A Review of Home Making by Lee Matalone
A couple of books arrived in the mail at the same time. So, judging by the covers, I picked the hardbound one with the purple and gold felt on the sleeve. I read a bit, wondering if women write for women, and men write for men; then switched to the other. And the first few pages were as amazing as anything I've ever read - profound, emotional, poignant. Literally moved me to tears. I had to set the book aside, and take time to think on it.
Luckily I had three other very profound books to read, so I could treat them like meals - breakfast, lunch, supper, and dessert - varying which was which. If you know me, you already know the answer, but no one does. What struck me right off is Matalone's fine writing - very appealing - somber, objective, detached, for the most part. Like the quiet of an empty church, or some other sanctuary where one goes to be alone with their deepest thoughts.
It is the soft professional voice of a healer, a doctor who does what she can to help, and with all good intention, but for professional reasons can't be personally involved with each and every patient. It is like the soothing voice of a mother without the intimate connection of "suckling child at your breast." Or of one human carrying another within, and thus a deep-rooted physiological connect beyond just flesh and blood.
The other resounding chord that shapes the narrative is the format. Building a house as a metaphoric telling of the story of building a home. That is - of shaping the lives - for those who are to occupy that home, and the unique interconnect of the two. Which is very real for me, as that's a key part of my own life - the daily labor of love to keep alive my hundred year old home that's been in the family almost as long. That means a lot to me, it's what I do.
But as in my big old house, for the unfamiliar, is easy to get lost. Which may be deliberate but is a bit unsettling, which can also be deliberate. I lose track of who's speaking - mother, child, orphan, detached fathers, detached husbands. Perhaps they're all one and distinct at the same time. Which again, is unsettling, like a shifting dream. Or as the Vietnam vets used to say back in the day - I could tell you what it was like, but I won't, won't go there anymore.
So that's up to the reader - to decipher that if it needs be, or not, if it doesn't. Taken as a whole, I figure - from the tone and the structure - the house is sort of a tomb that people build around themselves, like a mausoleum, or an Egyptian pyramid, housing your life's work, and thus in a way, your life. But if my reading is correct, the author doesn't accept that as a conclusion. Like - maybe that's what we do, but we don't have to be trapped by that, if we catch ourselves soon enough.
Same metaphor applies - birth, marriages, relationships - all. Though the author certainly doesn't dwell on the conventional as a contrast to one's own disparate reality. But rather describes a coping and shaping of the disparate into a workable personal reality. Thus the key part of the house (note the pun) isn't all the work you put into it, it's the doorway. Interesting, a very-well written book of profound ideas where function seems to follow form, to lead you to the inverse. I can use that.
Like the concept of Socrates' chair - it's not just to sit - but is also the deliberate human effort to construct a tool which mediates between standing or sitting on the floor. An improvement; or a useful and needed benefit that entails its own functioning - to sit and thus work, for example. Or to sit and thus relax, for another. Or whatever use you make of it. Like explaining the meaning of things. I can use that too.
Having finished my four precious books, I'm now lost without a compass, rudderless so to speak. Quo Vadis or "whither goeth uth" Robert Taylor was heard to say. For a while I was comfortably lost in the profound musings of Lee Matalone; and sharply on edge with William Trent Pancoast's inside story of the American dream or night-mare, as it were. And I could come alive with the in yer face challenges and philosophical groundbreaking in Thomas Chatterton William's powerful words, or bask in the warm glow of Tony O'Neill's familiar and most welcome irreverance for all things sham and tawdry.
In other words, was nice while it lasted. And I managed to write some dandy reviews of those great books - short, pithy, and brilliant - was how I described them to myself.
(If you're wondering - I was writing like Ridgwell before Ridgwell was; just as Fante was writing like Kerouac before Kerouac). So it's only a matter of great minds using great words, nothing more. Or plagiarism, call it what you like.
So what's to do now and where to go? Looking all over for my copy of John Addams by David McCullough which a lifelong friend from the unemployment office gave me as I left the working force for good. I think it was for good anyway. Well, beats working all to hell. But I can't find it anywhere. Had to clean the hallway and get rid of all the coloring books and children's books and little kid stuff that somebody (Cathy) had dumped on my make-do book stand. Wasn't there but good to get rid of that stuff anyway.
