Nostalgic: But...Might the "old times" have actually been better?

I grew up NOT around ANY movie theaters or cafes. But I had read about such things. And when I got to Austin in 1983 to go to college (UT-Austin), I was thrilled to see them all around me.

Thinking back, there were FOUR movie theaters within a half-mile radius of the University of Texas campus that showed alternative or classic films: At Jester Center (where I first saw "The Graduate"), at Dobie Mall (where I saw "Frances" for the second time), at the Union, and at The Varsity on the Drag. Not one of these theaters exists any more.

As for cafes: In the '80s, you could drink and smoke and write at the Union (or at the Cactus Cafe, situated within the Union), or at Les Amis, a couple of blocks away from the campus. Les Amis is long gone, and you can no longer smoke at the Union or Cactus Cafe (you also can't drink at the former, although the latter does still serve alcohol).

Part of what attracted me to UT-Austin as a teen was things like movie theaters and cafes. I wanted to be a part of that "cafe lifestyle," which to me meant sitting at a table for hours pouring over poetry and writing my own and getting tipsy and having intense conversations with fellow students and strangers.

And the bands: At the Union, at the Cactus, at Liberty Lunch, at Black Cat. That lasted from the '80s through the early '90s. Nothing like this exists any more in Austin. My teen fantasy once existed, but now it's gone. I've got nowhere to drink or write or stroll to a movie or see a band.

Am I depressed because I'm in my 50s or because the city has become generically shitty?

Just got a letter from the IRS...

...I now owe them a grand total of... $49.67!!!!!!!

My NYC years from 2007 to 2010 were in-house freelance, and I racked up a huge total of IRS tax debt. Which continued when I got back to Austin in 2010 and I still didn't have a regular job and was working freelance for the next 4 years. Luckily, from 2015 through 2019, I had regular income and was paying too many taxes, so at the end of each year, the refund I would have gotten was applied by the IRS to the "lost years."

And now it's all paid off! (I think I can come up with the $49.67.)

And I now have no car debt (I bought my car myself in 2016 and made all payments until this April---when my mom offered to make the last two payments). And my generous mother has offered to pay off my outstanding student loans...

I'm about to be debt-free! Am I about to enter my "Golden Years"?? (As in: You don't look so good any more, but you can afford much better haircuts and clothing and furniture, and perhaps a condo. Oh, and more-expensive cable.)

Paul McCartney: Live and Let Die (1973)

Shirley Bassey: Goldfinger (1964)

Grocery-Store Eye-Hate

I go to buy my groceries, and a carton of cigs (Marlboro Gold), every 2 weeks.

Today (Saturday), I was in line and asked for the carton, and the checkout girl asked me to go with her to the cigarette wall to show her exactly what I wanted. They didn't have a carton of Marlboro Gold, but they did have 10 individual packs, so I asked if I could get 10 packs for the carton price, which is always slightly lower. She said that yes, I could.

When the checkout girl and I got back to the checkout line, she started to ring up each pack individually. I then said that I thought I could get the carton price, even if cartons weren't available.

At this point, a tall, thin gray-haired man behind me in line made a loud comment about why I was arguing about the individual pack prices since I could see I wasn't getting a carton...

ME: "We just went and looked for a carton. There wasn't a carton. I asked if I could get 10 packs for a carton-price. THIS IS NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS!" And then I had to throw in something that I'd heard on TV: "You need to CHECK YOURSELF!" He did then shut up.

But why would he think that he could confront me in any way? I myself get irritated with people in check-out lines, but I certainly never say anything to them. What about me made this guy think it was OK to say anything at all? I'm glad that I yelled at him in return.

By his uber-impatience, I guessed that he was not from Austin---citizens known for being too laid back. I wish I had thrown out: "Go back to Silicon Valley," but I wasn't sure of his origins.

I did, though, note that his eyes above his Wuhan-mask were full of hate. As were mine, I'm sure.

The Second Elegy (Rilke, 1923)

Translated by Stephen Mitchell


Every angel is terrifying. And yet, alas,
I invoke you, almost deadly birds of the soul,
knowing about you. Where are the days of Tobias,
when one of you, veiling his radiance, stood at the front door,
slightly disguised for the journey, no longer appalling;
(a young man like the one who curiously peeked through the window).
But if the archangel now, perilous, from behind the stars
took even one step down toward us: our own heart, beating
higher and higher, would beat us to death. Who are you?

