Author’s Note: This little ditty comes from my first blog, which was called “Classical Sympathies.” When I started Sympathies, I didn’t really know what I was doing. I still don’t.
New Note: From the vault: a gathering of poetic B-sides written across different places and phases — high school experiments, graduate-school bursts, open-mic oddities, and fragments that have lingered in notebooks for reasons I still don’t fully understand.
None of these pieces are “major” poems in my own internal ranking. Some are absurd couplets that make me laugh for no clear reason. Others are character sketches that appeared all at once and refused revision. A few feel like relics of earlier influences: nonsense poetry, limericks (clean and otherwise), and the general discovery that poetry can be playful, strange, and even a little ridiculous without apology.
Still, I’ve always been interested in process as much as product. The artistic life isn’t only the finished work; it’s also the fragments, the experiments, the throwaways, and the pieces that stubbornly stay in memory despite their minor status. These B-sides belong to that category.
Note: This post collects some shorter “poems” I have written at different times. In my opinion, none of these are as good as “Half Hours on Earth,”although “For Ann” could be if I could finish it. In other words, all of these are pretty minor, although “Check-Out Girl” is not bad. A more prudent writer might hesitate to publish fragments like “My Uncle” or “The Pomegranate.” I, for one, am always interested in the artistic process, and part of my process includes coming up with little pieces of stuff I don’t know what to do with. For each “poem,” I have included a comment—the comments are just there to provide a little context. Basically, these are all “b-sides.”
“My Uncle”
I think about my uncle when my uncle comes to mind
Comment: This couplet is completely ridiculous, doesn’t rhyme, and doesn’t mean anything.I have no idea when I came up with it, however for some reason it sticks with me. So much so, in fact, that I closed my “set” at a poetry open mic in Tokyo a little while back with “My Uncle.” The audience there was surprisingly receptive. “Right on,” they said, “that’s when you do think about your uncle.” Thanks folks, means a lot.
“The Pomegranate”
The pomegranate is essential to the sophisticated palate Far more evolved than onion, watercress or shallot
Comment: Another couplet from god knows when, this one at least rhymes so let’s call it complete.
“The Proposal”
A potatoey fellow skin papery yellow proposed to you once in the rain. But though he bleated intently from the back of his Bentley you said ‘potato, you give me a pain.’
Comment: This is one of my sneaky favorites. It’s also totally absurd, and I don’t remember when I wrote it, however I think I had seen some guy getting blown off by a girl and so I came up with the potatoey fellow. Although not exactly finished, it also has nowhere to go, so let’s call this one done too.
“Mod-Con (for Joe)”
A friend remarked to me, as we reposed I and he “Which mod-con could be improved on?” And I, dull and droned as a sun-drugged fly, I didn’t know. “The washing machine I mean, dirty clothes revolving in dirty water come out clean?” Hmm.
Comment: Back in the day I had a friend called Joe. Joe was kind of a sleazy dude, but he was a good photographer and taught me a few things about that. He also came up with some left field ideas, such as when he critiqued the entire concept of the washing machine. Joe didn’t get the washing machine, and so I wrote a poem about that. Although finished I don’t think this one is really very good, so I’ll just leave it here, as a b-side.
“Overdue Haircut”
I’m gonna get my haircut soon maybe in the month of June man, it’ll be smooth
Way up in Bostontown to Atlanta they’ll get down with the news
I’ll have girls on every hand who’ll all think I’m the man I can’t lose
Yeah I’ll play that haircut game to popular acclaim among gentiles and Jews
Comment: One time I needed a haircut, so I wrote about that. This was a popular one with my readers back in the day, and I like it too.
“For Ann”
Ann belle princess of the isles the orbs whisper your name even if you’ve gotten piles or if you’re on the game
Buxom barmaid or bellicose barfly begs the inevitable question booze improves the poet’s eye. but ruins her digestion
Comment: My friend Ann from Hamilton College went to England after graduation and she and I exchanged a few letters, back when people still wrote letters. She wrote me that she was drinking some, so I wrote a poem about my image of her over there. The original poem had two or three more verses, but they were terrible. Then a little while back I reconnected with Ann, which was great, and re-worked the poem, which wasn’t. It might have been a little better, but it was still bad. These two stanzas, on the other hand, are awesome, and maybe that’s all there ever needs to be said about Ann in England, you know?
“Jerome”
In a glade near his home roamed a boy called Jerome when he met with the sight of the devil
who asked for his soul in a Tupperware bowl in a voice smug and typically level
though of manner quite mild the cunning wee child prepared a surprise for the devil
who felt sorely deceived when the soul he received belonged to the neighbor’s boy, Nevil
Comment: This little poem is one of the first things I wrote that I liked. I wrote it sometime during high school. At that time I was influenced by limericks (both dirty and clean) and nonsense poetry such as Edward Lear. One doesn’t write stuff like this without having read a bunch of nonsense poetry.
“Check-Out Girl”
jim went to the store on Tuesday to buy eggs and fell in love with the red-haired check out girl jim of the drab brown suit and bifocals of the pint size milk cartons on the floor of his car jim who at sixteen thought he might have a calling who would have made a good camp counselor kids for christ jesus youth, jim fell in love with the red-hired girl and her little turquoise earrings when he went for his groceries jim of the tedious but inevitable self-gratification jim who is definitely not (not) gay who recently gave up hair tonic but still has a fine head of hair for a man his age (thirty four in september) thank you very much who always wanted to see Topeka, Kansas just because of the name Topeka jim of no artistic pretensions who nevertheless sits down to compose a poem to the check-out girl with the red hair, the turquoise earrings and the toothy smile who’s nineteen if she’s a day he’s in love no question about it
Comment: I wrote this one in Flagstaff, Arizona when I was going to graduate school.I was playing basketball one day and this poem started to come into my head all at once. So I went home and wrote it down. I don’t know where any of this came from, but it’s not bad. Maybe it’s actually OK, I don’t know.
Note: I’ve always found airports to be oddly compelling spaces — calmer than airplanes, yet charged with their own atmospheres, rhythms, and small absurdities. Despite their surface similarity, airports differ in subtle but meaningful ways: some feel tranquil and almost utopian (Singapore), others disorienting in their 24-hour casino glow (Dubai), some quietly efficient (Tampa), and others defined by faded infrastructure, endless construction, or simple forgettability. This piece, On Some Airports, is a deliberately unsystematic and anecdotal wander through a handful of terminals I’ve passed through over the years — less a ranking than a record of mood, memory, and the curious emotional geography of transit spaces that we occupy only briefly yet somehow remember for years.
