill, but we have a destiny that tends to dampen any oversized ambitions. One that instills a kind of modest, morbid, reserved modernity.
We can't get excited about all that much. The dark forest is closer than we know. The wind is fierce. The snow doesn't seem to be stopping. Spring is far off, but it will come, short as it may be. There is that.
Usually, that's enough.
Friday, June 18, 2010
TASTING NUMBERS (Part I)
Brody awoke to the oddly metallic taste of numbers on his tongue. At first he believed it was blood -- this tangy, tart sensation that reminded him of the time he had fallen head-first down a slide during the distant but potent days of his childhood, around seven or eight, his nose bonking the edge of the curved metal and his mouth gargling the foaming red nostril spray that, secretly, despite the resulting, obligatory tears and snot-fuelled sobs, he found sweet, almost comforting.
Now he was an adult, and he did not want to taste blood. It hinted at all that was yet to come. But this particular taste, on this specific morning, was one that he rolled around in his mouth while his eyes still adjusted to the weak, almost timid morning light that gradually snuck its way between the blinds, like a shy girl sticking out her tongue in the general vicinity of her class crush.
I can taste a seven, he thought, spry and lively. That's at the edge of my mouth, the right hand side, just above the tooth that I think I'm going to have to get yanked soon. And four -- I can feel you, too! At the tip of my tongue, balancing on the edge, cool as a November night after six. Ah, and nine! You taste like someone has sneaked some rum into my coke! Right on the underside of my tongue, a hidden gem that will leave a spry, mournful aftertaste.
None of this made sense, of course. Morning thoughts never do. But in this nonsensical assemblage of numbers and tastes, thoughts and sensations, he found a clarity that had been missing for months, possibly years. Some secret of the cosmos had chosen itself to be revealed to him here, at this time, in this frumpy bed. All those mathematicians jumbling numbers around! Numbers only! Don't they realize the connections that exist between the most unlikely of allies?
Now he was an adult, and he did not want to taste blood. It hinted at all that was yet to come. But this particular taste, on this specific morning, was one that he rolled around in his mouth while his eyes still adjusted to the weak, almost timid morning light that gradually snuck its way between the blinds, like a shy girl sticking out her tongue in the general vicinity of her class crush.
I can taste a seven, he thought, spry and lively. That's at the edge of my mouth, the right hand side, just above the tooth that I think I'm going to have to get yanked soon. And four -- I can feel you, too! At the tip of my tongue, balancing on the edge, cool as a November night after six. Ah, and nine! You taste like someone has sneaked some rum into my coke! Right on the underside of my tongue, a hidden gem that will leave a spry, mournful aftertaste.
None of this made sense, of course. Morning thoughts never do. But in this nonsensical assemblage of numbers and tastes, thoughts and sensations, he found a clarity that had been missing for months, possibly years. Some secret of the cosmos had chosen itself to be revealed to him here, at this time, in this frumpy bed. All those mathematicians jumbling numbers around! Numbers only! Don't they realize the connections that exist between the most unlikely of allies?
Thursday, June 17, 2010
AGAIN, ALWAYS, FOREVER
"Woe unto him who seeks to please rather than apall."
-- Herman Melville
The writer's role is to spit snot into your face and make you think that by the time it trickles down your face and touches your lips you're tasting taffy. Or, put more delicately, the author's responsibility is to pour fountains of Mountain Dew over your head on the hottest day of the year, and gradually make you realize that the sweet, piercing goodness that tantalizes your tongue is also slowly, intently dehyrdating you of your spiritual essence.
Either definition will suffice.
The problem becomes that our essential nature as human beings is that we are not defiant. We long for comprehension. We seek the simple solution because that is the most palatable one. Perhaps the neurological railway routes that line the grey and fleshy pockets of our brain tissue are physically built that way, inborn. The easiest way to comprehend is by finding a way to agree. Oh, to be certain, we are rebels; that is our novice, initial reaction. However, after a moment, a month, a year, a decade, a life, we acquiesce. (Giving way is so much more conducive to relaxation than uprising against invisible, ultimately unimportant ideological foes.) Somebody hands us a pamphlet. We nibble on an extra-spicy chicken, ignore the saucy red drool dripping down our chin, and eventually decide that whoever wrote this baby had a pretty good point. Fold it, trash it, back to the tube.
