Reading Faulkner

Reading Faulkner

A year ago, Fred and I read Moby Dick for the first time. We enjoyed our class of mostly fifty- and sixty-somethings, who brought life experience and perspective to a complex work unfairly loathed by generations forced to read it too soon.

Now we're reading a Faulkner novel, Go Down Moses, in four class sessions, and gaining a similar impression. Though not a long book, it spans generations. Tonight as we read a portion of "The Bear" aloud to each other, I remarked that the writer has Hemingway's macho love of hunting and male bonding, spun out in sentences that have more in common with Henry James's style.
I always thought Henry James couldn't have conveyed much without the comma, which he relies on as he accretes meaning phrase by phrase, until he lands, having circled his meaning completely, at the point - and you know exactly where you are and what he's telling you.

Faulkner is James without the commas. He's harder to read - you really have to pay attention, and multiple readings of a chapter are useful - but he does arrive where he's going, and if you stick with him, you'll get there too. Like any storyteller in the oral tradition, he digresses. He's not going to tell you about the hunting camp without telling you who's there, how many years they've been coming, who cooks, which game they're eating, and especially how the wilderness looms about them, watching with a sort of hungry indifference - in a single sentence. Archetypal creatures live here: the buck with fourteen points, invisible to the men who would shoot him but passing the boy and old Sam Fathers, who admire but would not kill him though they too are hunters. Sam Fathers, whose lineage runs as deep in time as this land's, raises a palm in greeting as the stag appears near them then vanishes again.

So we come to the bear, old and cunning, a terror to the hunting dogs which bay so heartily after deer and coons but hang back when they pick up his scent. The boy wants to see the bear, to witness his wild dominant existence, and one day he decides he must convince the bear to let himself be seen. By being unarmed. So he leaves behind first his rifle, at the camp, then after some hours going deeper into the forest, abandons also his compass and watch. By making himself defenseless, he pledges to the bear that he will bring back nothing but the sight of his own eyes. He will not only not shoot, he will not blaze a trail for those who would. He will not himself know where he is or has been as he wanders in the bear's realm. And through this homage, he is given a glimpse of the creature. Here's how Faulkner builds suspense:

"When he realised he was lost, he did as Sam had coached and drilled him: made a cast to cross his backtrack. He had not been going very fast for the last two or three hours, and he had gone even less fast since he left the compass and watch on the bush. So he went slower still now, since the tree could not be very far; in fact, he found it before he really expected to and turned and went to it. But there was no bush beneath it, no compass nor watch, so he did next as Sam had coached and drilled him: made this next circle in the opposite direction and much larger, so that the pattern of the two of them would bisect his track somewhere, but crossing no trace nor mark anywhere of his feet or any feet, and now he was going faster though still not panicked, his heart beating a little more rapidly but strong and steady enough, and this time it was not even the tree because there was a down log beside it which he had never seen before and beyond the log a little swamp, a seepage of moisture somewhere between earth and water, and he did what Sam had coached and drilled him as the next and the last, seeing as he sat down on the log the crooked print, the warped indentation in the wet ground which while he looked at it continued to fill with water until it was level full and the water began to overflow and the sides of the print began to dissolve away. Even as he looked up he saw the next one, and, moving, the one beyond it; moving, not hurrying, running, but merely keeping pace with them as they appeared before him as though they were being shaped out of thin air just one constant pace short of where he would lose them forever and be lost forever himself, tireless, eager, without doubt or dread, panting a little above the strong rapid little hammer of his heart, emerging suddenly into a little glade and the wilderness coalesced. It rushed, soundless, and solidified - the tree, the bush, the compass and the watch glinting where a ray of sunlight touched them. Then he saw the bear. It did not emerge, appear: it was just there, immobile, fixed in the green and windless noon's hot dappling, not as big as he had dreamed it but as big as he had expected, bigger, dimensionless against the dappled obscurity, looking at him." [from "The Bear" in Go Down, Moses, Vintage Books c 1942, pp 197-8]

I was going to quote a shorter section but I couldn't start in the middle of a sentence. You see, what he's written makes sense. It has music and poetry, it has earth and blood. Faulkner's storytelling has a compelling life. You might wish his language was less convoluted but what would you have then? Hemingway.

What books make you happy?

