Thursday, December 31, 2009
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Annunciation: Clevelandia
The world is recreated
a billion times a day
by Google maps
and Jesus traps
and souls above the fray.
These words are scored in stone
upon the rocky shore:
"He is faithful."
"He is faithful,"
is what the words implore.
The water washes sins away
as hands and face we clean,
Annunciates
Greek palindrome
in church tiles' waxen glean.
The weighted Dame leans overburdn'd
by Clair and Lakeside door.
her scales are tipped,
unjustily gripped,
which makes her feel a whore.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Prevent Despair
Prevent Despair
(On the Passing of a Colleague)
'tis better to be blind to injustice than deaf to suffering,
Though blindness is bad enough.
The protocols, the transcript, the pomp and imprisonment
The hat in hand, or a more tenacious defense?
The masons had such simple tools
and build such grand cathedrals.
But now the altar is askew, a crack runs through,
from Portal to Sentimental Scales.
Whether constellations or juggernauts or jackals on meat
Always remember to ask of the stand
This most important query of the contendere at hand:
"Please reveal to us, once and for all, who, truly, did frew dat ham?"
Monday, November 2, 2009
I take the family out for "Sad Bookstore Night," which includes a trip, first, to a decent, stinky-carpeted used bookstore in a strip-mall, then to a garishly named, cavernous, big box mega-budget bookmart just down the road. I'm relieved to find a few comrades milling the aisles of the former, and a vast, empty parking lot moating the latter.
My hunt for a couple of specific short stories turns up cold, but I find several Cliffordian odysseys that will prove big, red and useful. As Amonymous meanders the empty aisles of the bookmart, and I follow in classic Kubrick steadycam tradition, I notice several displays that trouble me: new trade-sized editions of dozens of L. Ron Hubbard books, with inky, sexy, retro sci-fi comic covers; vast rows of milky white Ayn Rand reprints, austere art deco lettering and all.
Amonymous settles in on a bin display of Chinese-made toys, wind-up scuba divers, rubber balls with glitter, mooing cans...He picks up an item that is shaped like a microphone or an ice cream cone and presses a conveniently placed button with his thumb. Inside the plastic globe at its top, small gears whirl into motion and tiny lights spin in glorious patterns. Amonymous gazes.
A store worker tries to look busy nearby, and gives a benign "how cute" to the tableau of my son staring mindlessly into toy. "It's a time-travel machine!" I say to Amonymous. "It sends you several seconds into the future!" He looks up at me, then back to the whirring toy in his hand. "See? It works!"
The store worker chuckles. But I'm not interested in her commiserations. "It was invented by L. Ron Hubbard," I continue, "with help from his girlfriend Ayn Rand..." The store worker looks confused. "...before they invented the second half of the twentieth century and turned America into an Amway distributorship for decades."
The worker walks away nervously. I continue, louder, "Thank god we put them in a box together and sent them into space so they couldn't stick their hands in our pockets while we stared at little whirring Chinese made toys anymore!" Amonymous is still gazing at the stupid thing. He turns to me to ask if he can have it, but before a syllable comes out I boom, "NO." He puts it down without a fight.
As we leave the store, I pass a garish poster of the lipsticked whore, her eyes fixed on the future, like a propagandist photo, and another of that mental patient talkshow host dressed as...as...Generalissimo Francisco Franco? Really?
"Say goodbye to this place, Amonymous. We'll never come back." A Bloomsday pox upon thee.
Friday, October 9, 2009
Unfinished Anniversary Pome
A Buddhist respect will never displease you:
It laughs at choice moments,
breaks shackles and frees you.
A Buddhist respect will never forsake you:
Its memories linger,
and dreamily wake you.
A Buddhist respect will never implore you:
It patiently waits
for it's chance to adore you.
A Buddhist respect will never provoke you:
It peacefully plods
in the darkness to poke you.
A Buddhist respect will never prevent you:
your choice to remain
is why Buddha has sent you.
Friday, October 2, 2009
A Trinitarian Notion: Jeannie, Janis & Gentry
In the Name of the Mother, the Daughter and the Holy Ghost...
Monday, September 28, 2009
Hairshirt
I mention the public defender "hairshirt" to convey the peculiar paradox of my vocation - it is both unpleasant and chosen. I have, in my years of experience with the Cuyahoga County Public Defenders Office, accepted assignments that others avoid, given inordinate time and effort to futile causes, zealously defended the despicable, stood at the podium begging for justice and mercy for one poor meat patty in the prison-industrial complex machinery after another until I thought I'd fall over, and, all the while, suffered for it in my bank account. I do it because the Constitution and my conscience compel me. You judge a society by how it treats the least among its citizens. I value what I do for a living more than our society values what I do for a living.
Even within the confines of our office, I have a unique perspective: I believe I am the only employee who has worked in all divisions - juvenile, appellate, felony, municipal. The sheer volume of the matters I handle in Cleveland Municipal Court sets it apart. Each day, courtrooms are packed with confused, frustrated and angry people distrustful of the system that I represent. My paramount task is to dispel the misconception that I'm in cahoots with the prosecutor and judge. Prior to the judge's entrance, I often make announcements about courtroom procedures, trial rights, and my role as an advocate for the poor. It changes the tone of things.
As the judge begins the docket, I am organizing and prioritizing matters in a way that makes sense to me: which matters can be swiftly resolved, which will require further time, which will be headaches? I often have whispered conversations with clients, with prosecutors, with witnesses, to help gauge how the day will unfold. I also review sentencing/probation reports, as well as the occasional competency/sanity report. When my cases are called I step to the podium and use the moment to convey my grasp of the client's situation. Decorum and professionalism, both unquantifiable, play huge parts in this "improvisational moral theater."
When there is no meeting of the minds, the matter will be set for trial. Trials are frequently set, but often evaporate when things come to a head: sometimes there is a meeting of the minds at the last minute, sometimes the witnesses don't show, sometimes the defendant has a change of heart. In any case, each trial set is an opportunity and an obligation to look for a last-minute resolution that works for the client.