I spend too much time in airplanes
Eating peanuts and getting high.
Dean Wareham
Generally speaking, airports are more pleasant than airplanes. I don’t mind airports. And despite my once upon a time claim that all airports are essentially the same space, well, that’s more of a metaphysical than a practical contention. Practically speaking the experience of airports does differ. What follows is a totally unsystematic, entirely anecdotal, non-ranking of some airports I’ve been to.
U.S. Airports:
LaGuardia (LGA) in New York is actually a pleasant surprise. Clean, minimal but sufficient food options, phone chargers in the seats, proximal to Manhattan. The folks at the coffee stand messed up like 15 orders in a row, but that’s OK. I forgive them.
Verdict: LGA is fine.
Newark Airport (EWR), on the other hand, is terrible. If I had the choice of sleeping in an outhouse or spending a day at EWR, I’d take EWR. But not by much. It’s a pit.
Verdict: EWR is terrible.
Seattle Airport (SEA) is poorly run. There’s been news about it. Compared to Portland (PDX), and admittedly smaller airport that is solid, or even San Francisco (SFO), an operation of greater complexity, SEA struggles. Maybe they’ve turned things around, but I doubt it.
Verdict: SEA sucks. PDX is solid. SFO is decent but could be cleaner.
The best experience I’ve had at a U.S. airport is Tampa (TPA). Now this is not a major hub, however I found it super convenient. I stayed in a hotel right in the terminal, security was a breeze, everything was efficient and sound. When folks say that U.S. airports suck, relatively speaking they are correct. Omit TPA from the list though. I like it.
Verdict: TPA is excellent.
O’Hare International Airport (ORD) in Chicago exemplifies the fall of the U.S. Basically. It’s not BAD, it’s just faded. Faded glory. U.S. public infrastructure is weak and everyone knows it. ORD is a case in point, but it’s survivable.
Verdict: ORD is OK.
The Los Angeles Airport (LAX) was under construction for like two decades. It’s probably still under construction. LAX is far from everything. It is not a destination airport, although it is major.
Verdict: LAX is f***ing far.
Airports Outside the U.S.:
Let’s get out of Milwaukee and we’ll talk about it.
Michael Clayton
The Singapore Airport (SIN) is everything it is cracked up to be. Singaporeans have a great deal of pride in their airport, but it’s totally justified. I find SIN tranquil in the extreme. They’ve got butterflies. The’ve got Indian food. They’ve got a great attached hotel. They’ve got nap rooms, showers, a gym. Security is omnipresent and unfelt. Sure you can call Singapore a soft-authoritarian state if you like. I could care.
Verdict: SIN is the best.
The Bangkok Airport (DMK), on the other hand, is not pleasant. Sinage is bad. Information is thin. Food options are minimal. It’s simultaneously packed and cavernous. I have not enjoyed my time here.
Verdict: DMK is bad.
The Dubai Airport (DXB) is strange. It’s a serious hub and runs 24/7 (as does DMK). Unlike DMK however, DXB has ample food and drink options and is pretty comfortable. The customs staff moves at their own pace, to say the least. The dichotomy between an (apparently) efficient and gleaming modern airport and a snail’s pace customs experience is interesting. DXB is lit and feels kind of like a casino in the sense that 3:30 AM feels like mid-afternoon. I have found DXB to be disconcerting in this respect, but otherwise perfectly pleasant.
Verdict: DXB is big and better than most.
Osaka’s Kansai International Airport (KIX) is decent before security and weak after. My buddy Doug loathes the neon lighting of the airport–this bothers me less. My issue is the food options after security leave a lot to be desired. Since this is my home airport, I am not in a position to give an objective reading. Security lines can get super long during peak hours, but usually it’s fine.
Verdict: KIX is so-so.
Osaka’s Itami Airport (ITM) has recently had a facelift. It’s marginally improved. Just because you have a Wolfgang Puck’s pizza place doesn’t mean you’ve got it made, baby. Wolfgang Puck is f***ing overrated. Also, you almost have to take a bus to get anywhere from ITM. Buses sucks.
Verdict: ITM is fair at best.
I’ve been to the airport in Kuala Lumpur (KUL) several times but I forget everything about it.
Verdict: KUL is unmemorable.
The Shanghai Pudong Airport (PVG) has super high ceilings. Obviously a lot of money has gone into it. There is a super long train ride from customs to the gates. And, you are most likely to get delayed or re-routed because of weather or something. The airport itself is fine.
Verdict: Prepare to be delayed from PVG.
The Adelaide Airport (ADL) is in Adelaide, Australia. I went there once. The restaurants in my hotel were closed because it was a Sunday. There was nowhere to eat in the whole city and only stoner kids were on the street. The next morning the streets were packed. Adelaide is super strange. I have no idea what the airport was like.
Verdict: Pack a lunch.
That’s all the airports I have off the top of my head. Obviously there are more. If you agree or disagree or want to pitch an airport for my consideration, please leave a comment!
Note: If you found this piece interesting, you may also enjoy “On Some Things I Find Interesting.” Available below.
New Note: This is a small, wandering piece built on a simple premise: sometimes the things that stay with us are not the major events, but the minor curiosities that resist tidy explanation. A fragment of stage patter at a concert, a puzzling culinary difference between similar cuisines, the myth and reality of hostel life, the vastly different speeds at which people work, the improvisational courage required to make friends quickly, and the strange cultural persistence of the San Diego Chicken — none of these form a grand thesis, yet each carries its own quiet fascination. On Some Things I Find Interesting is less an argument than a map of attention, a record of the small anomalies and unresolved moments that continue to hover in memory precisely because they never fully resolve themselves.
Note: This is our second “list” piece, following our minor piece on airports. I happen to like “minor” pieces in general, and this piece is dedicated to a reader who said her our airport piece was her “sneaky favorite.” Here, we will simply list a few things I find interesting. There is no particular connection between these items, other than that I am interested in them.
