I hope I'm not violating too many copyright rules by reproducing this. It's from the New Yorker, May 19, 2008. Bob Hicok seems like an interesting guy. Not sure I'd like to have a beer with him but I'm amused by what he says about Michigan. With thanks to Bob and apologies for any infractions.
I remember Michigan fondly as the place I go
to be in Michigan. The right hand of America
waving from maps or the the left
pressing into clay a mold to take home
from kindergarten to Mother. I lived in Michigan
forty-three years. The state bird
is a chained factory gate. The state flower
is Lake Superior, which sounds egotistical
though it is merely cold and deep as truth.
A Midwesterner can use the word "truth,"
can sincerely use the word "sincere."
In truth the Midwest is not mid or west.
When I go back to Michigan I drive through Ohio.
There is off I-75 in Ohio a mosque, so life
goes corn corn corn mosque, I wave at Islam,
which we're not getting along with
on account of the Towers as I pass.
Then Ohio goes corn corn corn
billboard, goodbye, Islam. You never forget
how to be from Michigan when you're from Michgan.
It's like riding a bike of ice and fly fishing.
The Upper Peninsula is a spare state
in case Michigan goes flat. I live now
in Virginia, which has no backup plan
but is named the same as my mother,
I live in my mother again, which is creepy
but so is what the skin under my chin is doing,
suddenly there's a pouch like marsupials
are needed. The state joy is spring.
"Osiris, we beseech thee, rise and give us baseball"
is how we might sound were we Egyptian in April,
when February hasn't ended. February
is thirteen months long in Michigan.
We are a people who by February
want to kill the sky for being so gray
and angry at us. "What did we do?"
is the state motto. There's a day in May
when we're all tumblers, gymnastics is everywhere,
and daffodils are asked
by young men to be their wives. When man elopes
with a daffodil, you know where he's from.
In this way I have given you a primer.
Let us all be from somewhere.
Let use tell each other everything we can.
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Saturday, May 24, 2008
A Bit of Hearsay About Life's Satisfactions
This is what an East German academic told a friend of mine after the fall of the Berlin Wall. She told it to me about 15 years ago.
He said he had lost the thing that gave him the greatest sense of achievement. Living under the DDR, his greatest satisfaction was receiving a book order. Ordering academic books from the West was difficult. Merely keeping up with his field required a lot of struggle through red tape. But when it succeeded, his joy was sublime. His most satisfied moments were walking home with a new book in his arms.
When the Wall fell, he could order any books he wanted. Cost was the only limitation. Receiving new books no longer gave him the same sense of pleasure. He missed that feeling, he told my friend.
It's hard to recount a stranger's story second hand. I've tried not to embellish it. Most certainly, in communicating it to the Internet, I've misrepresented some part of it. Not only is my version hearsay, it isn’t even entirely clear. It would be better if I could ask him some questions. How did this sense of achievement compare to other joys in his life, such as being with his family and friends or even reading the books he received? Did joining the West offer him new opportunities for satisfaction? How did they compare with the one he had lost? To make sense of his loss, we need some relative understandings.
It might be possible to find the man and ask him for clarifications. Maybe I could track him down by contacting my friend. It’s possible that she’s forgotten the story, but I doubt it. One reason it made such an impact on me was her telling of it. If she knew the man’s name, perhaps we could find him. But then there’s the possibility that this was a story that he’s stopped telling and that in order to confirm it he would have to recreate it. The new telling might have a different meaning than the one that resonated with my friend and me.
I guess it’s really my story at this point, so I’ll explain it. I appreciate the message that the process of acquisition can be sweeter than the acquired object. I like the observation of loss in victory, about nostalgia even after life has improved. I think it’s good to be reminded that people living a constrained life find joy that we might not know. All this in a little tale of a man walking home in a gray city under a gray sky, holding a book wrapped in cheap brown paper, luminous.
He said he had lost the thing that gave him the greatest sense of achievement. Living under the DDR, his greatest satisfaction was receiving a book order. Ordering academic books from the West was difficult. Merely keeping up with his field required a lot of struggle through red tape. But when it succeeded, his joy was sublime. His most satisfied moments were walking home with a new book in his arms.
When the Wall fell, he could order any books he wanted. Cost was the only limitation. Receiving new books no longer gave him the same sense of pleasure. He missed that feeling, he told my friend.
It's hard to recount a stranger's story second hand. I've tried not to embellish it. Most certainly, in communicating it to the Internet, I've misrepresented some part of it. Not only is my version hearsay, it isn’t even entirely clear. It would be better if I could ask him some questions. How did this sense of achievement compare to other joys in his life, such as being with his family and friends or even reading the books he received? Did joining the West offer him new opportunities for satisfaction? How did they compare with the one he had lost? To make sense of his loss, we need some relative understandings.