Early successes, Creation's pampered favorites,
mountain-ranges, peaks growing red in the dawn
of all Beginning, -- pollen of the flowering godhead,
joints of pure light, corridors, stairways, thrones,
space formed from essence, shields made of ecstasy, storms
of emotion whirled into rapture, and suddenly, alone,
mirrors: which scoop up the beauty that has streamed from their face
and gather it back, into themselves, entire.

But we, when moved by deep feeling, evaporate; we
breathe ourselves out and away; from moment to moment
our emotion grows fainter, like a perfume. Though someone may tell us:
"Yes, you've entered my bloodstream, the room, the whole springtime
is filled with you..." -- what does it matter? he can't contain us,
we vanish inside him and around him. And those who are beautiful,
oh who can retain them? Appearance ceaselessly rises
in their face, and is gone. Like dew from the morning grass,
what is ours floats into the air, like steam from a dish
of hot food. O smile, where are you going? O upturned glance:
new warm receding wave on the sea of the heart...
alas, but that is what we are. Does the infinite space
we dissolve into, taste of us then? Do the angels really
reabsorb only the radiance that streamed out from themselves, or
sometimes, as if by an oversight, is there a trace
of our essence in it as well? Are we mixed in with their
features even as slightly as that vague look
in the faces of pregnant women? They do not notice it
(how could they notice) in their swirling return to themselves.

Lovers, if they knew how, might utter strange, marvelous
words in the night air. For it seems that everything
hides us. Look: trees do exist; the houses
that we live in still stand. We alone
fly past all things, as fugitive as the wind.
And all things conspires to keep silent about us, half
out of shame perhaps, half as unutterable hope.

Lovers, gratified in each other, I am asking you
about us. You hold each other. Where is your proof?
Look, sometimes I find that my hands have come aware
of each other, or that my time-worn face
shelters itself inside them. That gives me a slight
sensation. But who would dare to exist, just for that?
You, though, who in the other's passion
grow until, overwhelmed, he begs you:
"No more..."; you who beneath his hands
swell with abundance, like autumn grapes;
you who may disappear because the other has wholly
emerged: I am asking you about us. I know,
you touch so blissfully because the caress preserves,
because the place you so tenderly cover
does not vanish; because underneath it
you feel pure duration. So you promise eternity, almost,
from the embrace. And yet, when you have survived
the terror of the first glances, the longing at the window,
and the first walk together, once only, through the garden:
lovers, are you the same? When you lift yourselves up
to each other's mouth and your lips join, drink against drink:
oh how strangely each drinker seeps away from his action.

Weren't you astonished by the caution of human gestures
on Attic gravestones? wasn't love and departure
placed so gently on shoulders that it seemed to be made
of a different substance than in our world? Remember the hands,
how weightlessly they rest, though there is power in the torsos.
These self-mastered figures know: "We can go this far,
this is ours, to touch one another this lightly; the gods
can press down harder upon us. But this is the gods' affair."

If only we too could discover a pure, contained,
human place, our own strip of fruit-bearing soil
between river and rock. For our own heart always exceeds us,
as theirs did. And we can no longer follow it, gazing
into images that soothe it or into the godlike bodies
where, measured more greatly, it achieves a greater repose.

I Am Too Alone in the World (Rilke, 1897)

(Translated by Anne-Marie Kidder)

I am much too alone in this world, yet not alone
    enough
to truly consecrate the hour.
I am much too small in this world, yet not small
    enough
to be to you just object and thing,
dark and smart.
I want my free will and want it accompanying
the path which leads to action;
and want during times that beg questions,
where something is up,
to be among those in the know,
or else be alone.

I want to mirror your image to its fullest perfection,
never be blind or too old
to uphold your weighty wavering reflection.
I want to unfold.
Nowhere I wish to stay crooked, bent;
for there I would be dishonest, untrue.
I want my conscience to be
true before you;
want to describe myself like a picture I observed
for a long time, one close up,
like a new word I learned and embraced,
like the everday jug,
like my mother's face,
like a ship that carried me along
through the deadliest storm.

------------------------------------------------------------------

(Translated by Robert Bly)

I am too alone in the world, and not alone enough
to make every minute holy.
I am too tiny in this world, and not tiny enough
just to lie before you like a thing,
shrewd and secretive.
I want my own will, and I want simply to be with my will,
as it goes toward action,
and in the silent, sometimes hardly moving times
when something is coming near,
I want to be with those who know secret things
or else alone.

