Some mothers throw their babies out of windows, or hand them over to lovers who beat them to death.
Timing. It wasn’t the right time for you and Maggie, they said, you were too young, etc. But why should love be fixed by time, because like time, love is a human invention. (See earlier.) How does one invention get determined by another? Love doesn’t have a repeatable formula—but falling in love always feels the same.
Disaster shall fall upon you, which you will not be able to expiate. —Isaiah 47:11
Expiate once meant confronting evil, plus, assuaging guilt. I need to expiate or ward off evil, but to do that I need sacred rites for purification, and I have none, and no, becoming a vegan wouldn’t hack it, and purging and cutting and all of that won’t cut it. Ha.
I need rites, know wrongs. Impossible to enumerate all of my wrongs. And being wronged. Repent, atone, all you who did me wrong. Seriously.
In a modest way, probably as an outgrowth of my field work, which required me to abandon my home, and I don’t mean home in the ordinary sense, I left my self-place, also an image of place. Home is prosaic, always. And I grew closer to what I couldn’t see but only feel. With a better grip, or not driving myself so hard that my head was banging, maybe I wouldn’t have left this safe place, this self-place. I could say, I went into an out-field, into the image-stratosphere.
But I was observing myself, too. Maybe it was fated, a sad notion, especially for a cultural anthropologist, who doesn’t believe in fate, and who follows, dispassionately, culture’s flow.
That’s about when I hit my internal pause button.
I’ve been stopped more than twice, and have been reset by coincidence and the inenarrable.
A time-stretch came when, in my own lost-and-found depot, I assumed various guises, acting like different “men”—pretending—since the one I’d been or become hadn’t satisfied HER. I duly remade myself into the best friend who betrayed me, and wore the costume of a Don Juan.
I was a biological male transitioning into a different kind of man. (See later, MEN IN QUOTES.)
Curtis the shithead could seduce women, he tuned in to what they wanted and turned them on like lamps, that was his power.
I sat in front of a computer, in parks, I hiked on avenues, I sat in movie theaters, traveling from one screen to another until I’d seen all nine or twelve or until the theater closed. I raced bikes, I played pick-up basketball on city courts. Anything could lead me anywhere, by selecting irrationality from a rational position, hating my own routines, when I used to depend on them, so I ate food I never liked—I wanted another kind of taste in my mouth, I wanted to feel comfortable. You’re sick, in a sickbed, and there’s no position that’s comfortable, that’s how it was. You will try anything, right?
When anyone spoke to me on the street, in a park, bar, café, you name it, I took the bait and joined into any conversation. In the park, a religious man, a devout Christian, as he told it, learned my name was Zeke, and cried, Ezekiel, and, I said, Yes, answering him, and he practically fell down at my feet. Almost on them. Told me God had sent Ezekiel a vision. Ezekiel saw a valley of dry bones, which foretold the first coming of Christ (I didn’t say, Wow, more than one?), and the first resurrection from death unto life, if you believe the Lord’s word.
I said nada, but he stared meatily at me, a blood-lust gaze.
God said to Ezekiel, “Son of man, can these bones live?” So, Ezekiel (who’s no fool) says, “O Lord God, thou knowest.”
Clever, right. Then he wanted to sell me a Bible. I said no, and told him I was a confirmed atheist, though I respected his beliefs. He fled.
Seeing dry bones—a terrific metaphor, and I can’t escape the fact that it suits everything I feel now. Can these dry bones live?
the stranger within (gets stranger)
Goffman, in Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity (1963): the central feature for a stigmatized individual’s situation is “acceptance.” How to get and keep it. To fit in. To hide the impairment, virtual or actual.
Spoiled identity. How cool is that characterization.
In the U.S., it’s high school. No one feels accepted, popular crowd rules, and almost no American gets over it. People feel excluded, always and forever after. They learn to need a crowd, they learn that being a stranger has few compensations, when the slide is downward. In all animal groups, exclusion rules; among males, there are fights unto death for dominance—who gets to mate and procreate, who owns the territory. Human men fight in bars, play war games on boards, become legitimated soldier/killers.