I. Bradford Cox’s Stage Patter at a Deerhunter Concert in Osaka
A few years ago I went to see the band Deerhunter play live in Osaka. The original show I had tickets to was canceled and I didn’t get a notification, so I trekked all the way into Osaka only to find this out. This worked out ok though because I took a picture of some girls in fairy costumes on the trip. Anyway, the show was rescheduled for a few months later and the tickets were still valid.
The frontman for Deerhunter is called Bradford Cox. His side project is called Atlas Sound. Deerhunter is not one of my very favorite bands, but they are pretty awesome. I had seen Deerhunter before at a weekend long event called “Hostess Club Weekender” in Tokyo, which sounds a little edgy but was really just a series of Saturday and Sunday events featuring a bunch of bands. (I also saw the band Mogwai at Hostess Club, a band I thought I liked, but the show was boring and they were kind of bad.) My favorite Deerhunter song is “T.H.M.” from 2013’s Monomania, however my favorite Cox song by far is “The Shakes” from his side project called Atlas Sound. The Shakes opens thusly:
Found money and fame/ but I found them really late
Uh huh. “The Shakes” is more than a sneaky favorite; it contains multitudes. In any case, the re-scheduled Deerhunter show was in January or something and I was excited to see them. They were the headliner, however unfortunately they had an inordinate number of opening bands and by the time Deerhunter took the stage they had like only 45 minutes until the venue had to close. Brief as the show may have been, Cox managed to build in quite a bit of between songs patter. I am a big fan of between songs patter, and wrote about this topic at length here and here.
The one piece of patter I remember from this show was when Cox addressed the issue of Japanese toilets. Now, without getting too graphic, most Japanese toilets these days have a built-in “washlet” which, true to its description, washes your sensitive areas with water after your business is done. Here is Cox on the subject (as I recall, more or less):
“I love your toilets here. In our hotel the toilet has a stream of water which cleans you up after you use it. As a gay man I have to say this is a great feature.”
Now, what was so interesting to me about this patter was not the content per se, which was fairly straightforward and only just a little risqué. What fascinated me was that Cox in various interviews in the American press had referred to himself as asexual. Cox suffers from a serious skin condition, as well as maybe some kind of eating disorder, is super thin and generally has a lot going on. He has been pretty open about all of this, including his supposed asexuality. However here he was in Japan, where maybe only a quarter or so of the audience understood enough English to fully understand what he was saying, identifying as a gay man.
Of course I was and am aware that people’s self-identification, sexual or otherwise, can fluctuate, however I don’t think this is what was going on. Rather, it is my supposition, unproven albeit, that Cox preferred to index his supposed asexuality in the American media for reasons of his own, however in Japan allowed himself to speak his truth as a gay man. Perhaps, as I like to imagine, he thought that no one in the crowd would notice this little slight of hand. In the immortal words of the Lone Gunmen in the X-Files, however, “someone is always paying attention, Mr. Mulder.” In this instance, I was paying attention. And I was interested.
II: The Difference Between North Indian Food and Nepalese Food
In Japan, at least, there are a good number of both North Indian and Nepalese restaurants. The North Indian restaurants, for my money, are, without exception, way better. This is because of one simple reason, Nepalese food, as prepared in Japan, is full of sugar.
There is nothing I want less at lunch than a bunch of fucking sugar. I understand of course that carbohydrates in general are full of sugar and all the rest, so I guess my position is that food already has more than enough sugar without adding more. However, Nepalese restaurants put excess sugar in the curry, and super extra sugar in the nan bread. Sugar is everywhere, and it leaves me feeling bloated and bad. North Indian restaurants do not seem to have this problem. These also feature nans and curries, however they are un-sugared and basically delicious.
Now, I do not wish to demean all Nepalese restaurants, nor indeed Nepali food culture in general as I have never been there. For all I know, Nepali restaurants in Japan just happen to add a bunch of sugar for some reason. But I doubt it. I suppose that somewhere on the North Indian plain there as you move north toward Nepal sugar factors more and more into the cuisine. To each their own, but I don’t like it. This whole matter is of interest to me.
Postscript: As I am now totally gluten-free, I won’t be eating any more nan bread, sugared or un-sugared. Bye bye nan baby.
III: Hostels
Hostels are interesting. I have only really stayed at a hostel once, on the South Island of New Zealand when I was checking out the New Zealand Alps. I don’t remember much about this trip, however the basic features of hostel stays were all in place: the shared room and concomitant lack of a private bathroom and shower, the slight anxiety about getting one’s stuff stolen, and the opposite sense of excitement that one might meet, say, a chick.
A few years ago my buddy Paul (he is actually Tall Paul, but there was already another Tall Paul in Kyoto who kind of owns the nickname) came to town and asked me to catch up. I said yes, and met him at his hostel near downtown. When I got there, he introduced me to two gorgeous and sophisticated Indian-American woman from California. They were his “hostel friends.” (Tall) Paul is a very good looking guy, and this incident confirmed for me what I already suspected, that hostel life could be exciting, even action packed. Me and Paul and the ladies went out on the town and had a great time. My takeaway was that hostels rock.
On the other hand, my buddy Doug checked out of his life and into some Russian hostel action for about six months or so a while back. His plan, as I first heard it, sounded quite romantic, however when he returned from this sojourn he informed me that hostel life was not all it was cracked up to be. Hostel life in Russia, it turns out, was pretty dreary. I had no difficulty believing this, and arrived at a more balanced picture of hostels as a result.
All in all, hostels are interesting, however I don’t think hostel life is for me.
IV: People’s Working Speeds
I have noticed that folks tend to work at very different speeds. I am a teacher, and these days the job of a teacher is basically split between i) teaching in the classroom; ii) working on the computer; iii) taking breaks. Teachers, generally speaking, have a lot of flexibility with break taking, which is nice. And classroom teaching is bounded by the bell, so that’s settled. Which leaves computer work.
Some teachers rip through their computer work in a matter of minutes and are able to move on to other pursuits, such as Wordle. The top-end version of this type of teacher are marvels of efficiency and manage to go home on time every day. Other teachers are super slow, and pick at stuff for days, weeks even. While I respect the fact that everyone has their own process, this is not my style at all. Then there are the teachers in the middle, including myself. These folks are neither hyper-efficient nor super-slow. Rather, they tend to procrastinate around for a bit before settling in to serious work, after which they crunch and get things done.