It might be possible to find the man and ask him for clarifications. Maybe I could track him down by contacting my friend. It’s possible that she’s forgotten the story, but I doubt it. One reason it made such an impact on me was her telling of it. If she knew the man’s name, perhaps we could find him. But then there’s the possibility that this was a story that he’s stopped telling and that in order to confirm it he would have to recreate it. The new telling might have a different meaning than the one that resonated with my friend and me.
I guess it’s really my story at this point, so I’ll explain it. I appreciate the message that the process of acquisition can be sweeter than the acquired object. I like the observation of loss in victory, about nostalgia even after life has improved. I think it’s good to be reminded that people living a constrained life find joy that we might not know. All this in a little tale of a man walking home in a gray city under a gray sky, holding a book wrapped in cheap brown paper, luminous.
Monday, May 19, 2008
Ruffian
I won't repeat Ruffian's history here. You could look it up (or Google it, in the modern form).
I'll say this: that I was fourteen years old and that she was beautiful, bigger than the colts, and maybe faster. I was bigger than the boys and had some reason to think that I did some things better than they did. But this was 1975 in Middle America. The fact that she was a filly brought out things in people who discussed her. Could a filly beat a colt? More to the point, if she could, what did that say about my future?
They arranged a match-race between her and the Kentucky Derby winner Foolish Pleasure. I ached to watch her win. The match was set for a Sunday afternoon. Generally, TV was off on Sunday afternoons, but my parents knew this was important to me.
Church was at 6:00. Church was an obligatory twice-on-Sundays event. Both services were a lot alike, except that in the evening they didn't repeat the ten commandments and the prayer was shorter. The race should have been over in time for church, but the start was delayed. Missing church for a sporting event was a slippery slope and avoiding slippery slopes was our speciality. The time edged closer to when we should be leaving but the race had not started! My parents agreed to my way out. Dad went to church with my sister and Mom stayed home with me to watch the race. We could go to a 7:00 service at a neighboring congregation.
So, I watched TV at 6:00 Sunday evening. The race was very close; Foolish Pleasure was the fastest horse Ruffian had ever run against. I don't remember who was ahead when she pulled up, lame. She ran her leg into a fracture and Foolish Pleasure finished alone. I had imagined many possible outcomes - mostly how the outcome would go down among the neighborhood boys and girls - but Ruffian breaking a leg had not been among them. Anyhow, Niekerk Church was starting at 7:00. We flipped off TV and left. I remember that I didn't get much out of the service. Mom was also shaken. Ruffian fought all attempts to help her and during the night they put her down. Mom woke me up the next morning by saying, "Honey, they had to put your horse down."
The race might have given me bragging rights, as a girl. If she'd run well and lost, at least I'd take pride in that she was in the race. But for the girl to die in the attempt was just dumbfounding. I put the clippings in my scrapbook and mourned her along with Amelia Earhart.
I'll say this: that I was fourteen years old and that she was beautiful, bigger than the colts, and maybe faster. I was bigger than the boys and had some reason to think that I did some things better than they did. But this was 1975 in Middle America. The fact that she was a filly brought out things in people who discussed her. Could a filly beat a colt? More to the point, if she could, what did that say about my future?
They arranged a match-race between her and the Kentucky Derby winner Foolish Pleasure. I ached to watch her win. The match was set for a Sunday afternoon. Generally, TV was off on Sunday afternoons, but my parents knew this was important to me.
Church was at 6:00. Church was an obligatory twice-on-Sundays event. Both services were a lot alike, except that in the evening they didn't repeat the ten commandments and the prayer was shorter. The race should have been over in time for church, but the start was delayed. Missing church for a sporting event was a slippery slope and avoiding slippery slopes was our speciality. The time edged closer to when we should be leaving but the race had not started! My parents agreed to my way out. Dad went to church with my sister and Mom stayed home with me to watch the race. We could go to a 7:00 service at a neighboring congregation.
So, I watched TV at 6:00 Sunday evening. The race was very close; Foolish Pleasure was the fastest horse Ruffian had ever run against. I don't remember who was ahead when she pulled up, lame. She ran her leg into a fracture and Foolish Pleasure finished alone. I had imagined many possible outcomes - mostly how the outcome would go down among the neighborhood boys and girls - but Ruffian breaking a leg had not been among them. Anyhow, Niekerk Church was starting at 7:00. We flipped off TV and left. I remember that I didn't get much out of the service. Mom was also shaken. Ruffian fought all attempts to help her and during the night they put her down. Mom woke me up the next morning by saying, "Honey, they had to put your horse down."
The race might have given me bragging rights, as a girl. If she'd run well and lost, at least I'd take pride in that she was in the race. But for the girl to die in the attempt was just dumbfounding. I put the clippings in my scrapbook and mourned her along with Amelia Earhart.
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