The most skillful work we do is on the record. I am constantly aware that my words are recorded, and that my interactions with the court are subject to subsequent scrutiny. Experience has taught me coherence and clarity and simplicity. Reading dozens of transcripts as an appellate lawyer didn't hurt, either.
The most important work we do is off the record. My confidential communications with clients, as well as my rapport with judges and prosecutors, are the keys to a just result. Clients must be listened to, though I believe what I have to tell them is always more crucial than what they tell me. I have witnessed other lawyers trapped in "did you do it or not?" mode, which is always a mistake. Instead, I present clients with the allegations and supporting evidence and allow their defense (or lack, thereof) to materialize.
Even when clients have no viable defense, I still have the obligation to convey positives about them to the court at sentencing: I begin from the proposition that each of us is more than the worst things we've ever done. Each client is entitled to a judgement-free advocate who can speak on their behalf. Over time, this task becomes second nature.
Friday, August 21, 2009
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Secrets of the I Ching
At the end of a lonely visit to a Chinese restaurant yesterday, my fortune cookie read:
Modesty is the art of enhancing your charm by pretending not to be aware of it.
Sunday, July 26, 2009
McLuhan Rising
If you've never heard of Marshall McLuhan, you shouldn't be reading this. McLuhan is the secret handshake to the twenty-first century. He's the saintly avuncular avatar to end all saintly avuncular avatars. Poke around and find him and come back. You'll thank Bloomsday.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFo5Ky8YE8c
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFo5Ky8YE8c
Saturday, July 18, 2009
A Three-Penny Opera
Moments strike. This morning I saw my wife, Molly, and our fair-haired son, Amonymous, off to their respective domains, then set to my own ritual preparations. There was a cup in the sink, a travel mug, caked with dried coffee from a week's worth of car rides to and from the (improvisational moral) theater where I work. The kitchen was tidy, but for this one gunky mug, so I ran some water in it to prep it to clean and when I poured the beige swill into the drain I heard the distinct clink of change as coins in the mug tumbled down the dark hole.
A cherished memory struck me so hard, I swooned: my father, thirty-odd years ago, standing trapped at the kitchen sink with his hand stuck in the drain after chasing an errant spoon. He struggled and gasped and swore and laughed at himself. "Get your mother," he said. An hour later, the house was filled with drinking buddies, laughing and mocking the smart guy poverty lawyer they loved to tease for his ideals and his general incompetence toward all things mechanical. The power was shut off, since the threat of the gnaw of the Insinkerator was real. He lay upon the counter top, arm lubed; a sacrificial lamb awaiting slaughter. I saw his fingers dangling underneath after the plumbing was dismantled. Some pushed, some pulled, but a violent howl marked the birth of his resurrected hand. They drank and laughed and tended to his tender, swollen limb. "One for the history books," one announced. He would never live this moment down, he knew, but he took it like a champ. He laughed along and self-medicated with bloody marys and screwdrivers, as usual.
And so I stood at the sink this morning, laughing and crying. I found a flashlight and peered into the hole and found the glint of three pennies. After a failed, cautious attempt with chopsticks, I succumbed and shoved my hand down. One by one, I found them and pulled out the trinity of mucky cents from the subterranean netherworld. I washed them off and set them on the window sill, then washed my hands. The house was tidy and silent as I dried my hands and eyes on the dishtowel. One for the history books, indeed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IA_ubhYgjAc
A cherished memory struck me so hard, I swooned: my father, thirty-odd years ago, standing trapped at the kitchen sink with his hand stuck in the drain after chasing an errant spoon. He struggled and gasped and swore and laughed at himself. "Get your mother," he said. An hour later, the house was filled with drinking buddies, laughing and mocking the smart guy poverty lawyer they loved to tease for his ideals and his general incompetence toward all things mechanical. The power was shut off, since the threat of the gnaw of the Insinkerator was real. He lay upon the counter top, arm lubed; a sacrificial lamb awaiting slaughter. I saw his fingers dangling underneath after the plumbing was dismantled. Some pushed, some pulled, but a violent howl marked the birth of his resurrected hand. They drank and laughed and tended to his tender, swollen limb. "One for the history books," one announced. He would never live this moment down, he knew, but he took it like a champ. He laughed along and self-medicated with bloody marys and screwdrivers, as usual.
And so I stood at the sink this morning, laughing and crying. I found a flashlight and peered into the hole and found the glint of three pennies. After a failed, cautious attempt with chopsticks, I succumbed and shoved my hand down. One by one, I found them and pulled out the trinity of mucky cents from the subterranean netherworld. I washed them off and set them on the window sill, then washed my hands. The house was tidy and silent as I dried my hands and eyes on the dishtowel. One for the history books, indeed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IA_ubhYgjAc
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Strawberry Letter # 4: The Colman Letter (January 2004)
Hello my love:
There are about 300 saints named Colman mentioned in Irish martyrologies: for our purposes, we shall consider three.
Colman of Cloyne (c. 530-c.606), bishop. Born in Munster, he became a poet and a royal bard at Cashel and was about fifty years old when he became a Christian, supposedly as a consequence of Brendan discovering the bones of Ailbe at Cashel. After being ordained a priest and consecrated bishop he worked in Limerick and Cork, where he built the first church at Cloyne and another at Kilmaclenine. In both places are the remains of the churches; at Cloyne there was also a holy well. Feast 24 November.
Colman of Dromore, bishop of the 6th century. Born in Ulster, he spent much of his working life in Co. Down and was founder of the monastery at Dromore where he was also bishop. There he is reputed to have taught Finnian of Molville. He was venerated in both Scotland and Ireland from early times on 7 June: the Scottish cult being possibly due to his disciples or to another tradition of his birth, viz. in Dalraida (Argyllshire). The churches of Llangolman and Capel Colman in Dyfed are also sometimes attributed to him, but whereas the date of the feast in Scotland and Ireland is constant, that of the founder of these Welsh churches is 20 November.