We're approaching April Fools Day, the Taymes New Year, so I naturally turn to foolishness, silliness and laughter.
And I think about books I've read that have given me great delight - without the Angst!
Here's my list - send me yours:

Little, Big by John Crowley - I plug this book constantly. To me it has the perfect blend of wit, joie de vivre, magic and insight. If you haven't read it, you ought to, if you enjoy authors who take your hand and lead you places your mystic self remembers, that lighten your spirit.

Fame and Love in New York by Ed Sanders - I've read as much of Mr. Sanders' output as I can find, and this is his magnum opus. In his semi-mythic New York a group of writers recreate the conditions in which Balzac wrote so prolifically: they lock themselves in a room (accessed through the Duct Tape Boutique) with a gigantic coffee urn, and pound those typewriters. The book is replete with marginalia - what a fun read!

The Jamais Vu Papers by Wim Coleman and Pat Perrin - a psychedelic excursion. Go find a copy!

A Confederate General from Big Sur by Richard Brautigan - in his melancholy way, Brautigan wrote many books that make me laugh. I cannot see a can of mackerel in the grocery store without recalling how, when there was nothing else to eat, his characters were unable to converse about philosophy. And the frogs drove them crazy.

A Graveyard for Lunatics by Ray Bradbury - in which this wizard of language romps through the special-effects movie creations of Ray Harryhausen. Bradbury has written many fine books and is one of our short story masters - who can fail to delight in "The Laurel and Hardy Love Affair" in which a few people hear the comedic pair's ghosts moving a piano up a long flight of steps on certain LA nights?

Giant Bones and The Innkeeper's Song by Peter S. Beagle - he shares with us a fully imagined world with its own peoples and animal species - very down-to-earth magic here.

Tom Jones by Henry Fielding - the author's tongue-in-cheek asides to the reader are perfectly matched by the characters in Tony Richardson's movie addressing the camera - one April Fool's Day, Fred and I dined in swank at the Watergate then saw this fine movie - a stellar anniversary!

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon - I was in a book group that read this. Mostly older women, they were put off by the quantity of subplots. I told them it was just like a comic book: you get an installment of the cover story along with several one- or two-pagers and an extended lesser story or two. They liked it better after that. My only twinge of disappointment: alas, no pictures!

On the Road by Jack Kerouac - if you don't crack a smile reading this, you are taking life too seriously. Even if you've never driven somebody else's Cadillac across a cornfield, you can enjoy the ride of Sal Paradise, with Dean Moriarty at the wheel.

The Thurber Carnival by James Thurber - much of his writing hasn't aged well - his mocking of his black servants' language is jarring to the modern reader - but most of the stories in this collection are hilarious. His eccentric family stars in these short pieces, which may be fiction or what is now known as creative non-fiction. His other standout is "You Could Look it Up" - a midget is sent to pinch-hit in a major league baseball game. All he has to do is stand there with the bat on his shoulder while the pitcher misses his strike zone four times. But no, he has to swing. And make contact. And run on his short legs... For whatever reason, this piece seems to have evaded every Thurber anthology.

The California Book of the Dead by Tim Farrington - he has the ability to sketch a character in under a dozen words, which fills me with admiration.

Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe - this isn't a comedy but the writing is vivid and the punctuation trippy, and Kesey's Merry Band of Pranksters are a fun bunch to hang out with - at least, for a while.

The Milagro Beanfield War by John Nichols - absurdity tweaks normalcy every chance it gets in this small New Mexico community.

Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman by Richard Feynman - I laughed most of the way through this autobiography. Feynman could never manage orthodoxy. His fearless curiosity leavened with blazing intelligence made him a titan in the world of physics. If you're even mildly interested in the Manhattan Project, read this book.

Well, that's a start. I'm sure I've left out some good ones. What are yours?

Film Review

The Artist, Directed by Michel Hazanavicius

Reviewed by NC Weil

This is a faithful film: faithful to the silents, faithful to the transitional era into talkies, faithful to the starry-eyed plots of those movies, faithful to the conceits of Hollywood. And it's faithful to older stars who could use some publicity. Malcolm McDowell, for example, gets high mention in the billing. His part consists of sitting on a bench awaiting his casting call, so the ingenue can show someone her Variety front-page photograph cheek-to-cheek with George Valentin, a matinee idol played by Jean Dujardin. That's it for Mr. McDowell. A more substantial role is given to James Cromwell as Valentin's faithful chauffeur, though he gets lower billing. Yes, it's faithful to Hollywood's conceits, all right.