The novelist's role is to light off tiny little cherry bombs inside of our skulls and patiently stick around to see if, and when, they do their little damage. This does not mean that provocation is an end in and of itself; rather, that tiny expolosions of disturbance, couched in insight, eventually can lead to a bigger bang of comprehension. We read to escape loneliness and instead are faced with a greater threat than mere solitude. The larger issue becomes: We are alone, and not only are you not correct in your assumptions, but the answers are nowhere to be found, and your friends cannot help you, and may, in fact, be the true source of your isolation.
Such is one means of assault.
The other tactics employed by the most skillfull of scribblers are ones that would be not unwelcome in the most dingy of massage parlours, those places where rubs and smacks are but preludes to a longer, seedier embrace. You are coddled and made to feel enveloped by means of tactile, fleshy fingers that probe and pinch. (And what can more be heartening and alienating than the hug of a stranger?) The world is nasty, yes, but a refuge is to be found, such hands seem to be saying: You can stop here. You may rest here. The universe is aligned only with you and your psychic pain, and for that I have a cure. No unwelcome shocks or lightly tossed grenades.
And so one is gradually seduced into a view of the world that reaffirms one's own sense of self. A chaotic, uncertain realm still lies mere metres outside the oriental curtain, but an order to one's body has been restored. One can face the world head-on, like a wrestler entering the ring, confident of success because the end result has been preordained long before the lights have been raised and the great gates opened. [
It is only later, at home, resting in bed, remembering strange hands touching familiar places, that a certain pain sets in. An ache here. A sting there. One has become acquainted with physical discomforts that emerged only from the most tender of touches. Pain and pleasure are intermingled to such a degree that one can not discern which is stronger, or more likely to last well into the night.
That need to comprehend, to relax, to crash out on the couch, has been subverted in the most clever of ways, by means of an insincere sincerity, or a sincere insincerity, I'm not sure which. We are either exploded into another level of comprehension, or eased into a supple state that hides a firmer, creakier truth.
When I read a book and don't know what to make of it, or feel a strong sense of unease at the pit of my stomach, where last night's dinner waits to arise, or think thoughts that make me wonder if know anything at all, or ever will, I feel oddly elated and disgusted, and long for such a reaction again, always, forever.
-- Herman Melville
The writer's role is to spit snot into your face and make you think that by the time it trickles down your face and touches your lips you're tasting taffy. Or, put more delicately, the author's responsibility is to pour fountains of Mountain Dew over your head on the hottest day of the year, and gradually make you realize that the sweet, piercing goodness that tantalizes your tongue is also slowly, intently dehyrdating you of your spiritual essence.
Either definition will suffice.
The problem becomes that our essential nature as human beings is that we are not defiant. We long for comprehension. We seek the simple solution because that is the most palatable one. Perhaps the neurological railway routes that line the grey and fleshy pockets of our brain tissue are physically built that way, inborn. The easiest way to comprehend is by finding a way to agree. Oh, to be certain, we are rebels; that is our novice, initial reaction. However, after a moment, a month, a year, a decade, a life, we acquiesce. (Giving way is so much more conducive to relaxation than uprising against invisible, ultimately unimportant ideological foes.) Somebody hands us a pamphlet. We nibble on an extra-spicy chicken, ignore the saucy red drool dripping down our chin, and eventually decide that whoever wrote this baby had a pretty good point. Fold it, trash it, back to the tube.
The novelist's role is to light off tiny little cherry bombs inside of our skulls and patiently stick around to see if, and when, they do their little damage. This does not mean that provocation is an end in and of itself; rather, that tiny expolosions of disturbance, couched in insight, eventually can lead to a bigger bang of comprehension. We read to escape loneliness and instead are faced with a greater threat than mere solitude. The larger issue becomes: We are alone, and not only are you not correct in your assumptions, but the answers are nowhere to be found, and your friends cannot help you, and may, in fact, be the true source of your isolation.
Such is one means of assault.
The other tactics employed by the most skillfull of scribblers are ones that would be not unwelcome in the most dingy of massage parlours, those places where rubs and smacks are but preludes to a longer, seedier embrace. You are coddled and made to feel enveloped by means of tactile, fleshy fingers that probe and pinch. (And what can more be heartening and alienating than the hug of a stranger?) The world is nasty, yes, but a refuge is to be found, such hands seem to be saying: You can stop here. You may rest here. The universe is aligned only with you and your psychic pain, and for that I have a cure. No unwelcome shocks or lightly tossed grenades.