So...I venture upstairs. Into the great wide open, the vast unknown and undusted fer awhile. Got all these big grocery store paper bags full of my dad's old books, out in the hallway. I'd cleaned his apartment a few years after his death. And it wasn't something I was eager to start on cuz that whole time frame left me shaken to the core. Still does. But there before me sits a treasure trove of stuff you can't throw away but got no place to put. I shake the cobwebs off'n a few of 'em and check to see what's there.
Books about baseball and Babe Ruth, that was my dad's hero. He was trying to sell a story 'bout Babe to Ken Tate, before he died. My dad that is, don't know if Tate's still alive or not. And there's Grisham and Ludlow and John O'Hara and Clockers by Richard Price. My dad liked that, and I think it was a forerunner to The Wire which Steve Finbow really liked. Without a TV, Finbow came across tapes of the show and was binge watchin - years later.
Anyway, lot of stuff to sort through. I start with Grisham's The Partner as it's paperback and shorter than the others. And geez "they found him." No shit. They found him on all subsequent paragraphs. And into page two, they's still finding him. Damn Johnny, oughtta try varying yer words a bit, gets redundant. I get it - he's done been found. So...on to something else. Now this looks interesting - Wild Bill Donovan, the last hero. About the origins of the OSS and CIA by the guy who done originated 'em. Yeah, I can get into that.
Hmm...discarded by the local library. Hope they got a current copy...or got a better book than this one. Be a shame to thow out all this knowledge due to oversight or ignorance. Now wouldn't it?
Mikael Covey is an American fiction writer and founding editor of Lit Up Magazine. His published works include two novels, and numerous online short stories, poems, reviews, and opinion pieces. (photo by Joseph Ridgwell).
We need more ready-made memes like "Orwellian" everyone knows what that is, an' if you don’t - read, yah ferkin moron. But when I say "Heidegger's ground" I want it to be universally understood, so we don't have to dig into a bunch of his books.
Or "the other." Everyone should know what Sartre meant, I hope. So, starting with basic philosophy, Socrates - there're only three or four things I know about him - dialogues, the cave, and his death
In no particular order, let’s do dialogue, the Socratic method. My concern isn’t so much the method of reasoning - as the method of dialogue. If I ask the questions and provide the answers, then we’re gonna get to QED pdq, cuz...duh. But if there’s a second person or many involved, we get real dialogue; and "thus it is demonstrated" is more precarious or hopefully, well-earned.
Used to do that when I’se a kid. People’d use their if...then arguments, and I’d think “if I replace any one of your variables, it tho’s a monkey wrench into the whole damn thing.” So, dialogue forces honest answers, cooperative disagreement, a lot of other stuff, and what lecturing teachers hate - having to hold the entirety of your argument in your head at all times, so as to defend it from attack or interruption from an inquisitive student. Believe me, that’s a bitch, and folks readily dismiss it with “aint goin down that rabbit hole.” Cuz tangential thoughts have unlimited corridors. (But I regress, as Dylan would say.)
Secondly, Socrates’ death - as Plato describes it - he’s on trial for disavowing the gods, and is sentenced to death. Socrates is the hero of free-thinkers, but what is glossed over is the state's position. Necessary law and order derive and maintain their status from their godly origins. To reject Zeus is also a rejection of supreme authority, and all the other paradigms of the state as represented by the fictitious gods - love, wisdom, war, justice - you name it.
Thus the state may not believe in these fanciful mythological gods either, but they don’t want anarchy. So Soc’kee’s death is almost pre-ordained - a natural evolution in human development. He’s not just the folk hero of free-thinkers, he’s also a guy who has the luxury of rebelling in the comfort and safety provided by the state, so eloquently stated by Col Jessup to Lt Kaffee: “I'd rather you just thank me.”
Then, the allegory of the cave, which I truly love cuz it’s different for me in some ways. We think of it as the imperfect reflection of images on the wall, caused by the fire. But to me, the ideal chair isn’t - the perfect concept of a poor reflection. It’s the chair’s purpose that is ideal. You sit on the damn thing. It has a function that’s very distinct from standing or sitting on the ground. It is a concept; and it’s far from unknowable, just that we take it for granted and don’t hold the real concept in our minds. Which of course is quite different for objects like “chair” as opposed to people. Or is it?
Anyway, consider chair - to sit more comfortably in. It could be a posh chair or an ornate chair, which have added meanings - I got money, I’m somebody - I got good taste, I’m sophisticated. These add or detract from my ideal concept of chair but are so much more widely prevalent, my ideal is all but lost. Your car gets you to and from. Wot the fock do I care how much it cost? All those other things it says about you, I might take as a negative, y’know? But you probably wouldn’t care cuz most people would only acknowledge all the peripheral meanings.