I want to be a mirror for your whole body,
and I never want to be blind, or to be too old
to hold up your old and swaying picture.
I want to unfold.
I don’t want to stay folded anywhere,
because where I am folded, there I am a lie.
And I want my grasp of things
true before you. I want to describe myself
like a painting that I looked at
closely for a long time,
like a saying that I finally understood,
like the pitcher I use every day, like the face of my mother,
like a ship that took me safely
through the wildest storm of all.

Sailing to Byzantium (Yeats, 1926)

That is no country for old men. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees
—Those dying generations—at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.

An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.

O sages standing in God's holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.

Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

The Second Coming (Yeats, 1919)

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Special Needs

Earlier this week, a "loud family" moved in 2 doors down from me. A mom, and at least 3 young girls that I saw, from ages 6 to 8 or 9: blonde buster-brown hair-cut, brunette buster-brown, long red hair.

On our row of apartments, we each have a small backyard, and the mom had set up some kind of bouncing ride for the kids in hers. I first noticed the new move-ins on Monday when shrieks started coming from their backyard. At that time only exaggerated "shrieks of delight" from the kids playing on the "ride." Mildly annoying but, hey, at least they weren't RIGHT next door to me.

The day after that, Tuesday, I heard an ear-piercing, prolonged scream like someone was being murdered---I ran out back to see what the hell was going on. One of the girls had apparently fallen off the ride and wouldn't let it go. I first shouted: "WHAT IS WRONG??!!" And then once I saw just a couple of kids and no one murdering them, I shouted: "WHY ARE YOU SCREAMING??!!" Then the mother rushed out of the apartment and started comforting the screaming kid.

Wednesday, around 4 in the afternoon, my cats that were lying by the back sliding-glass door, looking out, suddenly started to growl and then ran away. I looked up from my computer to see what they were freaked out about, and saw somebody moving right outside the door. I initially thought it was an apartment landscaper or something (they come into the yard to cut the grass and trim bushes), but when I got closer to the door, I saw that it was an 8-year-old-or-so girl---trying to OPEN my sliding-glass door!

I ran over and unlocked the door and opened it to confront her: "What are you doing in my backyard?" She looked at me and then RAN TOWARD ME and the open door! I slammed it shut, and she backed off and stood there staring at me. Then I opened the door again, and she again ran toward me, trying to get inside my apartment! I had to slam the door shut again, and again we stared at each other through the glass. And then finally I opened the door and ran at her, shouting, "Get out of my yard!" This time she jumped over the fence and ran off.

While I was staring after her in amazement, my next-door neighbor was out in his yard and told me that she had just walked into HIS apartment and started playing his organ! And when he chased her out, she immediately jumped HIS fence and then jumped into MY yard... He said that his roommate had just gone over to knock on the front door of the mother's apartment to tell her what had just happened, but there was no answer. (Yes, it was one of the girls who had just moved in next-door to them and who had been screaming out in their backyard.)

I immediately called the apartment manager and told him about the weird kid who had just tried to walk into my apartment. He confirmed that, yes, a new family had just moved in. And that one of the children was "special needs." I said that I was definitely aware that the kid had a problem, but that "special needs" didn't mean trying to enter my apartment---even if it was just an 8-year-old kid, it was aggressive and creepy and weird-as-shit! The apartment manager said he'd talk to her mom.

Today, Thursday, nothing else happened. But I'm definitely creeped out. No more opening the back screen door early-mornings or evenings to get some fresh air in, that's for sure.

I'd always thought that "special needs" meant "slow" or "retarded." Mild-mannered people that we were, of course, supposed to be nice to. But I have never in my life had a child trying to force her way into my apartment, even when I was standing there telling her to get lost! Really freaking disturbing.

Usually some obnoxious kid running around is just that---obnoxious. Riding his bike past my window too many times, etc. But then there's the Sandy Hook autistic kid, et al. Who the hell knows what "special needs" means today. Just keep your "special needs" kid the hell away from my back door.

Working from Home

Me and Saint Kanye.

 

George Jones: Cup of Loneliness ("Mad Men" soundtrack)

Paul McCartney: London Town (1978)

Paul McCartney: My Brave Face (1989)

Paul McCartney: No More Lonely Nights (1984)

Paul McCartney: Beautiful Night (1997)

Bye-bye, Selfie Girl!