Likewise, Valentin, a cross between Rudolph Valentino and Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., is enamored principally of himself – his favorite possession is an enormous painting of himself flashing his famous smile. And he does have a charming smile. The success of this picture is in large part thanks to its cast – these vivacious people win us over with their beautiful smiles. Berenice Bejo is a fresh, energetic, delightful sylph, and her screen name Peppy Miller fits perfectly – it fits the era, and it suits her. She's a face in the crowd when she drops her pocketbook, then bumping into Valentin, she trades on this momentary encounter and plenty of chutzpah to put herself in the studio and in front of John Goodman, who's perfect in his part as director.

The system moves only forward, and by staying in silents, Valentin consigns himself to obscurity. The technology change is heartless, but the people using it are anything but: we see smiles as Peppy works her way up, we see Goodman trying to convince Valentin to take speaking roles, we see cheer and bustle – this is not a tale of a Louis B. Mayer of whom it was said that people came to his funeral to make sure he was dead.

There are some incongruities: after Valentin has witnessed the auction at which all his furnishings are sold off and the manager cheerfully informs him he has nothing left, the fallen star goes home to his apartment and screens a movie – he has a projector and many cans of film-reels. What? In a previous scene he's pawned even his beloved tux so he can buy more booze and cigarettes. Then once he's watched the movie, he rages, flinging film-cans off the shelf, unspooling film then setting fire to the whole mess. It takes forever for his smart little dog to race blocks and get the attention of a cop, who then runs to save Valentin. That was already a big smoky fire by the time the dog left the apartment – it strained my credulity that Valentin was still alive when his rescuer arrived, and also that the cop could make it through all that smoke. And later in the movie Valentin returns to live in that smoked-out apartment. Really? A man who set a fire in his room is allowed back there? It's still habitable?

But hey, that's part and parcel of silents – cliffhangers were standard procedure, and melodrama trumped plausibility. We can forgive this silliness. Now, what about the film's title? Is The Artist an archetype, so that we can include both Valentin and Peppy? Or does it refer strictly to him? Or does Peppy, whose rise we witness, become The Artist? Not clear.

Seeing the preview twice, I had the impression Valentin's character evolves. Nope. He remains a narcissist, happy at last because the cameras are on him again. Peppy goes from a nobody to a star, but nothing essential in her changes – she's the same good-hearted razzle-dazzle beauty at the end, that we first saw.

Hazanavicius trowels on the symbolism: when Peppy is well on her way to becoming a star, she encounters Valentin on an open stairwell at the studio. She's on a step above him, so she talks and looks down as they converse. When they part, she goes up, he goes down. (I get it! She's moving up in the world and he's sinking!) The titles of films set the mood of the scenes they're embedded in, cleverly but without much subtlety. Mirrors are used frequently. Peppy writes "thank you" on Valentin's dressing-room mirror; he tells her a great actress must have a beauty spot, and, seen in his mirror, applies her first one; when he's drunk and self-pitying he pours the rest of his drink on a tabletop mirror, and the pool of booze becomes yet another mirror. Mirrors are Valentin's only friend – he loves to look at himself. Peppy vamps in hers too. For all that, the movie itself is curiously lacking reflection. We see the impact of the stock market crash on Valentin, but nothing about its larger effects, not even how that changed the movie fare studios put out. You would never know from The Artist that large numbers of people were thrown out of work.

I'd like to take this opportunity to speak out against film trailers (why are previews called trailers anyway? They don't trail the movie, they lead) – several sweet moments are given away, which robs them of their charm when they occur in the story: Peppy finds Valentin's dressing room, empty, and snuggles up to his jacket on a coat-rack, puts one arm into a sleeve and pretends it's his arm, feeling her up then giving her a warm hug. Very sweet moment, and witty if you haven't seen it done before (I saw it in a Cirque du Soleil routine years ago) – but it's in the preview. When the moment arrives, you sit there thinking "I've seen this." Likewise, Valentin in poverty stands in front of a shop window display of a tuxedo. His reflection and the tuxedo's are superimposed, in a very nice touch - except it's in the preview so it's no surprise. Indeed, their meet-cute moment, when she bumps him as she picks up her pocketbook off the sidewalk in front of a theater where he's just premiered a new movie, is also spoiled by the preview. If studios can't live without trailers, confine them instead to pictures of the stars in their film costumes, while a voice-over offers a brief synopsis. That way the movie can surprise and delight us.