Colman of Kilmacduagh (d. c. 632), bishop. Born at Corker in Kiltartan in the mid 6th century, he became a monk at Aranmore and later lived at Burren (Co. Clare) where, having been unwillingly consecrated bishop, he lived with only one disciple on a diet of vegetables and water. He later founded a monastery at Kilmacduagh on land given him by King Guaire of Conaught and was venerated as its first bishop. Like other monastic saints he was reputed to have a special affinity with animals: a cock used to wake him before the night-office, a mouse prevented him from going to sleep after it, and a fly kept the place in his book. Part of his crozier is in the National Museum, Dublin. Feast: 29 October.
We don’t build a perfect marriage by building a perfect wedding. But we can take extraordinary steps to make everyone we care about know how much we love each other and how much we love them, and how we look toward them for guidance. We can have a church or a Church or a Church. It wouldn’t matter to me, as long as I get to show the world that I have chosen you and you have chosen me. That’s what the wedding is for.
Love, Shuggie's Ghost
Ambassador of Prague/Dublin/Cleveland
There are about 300 saints named Colman mentioned in Irish martyrologies: for our purposes, we shall consider three.
Colman of Cloyne (c. 530-c.606), bishop. Born in Munster, he became a poet and a royal bard at Cashel and was about fifty years old when he became a Christian, supposedly as a consequence of Brendan discovering the bones of Ailbe at Cashel. After being ordained a priest and consecrated bishop he worked in Limerick and Cork, where he built the first church at Cloyne and another at Kilmaclenine. In both places are the remains of the churches; at Cloyne there was also a holy well. Feast 24 November.
Colman of Dromore, bishop of the 6th century. Born in Ulster, he spent much of his working life in Co. Down and was founder of the monastery at Dromore where he was also bishop. There he is reputed to have taught Finnian of Molville. He was venerated in both Scotland and Ireland from early times on 7 June: the Scottish cult being possibly due to his disciples or to another tradition of his birth, viz. in Dalraida (Argyllshire). The churches of Llangolman and Capel Colman in Dyfed are also sometimes attributed to him, but whereas the date of the feast in Scotland and Ireland is constant, that of the founder of these Welsh churches is 20 November.
Colman of Kilmacduagh (d. c. 632), bishop. Born at Corker in Kiltartan in the mid 6th century, he became a monk at Aranmore and later lived at Burren (Co. Clare) where, having been unwillingly consecrated bishop, he lived with only one disciple on a diet of vegetables and water. He later founded a monastery at Kilmacduagh on land given him by King Guaire of Conaught and was venerated as its first bishop. Like other monastic saints he was reputed to have a special affinity with animals: a cock used to wake him before the night-office, a mouse prevented him from going to sleep after it, and a fly kept the place in his book. Part of his crozier is in the National Museum, Dublin. Feast: 29 October.
We don’t build a perfect marriage by building a perfect wedding. But we can take extraordinary steps to make everyone we care about know how much we love each other and how much we love them, and how we look toward them for guidance. We can have a church or a Church or a Church. It wouldn’t matter to me, as long as I get to show the world that I have chosen you and you have chosen me. That’s what the wedding is for.
Love, Shuggie's Ghost
Ambassador of Prague/Dublin/Cleveland
Monday, April 13, 2009
Monday, March 30, 2009
Monday, February 23, 2009
Monday, February 16, 2009
Annette Remembered
Many years ago, when my love for Molly was blossoming, I wrote her a story. This literary effort coincided with a trip I was planning to meet her in Prague. She was a student, touring through Europe; I was a poverty lawyer living with my recently widowed mom.
The story went like this: an organ grinder's monkey, trained to secretly enter homes, businesses, churches to steal for her master, comes upon the famed Infant of Prague and falls in love with it. The monkey snatches the statue away, southward to the Baltics. The ending? A newspaper article about the statute, found years later, perched high in a pear tree, by three children playing in a war.
I wrote the story in installments, sent to my faraway traveller bride-to-be. The conclusion came days before my Atlantic flight to meet her. For Christmas, while dabbling in water paints, I painted a picture of a monkey and a statue sitting in a pear tree. It hangs in our bathroom now. I see it every day.
It reminds me of a perplexing question that arose out of the effort: which one of us is the monkey and which is the Infant? My answer for the moment is this: I am the adoring monkey, under the spell of unspeakable beauty and magic of a beautifully adorned Child of God. You are the miracle icon, a master to your willing subjugate, equally innocent and inaccessible, who considers this worship unworthy.
You may have a different answer.
The other day, my brother stepped out of bathroom and asked, "Is that a squirrel and a puppet in the tree in that painting?"
No, I replied. It's a monkey and the Infant of Prague.
The story went like this: an organ grinder's monkey, trained to secretly enter homes, businesses, churches to steal for her master, comes upon the famed Infant of Prague and falls in love with it. The monkey snatches the statue away, southward to the Baltics. The ending? A newspaper article about the statute, found years later, perched high in a pear tree, by three children playing in a war.
I wrote the story in installments, sent to my faraway traveller bride-to-be. The conclusion came days before my Atlantic flight to meet her. For Christmas, while dabbling in water paints, I painted a picture of a monkey and a statue sitting in a pear tree. It hangs in our bathroom now. I see it every day.
It reminds me of a perplexing question that arose out of the effort: which one of us is the monkey and which is the Infant? My answer for the moment is this: I am the adoring monkey, under the spell of unspeakable beauty and magic of a beautifully adorned Child of God. You are the miracle icon, a master to your willing subjugate, equally innocent and inaccessible, who considers this worship unworthy.
You may have a different answer.
The other day, my brother stepped out of bathroom and asked, "Is that a squirrel and a puppet in the tree in that painting?"
No, I replied. It's a monkey and the Infant of Prague.
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Strawberry Letter # 24
“Martin Sheen, Steve McQueen and Jimmy Dean,” Stipe sings.
A new American trinity, it might be said. Masculine, sensitive, subversive. A president, a prisoner, a rebel. One has endured, the others cut out too early. One cut out very early. Husbands everywhere, take note: You can be cooler than you are, right now. You must only pay attention.