Max Weber said a nation-state was defined by one aspect only: it is legitimated to kill.
Nation-state: is exclusion a survival trait? Is there an instinct, starting with the formation of the family, to expand into tribes and groups, to separate kinds from other kinds arbitrarily, to assure loyalty? Many mammals require it for survival.
People bet on winners and losers, in every sense.
Goffman: “Now turn from the normal to the person he is normal against.”
Normal is against, and there is no baseline normal.
I’m tired of doing normal, if I ever did, and of being that kind of person who attempts it.
In Madness and Civilization, Foucault explained that leprosy disappeared by the end of the Middle Ages, but the leper houses remained, everywhere in Europe, structures ready for the sick. And, once that space opened, it stayed open, that is, “the values and images attached to the figure of the leper as well as the meaning of his exclusion” remained. By the Age of Reason, madness is unreason and danger. “The 17th century created enormous houses of confinement,” Foucault says, because of the fear of scandal. By confining the mad, scandal could be avoided.
I can totally see that. If you get put away, do you tell people, does your family blurt it, not usually, unless you’re a reality TV star who flaunts his addiction to get back in the public eye. Black eye.
Under a cloud of suspicion I rambled around, but I wasn’t totally out of it, I mean, I knew when to check in enough so that I could be left alone.
I like clouds.
You can imagine being an intriguing character, even though mired in self-hate, while un-friends stay at a remove, uncluttering your little life—fewer to keep out, fewer who reek of the incendiary past. Old friends, without them, I am calmer. No one can hold up the past, and the future doesn’t have a past then, also.
Being suspicious, being a suspect, fascinated me. I projected an attitude unlike Zeke’s: I looked too long at someone, then turned away. I doubled back, when I didn’t have to. I stared at a woman, she looked back, I dropped my eyes and strolled off. Now, this kind of behavior can be a game changer. Fomenting doubt in others about yourself/me. I formed what I call “accidental connections,” hanging at cool bars, talking up the ladies, haha, and sometimes I was a cad, bad, a lad, or sometimes I was had. I disguised myself to myself, and sometimes I fooled myself, and thought I believed what I said and did. Repetition helps that along, belief needs sustenance. Faith is continuous belief. But that was hard for me, and I dropped many poses, sometimes in the middle, because I couldn’t keep the faith. Like, one time I was with a woman, and I’d told her I was a psychiatrist, and I discussed me and my case as if it weren’t mine. She got hooked on this interesting man, I could see it, because I embellished him/me. The betrayal by the wife and the best friend, wow, she almost gushed. People, OK, women, just love this shit. In my role as his shrink, I was all-knowing and generous, sensitive to the max. Seeing that it worked so well on her, I couldn’t go on. I began to feel awful, absolutely insincere even if I was talking about me, sort of. I looked at my phone and said, Jeez, I have to go, and basically lurched out the door. Threw money on the bar.
Friends with benefits (once in college, before Maggie) and hookups: in place of commitment, sure; to satisfy needs, sure; in obeisance to lust, yes. From the naughts on, the unconventional turned conventional, examples abound like sorority girls with tattoos
, these shifts show new mating orders. How do we make ourselves available, and for what, and how long? The divorce rate has declined since 1980. It’s the economy, stupid.
I got into staying home, weeks on end, except for analysis. I searched online for anything tasty, diversionary. Welcome home, distractions! I searched for news of my betrayer and spied on his academic activities. I thought I might put a hit out on him, or do it myself.
Meanwhile, I discovered that the FBI had spied on Warhol.