As an ambivert myself, I like to gather just enough information, Goldilocks style, to be dangerous before I do my computer work. I neither need nor want all the information, however I function best when I have a general “feel” for the landscape. This is just how I work—like I said, everyone’s different.
V: Making Friends Quickly
When I was in university I was trying to hang around some artsy chicks, and was lucky enough to know a few. One day I was hanging out with them and a few girls I didn’t know came over. One of them was called Nadine. These new girls were super cool, and Nadine in particular was so cool as to be a little intimidating. She was from Eastern Europe. I definitely wanted to hang out with Nadine, and sure enough she invited me, right away, to accompany them all somewhere. I hesitated, for some reason. Maybe I didn’t know the first rule of improvisational theater, which is “yes and…” Yes and means, basically, follow the person that goes before you. I would have followed Nadine pretty much anywhere, however I said “I don’t really know you guys,” I said. “Well,” she replied, “this is how you get to know us.”
(The Nadine incident confirms one aspect of my social relations. I’m a Gemini sun with Mars in Leo in my 10th house. I am, basically speaking, not afraid of people. At the same time, I must admit that there is a certain class of beautiful women whom were I to meet them it might take me a second or two to find my tounge. This would include Brit Marling, actress and creator of The OA, Emily Haines, lead singer of Metric, and Kristin Stewart, actress in Personal Shopper. Nadine was not quite in this stratosphere, however she was pretty close.)
Nadine was right of course; I just wasn’t used to making friends quite so quickly. I came to my senses and went with Nadine and the crew. That was a good move.
I find Nadine’s approach to new people fantastic. It can be a little risky to apply it all the time, but in general it’s a good starting point. Love ya Nadine baby.
VI: The San Diego Chicken
Americans of a certain age may remember the San Diego Chicken. The San Diego Chicken was everywhere. As I recall, the San Diego Chicken was originally a mascot for the San Diego Padres baseball team that would run and jump around on the dugout and stuff. What the connection between the Padres (named after the Catholic priests that ran missions into California back in the day) and the chicken was, I have no idea. Nonetheless, the chicken, over time, somehow transcended the role of mere baseball mascot and became an all- purpose mascot for all types of situations. The chicken, in fact, became the uber-mascot, the mascot of mascots if you will.
I have an exact image in my head of the chicken; essentially the chicken was just a dude with a bunch of yellow feathers and a chicken-esque head. The resemblance to a real chicken was decent, however as mentioned the San Diego Chicken was super yellow. Also, the San Diego Chicken was ugly. Like seriously. Nonetheless, the chicken was huge, and became a meme before anyone even knew what a meme was. Therefore, the chicken must have had something going on. The chicken had his own baseball cards; the chicken was everywhere. At the time I didn’t get the chicken at all, and basically still don’t. But as with a lot of topics, there may be something I’m missing. That’s why I find the chicken interesting to this day.
Dedication: For AC, who likes lists, even though this barely is one.
Note: If you enjoyed this piece, you may also enjoy “On Some Airport.” Available below.
The night of December 31, 2012: Long dream about climbing Mt. Everest. This third Everest dream was very different from the first two. First, I was at a school and then climbed up a small opening, kind of a snowy slit barely big enough to fit through. There were some basketball games going on and I planned to be back in 20 minutes or so. Therefore, the school was probably my high school. At first, the slit was just itself, but then Everest loomed up over me to my left. I entered the frame, from the left. Everest was enormous, black, and composed of huge blocks of ice-like mini-mountains such that it was difficult to discern where the actual peak was, or the possible way up.
I was all alone and it seemed to be dawn, then two figures sleeping on the ice in orange suits started to stir. They arose and then there were 20-30 more, mostly kids led my two overweight men. We all spilled down to a kind of small clearing that may also have been a breakfast space. The men explained that they could take the group only to 11’000 feet, no higher. There was some disappointment, not much. Everyone looked very well outfitted, except the speaker who was plump and wearing a kind of jersey.
This group went away and there were other climbers, one or two of whom I spoke to. It all started to take a rather long time and I knew I would be late getting back. I started to head back up to the ridge that would lead back to the slit, but realized that I had forgotten a shoe in the clearing. Eventually I got back to the ridge with the shoe, looked up, and saw what was probably Everest’s peak. It was rounded and covered in black ice. It looked very far away, although at one point in the dream, perhaps before, I had analyzed what looked like a viable path toward the top. Back at the snowy slit, I ran back down it at full speed, cheerfully.
First Interpretations: The Everest dream is the third in a series. The first Everest dream I climbed Everest overnight. It took about 12 hours. Everest was covered in asphalt and climbing it was a breeze. The second one I was with my son. We did not get to the top, and the mountain was somewhat more realistic, craggly with ravines. There were shops alongside the ravine we were climbing made of wood and we ate there and also climbed around through the shops that were all connected and made up a kind of maze.
There was no pressure to get to the top, lots of climbers on the mountain. In this most recent one, Everest was at its most interesting and symbolic. It was massive and loomed above me with presence. It was to be revered, feared, awed. The access is interesting as well–the slit almost like a birth canal, covered back over itself and very narrow. Then, it opened unto another world entirely.
Impressions: The birth canal to a spiritual world. Most people, even well equipped, cannot go above 11’000 feet (you can do this in a day hike). Also, 11 could signal the 11th house, with the 12 house of mystery being difficult to access. I could make out the top, but didn’t have the time and wasn’t equipped just now. Still, it was an honor to have been there, and I came back exhilarated.
Note: If you enjoyed this piece, you may also enjoy “Border Dream.” Available below.
Note: Few phrases carry as much quiet social power as “I got a guy for that.” At first glance, it sounds casual, almost throwaway — a shorthand for convenience. Yet beneath the surface, the phrase reveals an entire architecture of trust, reputation, and informal networks that operate parallel to official systems. To have “a guy” is to possess access: access to knowledge, skill, discretion, or opportunity that cannot be easily found through public channels.
The phrase also reflects a deeper human instinct toward relational problem-solving. Rather than relying solely on institutions, we rely on people — plumbers, lawyers, bartenders, mechanics, editors, fixers — individuals whose reliability has been tested through experience and passed along through recommendation. In this sense, “I got a guy” is less about exclusivity than about social capital built over time, a small badge of belonging within overlapping communities.