I live in a nice apartment with a small backyard. Unfortunately, a two-story row of other apartments looks over my backyard, so I rarely go out there (except to feed stray cats and water the four plants I have), primarily because of one particular person.

For the past year or so, a 20-something woman has lived in one of the apartments overlooking my yard. Before Wuhan, she would have friends over and they'd hang out by her front door, smoking, and she herself came out front whenever she'd want to smoke. (I once saw her mother and grandmother come over for a visit, which is why I assume she never smoked inside.)

Post-Wuhan (mid-March), this girl started sitting outside of her front door ALL THE TIME. I could not  even open the blinds of my back sliding-glass door because THERE SHE WAS, looking down into my apartment.

She never sat outside with a book. Nah. She always had her smart-phone in her hand, and she was always posing for selfies. No, not looking down at the phone as if she were looking for information, but... holding up the phone to POSE FOR SELFIES, constantly. Day after day after day. (Didn't her Internet friends get bored with same "front-door selfie shot"??)

A couple of months ago, I went outside and saw her yet again sitting there. I finally said -- fake jovially: "You're STILL out here!" Her: "Yeah, Covid."  Me: "Yeah, it gets boring being at home all the time." (When in reality, I wanted to say: "GO AWAY! STOP STARING DOWN AT ME!")

Anyway... Today I woke up to movers taking the Selfie-Girl's stuff away! Thank god! Yes, I know that any new neighbors could be worse. But, for the time being, I can now open my back-door blinds and go into my yard without seeing a slacker Millennial sitting on her ass and posing for pictures and staring down into my apartment 12 hours a day.

What a relief this is! Seriously, I have not been able to open my back-door blinds, and now I can! I feel very happy!

Journey - Faithfully (1982)

Officially, I hate Journey after Jonathan Cain joined in 1980.
However, I'll make an exception for this great 1982 Cain song! : ) 
"I get the joy of rediscovering you..."

George Jones: Come Home To Me (1991)

Lyin' here thinkin' and a half-empty bed
Blamin' myself for the things that I said
Hoping that you can forget and forgive
My life without you ain't no way to live.

Come home to me, come home to me
It just won't be right till you do
Come home to me, come home to me
I can't take one more night all alone
Come on home.

Baby, you left a hurtin' only your love can heal
And I understand now how I made you feel
Well, my life without you would just fall apart
Right from the body of my lonely heart.

Come home to me, come home to me
It just won't be right till you do
Come home to me, come home to me
I can't take one more night all alone
Baby, come on home.

The moon through the window
Is my shade of blue
As I'm holding your pillow
Longin' for you, baby.

Come home to me, come home to me
It just won't be right till you do
Come home to me, come home to me
I can't take one more night all alone
Come on home.

Come on home

Tavern Choir: George Jones and Jim Lauderdale (1988)

Sting - Russians (1985)

In 1985, artists were more intelligent and thoughtful.
Post-2016, I have not heard any artist but Kanye West express an original political opinion.

A house without a black cat named Moonie...

...is just a house full of gray cats running around. Seriously. I have 5 cats, 4 of them gray of some sort, and having one black cat in the family anchors them all, especially since she was the runt of the litter, and is the most affectionate while not being "heavy" (Pete!), and the most weird and subtly interesting (though when she was a kitten, she was the last to be litter-trained and thus the first that I was planning on giving away to a shelter).

Tuesday,  the best sound in the world to me was the sound of kibble crunching...and the sight of Solomon Grundy munching on it. And the sight of Newly eating part of a leaf off a palmish plant (and then finding poop with that big strand of leaf in it). And hearing a growling sound, to find Nolomon protecting one of her favorite rainbow-colored balls from brother Pete, then seeing that all 4 of the collected rainbow balls had been scattered around the living room.

Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday... All I saw was clear vomit across the floor, with a few chunks in it. I thought my baby was dying, and that I'd have to contact a vet to get her cremated, just like I had to do with Gracie back in New Jersey in 2009 (though it took Gracie 3 months to die).

And I also thought of something I'd thought so cavalierly back when I finally decided to keep all 3 kittens in May 2019 (and then #5 Cinco in December 2019): "Well, with so many cats, one or two might die, and it really won't affect me." Well, the thought of Solomon dying really did affect me. And also made me think of people living 100 years ago who had numerous kids and were mentally prepared to see one or more go at a young age...but sometimes the one that went was a favorite, and it messed them up psychologically (for instance, George Jones told of a favorite sister who died young---driving his previously hard-working father to drink and violence).