So, as to awards. Should The Artist win Oscars? The movie is a love letter to an era, sweetly done but a trifle: NO. The costumes are wonderful! YES. Bernice Bejo has a face that's pretty in an enchanting way, and when she dances we admire her quickness and form, but how much of that was acting and how much just her? NO. Jean Dujardin doesn't act much – mostly he smokes, drinks and smiles. We like him because those Errol-Flynn-quality smiles charm us to our marrow, but: NO. Supporting character James Cromwell looks after Valentin like a dutiful mother (NO), and John Goodman does a fine job as the cigar-chomping Director (he's had stronger roles):NO. I say give the gold statuette to Malcolm McDowell for his coup, getting second-star billing for his tiny part.

War and Peace Wrap-up

I finished reading War & Peace a couple of weeks ago, but I've been stymied by the challenge of distilling this 1200 page tour-de-force into a manageable review. The work consists of a fictional story, with characters immersed in the challenges of war and love; views of battle bowing to both historical record and these characters; and philosophical ruminations on a range of subjects: history; war; power; genius; human searches for meaning; life and death; and Russia as a nation and its people.

Tolstoy places his characters at critical events to provide us eyewitness experience, and while these events are as historically accurate as any account can be, they are also beautifully written. The night before he is killed in battle, 16-year-old Petya Rostov, who has run off to immerse himself in the thrill of war as part of the Russian force pursuing the retreating French, has a reverie while listening to a man sharpen his saber: the youth directs a many-voiced hymn which becomes a march, and at his command it takes glorious form: "Ah, how lovely that is! As much as I like and however I like," Petya said to himself... "Softer, softer now, fade away." And the sounds obeyed him[...] and drops dripped, and bzhik, zhik, zhik... whistled the saber, and again the horses scuffled and neighed, not disrupting the chorus, but entering into it. (Vol IV, Part 3, Ch. X). A mere two pages later, "Running into the campfire smoldering in the morning light, the horse balked, and Petya fell heavily onto the wet ground. The Cossacks saw how his arms and legs jerked rapidly, though his head did not move. His head had been pierced by a bullet." (ibid, Ch. XI).

Tolstoy intersperses these vivid scenes with treatises on how wars come to be. He regards Napoleon as the inevitable consequence of myriad actions and movements - though the man is hailed by historians as a military genius, Tolstoy goes to considerable lengths to explain the chaos of battle, the involvement of myriad individuals in actions which create the whole, and generally discredits the "great man" theory of history. He finds it all, to some degree, preordained: this soldier will utter a valiant full-throated cry which inspires his regiment to unwonted bravery, while other regiments in the same battle retreat in confusion because the captains leading them are uncertain, disorganized or afraid. None of this occurs in response to orders from generals, who in an age of limited communication are not aware until afterwards what has actually happened, including even victory or defeat.

About the "rules of war" he has this to say, "Let us imagine two men who came with swords to fight a duel by all the rules of the art of fencing; the fighting went on for quite a long time; suddenly one of the adversaries, feeling himself wounded, realizing that it was not a joking matter, but something that concerned his life, threw down his sword and, picking up the first club he found, started brandishing it...
"The French were the fencer who demanded a fight by the rules of the art; the Russians were the adversary who dropped his sword and picked up a club; those who attempt to explain everything by the rules of fencing are the historians who have written about this event.
"From the time of the burning of Smolensk, a war began that did not fit any of the former traditions of war. The burning of towns and villages, the retreats after battles, the blow struck at Borodino and then another retreat, the abandoning and burning of Moscow, the hunt for marauders, the cutting off of transport, the partisan war - these were all deviations from the rules.
"Napoleon sensed that, and from the moment when he stopped in Moscow, in the correct position of a fencer, and instead of his adversary's sword, saw a club raised over him, he never ceased complaining to Kutuzov and the emperor Alexander that the war was being conducted against all the rules (as if there existed some sort of rules for killing people)." (Vol IV, Part 3, Ch. II). Here is Tolstoy, heaping his scorn upon the pretensions to civilization of the brutish business of war.