At its most benign, the phrase signals efficiency and mutual support; at its most ambiguous, it hints at shadow networks, informal economies, and the gray zones where trust replaces regulation. Either way, it captures something fundamental about modern life: solutions are rarely abstract, and almost always relational. The phrase persists because it compresses an entire worldview into five words — a worldview in which problems are solved not by systems alone, but by people who know people.
If you enjoy this piece you might enjoy “The Hired Hand, Part I: Azerbaijan, 1990,” one chapter from my upcoming book The Adventures of the Thin Man and Andrea.
The broker said that he should sell the wine/ they got this guy that can arrange a buy.
Craig Finn
There are different types of marketplaces in the world. First there are legitimate, above-board markets, the shops and such you go to everyday. Then there are black markets, the so-called underground economy. Poised somewhere in between the legitimate and the underground, however, lies another type of market. This is a liminal sort of market, a market for which we need an experienced navigator. This is the realm of “the guy for that.”
We know we are in the realm of this kind of guy whenever we hear someone say “I got a guy for that.” Need a passport in three days? There’s a guy for that. Want to build a greenhouse but don’t want to drop thousands at the home center? There’s a guy for that too. Need to dump some garbage from a construction job but the landfill rates are exorbitant? Go get a guy. Need a prescription but your country doesn’t allow generic pills to cross the border? Another guy. Need to offload your wine cellar to pay the alimony? Craig Finn can find you a guy.
Now the great thing about the guy for that is, although in some cases all the above may be different guys, there are some guys that do it all. This is the type of guy who can get you cut-rate auto parts one day, scalped tickets to the Garden the next, and a little something something for your loft party on the third. Life is divided into specialists and generalists, and here we have the generalist version of the guy for that. Mike Ehrmantraut from the Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul TV series is a classic example of a generalist guy for that.
How does one become a generalist guy for that I wonder? What winding set of life ways leads someone to be able to source whatever you need at short notice? What even are the essential skills of such a guy? I don’t know, but I think the generalist form of the guy for that pops up fairly regularly in the army. Soldiers, whether confined to base or in the field, generally have tightly restricted access to the many pleasures that life can afford. An abundance of rules, meals ready to eat, and a dreary PX may be all they have to work with. That’s where the guy for that comes in. This is the guy who knows when a few ladies are coming through town, down to party. This guy has a line of a van full of meats, has those sweet French cigarettes from across the border. This guy is on top of it. Army fiction is full of these kinds of guys, scamps and scoundrels who are yet always portrayed quite sympathetically by the author. The reason for this is easy to see—if the author has actually been in the army (as a great many nineteenth and mid-twentieth century writers were) he (usually he here) would know and appreciate the many benefits of having a guy for that around, no matter what other undesirable qualities the guy might possess. After all, anyone who hooks you up with quality meats is easily forgiven.
And then there is the specialist guy for that. The specialist guy for that usually possesses a certain rare and highly developed technical skill of some kind. While the generalist guy for that is basically a fixer, good at procuring items and turning them over at a mark up, the specialist guy for that is a technician, an artist even. Here we have the counterfeiter and the stamp forger. The guy who can jailbreak your phone, the safecracker. Here too we have the saboteur, and, of course, the bomb maker. As is easily apparent from this run down, the specialist guy for that tends more toward outright criminality than does the generalist.
There is a great scene in the film The Battle of Algiers where the Algerian rebels who are involved in an insurrection against the French are planning some bombings in the city. They go to a bomb maker, a guy in the back of a dingy shop, naturally, who leisurely and precisely wires the bomb. The scene is entirely wordless, and features close-ups of the bomb maker’s hands as he arms the bomb. The director Steven Soderberg has said that he could watch a whole film about this guy, and I know what he means. He means, I think, that there is a whole world behind the bomb maker guy that could be explored. Who is he? Where does he come from? How did he come to be the go-to-guy for bomb wiring in Algiers in 1961? What does he do in his spare time? We get answers to none of these questions, just a sparely presented introduction to his art. But that’s enough to know for certain that he’s the guy for that.
We will close with a couple of questions. First, what about the gal for that? My theory is that while the gal for that surely exists somewhere, it’s more likely that—proximal to the guy for that—she plays a slightly different role. Shady guys hang with shady gals, no doubt, but the gals tend to occupy another, perhaps larger and certainly less easily definable, place in the proceedings. This is a subject for a future post.
Second, what happens to the guy for that in a future where more of our movements, financial transactions, and even thoughts are tracked and monitored? Will the guy for that slowly go extinct? I don’t think so—at least I hope not. I suspect there will always be a place for the guy for that: the hustler who can see the angles, play the edges, middle the situation before anyone else even knows there is a situation.
All in all, regardless of the relative morality of guy for that activities, I salute him. Also, I gotta go build a greenhouse. I got a guy for that.
Note: From time to time, we shall intersperse our other work, with dream journaling. There is no excuse for this exercise other than a simple attempt to register some of the content that comes from beyond and beneath in the course of one person’s ongoing encounter with the subconscious. Are dreams mere kaleidoscope regurgitations of the mundane facets of everyday life, or do they partake of something deeper, something broader, something transpersonal? We shall leave this judgment to the reader.
Dream: Series of loosely connected dream incidents, but in the dream itself they flowed seamlessly into one another. First, although of course something was happening before this as well, I am watching my son play in the PGA. He is on the 16th hole, and the only kid in the field. Later I learn that it is unusual for kids to play in the PGA championship, but at the time this does not seem odd. You do not have to qualify, only sign up. He is playing well for his age, but nowhere near winning. Suddenly, he slows up and shows signs of being tired. He walks off the course and his group moves on. The leader is in his group. I take him off the course and he says he wants to quit. I tell his that’s OK, but he only has two more holes. He jumps up and runs back to finish, but his group is already done (very fast) and the player from his group who was leading has won. He is accepting the trophy, and plays the two holes quickly. The course is mostly clear.