Which is when where and how - chair and human - devolve into the same thing.
A Review of Wildcat by William Trent Pancoast
When CNN announced "if Al Gore wins, he'll owe his victory to the unions" I jumped up and shouted "union...union ...union" at the top of my lungs. I'd never done anything like that and there were tears in my eyes. The next day headline said W Bush was the likely winner. And for years I didn't bother watching news. But I couldn't avoid the local papers cuz they were everywhere back then. "Local youth visited by President in Army hospital" and "local youth dies from war wounds." Things like that were inescapable, even if you tried.
But as a lifelong union man, I surely knew when W Bush gutted the Post Office. He decided... Well what he decided was that private companies oughtta get that money for mail deliveries. And to further that end, the Post Office oughtta pre-fund all potential retirees to the tune of $10 billion a year.
Bush knowing full well their balance sheet had shown a profit of $5 billion the last couple of years. So if you add those together, now there's a $5 billion annual loss. Not easy to recover from, for an agency that pays it's own way and has never taken a dime from the taxpayer. Suddenly this struggling service needs to be moved to the private sector. Nice guy that Bush, even when he's not killing kids.
With that in mind, I come across William Trent Pancoast's book Wildcat, about America - the wars, the auto industry and the unions - like swimming in gravy for me. And it's fascinating, his account of the life and death of the working man in America as encapsulated in the UAW strike against General Motors in 1970 (look at mother nature on the run.) Ken Burns would've given us a series had he told this story, and maybe someday he will. Pancoast offers us glimpses into what it was like - the key players - the union reps, the company bosses, and the workers who watch their lives being decided.
It isn't enough, but the brevity is part of the telling. A story of how we could've had it made, for awhile...and how quickly that can all fall apart. Gone like dust and won't be back again. Trouble is, according to Pancoast the auto workers never had it made, back then anyway. Working seven days a week in mind-numbing repetition just to get by. And after thirty years, if you survive, you got your $500 a month pension and your company stock which is now worthless thanks to GM's failing business model, as of the '09 crash.
Of course some got rich...off all those people, the thousands of working people who toil and slave everyday in the good old days before OSHA messed things up with safety and health regulations. Before unions messed things up with demands for decent working conditions and a living wage. Before the jobs were shipped overseas to people who didn't need things like safety, health, and unions. Before the bosses took all the money and skipped town.
It's good to know what it was like, what the real world was - because those people had dreams too. They matter too, like you and me. And if you want to know a secret, if you really want to know the truth of things, and how - what is - came to be, well talk to the old union guys at the bar. Buy 'em a beer and ask 'em what really went on, how it all went wrong. Cuz it didn't have to be this way...if people only knew. If we only knew what's good for us.
This is a superbly written story, dripping blood and guts from Matewan to Vietnam and back again. And humor, and humanity, like a CNN reporter telling this all-too American history after a few six-packs and some moonshine to wash it down. It's honest and gripping cuz the people and events are real and there're no punches pulled on either side. It's their story and ours too. How the auto industry and the UAW shaped America and our future; and of the people who fought and died in those wars.
Pancoast knows what he's talking about because he was there. He's an insider who can detail how it all went down. Like the key witness in a trial we're all a part of. And there're two choices here - do you wanna know - or remain stupid. For me and for all people who are curious, and what Emerson would call self-reliant, that's what life is about, finding truth. Cuz we can moan and groan about whatever doesn't go our way and why and who's to blame. Or we can learn to carry our own water, understanding that however things are - it's on us.
Ridin' down to the river on my bike through chill melting snow in the brilliant sun. Such lovely morning... Way back when I'd make deliveries in soft summer ease and folks would say "nice day, isn't it" and I'd respond "aren't they all" meaning every word.
Like morning forty years ago on the fourth floor psych ward, after watching sunrise. I got off work and walked along the warm river banks. Back when me and Sonny were living in Commodore Coulson's house with the big tower on top that only a riverboat captain would build. And you could see... everything...from up there in Mark Twain's day, I guess. I lived in that tower with Janey later on. No, it was before. She's the one who found that house cuz of all the mailboxes out front. So she figured they'd rent rooms.
