STOP, it said, and so I did, and now here I am. Stop: there wasn't a clear reason to, just the sign's declaration, a verbal command that I obeyed and figure to recover from, sooner or later. For now the word is alive in my mind, in the drastic slowness of the air and earth around me. Articulation begets understanding, and it's as simple a trick as that, isn't it? Speaking aloud—in this situation, speaking slowly, wordfully to myself—makes things more complicated; articulating a thought is its own task, then there's the hearing, and the comparing of the what you thought and what you heard. They say a picture is worth x-thousand words, and they say it a lot, often enough that their words to this effect live in the front of my lobe. Clichés have truth beneath them, and here the implicit but indisputable truth is that language is the base currency. Words are the money; an image can light up your visual cortex and get an immediate, powerful emotional response, but that response has to be translated into words if it's ever to be parsed. Or take this stop sign just off to the side here. It's a lonely road, this one, abutted on either side by narrow, yellowed horse pastures, scraggly, second-growth fir tree forests bordering them. There's hardly a reason to be up here, this time of year, and so this stop sign marks what is an intersection in only the barest sense, the crossing of a rarely used road with one that's never used, not in winter season. But the sign spoke to me, in plain, unguarded language: STOP, and so I did, and then Simone did, too—her gas gauge has given out, it seems—she just sputtered into silence, and here I am. I'd no reason to leave breakfast as I did, save for the look she was giving me. But the look—utter disdain painted over with a shabby coat of tolerance; rather than admit there was little left to say, it foretold the coming shitstorm of pitiless opinion—the look was plenty. So I dropped a bill, picked up my glass of red beer, and walked out, across the parking lot to my shabby brown car, completely alone in its shabbiness among the shiny suburban monstrosities. Simone, you sweet old bitch, I said, pulling open the door and sliding into the cracked vinyl cockpit, be with me, now. Get me outta here clean; you remove me from this parking lot without requiring a roll-start, I'll take you for a nice drive in the country. Right now. You deserve it. You've inspired some looks on her face that weren't far from the one I just got over pancakes. I've seen them—seen her look at you as though you were something my Neanderthal aesthetics led me to, now strapped me to. But you coughed to life, and I drove, just out of town, then splintered off on a silent, narrow road that slowly inclines through the pastures and eventually meets up with the 159 up on the ridge. Miles upon miles from here. Miles of silence in either direction. I've been here … a while. Not too long, but a while, long enough to now be thinking about the world and myself in plain terms, but, still, terms: I think in language, I hear as words the footfalls of my plodding ideas. Stop.
10 December 2008
william "shooter" faulkner.
it's just a cut-and-paste from the writer's almanac, but it sets shooter's quote up so nicely i couldn't do elsewise.
It was on this day in 1950 that William Faulkner received the Nobel Prize in literature. When a Swedish correspondent in New York called to give him the news that he was being honored, Faulkner was busy working on his farm in Oxford, Mississippi, and he said, "It's too far away. I am a farmer down here and I can't get away."
The man pleaded for him to go the award ceremony, and so did Faulkner's friends, relatives, publishers, editors, agent, and other American writers. But Faulkner resisted. Finally, his wife devised a plan. Their only daughter, Jill, asked for a trip to Europe as a graduation gift — she wanted to accompany him to the ceremony in Stockholm and then go to Paris. Faulkner relented.
Faulkner was a raging alcoholic at the time, and his wife came up with another plan, this one to make sure he would be sober by the departure date. Faulkner intended to drink heavily in the days leading up to the trip. He was set to leave on a Wednesday, so the Friday before, his wife and daughter came into his bedroom and told him that it was Monday, time to start sobering up. He started to space out his drinks, but that afternoon he realized that he'd been tricked, and he drank for three more days. But he did manage to quit on Monday.
He flew to New York with his daughter on Wednesday and went to a party in his honor, where he drank Jack Daniels and came down with a fever. He and his daughter
arrived in Sweden on Friday. He had continued working on his speech on the flight over. On the day of the award ceremony, he told the American ambassador that he'd never given a speech before and that he was afraid.
There was a formal dinner before the speeches. Faulkner wore a tuxedo with a white bow tie. But he hadn't shaved, and he wore his ragged, oil-stained trench coat over his nice suit. When he got up to give his speech, he didn't stand close enough to the microphone, and no one in the room was able to understand him. It wasn't until the next day, when the text of the speech was printed in newspapers, that people realized what a brilliant speech he'd given. He said,
"The young man or woman writing today has forgotten the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat. He must learn them again. He must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid; and, teaching himself that, forget it forever, leaving no room in his workshop for anything but the old verities and truths of the heart, the universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed — love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice."
It was on this day in 1950 that William Faulkner received the Nobel Prize in literature. When a Swedish correspondent in New York called to give him the news that he was being honored, Faulkner was busy working on his farm in Oxford, Mississippi, and he said, "It's too far away. I am a farmer down here and I can't get away."
The man pleaded for him to go the award ceremony, and so did Faulkner's friends, relatives, publishers, editors, agent, and other American writers. But Faulkner resisted. Finally, his wife devised a plan. Their only daughter, Jill, asked for a trip to Europe as a graduation gift — she wanted to accompany him to the ceremony in Stockholm and then go to Paris. Faulkner relented.
Faulkner was a raging alcoholic at the time, and his wife came up with another plan, this one to make sure he would be sober by the departure date. Faulkner intended to drink heavily in the days leading up to the trip. He was set to leave on a Wednesday, so the Friday before, his wife and daughter came into his bedroom and told him that it was Monday, time to start sobering up. He started to space out his drinks, but that afternoon he realized that he'd been tricked, and he drank for three more days. But he did manage to quit on Monday.
He flew to New York with his daughter on Wednesday and went to a party in his honor, where he drank Jack Daniels and came down with a fever. He and his daughter
arrived in Sweden on Friday. He had continued working on his speech on the flight over. On the day of the award ceremony, he told the American ambassador that he'd never given a speech before and that he was afraid.
There was a formal dinner before the speeches. Faulkner wore a tuxedo with a white bow tie. But he hadn't shaved, and he wore his ragged, oil-stained trench coat over his nice suit. When he got up to give his speech, he didn't stand close enough to the microphone, and no one in the room was able to understand him. It wasn't until the next day, when the text of the speech was printed in newspapers, that people realized what a brilliant speech he'd given. He said,
"The young man or woman writing today has forgotten the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat. He must learn them again. He must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid; and, teaching himself that, forget it forever, leaving no room in his workshop for anything but the old verities and truths of the heart, the universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed — love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice."
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