Jump cut to a field in what seems to be Venezuela, but is never absolutely demonstrated to be so. I am a soldier, probably an American, with a pack on my back. I am in a platoon and we are moving. The grass is pretty high and we are in a small valley, perhaps. There is a sense of tension, but not of great danger. We sit down and open our packs to eat. There is barely enough food to subsist, and I have a few dollars US and a few pieces of Venezuelan currency. Later, it will emerge that I have about 17 US and maybe 80 or so of the local currency. This does not seem sufficient, especially because I get the sense that this money will need to last for a while. Other soldiers have the same meager food rations, but appear to have more money.
Jump to a bar/ food area that same night. Still in the same country. I want to eat, and drink, so I circle the choices, but everything looks expensive. There are many people, some soldiers, some businessmen with women, maybe locals, and some random expat drunk types. The scene is not very dignified, but people appear to be having a good time. It is pretty loud. As far as food and drink go, there does not appear to be any other choice in the city. So, I order a red wine from a very nice woman at a bar. She says I can pay her a few dollars. I pull out my American money and the local currency, and she nods at the American.
I lay down three, and she shakes her head. I add another five, which I feel should be sufficient. She shakes her head again and quotes me her retail price, which seems absurdly high. I pay her another five American which is nearly all I have. She is still not happy, but is placated, and I leave quickly. A few people are watching. I look at food stalls, especially one offering pastrami sandwiches. The price is quoted in the local currency, and I just afford one sandwich. Although I am very hungry, I do not purchase one. In fact, the whole night passes without my having anything to eat.
Sometime later, after more wandering and an interlude in another bar which is well lit (or is that later?) I find Kelly Rudd, one of my oldest friends. He is fully himself. We decide to go to an outdoor bar where there is a tent shelter structure, pretty large, which we sit in. I look at the menu and can afford just one drink. I tell Kelly this, and he halfway indicates that he will take care of the bill. I am unsure about this. I want to tell him about my life–maybe we haven’t seen each other for a while, but on the other hand maybe he is a soldier in my platoon.
I begin to tell him about a shotgun I have smuggled into the country. Although I am military, he reacts like this is a highly dangerous act. Thinking more about it, I probably didn’t smuggle a gun, because my luggage is not large enough. Aware that I am probably fibbing, I continue with the story. A waitress asks us through the tent wall what we want to order. Kelly orders red wine, after a lot of trouble getting her to hear us. I look around the edge of the tent, but somehow it is clear that we need to communicate through the tent wall. Looking around the corner I get the sense that she has been listening to our conversation for some time. Maybe not so long, but long enough to have heard about the gun. I am concerned that she will go to the police.
I tell Kelly about some of the things that are on my mind, and he seems only partially interested. He gives me little in return. We are drinking, and I am almost finished with my drink when I realize that it is a Corona, not red wine. I am mildly put out by this, but more puzzled by why I didn’t notice. All of the sudden we are no longer in a tent but on a blanket or ground sheet in roughly the same position. However, there is a large auditorium (whose shape I know from previous dreams, I think) behind us. I see the head of my high school, walking downhill toward us. I think that he is going to censure me about some various work issues, but instead he walks a short distance away behind some bushes and urinates. He is quite drunk.
Several more people from work stumble by, some of them urinate. Then, the blind teacher, who retired last year, comes down the hill with his cane. He is looking for a place to urinate. My mother’s aunt, indicates a spot just a few paces past our blanket. I tell them that it is too close, but it is too late. Somehow I am given to understand that I am supposed to be in the auditorium for some kind of speech or ceremony. I decide to avoid this if at all possible and stall by getting up and milling around.
Jump to the inside of a large gymnasium. This may or may not be the same building, possibly not. Instead of the ceremony, I am at basketball practice. There are a couple of coaches, and the head coach is in a white T-shirt. I am kind of involved with the play, kind of talking to the coaches. John Innes may or may not be a coach. Practice seems to go on for a long time. Not much happens. Then, on the far side of the floor I am talking to the coach and see a play developing. A strong point guard is driving the right side baseline and beats his defender for a lay up. Most of the players are female, and this point guard may have been a female at the start of the drive as well. The defense gives up, but I can tell he/ she will miss the layup. I circle in from the left and, taking the rebound, I dunk it without coming down. The dunk transpires in slow motion. I expect everyone in the gym to be amazed, but only a few people notice.
Practice is moving on, but I try to call it to a stop by explaining how the weakside defenders should have been blocking out and how when defenders don’t a player can get offensive rebounds. A few people start to listen, probably because I seem like a coach/ adult figure. Then, more people are listening, then they are sitting down, they they are all in the bleachers as I talk. I go through the matter in detail. My father becomes the coach. I can’t see his reaction to my speech, but at some point I realize that it is time to cut it off. Practice is over, and the players spill out of the gym. My father comes over and takes me by the arm. He tells me that some of the more intelligent players may have been able to follow what I said, but that most players are not intelligent enough to follow more than one idea at a time.
I don’t really know what he is talking about, because, although I spoke for a while, the ideas were pretty simple and obvious. I try to push back a little, but he becomes increasingly strident. Finally, we are outside and I see my mother. I tell my father that he is obviously uncomfortable with complex ideas, and shake free of his arm. My mother makes an inquisitive face, but I just shake my head. Out of the dream, a little timer beeps, and I wake up. It is just after 6 AM.
That’s the end of the dream proper, but either after this of before it, or running throughout, there is anxiety on my part about how I will get out of this country (all the basketball activity took place in the same country). I visualize the border crossing, which I seem to have been to before in a previous dream. There are logs across the border and soldiers. It is not terrifying, perhaps because I have been there before and crossed, but it does create anxiety. Again, it is not clear when this anxiety comes to me, if it is a postscript to the dream or sort of a running commentary.
First interpretations: This dream is about communication, specifically my poor communication skills. At different turns I am frustrated by my inability to communicate clearly and with my audience’s lack of interest and/ or capacity to understand. Whether negotiating the price of a drink (small matter) or talking about my life to an old friend or giving a speech to a large group, what I expect in terms of a reaction and what I actually get are at odds. It is not clear who is at fault in any of these incidents, and in fact in the dream I feel an alternating sense of frustration with others and frustration with self.
Especially with the bar woman, I am aware that I “do not speak the language” and should be more intuitive about what she means, but also in the basketball speech, even as I am speaking I know that I am going on too long, and insisting on the importance of what I am saying too much. This dream seems important in that it encompasses most of my life stations, parents, my own family, work, and friends. Interestingly, my communication with my son seems to be the most effective, and the golf is the only incident that does not seem to take place in Venezuela.