I began paying attention at a very young age. I had a trinity of my own in childhood: Roots, The Holocaust and Helter Skelter. I watched them all before my ninth birthday. Roman Polanski throwing up at the sight of his slaughtered Sharon. Naked bodies shot into mass graves. Whites whipping blacks. I knew the world was filled with horrors. I knew suffering and anguish and insanity and rage at an unripe age. But I was enlightened enough to know the purpose of this study: to make sure such horrors can be avoided, that each of us has much to contribute lying dormant within us, that you judge a society by how it treats the least among its citizens.
I fell in love several years ago, and am getting married in October. I think marriage is one topic that I’m always allowed to be thinking about, according to her. Marriage is a public declaration of love. Love is a psychological construct based in biology. Biology requires reproduction. Reproduction requires a partner in love.
Love is not a word. It is not an emotion. It is all there is. Descartes was wrong. It’s not cogito, ergo sum, it’s amo, ergo sum. I love, therefore I am. Love doesn’t really require thinking. You can love without thinking. In fact, most people really in love often love without thinking.
Love has its trinitarian aspects, itself. Proximity is a part of love, longing for closeness. A chemical, subatomic yearning for closeness. Communion is a part of love, the desire to share together. Sanctuary is a part of love. You might be tempted to add Sacrifice, but that is merely an unintended consequence of love. Proximity, Communion, and Sanctuary pretty much cover all the bases for me. I find each of them in abundance in my love for Molly.
One of Christ’s lesser known miracles occurred when Simon came to him, lamenting the temple tax he could not pay. “Go, throw your line in the water. The first fish you catch will have a gold coin in its mouth worth twice the temple tax.”
I ask you this, Molly: how much temple tax shall I have to pay?
Thursday, January 22, 2009
A Trinity of Pomes
A POOR MAN'S LOVE POEM
You once accused me of stealing from us.
“Peter robbing Paul to pay Peter and Paul?” I ask.
“Your thrust is unjust. I’ve been fishing.”
Simon said
He found a coin in a miracle fish’s mouth worth
Twice the temple tax.
I’ll wait for Dawn and, the Dawn, it shall come, when
The rod and the reel, upon rows of cast steel, first feel the fish tug as real.
Then, like the fish pot with gold coins and seaweed, stirred and stewed,
Your meddling, muddling mind has melded with mine.
Where the water is fine, and the peaches divine
With chocolaty wine and yoga mat spine,
I”ll teach Peter to lend and Paul to spend
All the days of our lives in a world without end,
And the bells will all peal
For the fish tug is real!
Joy is almond.
Amen.
THE CLOCK PARADE
We are
Trapped in Prague
without passports
No hope of escape from this cage with no bars
We fend for ourselves, but mostly each other.
Huff to the top of Petrin Tower – Hitler dreamt of imploding it.
The Josevof, pristine, crumbling cemetery
Where the sons and daughters of Moses, piled upon one another, aspire for eternity.
Hitler spared that, too.
White asparagus and white cheese rolled up in cottage ham,
Broken clocks reflected on our plates.
Jazz mystics, puppets tangled by alchemists, crystalline Mozart on folding chairs,
Gun battle church basements, walking ghosts, arm in arm.
Beloved infanta, the clock parade.
Garish, weathered puppets of death and resurrection
Christ and apostles glide by on the gears.
The everlasting covenant will dong each half-past hour.
We are
Trapped in Prague
without passports
No hope of escape from this bed without bars
We’re fond of ourselves, but mostly each other.
MEMORY AND RICE
I purged your cache in Scotland
To keep you running smooth.
I purged the things we searched for
So your memories could move.
Our memories are not stockpiled
Like burlap sacks of rice.
Don't turn them into grains of rice.
They cluster 'round the sensories
In our electric mind.
Manifold marigold magnolia mason mind
Each one, a moment where attention paid the mind.
You once accused me of stealing from us.
“Peter robbing Paul to pay Peter and Paul?” I ask.
“Your thrust is unjust. I’ve been fishing.”
Simon said
He found a coin in a miracle fish’s mouth worth
Twice the temple tax.
I’ll wait for Dawn and, the Dawn, it shall come, when
The rod and the reel, upon rows of cast steel, first feel the fish tug as real.
Then, like the fish pot with gold coins and seaweed, stirred and stewed,
Your meddling, muddling mind has melded with mine.
Where the water is fine, and the peaches divine
With chocolaty wine and yoga mat spine,
I”ll teach Peter to lend and Paul to spend
All the days of our lives in a world without end,
And the bells will all peal
For the fish tug is real!
Joy is almond.
Amen.
THE CLOCK PARADE
We are
Trapped in Prague
without passports
No hope of escape from this cage with no bars
We fend for ourselves, but mostly each other.
Huff to the top of Petrin Tower – Hitler dreamt of imploding it.
The Josevof, pristine, crumbling cemetery
Where the sons and daughters of Moses, piled upon one another, aspire for eternity.
Hitler spared that, too.
White asparagus and white cheese rolled up in cottage ham,
Broken clocks reflected on our plates.
Jazz mystics, puppets tangled by alchemists, crystalline Mozart on folding chairs,
Gun battle church basements, walking ghosts, arm in arm.
Beloved infanta, the clock parade.
Garish, weathered puppets of death and resurrection
Christ and apostles glide by on the gears.
The everlasting covenant will dong each half-past hour.
We are
Trapped in Prague
without passports
No hope of escape from this bed without bars
We’re fond of ourselves, but mostly each other.
MEMORY AND RICE
I purged your cache in Scotland
To keep you running smooth.
I purged the things we searched for
So your memories could move.
Our memories are not stockpiled
Like burlap sacks of rice.
Don't turn them into grains of rice.
They cluster 'round the sensories
In our electric mind.
Manifold marigold magnolia mason mind
Each one, a moment where attention paid the mind.
9:45 a.m.