In 1968, the FBI sent agents to Oracle, Arizona, to report on some dangerous and subversive activities. They were tracking Andy Warhol, who was shooting a porn film. The agents delivered a deadpan description and interviewed locals who also witnessed the revelry when the Factory came to town:
_____ advise that he lives Oracle, Arizona. He owns a horse. On January 27 or 28, 1968, he received a phone call from ______ in Oracle Arizona, asking if he had a horse that could be used in a film that was being made at the Rancho Linda Vista Guest Ranch at Oracle, Arizona … A blond, curly headed male then unzipped and pulled down his pants. This same man then performed an unnatural sex act of Cunnilingus on the female. The other male individuals held the girl down. She did very little struggling. She and the male actors continued to use profane and vulgar words during their sexual activity. The spontaneous conversation was recorded and their acts filmed. After about one minute the female got up and sat in the wash. She folded her arms over her bare chest. Somebody later threw her blouse and trousers over her back. She then put her trousers and blouse back on … The man continued to wear her panties over his hat. _________ stated that “his horse broke loose about the time the unnatural sex acts took place … The men played with each other’s rear ends. One had flowers sewed on the seat of his trousers in the shape of a diamond.” One fellow was hanging by the knees, face down, out of a tree, and kissing on the lips one of the other men on the horse. All the men looked like hippies and were very vulgar in their conversations. The men were trying to kiss each other. The owner of the ranch told the FBI also that “There was a total of 14 men and one girl, VIVA, who stayed at the Guest Ranch. But did not have a complete list of all 15 people but had a partial list furnished.” In cabin no. 33 were two men: Warhol, and __________ who she “believed to be lovers … they both slept in the same bed.” __________ acted as the right-hand man for Warhol. He did most of the talking to and for the group. He had his address as _______, New York, NY. “_________, who slept with Andy Warhol, acted like a big sissy and did not take part in the movie. He wore ankle-strap thongs.”
The agents weren’t just sightseeing. The investigation continued as the FBI tried to gather enough evidence to prosecute Warhol for interstate transportation of obscene material for taking the film, Lonesome Cowboys, from New Mexico to a film festival in California. Two dutiful [G] men actually went to the festival to watch the movie and deliver their own reviews.
On November 1, 1968, SAs __________ and _________ attended the midnight showing of the
motion picture, Lonesome Cowboys, at the San Fran-cisco International Film Festival …
The movie opened with the woman and her male nurse on a street in the town. Five or six cowboys then entered the town and there was evidence of hostility between the two groups. One of the cowboys practiced his ballet and a conversation ensued regarding the misuse of mascara by one of the other cowboys …
There are other parts in the film in which the private parts of the woman were visible on the screen and there were also scenes in which men were revealed in total nudity. The sheriff in one scene was shown dressing in woman’s clothing and later being held on the lap of another cowboy. Also the male nurse was pictured in the arms of the sheriff. In one scene where VIVA was attempting to persuade one of the cowboys to take off his clothes and join her in her nudity, the discussion was centered around the Catholic Church’s liturgical songs …
Another scene depicted a cowboy fondling the nipples of another cowboy …
There were suggestive dances done by the male actors with each other. These dances were conducted while they were clothed and suggested lovemaking between two males …
There was no plot to the film and no development of characters throughout. It was rather a remotely connected series of scenes which depicted situations of sexual relationships of homosexual and heterosexual nature.
The FBI actually followed Warhol and described his work. They filed a report on him. In a sick way it was kind of scarily cool.
can you spare time
Cut out doors and windows to make a room; it is on its nonbeing that the utility of the room depends. Therefore turn being into advantage, and turn nonbeing into utility.
—Lao Tzu
I clutched at straws and took “nonbeing as utility” to heart, not only my nonbeing, but loving nonbeing.
Time’s what I had, an illusion.
In the not-distant past, everything fit me, every act apposite to Zeke, but I disowned that, after breaking apart, seeing only darkness, forced to move invisibly.
The invention of God, in my legend, falls under “species grandiosity.” “God” achingly suggests people’s desire for perfection, rooting idealism in mysticism, the supernatural, spiritual. But even God felt lonely and created humans in his image, which is the way humans brought themselves into the picture. (God must be more than human and also human, if we are in his image.) He brought forth his only son. A human God, the Christ (Pharaohs were also considered gods): people could identify with Him; be resigned to a mortal life of suffering, since they could see themselves in Him, who suffered, also, and for them, which made them Christ-like; even life’s end or punishment, death, might be bearable, because He had died for them, and they would join Him, sit beside their Lord in heaven. No narrative has a better ending.
