Untimely #20 - Shittalker

First, I must apologise that I have not written on my blog since December 15^th, the day of my wife’s death. Since then I have become skilled at making a meal of pasta for one. A single clove of garlic, which I slice thinly, frying it softly in a drop of olive oil. Sometimes I add an anchovy, sometimes two on good days. They sell the half tins of pulped tomatoes in the store now, which is enough. I like linguine; I like how thick but still slender it can be. I pinch dried strands between my thumb and first two fingers. She was from a very traditional family: they did not say it, but they were disappointed in her marriage to a writer, an academic. The few times I met them they smiled, they welcomed me, but they used their greetings to place and distance me.

I still use our large pan, bringing a large quantity of water to a rolling boil, before plunging the linguine in to soften and snake in the roil. She taught me, as her mother had taught her, to cook pasta to the bite, to reserve a little of the starchy water, to add a slug of oil, to lubricate the strands and coat in the sauce.

I am sitting now at the window twisting and forking the strands into my mouth as I read through a stack of freshman essays in response to this question:

“You don’t even know who he is.”

In the light of this comment, discuss the role of self-knowledge in the work of Paul Auster.

Most of the essays are workmanlike, parroting back the less interesting threads of analysis from my lectures, lacking the flair, imagination or originality that the subject demands. A few are just plain nonsense or are full of the misinformed literary namedropping so typical of freshman students. One essay, however, develops an interesting discussion on the relationship between the urban and the urbane in Auster, employing Joyce and Chandler as predictable but useful counterpoints. In the hands of this student Auster’s writing becomes an extended dialogue between the city and the self. Her arguments are taut, fierce, almost erotic, yet shy and self effacing in the way that Siri could be when challenged.

            That is how she was on her last day, when we fought. She was angry that I had become so consumed in my latest book. As usual, I had spent night after night walking the city, returning at dawn to write through the day. I had assumed that she had understood that this was a temporary state, a process I often undertook at the start of a project, which she was to mirror in a typical state of wry forbearance. Returning that morning I found her sitting in the chair in which I now write. We argued, sniped; I was tired from walking, the frustrated urge to write channelled into bitter, sarcastic impatience which was further fuel to her anger. I tried to end the argument, as I always did, turning toward my study. It was at this point that we shattered.

            “You’re so lame. You probably think Paul Auster’s a great writer.” She said.

            “Oh yeah? You don’t even know who he is.” I returned and our words crystallized and fell.

Untimely #20 – Paul Auster

Person 1 – You’re so lame. You probably think Paul Auster’s a really good writer.

Person 2 – Oh yeah? You don’t even know who he is. Shittalker.

1 – Yeah I do.

2 – Prove it.

1 – I don’t have to.

2 – Cos you can’t?

1 – No way, I know who he is. And I know what he’s done.

2 – What?

1 – What are you deaf? I said I know what he’s done.

2 – I know what you said, dicknose. But what’s he done?

1 – I thought you liked him?

2 – I do.

1 – Then you of all people should know what he’s done.

2 – What the frack are you talking about?

1 – It was on his blog. You’d think if you liked him you’d read his blog.

2 – What? What was on his blog?

1 – And his twitter feed.

2 – He’s got a twi-? I’m warning you, tell me what you’re talking about right now, or I’ll…

1 – I’m talking about Paul Auster.

2 – What about him.

1 – What he did. That time.

2 – Goddamn it!

1 – Calm down, bro’. Take a chill pill or summin’.

2 – Now look, you butt-lappin’, culture-phobic moron, if you don’t a) tell me what it is you think my homie Paul Auster’s gone and done, or b) shut your filthy clam right now, I’m gonna zombie your body with hyper-poison, tie you to this chair, wheel you down the road to my book group, then let fifteen awesome dudes loose on you with highly opinionated ideas about the total mega-multiculturalism of Zadie Smith, the super-sweet high-fiveness of Dave Eggers, the never ending wow-a-thon that is Nick Hornby, and the post-modern retro-nowness genius that is Brett Easton Ellis, until you shit in your pants.

1 – NO! You go too far!

2 – Now tell me – What has Paul Auster done?

1 – I can’t! I don’t remember! You gave me too much!

2 – C’mon. Spill those literary beans. Spill them!

1 – You busted my brain you, you, you…

2 – D’ya want me to read you some poetry from Mcsweeney’s? issue 22?

1 – Gah!

2 – Well? Do ya?

1 – I can’t breath. You’re killing me…

Untimely #20 – Three Thoughts

I don’t cook for one. Cooking for me, see, it’s social. Baking. No one bakes alone. You bake for someone. You want to eat cookies, you buy cookies. You open the jar and take a cookie and eat it. You don’t mix flour and beat eggs and melt chocolate and then eat a cookie three hours later when by now your stomach is like ten times emptier and you probably would die just as soon as eat a cookie because you already ate ten an hour ago when you couldn’t wait for the fucking things to bake. So really your stomach wasn’t very empty, but it would have been entirely empty minus the acids that swirl about like Grand Rapids, MI, in that empty belly of yours. But now they rush and flood a mountain of cookie debris and you feel ill as you get fatter. Aren’t cookies grand? At this point you probably wish you ate a vegetable, unless of course it was eggplant, because eggs aren’t very healthy, especially if you cook them in oil. Olive oil is good for your skin, but too much will give you indigestion.

In the mountains, though, you can eat anything. Because you are chopping wood and herding goats and anything you want to eat you’ve either got to kill and skin or farm and dig and wash and chop. That’s why everyone smokes in the mountains, because everything takes about fifty times longer to do and also the air is cleaner, so it doesn’t even matter. When the earth is overpopulated, we’re all going to go up the mountains and leave the stinking cities to the rats. When the ice caps melt will there be penguins in Miami?

On my way out of the subway this morning there was a girl in hot pink sandals sitting on the steps. She smelled like piss in the most foul way. Sharp and sour, like she’d washed her clothes in it.

Untimely Stimulus #20

Person 1: “You’re so lame. You probably think Paul Auster’s a really good writer.”
Person 2: “Oh yeah? You don’t even know who he is. Shittalker.”