And so one is gradually seduced into a view of the world that reaffirms one's own sense of self. A chaotic, uncertain realm still lies mere metres outside the oriental curtain, but an order to one's body has been restored. One can face the world head-on, like a wrestler entering the ring, confident of success because the end result has been preordained long before the lights have been raised and the great gates opened. [
It is only later, at home, resting in bed, remembering strange hands touching familiar places, that a certain pain sets in. An ache here. A sting there. One has become acquainted with physical discomforts that emerged only from the most tender of touches. Pain and pleasure are intermingled to such a degree that one can not discern which is stronger, or more likely to last well into the night.
That need to comprehend, to relax, to crash out on the couch, has been subverted in the most clever of ways, by means of an insincere sincerity, or a sincere insincerity, I'm not sure which. We are either exploded into another level of comprehension, or eased into a supple state that hides a firmer, creakier truth.
When I read a book and don't know what to make of it, or feel a strong sense of unease at the pit of my stomach, where last night's dinner waits to arise, or think thoughts that make me wonder if know anything at all, or ever will, I feel oddly elated and disgusted, and long for such a reaction again, always, forever.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
GIVE US THIS DAY
Give us this day our daily dread...
Surely even the most diligent and noble-minded of teachers has found himself muttering this incantation on many a gloomy Monday morning of the soul. Especially on those days when one feels not only like an imposter, which is a benign sort of benediction, for who among us does not feel like a fraud at carefully staged points in one's life? No, the shame comes not from the certainty that one is wearing a mask that all will recognize as little more than a novelty-store goof, but from the fact that one is not succeeding even as a charlatan, that we cannot fake it as well as we used to, that the jig is up, that they are all on to us and none too happy to boot.
For if we were honest imposters, master fakers, the students sitting before us behind foldable desks would wear eager grins of anxious, almost sweaty anticipation -- for who does not love a carefully staged con, even when in on the facade? (As every magician could testify.) What the teacher fears most is not failure but success. If we succeed all too well today, then tomorrow more will be expected of us. The magician will not only be asked to extend his run, but the same customers will come back for show after show, until they slowly, almost surprisingly start to realize that there is nothing left to discover, and discounts are not within the realm of access. No money back for this particular show, ladies and gents. You have seen all there is too see, the Wizard of Oz has been revealed as the red-faced fraud behind the tacticle curtain which is the cough-drop green of the chalkboard, and guess what? Another half-semester remains! Please watch the steps on your way out the door.
An unnatural occupation, one would think, despite the fact that Socrates and his ilk practiced such an art mere millienia ago. A not-so-distant past, in the grand arc of time, so certain traditions, modus operandi, or, at the very least, schemes, should have been passed down for us plebes to copy and mimic.
But every day starts anew. You build the trust from the afternoon before, brick by brick, hoping it holds, and then mold it in place once again from today's first bell, even though the foundation itself is already looking shaky, ready to topple. The buzz of phones and the smack of gum against unbrushed teeth and the glazed eyes that are testimony to a night spent staring at a colgate-white screen are the landmines that await your every step.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
How often those explosives ignite around the edges of our lessons! Flecks of jagged metal slicing only ourselves, never the students, who wander aimlessly across the battlefield, oblivious to the carnage being inflicted upon their captain!
Even Mr.Kotter, that most illustrious alumni of the Sweathogs, must have felt literally at war with the motley sitcom morons that populated his sitcom class. They welcomed him back but loved him in return, with the kind of earnest, witty love that only twenty-two minute bursts of fictional sideswipes can spew forth. I could live inside the goodwill of that classroom, I sometimes think. The Sweathogs would see me as one of their own. I could lead them to a higher place, perhaps even a one-hour drama, should all work out.
And should my most earnest efforts fail, Howard Hesseman, always standing so firm and wise in his middle-aged mullet at the head of the class, would certainly welcome me into his fictional world, would he not? A class full of wisecracking geniuses, ready to rumble? I could handle such a group. I could be the student teacher who fumbles his way hilariously up the big-time world of homeroom teacher. A possible spin-off after two, three seasons. My own Al Gore, waiting patiently in the wings, to Hesseman's grander, more genial Bill Clinton. I think I have it in me.
Mere fantasies, I know.
For now, I must make do with where I am and what I have.