Meanwhile, even as he repudiates the historians and tacticians for their orderly views of battle, he takes us into the mind and soul of a fatally injured man. Andrei Bolkonsky, severely wounded at Borodino, has been transported to and beyond Moscow with the Russian retreat. "But Prince Andrei's soul was not in a normal state in this respect. The forces of his soul were all clearer and more active than ever, but they acted outside his will. The most diverse thoughts and notions took hold of him simultaneously. Sometimes his thought suddenly began to work, and with such strength, clarity and depth as it had never been able to do in healthy conditions; but suddenly, in the middle of its work, it broke off and was replaced by some unexpected notion, and he was unable to return to it....
"And each time the fly touched his face, it made a burning sensation, and at the same time he was surprised that, hitting against the very area of his face where the edifice was being raised, the fly did not destroy it. But besides that, there was something else important. It was the white thing in the doorway, it was the statue of a sphinx, which also weighed on him." (Vol III, Part 3, Ch. XXXII). This "white thing in the doorway" is Natasha, lodging in the same inn, compelled to look at this wounded man to whom she had been in love and betrothed, but through the interference of others, had rejected. In the days that follow, the pair grow close, then Andrei puts aside all human affection as he faces his death:

"Prince Andrei not only knew that he would die, but felt that he was dying, that he was already half dead. He experienced an awareness of estrangement from everything earthly and a joyful and strange lightness of being. Without haste or worry, he waited for what lay ahead of him... Formerly he had been afraid of the end... The more he pondered the new principle of eternal love revealed to him, the more, though without feeling it himself, he renounced earthly life. To love everything, everybody, always to sacrifice oneself for love, meant to love no one, meant not to live this earthly life....
"Love? What is love?" he thought. "Love hinders death. Love is life. Everything, everything I understand, I understand only because I love. Everything is connected only by that... Love is God, and to die - means that I, a part of love, return to the common and eternal source." These thoughts seemed comforting to him. But they were only thoughts. Something was lacking in them, there was something one-sidedly personal, cerebral - there was no evidence."...
"But in the same instant that he died, Prince Andrei remembered that he was asleep, and in the same instant that he died, he made an effort with himself and woke up.
"Yes that was death. I died - I woke up. Yes, death is an awakening." Clarity suddenly came to his soul, and the curtain that until then had concealed the unknown was raised before his inner gaze. He felt the release of a force that previously had been as if bound in him and that strange lightness which from then on did not leave him." (Vol IV, Part 1, Ch. XVI)

I could not help feeling that Tolstoy himself must have experienced a moment close to death, to write about it with such convincing beauty. Even as he applies his intellect to it, he tells us that's what he's doing, and that it's false, failing to grasp the completeness of death.

Pierre, in a group of prisoners of war, witnesses the firing-squad execution of a number of his fellows. He expects to be shot next. "Another two were led up. In the same way, with the same eyes, these two also looked at everyone, in vain, with their eyes only, silently, begging for protection, and clearly not understanding and not believing what was going to happen. They could not believe it, because they alone knew what their life was for them, and therefore did not understand or believe that it could be taken from them....
"Pierre ... saw smoke, someone's blood, and the pale, frightened faces of the Frenchmen, who again were doing something by the post, pushing each other with trembling hands. Pierre, breathing hard, looked around as if asking, "What does it mean?" The same question was in all the gazes that met Pierre's gaze.
"On all the Russian faces, on the faces of the French soldiers and officers, on all without exception, he read the same fear, horror and struggle that were in his heart. "But who, finally, is doing this? They're all suffering just as I am. Who is it? Who?" flashed for a second in Pierre's soul." (Vol IV, Part 1, Ch. XI). Pierre is spared execution, but this confrontation with death has demolished the life he once prized. He becomes fully the earthy simple Russian who has lived unacknowledged beneath his wealth, idleness and comfort - being a prisoner has liberated him.

Do not be intimidated by the length of this book. Chapters are short, often only two or three pages, and once you settle in with the principal characters you enter a world so fully realized that it has the force of truth in all its particulars. Whether it's Tsar Alexander afraid to make his horse jump a ditch; or generals at a party ignoring the news that the French forces have crossed into Russia; or the burning of Moscow because a wooden city will inevitably have fires, and once the residents have fled, no one has the responsibility to quench them - we see simultaneously the broad sweep of war and the details of struggle. Tolstoy exposes the mundane actions that underlie events, and convinces us theory is a vain attempt to force order onto the chaos of life.