Impressions: At least two things in the dream reference other dreams–the auditorium and the border. Thinking about it while awake, I have memories of both of these dreams. Of course, not having kept a dream journal at the time, I am not absolutely clear whether these dreams really took place in previous months or if there were in fact part of last night’s dreams. I had a lot more dreams last night as I woke up from dreams several times, and this dream sequence here recorded was, I think, only the last tail end bit.
The drunk coworkers, one of them literally blind! are instructive. First reaction is perhaps overly positive–although I am poor at communicating, they are worse and require me to take control of communication. Finally, the long night trope is a staple of my dreams, especially those I remember well. This dream fits very well into the long night theme, although the basketball practice was in the late afternoon, and may have therefore been a flashback. Especially the drunken revelers, the various types of ladies of the night in the background, and the stumbling from place to place are characteristic of my “long night” dreams.
Note: If you enjoyed this piece, you may also enjoy “Everest Dream.” Available below.
Volume I of Jung’s Collected Works is titled Psychiatric Studies, and begins with his dissertation, “On the Psychology and Pathology of the So-Called Occult Phenomena.” The editor’s preface to Volume I characterizes the dissertation as reflecting “simple descriptive research,” while acknowledging that many of Jung’s later concerns are foreshadowed herein (vi). In our posts on Volume I we shall attempt to draw out some of these foreshadowings, while also taking seriously this most “scientific” of the phases of Jung’s career and work.
It is of course highly significant that occult phenomena signify in Jung’s first major published work, as Jung’s reputation, for better or worse, is to this day closely linked with the occult, mysticism, astrology, post-material synchronicity, and the unconscious archetype. That Jung refers to “the so-called occult phenomena” here is suggestive, on its face, of at least some measure of empirical leaning in the young Jung.
As we shall see in later posts, Jung waged a decades-long internal battle to preserve his belief in himself as a man of science, rather than an artist, and the question of whether he was primarily a scientist or an artist would play a significant role in his mid-life crisis which set in during the decade of the 1910s. It is interesting to note here that Freud also held fast to the label of “scientist,” even as critics such as Roger Brown have suggested that he surrendered all claims to the title as early as 1896 (Storr, 24).
It is well known that Jung’s early years were suffused with religion and spiritualism, with several members on both sides of his extended family being parsons (MDR 42). From his earliest writings, however much he clung to the idea of himself as an empiricist (understood in its more typically narrow sense), Jung’s interest in the faint intimations of the “other world,” in the liminal zone between normal experience and those experiences or states which stray over the borderline of normal consciousness and everyday apprehension and into the dark underbelly of the unconscious, betrays the awestruck and bemused metaphysical wanderer who at seven would sit on a stone and wonder, “Am I the one who is sitting on the stone, or am I the stone on which he is sitting?” (MDR, 20).
“Liminality” is defined nicely by Wikipedia as “a psychological, neurological, or metaphysical subjective state, conscious or unconscious, of being on the ‘threshold’ of or between two different existential planes” (Wikipedia, “Liminality,”) and from the first paragraph of “On the Psychology and Pathology of the So-Called Occult Phenomena,” we can see Jung’s interest in liminality at play:
In that wide domain of psychopathic inferiority from which science has marked off the clinical pictures of epilepsy, hysteria, and neurasthenia, we find scattered observations on certain rare states of consciousness as to whose meaning the authors are not yet agreed. These observations crop us sporadically in the literature on narcolepsy, lethargy, automatisme ambulatoire, periodic amnesia, double consciousness, somnambulism, pathological dreaminess, pathological lying, etc. (Collected Works Vol. I, 3).
The author makes no claims to being a psychologist or to having any detailed empirical knowledge of the difference between automatisme and somnambulism, but briefly, for the sake of clarity, epilepsy refers to an overly active electrical circuit in the brain which causes seizures; neurasthenia is an outdated term that referred to deep exhaustion; what Jung and Freud referred to as hysteria we would more probably call neurosis; narcolepsy is a threshold state between sleep and waking which may include hallucinations; automatisme ambulatoire and somnambulism, as far as I can make out, both refer to sleepwalking or other actions taken while one is technically asleep.
Pathological dreaminess appears to be a coinage of Jung’s own, and pathological lying is best understood to be a state where one lies repeatedly with no motive force, no hope for, or anticipation of, gain.
What all these mental states have in common is a significant lack of control which those so afflicted have over their symptoms. Indeed, in all of the above cases it can fruitfully be asked, “who or what is in control of our psychological processes?” This is precisely the question that certain childhood experiences forced Jung to ask himself.
As recounted in Memories, Dreams, Reflections, at a very early age Jung had experienced the force of unbidden subterranean psychic contents which pushed their way to the surface of his consciousness. At the age of three, Jung dreamed of an “ithyphallically enthroned” ritual phallus entombed underground behind a thick green curtain. The ritual phallus “was made of skin and naked flesh, and on top there was something like a rounded head with no face and no hair. On the very top of the head was a single eye, gazing motionlessly upward” (MDR, 11–12).
The young Jung equated this ritual phallus with “a subterranean God ‘not to be named'” as well as with the Jesuits, whom at that point he believed feasted on human flesh (MDR, 12). Looking back from late middle age, Jung writes that the symbolically freighted symbolism of such a dream is far beyond what any child’s psyche would be able to produce without some kind of blueprint. His conclusion was that someone or something was already speaking with or through his mind:
It {became} clear to me how exceedingly unchildlike, how sophisticated, and oversophisticated was the thought that had begun to break through into consciousness {…} Who was it speaking in me? Whose mind had devised them? What kind of superior intelligence was at work? {…} Who talked of problems far beyond my knowledge? Who brought the Above and Below together and laid the foundation for everything that was to fill the second half of my life with stormiest passion? Who but that great alien guest who came both from above and from below? (MDR, 14–15).
Although these ruminations are retrospective, it is fairly clear that the inner autobiographical events that Jung highlights in MDR lay the groundwork for the young scientist’s interest in psychic liminality in all its manifestations. While the early studies mostly center upon the symptomatology of young, hysterical women, Jung’s early efforts to exteriorize his investigations would eventually give way to a deeper probing of his own levels of consciousness.