I’m at the Cleveland loony bin, about to talk to a dangerous mental patient. I take an urgent dump in a clean bathroom, thanks to the kindness of a shuffling, limping hospital staffer. A black man in his sixties. Morgan Freeman in the movie. I pace behind him as he slowly keys through door after metal door until we reach the Cuckoo’s nest.
“How is Mr. Zeppinger these days?” I ask. I know that he has threatened to kill judges and doctors and cops, that he has been wrestled to the ground in court by six burly bailiffs. I know that he’s as high and drunk and crazy and violent and dumb as can be.
“Aw, he O.K. He’ll be happy to see you, though,” says Mulney as he turns another key down this corridor to my client.
“Oh, he doesn’t know I’m coming,” I say.
“Yeah, but you gettin’ him outta group. He’s in group right now and he’ll be all happy as a sissy in Boy’s Town to get a visitor during group.”
“Francis Assisi?”
“Huh?”
“Nevermind.”
We arrive at the end of the corridor in a wide ward with chairs around televisions and chalkboards. “Zeppinger! Got a visitor!” A man with his head down on his folded arms on the table looks up at Mulney. “Zeppinger. Lawyer’s here.”
Zeppinger speaks: “HE CAN SHA-ZIZZLE MY PUH-ZIZZLE!”
“I’m Bloomsday, from the public defender’s office. I have some important legal matters to discuss with you.” He caught my eyes and I smiled. He stood up and politely walked around the remaining group members toward me and Mulney. I shook his hand hard, like he’d just won an election. Mulney slowly, almost processional in his limp Kevin Spacey way, led us to a “media room,” stuffed with televisions on push carts, two computer terminals, DVD and stereo players, and even a digital camera on a tri-pod. We sat at ends of a small wooden table in the center of all this technology. Mulney left and locked us in.
“Good morning, Mr. Zeppinger. My name is Ulysses Bloomsday. I am the attorney assigned to defend those who cannot afford to hire counsel. I have now been appointed to your case. I want to, first, so that we are on the same page, explain where your case is at. You are at an unusual point in the context of criminal proceedings, and you may want to take advantage of that. You were arrested and charged with assault and aggravated disorderly conduct, each charge a misdemeanor of the first degree, punishable up to six months in jail and a thousand dollar fine. Do you remember getting arrested?”
“Yeah, that was all bullshit, though. I talked back. I talked back and they pushed me around and arrested me. I ain’t do shit.”
“I have no reason to doubt you. I know cops can be assholes, even liars. But you are no stranger to aggressive behavior. Didn’t you threaten to kill the judge the last time you were in court?”
“Yeah, but that lady rub me the wrong way. She like an evil voodoo priestess.”
“O.K., that comment brings me to my next point. The judge ordered you be held to determine your competence to stand trial. Do you remember talking to a doctor about that?”
“Yeah.”
“And then, the doctor decided that you were not competent, but that they would try to restore you to competence here, at the Cleveland Behavioral Center. But then you threatened to kill the doctors and even pushed one up against a wall here. So the doctors now say that you are incompetent, non-restorable. They say you will never be competent enough to stand trial. That means they can’t prosecute you. The criminal charges will be dismissed and the county probate system will handle the matter. The law requires you reside in the least restrictive setting, which, given your past behavior, means Western Reserve Mental Hospital, where you’ll undergo 90-day reviews to determine when they cut you loose.
“You know, your momma’s out there, writing letters to the judge, begging her to get you help. You’re momma thinks you gonna get killed in here. She thinks this hospital is filled with crazy violent people who may threaten your safety.”
Zeppinger rolls his eyes. “My momma. She don’t understand shit. So you sayin’ I don’t ever have to see the voodoo priestess again?”
“Yes.”
“You sayin’ I’m going to Western Reserve instead of city jail?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then I just got moved from coach to first class. Thank you, Mr. Bloomsday.”
“My pleasure, but I hardly did anything. I’m just the messenger.”
“Don’t kill the messenger?” Zeppinger smiles.
“Correct. Do not, under any circumstances, kill the messenger.” I stand and shake his hand. “Any questions?”
He looks at the Styrofoam cup in my hand, and asks, “Can I have the rest of your coffee?”
I’m at the Cleveland loony bin, about to talk to a dangerous mental patient. I take an urgent dump in a clean bathroom, thanks to the kindness of a shuffling, limping hospital staffer. A black man in his sixties. Morgan Freeman in the movie. I pace behind him as he slowly keys through door after metal door until we reach the Cuckoo’s nest.
“How is Mr. Zeppinger these days?” I ask. I know that he has threatened to kill judges and doctors and cops, that he has been wrestled to the ground in court by six burly bailiffs. I know that he’s as high and drunk and crazy and violent and dumb as can be.
“Aw, he O.K. He’ll be happy to see you, though,” says Mulney as he turns another key down this corridor to my client.
“Oh, he doesn’t know I’m coming,” I say.
“Yeah, but you gettin’ him outta group. He’s in group right now and he’ll be all happy as a sissy in Boy’s Town to get a visitor during group.”
“Francis Assisi?”
“Huh?”
“Nevermind.”
We arrive at the end of the corridor in a wide ward with chairs around televisions and chalkboards. “Zeppinger! Got a visitor!” A man with his head down on his folded arms on the table looks up at Mulney. “Zeppinger. Lawyer’s here.”
Zeppinger speaks: “HE CAN SHA-ZIZZLE MY PUH-ZIZZLE!”
“I’m Bloomsday, from the public defender’s office. I have some important legal matters to discuss with you.” He caught my eyes and I smiled. He stood up and politely walked around the remaining group members toward me and Mulney. I shook his hand hard, like he’d just won an election. Mulney slowly, almost processional in his limp Kevin Spacey way, led us to a “media room,” stuffed with televisions on push carts, two computer terminals, DVD and stereo players, and even a digital camera on a tri-pod. We sat at ends of a small wooden table in the center of all this technology. Mulney left and locked us in.