Who would die for me? Kidding.
Few want to die, though people also take their own lives, rather than being taken, destroyed psychically, and suicide becomes a singular ambition, whose successful completion alleviates pain, and everything else. Something to live for.
“To my dear friends and chums,” a man called Michael wrote, “it has been wonderful and at times it had been grand and for me, now, it has been enough.” This was his obit for a New York Times listing. He took his life and, obviously in advance, paid for it to be announced.
Your picture hangs in a forest. Where you are is
a fine place. Take me. Of psychic occurrences, imperfect knowledge.
My pleasures, unseen, silent.
—Ezekiel H. Stark, for Clover
bewildering, blistering
You imagine other people have it together. Wrong. Oh, man, totally wrong.
Living is a bewilderment. Maybe I can’t explain this. But doubt isn’t anthropology’s subject. Conflict, maybe. How do societies live with doubt, how do we and they manage uncertainty. It’s a subject I could study, why not, aren’t I my best subject, I doubt myself, not meaning to, life handed it to me on a platter—kidding—feel it constantly—doubt—and people doubt me. Rational people who want to succeed in life do not show doubt to others, and mostly don’t apologize.
I’m ready to apologize for things I haven’t done or said.
analyst: Who would you apologize to, first?
me: I haven’t got a list.
analyst: (silent)
me: You know.
More silence.
me: Maggie.
analyst: Why?
me: I probably pushed her away by things I said. Or didn’t …
analyst: You think you could have changed how things went.
me: I could have changed me. Early on. I wasn’t … I wasn’t something. Enough.
SILENCE.
me: I failed her.
Some people have always doubted me, or been wary. First, I was a brainy nerd a little before it turned cool or nearly cool. I found a way not to doubt myself, not to double think, until a floor dropped out of me. My bottom, ha. No basis, no foundation. No woman,
no cry. (Father played that LP a lot.) That realization about the ubiquity of uncertainty—can’t explain it, exactly—it forced me to consider the absurdity of learning about others, I mean, anyone, and going “into the field” to study them. Any field, no field has a level playing field.
I mean, what do “I” expect of “them”?
coincident
I received a phone call, and heard two men talking to each other. There were other voices, fuzzy, in the background. It was an old-timey party line or a crossed line.
I said, “I’m on the line, did you phone me?” They kept talking. I called out, “I can hear you. Can you hear me?” Nothing, they kept talking. Muttering. I heard, “Asshole.” Then, “He should have buried it.” They were talking some strange shit. If it had been ordinary, I would have hung up. One said, She didn’t do it. Another said, Hell, you mean she still has it. The first one, Yeah, she has it. OK, the second voice said, we’ll get it from her. Then, several more “asshole”s. Something about “produces mold.”
The line went fuzzy, and I heard several clicks. Mutterings. In the past, I would have ignored it, but now everything that happened fit into a growing trouble set. A growth industry: Doubt Writ Large.
To disguise my old self from my new self—see, if I didn’t, I’d be tempted to return to the rut—I deliberately embraced erroneous ideas, fleetingly, then dropped them, to traipse after ephemera and wishes. I didn’t believe in stuff like the world is flat or deny climate change. I wore the ephemeral. We’re ephemeral, right. I’m worn out. Ha. OK, this stuff doesn’t lead me anywhere, but I don’t need a direction, a goal. I choose the irrational from a rational position. I’m positioning myself on Undo, undo even undoing. Un-think, because routines dull the mind, and you don’t see what’s in front of you. Familiarity breeds contempt, and also lack of insight and out-sight.
Same old. Same old. Imagine if every time you entered into something, experience actually counted.
The second time around in love: I don’t buy it. But I want love with a different result from the first time. Love as an experiment with a pure result.
Men and Apparitions Page 21