Indeed, the bulk of Jung’s mature, original work draws directly from his own borderline experiences, half-induced and half-received, during and after the outbreak of the First World War.
Therefore, while the early writings of Jung may with some justice be described as “simple descriptive research,” his choice of subjects and range of interests immediately plunge us into deep metaphysical waters, as Jung wrestles with questions such as where conscious control over the psyche ends, what exists or pertains beyond this control, and who or what is exerting itself when the formerly and apparently autonomous psyche cracks and the great unknown — the serpent in the garden, the siren on the farther shore, the vast propulsive other, or the slime of the deep — makes manifest its eternal will to power.
Note: Today I’m revisiting a travel vignette about hierarchy, ritual, and the strange ways institutions manufacture “events.” It features a Big Man, a flawless flunky, Jung on surrealist art, and a ceremonial poster board signing that may or may not have meant anything at all. A quiet question lingered long after the ceremony ended. As always, judge for yourself.
If you enjoy this piece, you may enjoy my analysis of the underground rapper and crypto-hacker, Razzlekhan. You can find it here.
Yeah, I met Lou Reed and Patty Smith
It didn’t make me feel different
Conor Oberst
I visited China a number of years ago with a highly ranked member of my university structure and a flunky. My own participation was last-minute as I was filling in for someone else. I guess in a way I was a flunky too. Certainly it was the big man’s show from start to finish.
We visited a number of schools and also met with a business guy who was working very hard to transact with our group something so complex that I never even began to grasp the shape of it despite sitting in multiple meetings around the matter.
The trip was interesting for a number of reasons. The big man barely spoke to me for the first few days despite spending all day together. The schedule was brutal. I was reading Jung On Art on my phone as I was enrolled in on online course I never finished. Jung On Art is great and spends a lot of time on the surrealist painter Yves Tanguy. Finally the big man took a long look at me and said (in Japanese) “you read a lot, don’t you?” I confirmed this, and after that he spoke to me a little more.
The flunky was an archetype of the species. He handled the schedule, made the trains run on time. He did nothing else and deferred to the big man on absolutely every non-schedule related matter. My own strongest contribution to the proceedings was occupying the attention of a friend of the business man during an excruciatingly protracted whisky drinking session so that the business guy and the big man could talk turkey. I am not a great whisky drinker for some reason and making sensible small talk for three or four hours over whisky took a truly heroic effort.
The business guy had a kind of a house in a kind of a hotel, it was hard to say. A full staff was on hand to serve us a full course Chinese meal with white and red wine. This was before the whisky. It was a scene, all the way.
Anyway, all of that is context. I want to write about a specific incident that occurred when we visited one school. The principal who received us knew the big man and we were received by a group of about eight people. We got the school tour. Now, school tours are an occupational hazard in my line of work, and I have trained myself to be a durable recipient. But I don’t really like them. We went through the formalities, which predictably took forever. I daydreamed about Yves Tanguy and bed.
Toward the end of the tour we reached a wall with the school name or emblem on it. Here, the principal paused and asked the big man to write some Chinese characters on some poster board. This was to mark his visit, to consecrate it in a sense. The whole group fanned out into a kind of semi-circle and the big man went through a series of highly performative grimaces to index his deep thought. Or maybe he just didn’t know what to write. I certainly wouldn’t have. Finally he took the pen and with the pomposity of a South American dictator wrote a few characters. The message, to my recollection, was underwhelmingly anodyne. Basic. Or maybe it was gnomic and brilliant. In either case the audience made appropriately awed sounds. I murmured my own supposed appreciation–the role of the acolyte was there to be filled after all. The poster board was then displayed with a flourish on the wall.
At first blush I found the entire episode both deeply interesting and deeply narcissistic. However, the big man was invited to contribute some characters and he did so, so in that sense fair enough. Let’s zoom out a little before rushing to judgment.
You know how some restaurants and bars will have signed pictures of famous people that visited on their walls? Mickey Mantle, Bob Hope, Stallone, whatever. In these cases the visit of the celebrity was an event in the life of the establishment. It merited consecration across time. I understand this. But the big man was not a celebrity in any real sense. He was a university bureaucrat with a taste for acting like a big shot.
But maybe I’m seeing this all wrong. Because there was actually a hint of the classical in the occasion. A host had received an honored guest. The honored guest was asked to bestow words of wisdom and afforded space to do so. The whole performance was approached with apparent complete sincerity by all involved. I was probably the only one not acting in good faith. My feelings at the time were the same as they are now; on the one hand the whole thing was super pompous, on the other hand it had an old-world ceremony that I am not exactly against. An event should be eventful–my little motto–may at times create an unrealistically high bar for situations to rise to. Still, I have a nagging feeling that this visit was not of a sufficiently high caliber or general import to require consecration in kanji.
You know how in the old days a person would take a letter of introduction with them when visiting a new country and would receive an audience on the basis of this kind of letter? That’s probably an almost entirely lost art. When you presented someone with a letter of introduction, as I imagine it, you were then received. Your visit was authorized and elevated into a thing, an event. The eventification of aspects of life is important, even vital, however maybe we are going about the equation backwards. I go to see a lot of live music and at the end of the show the band will often gather at a table to sign merchandise and such. The opportunity to meet the band, if offered, is cool–I’m all behind it. However I myself often skip these lines, even if I love the band. This is because the chance to meet the band and have an experience of doing so is a built-in aspect of the entire evening and therefore pre-eventified so to speak. It’s still cool, but I’m not sure pre-eventified events are best positioned to be eventful. The true event takes place without being pre-planned. The true event emerges and cannot be structured. Most of the time when I see a supposed event transpire, an opening ceremony of some event for example that has been obviously rehearsed, I can barely suppress a yawn. In the immortal words of The Replacements, “color me impressed.”
The epigraph for this piece is from Conor Obrest’s 2016 song “Next of Kin.” It’s a jaded coda to a meeting that we might have supposed would have been eventful, and also a wry recognition that whatever happens to us we are always left with ourselves again. I saw a man sign a poster board. It didn’t make me feel different.
Note: If you enjoyed this piece, you may also enjoy “On the Centrality of the No Helmet Law.” Available below.