The dread is always there, at the bottom of my stomach, unseen mud beneath the surface of the puddle.
And yet, at certain moments -- rare, but there -- the cell phones go silent, the gum stops snapping, the teeth seem whiter, and the pupils of the pupils grow wide, almost against their will, as if they've suddenly seen something, if not enchanting, at least intriguing.
Surely even the most diligent and noble-minded of teachers has found himself muttering this incantation on many a gloomy Monday morning of the soul. Especially on those days when one feels not only like an imposter, which is a benign sort of benediction, for who among us does not feel like a fraud at carefully staged points in one's life? No, the shame comes not from the certainty that one is wearing a mask that all will recognize as little more than a novelty-store goof, but from the fact that one is not succeeding even as a charlatan, that we cannot fake it as well as we used to, that the jig is up, that they are all on to us and none too happy to boot.
For if we were honest imposters, master fakers, the students sitting before us behind foldable desks would wear eager grins of anxious, almost sweaty anticipation -- for who does not love a carefully staged con, even when in on the facade? (As every magician could testify.) What the teacher fears most is not failure but success. If we succeed all too well today, then tomorrow more will be expected of us. The magician will not only be asked to extend his run, but the same customers will come back for show after show, until they slowly, almost surprisingly start to realize that there is nothing left to discover, and discounts are not within the realm of access. No money back for this particular show, ladies and gents. You have seen all there is too see, the Wizard of Oz has been revealed as the red-faced fraud behind the tacticle curtain which is the cough-drop green of the chalkboard, and guess what? Another half-semester remains! Please watch the steps on your way out the door.
An unnatural occupation, one would think, despite the fact that Socrates and his ilk practiced such an art mere millienia ago. A not-so-distant past, in the grand arc of time, so certain traditions, modus operandi, or, at the very least, schemes, should have been passed down for us plebes to copy and mimic.
But every day starts anew. You build the trust from the afternoon before, brick by brick, hoping it holds, and then mold it in place once again from today's first bell, even though the foundation itself is already looking shaky, ready to topple. The buzz of phones and the smack of gum against unbrushed teeth and the glazed eyes that are testimony to a night spent staring at a colgate-white screen are the landmines that await your every step.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
How often those explosives ignite around the edges of our lessons! Flecks of jagged metal slicing only ourselves, never the students, who wander aimlessly across the battlefield, oblivious to the carnage being inflicted upon their captain!
Even Mr.Kotter, that most illustrious alumni of the Sweathogs, must have felt literally at war with the motley sitcom morons that populated his sitcom class. They welcomed him back but loved him in return, with the kind of earnest, witty love that only twenty-two minute bursts of fictional sideswipes can spew forth. I could live inside the goodwill of that classroom, I sometimes think. The Sweathogs would see me as one of their own. I could lead them to a higher place, perhaps even a one-hour drama, should all work out.
And should my most earnest efforts fail, Howard Hesseman, always standing so firm and wise in his middle-aged mullet at the head of the class, would certainly welcome me into his fictional world, would he not? A class full of wisecracking geniuses, ready to rumble? I could handle such a group. I could be the student teacher who fumbles his way hilariously up the big-time world of homeroom teacher. A possible spin-off after two, three seasons. My own Al Gore, waiting patiently in the wings, to Hesseman's grander, more genial Bill Clinton. I think I have it in me.
Mere fantasies, I know.
For now, I must make do with where I am and what I have.
The dread is always there, at the bottom of my stomach, unseen mud beneath the surface of the puddle.
And yet, at certain moments -- rare, but there -- the cell phones go silent, the gum stops snapping, the teeth seem whiter, and the pupils of the pupils grow wide, almost against their will, as if they've suddenly seen something, if not enchanting, at least intriguing.
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
JUNE MORNING IN A GREY CITY
I shut my eyes against the bright morning light that kept poking at my dozy awareness like a pin pricking skin. Darkness, I decided, would give me a hint of rest. Possibly a slice of cold solace. The sounds of the train would still be rackety clear, but at least the blackness would allow a moment or two of restless, indifferent sleep.
But with closed eyes came a closed conduit. Blackness was not getting in. Instead of dark I saw bright, magnetic red, the shade of blood, of ripe apples, of cherries freshly picked from trees higher than most. That dizzying effect that comes when various shades of light blend and merge with one another. Soon the redness allowed in other small, precise holes of green and blue, purple and green, each tone fighting for attention. I could open my eyes once again and allow the light to be the wide yellow of a Japanese dawn, but I wanted to watch these colours do their dance. I desired some gravity and grace to my workday blah.