“Good morning, Mr. Zeppinger. My name is Ulysses Bloomsday. I am the attorney assigned to defend those who cannot afford to hire counsel. I have now been appointed to your case. I want to, first, so that we are on the same page, explain where your case is at. You are at an unusual point in the context of criminal proceedings, and you may want to take advantage of that. You were arrested and charged with assault and aggravated disorderly conduct, each charge a misdemeanor of the first degree, punishable up to six months in jail and a thousand dollar fine. Do you remember getting arrested?”
“Yeah, that was all bullshit, though. I talked back. I talked back and they pushed me around and arrested me. I ain’t do shit.”
“I have no reason to doubt you. I know cops can be assholes, even liars. But you are no stranger to aggressive behavior. Didn’t you threaten to kill the judge the last time you were in court?”
“Yeah, but that lady rub me the wrong way. She like an evil voodoo priestess.”
“O.K., that comment brings me to my next point. The judge ordered you be held to determine your competence to stand trial. Do you remember talking to a doctor about that?”
“Yeah.”
“And then, the doctor decided that you were not competent, but that they would try to restore you to competence here, at the Cleveland Behavioral Center. But then you threatened to kill the doctors and even pushed one up against a wall here. So the doctors now say that you are incompetent, non-restorable. They say you will never be competent enough to stand trial. That means they can’t prosecute you. The criminal charges will be dismissed and the county probate system will handle the matter. The law requires you reside in the least restrictive setting, which, given your past behavior, means Western Reserve Mental Hospital, where you’ll undergo 90-day reviews to determine when they cut you loose.
“You know, your momma’s out there, writing letters to the judge, begging her to get you help. You’re momma thinks you gonna get killed in here. She thinks this hospital is filled with crazy violent people who may threaten your safety.”
Zeppinger rolls his eyes. “My momma. She don’t understand shit. So you sayin’ I don’t ever have to see the voodoo priestess again?”
“Yes.”
“You sayin’ I’m going to Western Reserve instead of city jail?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then I just got moved from coach to first class. Thank you, Mr. Bloomsday.”
“My pleasure, but I hardly did anything. I’m just the messenger.”
“Don’t kill the messenger?” Zeppinger smiles.
“Correct. Do not, under any circumstances, kill the messenger.” I stand and shake his hand. “Any questions?”
He looks at the Styrofoam cup in my hand, and asks, “Can I have the rest of your coffee?”
Another Posterity Post, or "Bloomsday May Be Through With The Past, But The Past Ain't Through With Bloomsday..."
One of the central mysteries of magnolia involves the three “unbelievable coincidence” tales that bracket the rest of the action. The film reveals to the audience these three bizarre stories in its prologue, suggesting that they will, somehow, inform us of a subtext for the plot to come: emotional breakdowns during a freak frog rain in the San Fernando Valley. But this has always been an unsatisfactory, if not dubious, explanation for the placement of the three coincidental tales. First, while a frog rain may be bizarre, it is not, strictly speaking, a coincidence. There is no meaningful or ironic intersection of events, unless you make some stretches, such as Dixon’s “good Lord bring the rain in” rap or the myriad Exodus 8:2 references coinciding with the frog rain later that day. But those are really products of Anderson’s narrative structure, and not integral to the tale of a frog rain, itself. We can say the same of similar coinciding events, such as Earl’s death, Linda’s foiled suicide, Donnie’s secret mission and Stanley’s epiphany. To call these events “coincidence” misapplies the term; they just all happen to happen at the same time. If these vignettes serve as more than a merely disorienting teaser for the strange story to come, do they offer clues to another cinematic agenda? What do the three urban legends actually mean, anyway? In a film dense with rich, novel symbols, these three tall tales, dissected like lab frogs, offer not only a Rosetta Stone for the ultimate meaning of magnolia, but also provide the most ambitious prologue in film history.
A clear understanding of this theory requires a segregation of the prologue into three distinct short films. Once interpreted individually, the three tales may then be conceptually reintegrated in a manner that explains their own presence, as well as the three-hour opus to come.
I. The Greenberry Hill Murder: “The three vagrants whose motive was simple robbery” attack a well-respected chemist. Ignorant of, or unconcerned with, his status and appreciable wisdom, Green, Berry and Hill murder Sir Godfrey beneath the storefront which proclaims his now-lost art of optical-chemical analysis. The black and white and rotoscopic effects, cropped within a small, square view, drive home the antiquity of the event. While Ricky Jay’s narration relies upon an article that dates the event in 1911, a more ancient date is referenced by the Greenberry Hill, London sign: AD. 1356.The most striking feature of the first minute of magnolia is not the corny name coincidence, but it’s parallels to the central initiation myth of American Freemasonry. New initiates to the Masonic order are subjected to a re-enactment of the death of another wise man felled by the hands of “three vagrants whose motive was simple robbery.” For masons, the legendary Hiram Abiff, architect of the temple of King Solomon, represents the hidden wisdom of the ages, lost to the simpleminded greed of his aggressors: Jubelo, Jubela, and Jubelum. The death, burial and rebirth of Hiram Abiff are the metaphorical touchstones for the Masonic initiate, leading to subsequent grander insights about the human condition as he proceeds through the path of enlightenment from Entered Apprentice to Master Mason. (An aside on the notion of “rebirth”: curiously, Sir Edmund Godfrey is reincarnated later in the film, when the same actor plays the concerned young pharmacist during Linda’s breakdown.)The Masonic connection in magnolia is hardly speculation. From Ricky Jay’s Masonic ring and “meet upon the level, part upon the square” comment, to the placement of Albert Mackey’s “The History of Freemasonry” tome on Stanley’s cluttered library table, to Donnie Smith’s infiltration of Solomon Solomon’s “temple,” the film is cluttered with masonica. The first minute of magnolia serves as both an imprimatur on the film as a Masonic document and, perhaps, as a shorthand “initiation ceremony” for each of its viewers.
Equal scrutiny of the remaining coincidental prologue tales yields no less surprising results. Though both devoid of Masonic reference, the second and third tales, examined individually, reveal an agenda of an even higher order.