This writer has written not only a history that will stand alongside any other account of the Napoleonic wars, he has given us individuals in all their complexity: weak and brilliant, foolish and courageous, petty and joyful, brash and impressionable. He spares none of them the heights of glory and depths of human suffering, and we scramble to keep up, fascinated at this mirror held up to our own souls.

Tonight I read a short story at the Mercury Cafe in downtown Denver. It's short - I'll share it with you here:

Seek Your Fortune

by NC Weil

"Out! You can't sit around this house any more! Leave!" She shoved the protesting books onto the porch. When she was done, nearly two hundred copies huddled together, shivering in the frosty morning air and sniveling.

"You can't do this," one whined.

"We're your children," said another.

"Yours, all yours," chorused a third.

Marigold closed the door on their complaints. She'd stumbled over their boxes long enough. No one was going to read them in her dining room – time to make their way in the wide world, like younger sons in fairy tales.

Through the keyhole and the crack under the heavy door she could hear their collective plaint. Hardening her heart, she went back to the kitchen and put on the teakettle.

"You did what?!" Fred was shocked, if not alarmed. He'd actually read the book, claimed to like it.

"I gave up," she said. "Maybe they'll do some of the PR heavy lifting themselves, now that I'm finished."

"How are they supposed to do that? They're helpless."

She gave him a skeptical look. "Yeah, they had me convinced, for a while there. No more. This morning I heard them giggling, horsing around in my office. They sounded like teenagers – older teenagers. They're just lazy."

He opened the front door and looked at the bare porch. "You put them out here?"

"Sure did."

"They're gone."

"All of them?"

"I don't see any books. Are you sure –"

"Let me see," she elbowed past him. "Well I'll be durned." She laughed, flinging her arms around Fred. "It worked," she crowed.

"Pure fantasy," he muttered, sure she'd made up the whole story.

"That's what writers do," Marigold explained at dinner. "We make up stories." She speared a floret of fractal broccoli.

"You sure had me fooled." He shook his head.

"You misunderstand. I made up the story in the book. Kicking them out today? That's true."

"True stories are the best, if anyone believes them," he said.

She flattened a chunk of yam with her fork. "True stories are true whether anyone believes them or not."

He studied her a moment before he resumed eating. "The trash-man must've taken them."

She snorted. "Yeah, you know how diligent he is about looking for stuff to throw in his truck." She leveled her fork at him. "He doesn't even empty the can, if it's not in exactly the right place."

Fred nodded thoughtfully. "Well, a neighbor took them."

"Two hundred books. In a pile. Because –" she couldn't keep the sneer from her voice – "they're so popular. So desirable."

"All right, where did they go, miss smarty?"

"To seek their fortunes. They didn't leave a note so I don't know where they're headed."

Within a week rumors were circulating. A local art website posted a photo of three copies hitchhiking at a northbound Interstate on-ramp. They looked a little roughed-up but their covers were still glossy. She could swear the title, Karmafornia, was grinning.

Their friend Joe two blocks away reported seeing a gang of ten or a dozen, facing down a large stray dog. After winning the standoff they clustered in a front yard to celebrate, then went up to the porch. The big brick house was subdivided into half a dozen apartments, and they split up, ringing doorbells. As Joe watched, the broad front door opened and they all trooped inside. With the door closed and nothing more to see, he went on his way, but thought Marigold would want to know.

"Thanks," she laughed. It was working! They'd got the message. Those books had seemed so pitiful, lying around in cartons. What an act!

The local video store soon had a row of them in the window, below the movie posters. Fred mentioned them to the clerk, who didn't believe him. When he dragged him out to the sidewalk to see the new display, the clerk just shrugged.

"The owner musta put 'em there. Wanna buy one?"

"I have one already, but maybe you should."

"Aw, I don't really read."

"They want to be looked into, can't you tell?"

And as they watched, one of the books pulled open its cover to the title page.

"Hey, cool graphic," the clerk said.

"The story's good too." Fred gave the guy a friendly slap on the shoulder and walked away.

The clerk went in and pulled the enticing copy off the windowsill. He put it in his backpack, but didn't put money in the till: there were so many, who'd miss just one? He wanted to read it.