On that amazing day walking through reflection of sun and trees on glass-still waters with James Taylor in my mind "geese in flight and dogs that bite" wishing you were here to share it with. Not "you" as anyone particular, but Janey or Sue or Cathy or anyone. Just someone beautiful enough to recognize them selves in all that beauty all around that perfect day and perfect place. Later Sonny wants to put an antenna up on top the tower so I go up and do that. But doesn't help the crummy old tv of his.
Riding along the river banks of riverside park, it goes by quick. Big geese on the water, I heard them honking on the way but you hear that all the time. A lovely sound like you're going somewhere, for some reason. Like looking out of barred windows at the white trails of a passenger jet against the blue sky. Dreaming of goin' somewhere.
Or for the geese maybe it's too cold, or maybe it's time to mate. What else is there in life. They're in the middle of the river swimming against current which leaves them standing still sort of. Later I pass the ballpark on the left where they're getting ready for...spring, I guess. I could turn here, and head back, but think I'll go on a ways, for the exercise, or just to see what's there. It's been awhile.
Up on the right is the boat dock where I took Rudy (Valentino) our big old collie dog that Yolanda bought with our meager savings when the kids were little. And like collie dogs he protected them from harm. Knocking me over when we played football and the girls were a little older, cuz he thought I might hurt them. But tonight he's dying from the maggots swarming his body from inside out. And the cold river water is all he wants cuz he can stand/float in it. He can't do that on land, not for a week or more; and not now, his last night before I put him down. He doesn't want to leave...yeah, who would.
But Yolanda left us, me and the kids, and in that hard demise who's gonna care for a dog with cancer. And so it goes, and so it went. Stretching Rudy on the ground in the backyard so I can measure to dig the grave. He watches me and I guess he knows and neither one of us can make it right.
And on and on, riding along, not thinking of then or not too much. Past trees on the bank, and long-dead trees in the water, up to where me and Gramp used to go fishing. Til that time he fell coming up the bank, and broke his ribs. Then lying in bed for a month or more. One day he's all excited cuz he took his teeth out and his little dog ran off with 'em. Wants me to get 'em back for him.
Is funny, he knew he was gonna die, but not yet, not for another ten years. So there was time yet. There always is, and then there isn't. My granddaughter complaining about her friends. They tug at her, pull her in different directions. They hate her boyfriend and he hates them. So she's in the middle, the middle of nowhere. "Where do you live" I ask her. But she's uncertain. So "where do you live" I repeat, pointing at my temple. And she gets it, she understands. "You live here" I tell her. That's the only place there's meaning, the rest is just passing by.
The men who fought for Washington to make a new nation had to wonder - what do I get? Cuz the conditions were horrible - lack of food, boots, weapons. The only thing you could be sure of was dying. A given no matter what the endeavor. But if the soldiers asked "hey George, whatta we gonna get." He might've said "when it's all over, you can come work for folks like me. And someday your kids in the far off future can maybe work for a Wall Street corporation."
The soldiers might reply "that's fucked up George" and they'd be right. If the American dream is to work for someone else - to enrich a very tiny few by the lives of the very many, that's amazingly stupid. Imagine telling kids when they're little - all your little life will ever be - is a paying job. Kids would look at their parents and think - man, yall are fucking idiots. But that's how it is.
The problem stems from imitating the European model in the 1700's. It was a given that stupid peasants would work for enlightened aristocrats cuz that's how it'd always been. The land you worked belonged to someone else. So you were never working for yourself. Everybody knows this, but it's like syphilis - nobody wants to talk about it. Cuz it'll drive you crazy, or at least make you real sad - the fact that our geniuses in sociology and politic can't come up with a sane system.
Young kids about to set off on a new life gotta think - it's fuckin hopeless - like Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate who mighta said "you mean this is the future yall got planned fer me?" My freakin Jesus, it's all pointless - it don't mean nuthin. Merely a glittery glossed up form of eternal slavery - me workin fer you. And gettin peanuts in return."
And the bosses say "tell you what, in exchange fer humpin yer ass, I'll give you free speech so's you can complain about it all y'want - hey, it'll make y'feel better."
Well, they say the first step in problem solving is to identify the problem. Okey dokey, then what? We're drifting in space and running outta oxygen - so, who's got a plan?
PS - y'know I wonder.......the saddest thing is a Russian emigre sayin "if you think this is bad, imagine how much worse it is in Russia." D'y'spose that's intentional? Could you imagine world leaders gettin' together saying - they'll relish what little they have if we can give them an example of how much worse it is elsewhere. And somebody says - yeah, cool, let's make a genocide in someplace like Yemen so's everybody'll be happy they aint there.