Soon that old saw began grinding back and forth across the easel of my brain, the notion that the dream life is the true life, and the waking realm the false facade. Why were the lights behind one's eyelids so strange and mystic, almost independent creatures colliding in misshapen blobs of attachment and separation, whereas the light of the sun so often seemed so blunt and aloof? If sleep life is real life, perhaps the colours it creates also have a validity that we can only imagine, then dismiss, in the cold, blunt blue of a June morning in the grey city.
But with closed eyes came a closed conduit. Blackness was not getting in. Instead of dark I saw bright, magnetic red, the shade of blood, of ripe apples, of cherries freshly picked from trees higher than most. That dizzying effect that comes when various shades of light blend and merge with one another. Soon the redness allowed in other small, precise holes of green and blue, purple and green, each tone fighting for attention. I could open my eyes once again and allow the light to be the wide yellow of a Japanese dawn, but I wanted to watch these colours do their dance. I desired some gravity and grace to my workday blah.
Soon that old saw began grinding back and forth across the easel of my brain, the notion that the dream life is the true life, and the waking realm the false facade. Why were the lights behind one's eyelids so strange and mystic, almost independent creatures colliding in misshapen blobs of attachment and separation, whereas the light of the sun so often seemed so blunt and aloof? If sleep life is real life, perhaps the colours it creates also have a validity that we can only imagine, then dismiss, in the cold, blunt blue of a June morning in the grey city.
Monday, June 14, 2010
A-TEAM: IN THE END, ALL A SIMULATION?
Another A-Team adventure finally blazes its away across a silver screen (a cinematic one, this time, as opposed to the television jewel that last gave grace to the motley team of adventurers), and while the child in me is wondering what the hell took so long, the adult in me is asking: At what point does the death of childhood begin? Does it happen in slow, seductive waves, like an ocean current that swooshes us away before we even realize we are caught in its wet, seductively benign sweep? Or is it more like an IED, a random Coke can lying by the side of the road that we kick out of boredom only to discover a blunt-force blast that lifts us out of ourselves and into another, larger world, where the sky is gray, not blue, and the gentle touch of grace on our shoulders is ash, not snow.
For what is one to make of a TV series that captivated the weeknights of one's prepubescent youth and now returns, twenty-five years later, to attempt another awkward grope, this time as an adult (albeit a cinematic one), graying and cranky, almost barren, yet still trying to cop a lusty feel at whatever the cost. Is it the media-equivalent of a child molester who comes back haunt his former victims?
As a youth, I adored much, and The A-Team was at the top of my hand-written list of fictional idols that occupied their own Olympus in my skull. The Marvel comic books adaptation of the show, check; handheld action figures, check; larger-than-handheld size Mr.T figure, check; the team van, check. I can see that cover of the first A-Team comic-book even as I write these words, and I can remember a wintry night returning from a neighbour's house with another copy of the comic book in my hands. They were tough and funny and bizarre and resolute, these dudes were; they found a way to help the helpless and smear the corrupt. (Even if it involved a contraption that shot cabbages like cannonballs.) There was a simple joy in their audacity, perfect for an eight-year old mind that craves a bold new solution to life's problems that will be clever enough to find fulfillment in it sixty-minute doses (plus commercials). Eventually, I left the show behind (much as I would leave behind The Dukes of Hazzard and C*H*I*P*S* and The Fall Guy and Knight Rider), soon after the team itself abandoned their role as outlaws-on-the-perpetual-run and, instead, found themselves in the unlikely position of working for the United States government itself. (Such confusing defections are enough to torment a young, unforgiving mind.)
And now here they plunge once again into the pool of our collective, nostalgic memories of all things creased, folded, dropped and shredded. For surely this is a show that one has put behind oneself, no? Looking back, objectively (if such an act is even possible when examining one's own youth), the show was, I am certain, terrible. I have not seen it in a quarter-century, but rarely do the joys of one's childhood captivate the grown-up being we all, reluctantly, become. That is neither here nor there, however -- this evaluation of The A-Team's aesthetic worth. For a good portion of those years when my bed-wetting days were still not a distant memory, this was a part of the universe that invigorated my psyche. It allowed me to dream. It humored me. These are not benedictions that one should casually throw aside like 7-11 receipts. Much of life, perhaps most of life, is horrendously dull and vacant, and so to betray that which once filled you up with a primitive sort of joy is almost obscene in its reckless arrogance.