A bold foursome showed up at a sports bar, demanding coasters and napkins so they could watch the game without getting wet. Pretty soon the guys sitting next to them were asking them questions. One copy showed off its Part 2 title page: "Angels can fly 'cause they take themselves lightly," the elegant font superimposed on a ghost imprint of an unusual curlicue. The guy plucked up the book.

"Check this out," he showed his buddy the page.

The guy laughed. "Good joke. Never heard that one."

"Take it," the first guy said, handing over the copy. "There's more."

"Who do we pay?"

"We're free," the book in his hand said. "Everybody should be free, don't you think?"

"Hell yeah."

The books fared better in groups. One going it alone tumbled into a greasy puddle. Even after its pages had more or less dried out, its cover was curled and dirty. It took shelter in an alley, then was run over when the trash truck came by to empty the adjacent dumpster. Torn and aching, the book crawled into the weeds. But when a homeless woman came by with a big bag, scavenging aluminum cans, the copy came out. She picked it up, curious. She read a few sentences, then sitting with her back against the sun-warmed wall of a garage, settled in to read.

A month after Marigold had kicked them out, one of the books slipped through her mail slot.

"Just thought you'd like a progress report," it said.

"And –?"

"You were right. We were cozy here, and safe, but we might as well have been blank. Some of us are beat-up and dog-eared now, but your words are out there."

Marigold extended a hand to pick it up, but the book scurried out of range.

"I'm not staying," it said. "I just wanted to let you know we're doing all right." And before she could think of a response, it was wriggling back out the mail slot. She pulled the door open to look: it was already toddling down the street, erect and proud. Free.

Crestmas

Up in a pocket in the mountains
A place where no one's "just passing by"
The town of Crested Butte lies waiting
For ski-bums and villagers getting high.













Fred and I came here to spend a week,
Shedding the pressures of daily lives
Flying on skis under cobalt sky,
Cheered when the youthful pair arrives.

Up the pass then, Heinz and I,
Exploring a nearby trek, we trailed
And found the powder, soft and deep
Up Gunsight Pass - till sense prevailed.

Cooking up feasts in another's kitchen,
Game hens and steak, cookies and pie,
Champagne breakfast and gorp for the trail,
Yes, you could say we're getting by.











Laughter and Scrabble and movies we like,
A record collection to explore
Canoe on the ceiling in this rental home,
Myriad joys - we'll be back for more!

Midnight in Paris

I've found Owen Wilson to be more a pretender than an actor. But in Midnight in Paris he channels Woody Allen, down to the vocal inflections, neuroses and challenges to intellectual pomposity. And he's wonderful because the story is so good. A young man Gil (Wilson) and his fiancee Inez (Rachel McAdams) are visiting Paris with her parents. She drags him along to tourist sites with her friends Paul and Carol, but Gil would rather wander the city and dream. A successful hack screenwriter, he aspires to be a Real Writer, and one midnight an old Peugeot full of partygoers picks him up. They transport him to the 1920s where he is delighted to meet all the luminaries you know about if you love the era: Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Cole Porter, Hemingway (Corey Stoll), Josephine Baker, Picasso, Gertrude Stein (Kathy Bates) and Alice B. Toklas, Dali (Adrien Brody), Bunuel and Man Ray, "Tom Eliot", and an enchanting young artists' model, Adriana (Marion Cotillard), who helps him to see that his fiancee is not the right match for him.

The music, the lights, the costumes and laughter wonderfully evoke the Jazz Age atmosphere in which Gil immerses himself by night. During the day he dodges Inez and the pedantic Paul, using his midnight experiences to toss in some unknowable mots about the artists they admire from a safe and stuffy distance. While Inez and her mother furnish a house the young couple do not yet own in Malibu, Gil is eagerly rewriting his novel, which Stein is critiquing for him.

Woody Allen has been playing with history (and time itself) for much of his career, from parodies of historical figures in Bananas, Love & Death, Zelig and Broadway Danny Rose, to time travel in Sleeper and Stardust Memories. By elevating comedy to this level of enchantment, he has struck the truest note yet in his exploration of time, nostalgia and memory. We're with him all the way, bumbling along with 21st Century rube Gil in wide-eyed awe of a milieu just out of reach of our recollection, but legendary.

If you know nothing about the Twenties in Paris, you will miss many of the references, but maybe this charming film will entice you to find out more.