II. The Frogman: Delmer Darion’s tragicomic fate at the unwitting hands of his troubled nemesis is certainly the most fanciful and amusing of the three tales. But the most potent aspect of this short film – its grandiose visuals – is distinct from the story, itself. From the first transitional shot of flames “licking over” the edges of the Greenberry Hill tale, Anderson frames this vignette amidst the essential natural elements of fire, earth, air and water. The Frogman sequence contains underwater shots, shots of fire, shots of planes soaring through the air, and shots of scorched and pristine earth. One complex shot, in particular, verifies this elemental agenda: an “earth’s eye” view, looking straight up, as a plane passes through a blue sky, dumping water upon fire clinging to tall trees. Frozen in view, this symbolic logos reveals a second magnolia imprimatur: the eastern way. This natural/elemental theory, like the Masonic one of the first tale, is borne out significantly throughout the rest of magnolia. The film we will soon see documents a world beyond Judeo-Christian spirituality, beyond western morality, a world characterized by the interconnectivity of all things, a karmic/Zen alchemical recipe of eastern mysticism and western absurdity. Yet, it is also a very natural world, characterized by clouds and 82% chances of rain.
DIXON: When the sun don’t shine, the good Lord bring the rain in.
The only other character in the balance of magnolia to come to recognize this natural order of things is Stanley, diligent in his studies of natural (and Masonic) phenomena, and curious of the mechanics behind weather forecasting at the WDKK? studios:
STANLEY: I was wondering about the weather department. I was wondering whether or not the weather people have outside meteorological services or if they had in-house instruments.
CYNTHIA: Um, I can check on that for you. Maybe later we can take a tour…You asked about that because it’s raining outside?
STANLEY: I guess.
CYNTHIA: So what do you do? Whatever’s happening, that’s what you look into? Something like that?
STANLEY: I don’t know.
CYNTHIA: You don’t know? Well, it’s not a bad way to be…interested in everything that’s going around.
Stanley is the culmination of eastern and western intellectual traditions. In a crucial moment, Stanley succumbs to “the call of nature” during the gameshow. Later, his frog rain epiphany, that “this is something that happens,” evinces his passage to a new level of elemental and natural awareness. The Frogman sequence serves as a sort of “cinematic feng shui,” reminding the viewer that all the elements are represented here, and that conditions are right for the evolution of consciousness.
Combined, the first two-thirds of the prologue provide substantial ballast to raise the curtain on the human drama to come: the dysfunctional Barringer Family.
III. The Suicide/Murder of Sydney Barringer:The third tale of the prologue, more subtly filmed and realistic in its tenor, is also less symbolic than the other two, though it is equally rich in subtext for the remainder of the film. The essential notion of human suffering permeates the short. From Sydney’s lamentable suicide note, to the stunned and maddening grief of his parents, to the creepily anguished, sometimes backward, purgatorial background music, the Barringer sequence is soaked with sorrow and suffering. It begins, however, on a rather clinical note: the forensic conference where the Barringer tale is told. Punctuated with fast and slow motion, the shot’s most important information is provided on the soundtrack, where the only audible word of the coroner’s speech is found: “curiosity,” that euphemistic synonym for original sin. Sydney’s suicide note, visually pieced together with various close-ups and pans across the words of the page reveals the depths of despair:
“I’m sorry/ but I cannot forgive you now/ I have suffered/ so I will go/ and be with God.”
Sydney is the poster child for the poor of heart. And what else is magnolia, if not a meditation on despair? The perplexing Barringer family dynamic is, arguably, beside the point. The real issues addressed in the short are the root causes of human suffering and individual responsibility for it. The sequence awakens us to this central question of human understanding, particularly within the context of parents and children. Who’s culpable for the death of Sydney Barringer? Sidney? His Mother? His Father? Of course, each one is culpable to varying degrees under various standards. Similar questions will be asked of the film’s many characters as magnolia unfolds, and as the transgressions of parents upon children build to life-defining crescendos. The final tale of the prologue trilogy defines the ultimate inquiry of magnolia: human suffering.
So now then
The prologue of magnolia serves as a primer for the rest of the film. It defines the moral, intellectual and spiritual agenda for the next three hours, and provides the informed and open-minded viewer a glimpse of the grand cinematic architecture to come. This is no coincidence. No, this cannot be that.
Now, that shit will help you solve the case.
A clear understanding of this theory requires a segregation of the prologue into three distinct short films. Once interpreted individually, the three tales may then be conceptually reintegrated in a manner that explains their own presence, as well as the three-hour opus to come.
I. The Greenberry Hill Murder: “The three vagrants whose motive was simple robbery” attack a well-respected chemist. Ignorant of, or unconcerned with, his status and appreciable wisdom, Green, Berry and Hill murder Sir Godfrey beneath the storefront which proclaims his now-lost art of optical-chemical analysis. The black and white and rotoscopic effects, cropped within a small, square view, drive home the antiquity of the event. While Ricky Jay’s narration relies upon an article that dates the event in 1911, a more ancient date is referenced by the Greenberry Hill, London sign: AD. 1356.The most striking feature of the first minute of magnolia is not the corny name coincidence, but it’s parallels to the central initiation myth of American Freemasonry. New initiates to the Masonic order are subjected to a re-enactment of the death of another wise man felled by the hands of “three vagrants whose motive was simple robbery.” For masons, the legendary Hiram Abiff, architect of the temple of King Solomon, represents the hidden wisdom of the ages, lost to the simpleminded greed of his aggressors: Jubelo, Jubela, and Jubelum. The death, burial and rebirth of Hiram Abiff are the metaphorical touchstones for the Masonic initiate, leading to subsequent grander insights about the human condition as he proceeds through the path of enlightenment from Entered Apprentice to Master Mason. (An aside on the notion of “rebirth”: curiously, Sir Edmund Godfrey is reincarnated later in the film, when the same actor plays the concerned young pharmacist during Linda’s breakdown.)The Masonic connection in magnolia is hardly speculation. From Ricky Jay’s Masonic ring and “meet upon the level, part upon the square” comment, to the placement of Albert Mackey’s “The History of Freemasonry” tome on Stanley’s cluttered library table, to Donnie Smith’s infiltration of Solomon Solomon’s “temple,” the film is cluttered with masonica. The first minute of magnolia serves as both an imprimatur on the film as a Masonic document and, perhaps, as a shorthand “initiation ceremony” for each of its viewers.