So, no. It is not The A-Team itself that I am dreading, but these new characters, these present charlatans, filled with actors looking for a quick paycheck funded by a studio desperate for a short-term hit. All valid rules for living. Life is what it is. (And was the original series made for any less bottom-line motives?)
But my heart tells me that nobody making this movie had any particular love for the original series, and it seems all too clear that when love is absent, other, less noble qualities will inevitably emerge (like the Creature from the Black Lagoon) from the muck of life. It could very well be an entertaining rush, this movie. It might even bring back fond memories, psychic mementoes that will take me back to another time. Such small thrills are possible.
Yet again I ask: at what point does childhood die? When can we let it all go? If our past keeps belching itself up at twenty-year intervals in increasingly louder, more plastic mutations, can we ever put the old comics away, switch the black-and-white TV off for good, and find something new, something present, to simulate those old feelings we once felt so much? Or is it all just a simulation in the end?
For what is one to make of a TV series that captivated the weeknights of one's prepubescent youth and now returns, twenty-five years later, to attempt another awkward grope, this time as an adult (albeit a cinematic one), graying and cranky, almost barren, yet still trying to cop a lusty feel at whatever the cost. Is it the media-equivalent of a child molester who comes back haunt his former victims?
As a youth, I adored much, and The A-Team was at the top of my hand-written list of fictional idols that occupied their own Olympus in my skull. The Marvel comic books adaptation of the show, check; handheld action figures, check; larger-than-handheld size Mr.T figure, check; the team van, check. I can see that cover of the first A-Team comic-book even as I write these words, and I can remember a wintry night returning from a neighbour's house with another copy of the comic book in my hands. They were tough and funny and bizarre and resolute, these dudes were; they found a way to help the helpless and smear the corrupt. (Even if it involved a contraption that shot cabbages like cannonballs.) There was a simple joy in their audacity, perfect for an eight-year old mind that craves a bold new solution to life's problems that will be clever enough to find fulfillment in it sixty-minute doses (plus commercials). Eventually, I left the show behind (much as I would leave behind The Dukes of Hazzard and C*H*I*P*S* and The Fall Guy and Knight Rider), soon after the team itself abandoned their role as outlaws-on-the-perpetual-run and, instead, found themselves in the unlikely position of working for the United States government itself. (Such confusing defections are enough to torment a young, unforgiving mind.)
And now here they plunge once again into the pool of our collective, nostalgic memories of all things creased, folded, dropped and shredded. For surely this is a show that one has put behind oneself, no? Looking back, objectively (if such an act is even possible when examining one's own youth), the show was, I am certain, terrible. I have not seen it in a quarter-century, but rarely do the joys of one's childhood captivate the grown-up being we all, reluctantly, become. That is neither here nor there, however -- this evaluation of The A-Team's aesthetic worth. For a good portion of those years when my bed-wetting days were still not a distant memory, this was a part of the universe that invigorated my psyche. It allowed me to dream. It humored me. These are not benedictions that one should casually throw aside like 7-11 receipts. Much of life, perhaps most of life, is horrendously dull and vacant, and so to betray that which once filled you up with a primitive sort of joy is almost obscene in its reckless arrogance.
So, no. It is not The A-Team itself that I am dreading, but these new characters, these present charlatans, filled with actors looking for a quick paycheck funded by a studio desperate for a short-term hit. All valid rules for living. Life is what it is. (And was the original series made for any less bottom-line motives?)
But my heart tells me that nobody making this movie had any particular love for the original series, and it seems all too clear that when love is absent, other, less noble qualities will inevitably emerge (like the Creature from the Black Lagoon) from the muck of life. It could very well be an entertaining rush, this movie. It might even bring back fond memories, psychic mementoes that will take me back to another time. Such small thrills are possible.
Yet again I ask: at what point does childhood die? When can we let it all go? If our past keeps belching itself up at twenty-year intervals in increasingly louder, more plastic mutations, can we ever put the old comics away, switch the black-and-white TV off for good, and find something new, something present, to simulate those old feelings we once felt so much? Or is it all just a simulation in the end?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)