Not that Solomon's death would have affected me as deeply as the death of a child, but... I know that her death would have at least cast a pall over my everyday doings. (As did Gracie's death in 2009: I felt cursed for a long time. And did not have another cat until Mama Hennessy found me in 2019 and had her kittens in my neighbor's backyard.)

And, this is terrible, but I also thought about which of my five cats I would miss the most:

(1) Solomon (adore)
(2) Mama Hennessy (love; a feral cat I'd been feeding outside since July 2018; she'd sit on my fence with the wind blowing her hair, and jump up on my leg sans claws whenever I'd come out to feed her; her three kittens born in neighbor's yard in April 2019)
(3) Peter-Pat (love; Pete is so affectionate and sweet and downright BIG and hearty and handsome and fun to play with---he and Solomon/Moonie, and sometimes Mama, are my primary playmates)
(4) Sasha-Susie (like; I pet her every day, and she loves to roll over to have her belly petted, but she's usually stand-offish. I respect her lady-like behavior and give her her space)
(5) Cinco (like; she still won't let me pet her, after 6 months in my house!)

I survived another 4th o' July!

I can't claim to speak for all singletons living in apartment complexes during the 4th of July and New Year's Eve, but for me, these two days of the year have been both sad and angst-ridden for the past 20 or so years.

I had a couple of good July 4s during this time: when I lived in NYC and/or Weehawken, especially in the year that the city moved the fireworks display from the East River over to the Hudson River---a one-minute walk from my apartment to the Hudson to watch the magnificent display!

But usually it's been me just hunkering down at home, not invited anywhere, just bracing myself for whatever fireworks my loud, young neighbors would be exploding in the streets or parking lots adjacent to where I lived.

One of the worst times was 2017 in my current apartment complex, when a group of constantly loud and ill-behaving neighbors set off fireworks by the pool, right in the middle of where we all lived. (Luckily, other people complained and this group was kicked out soon after.) Another particularly bad year was in the early 2000s, when I was renting a house in East Austin: After hours of explosions from a neighbor's yard, I finally had to go over around 3am and outright lie: "My baby is sleeping. Can you please finish up soon?" (No, I've never had a baby!)

This year: Heard a few ongoing muffled explosions from 9:30pm to 2:30am, but nothing aggressively close/within the complex itself.

Happy about this year's low-key fireworks. But also sad, as usual. I wish that "4th of July" for me meant cookouts with family and/or friends. And that "New Year's Eve" meant, also, time with family and/or friends. Nah. Just hunkering down and bracing for the worst. Then being grateful when "the worst" doesn't happen.

I fear my Moonie is dying

Thursday I woke up with my black Solomon Grundy cat (aka "Mini," "Moonie," "Nolomon Newly") sitting sluggish and catatonic by the water bowls. She moved around to various spots during the day, but never acknowledged me, though I stroked her. She had something white hanging around her mouth; and she threw up at least 3 times that I saw, a couple of times with small clumps of gray matter in mainly clear liquid. I couldn't tell what the "gray matter" was.

Friday, same thing.

Saturday, she finally jumped up on me while I was lying on the couch, and went to sleep on me and let me stroke her and sing her song ("Solomon Grundy / Met you on a Saturday / It was a rainy day..."). During the day, I tried putting food dishes right in front of her, and tried adding some tuna treats to her dish (while keeping the others away). She still didn't eat.

Today, Sunday, I saw her drink water. But not eat. And she's skin-and-bones. But she is affectionate with me, and she is now, finally, again acting interested in what the other cats are doing. A good sign. (And she just now jumped up in my lap as I'm typing.)

But you've got to eat, my Moons. Don't be that lamb in the Ted Hughes poem that just didn't want to live!

Top Hat (1935)

A couple of nights ago, I turned on one of my favorite cable stations, TCM. 1935's "Top Hat" (with Astaire/Rogers) was about to show. Host Ben Mankiewicz had to add his smarmy, irrelevant, Social-Justice-Warrior 2020 two cents: "How could they be so frivolous in the middle of the Great Depression?" Shut up, already. We're not Soviet Russia, creating only grim, strait-laced propaganda films. Gawd, I hate left-wing fascists trying to tell us how to think and trying to tell artists what is or is not "appropriate" to create.

King Of The Road (Julie London: 1965)