Equal scrutiny of the remaining coincidental prologue tales yields no less surprising results. Though both devoid of Masonic reference, the second and third tales, examined individually, reveal an agenda of an even higher order.
II. The Frogman: Delmer Darion’s tragicomic fate at the unwitting hands of his troubled nemesis is certainly the most fanciful and amusing of the three tales. But the most potent aspect of this short film – its grandiose visuals – is distinct from the story, itself. From the first transitional shot of flames “licking over” the edges of the Greenberry Hill tale, Anderson frames this vignette amidst the essential natural elements of fire, earth, air and water. The Frogman sequence contains underwater shots, shots of fire, shots of planes soaring through the air, and shots of scorched and pristine earth. One complex shot, in particular, verifies this elemental agenda: an “earth’s eye” view, looking straight up, as a plane passes through a blue sky, dumping water upon fire clinging to tall trees. Frozen in view, this symbolic logos reveals a second magnolia imprimatur: the eastern way. This natural/elemental theory, like the Masonic one of the first tale, is borne out significantly throughout the rest of magnolia. The film we will soon see documents a world beyond Judeo-Christian spirituality, beyond western morality, a world characterized by the interconnectivity of all things, a karmic/Zen alchemical recipe of eastern mysticism and western absurdity. Yet, it is also a very natural world, characterized by clouds and 82% chances of rain.
DIXON: When the sun don’t shine, the good Lord bring the rain in.
The only other character in the balance of magnolia to come to recognize this natural order of things is Stanley, diligent in his studies of natural (and Masonic) phenomena, and curious of the mechanics behind weather forecasting at the WDKK? studios:
STANLEY: I was wondering about the weather department. I was wondering whether or not the weather people have outside meteorological services or if they had in-house instruments.
CYNTHIA: Um, I can check on that for you. Maybe later we can take a tour…You asked about that because it’s raining outside?
STANLEY: I guess.
CYNTHIA: So what do you do? Whatever’s happening, that’s what you look into? Something like that?
STANLEY: I don’t know.
CYNTHIA: You don’t know? Well, it’s not a bad way to be…interested in everything that’s going around.
Stanley is the culmination of eastern and western intellectual traditions. In a crucial moment, Stanley succumbs to “the call of nature” during the gameshow. Later, his frog rain epiphany, that “this is something that happens,” evinces his passage to a new level of elemental and natural awareness. The Frogman sequence serves as a sort of “cinematic feng shui,” reminding the viewer that all the elements are represented here, and that conditions are right for the evolution of consciousness.
Combined, the first two-thirds of the prologue provide substantial ballast to raise the curtain on the human drama to come: the dysfunctional Barringer Family.
III. The Suicide/Murder of Sydney Barringer:The third tale of the prologue, more subtly filmed and realistic in its tenor, is also less symbolic than the other two, though it is equally rich in subtext for the remainder of the film. The essential notion of human suffering permeates the short. From Sydney’s lamentable suicide note, to the stunned and maddening grief of his parents, to the creepily anguished, sometimes backward, purgatorial background music, the Barringer sequence is soaked with sorrow and suffering. It begins, however, on a rather clinical note: the forensic conference where the Barringer tale is told. Punctuated with fast and slow motion, the shot’s most important information is provided on the soundtrack, where the only audible word of the coroner’s speech is found: “curiosity,” that euphemistic synonym for original sin. Sydney’s suicide note, visually pieced together with various close-ups and pans across the words of the page reveals the depths of despair:
“I’m sorry/ but I cannot forgive you now/ I have suffered/ so I will go/ and be with God.”
Sydney is the poster child for the poor of heart. And what else is magnolia, if not a meditation on despair? The perplexing Barringer family dynamic is, arguably, beside the point. The real issues addressed in the short are the root causes of human suffering and individual responsibility for it. The sequence awakens us to this central question of human understanding, particularly within the context of parents and children. Who’s culpable for the death of Sydney Barringer? Sidney? His Mother? His Father? Of course, each one is culpable to varying degrees under various standards. Similar questions will be asked of the film’s many characters as magnolia unfolds, and as the transgressions of parents upon children build to life-defining crescendos. The final tale of the prologue trilogy defines the ultimate inquiry of magnolia: human suffering.
So now then
The prologue of magnolia serves as a primer for the rest of the film. It defines the moral, intellectual and spiritual agenda for the next three hours, and provides the informed and open-minded viewer a glimpse of the grand cinematic architecture to come. This is no coincidence. No, this cannot be that.
Now, that shit will help you solve the case.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
The 20th Century Ends At Noon Today
" For the love of God, Montressor ! "
"Yes," I said, "for the love of God !"
But to these words I hearkened in vain for a reply. I grew impatient. I called aloud -
"Fortunato !"
No answer. I called again -
"Fortunato !"
No answer still. I thrust a torch through the remaining aperture and let it fall within. There came forth in return only a jingling of the bells. My heart grew sick - on account of the dampness of the catacombs. I hastened to make an end of my labor. I forced the last stone into its position ; I plastered it up. Against the new masonry I re-erected the old rampart of bones. For the half of a century no mortal has disturbed them. In pace requiescat !
Poe, A Cask of Amontillado
"Yes," I said, "for the love of God !"
But to these words I hearkened in vain for a reply. I grew impatient. I called aloud -
"Fortunato !"
No answer. I called again -
"Fortunato !"
No answer still. I thrust a torch through the remaining aperture and let it fall within. There came forth in return only a jingling of the bells. My heart grew sick - on account of the dampness of the catacombs. I hastened to make an end of my labor. I forced the last stone into its position ; I plastered it up. Against the new masonry I re-erected the old rampart of bones. For the half of a century no mortal has disturbed them. In pace requiescat !
Poe, A Cask of Amontillado