M Sarki

Difficult to read due to proof format, but an interesting book nonetheless. Any fan of The Doors would most likely enjoy learning a bit more about the band.

For the most part a pretty boring book. Perhaps interesting for some, but certainly not me. I learned nothing of any importance and there was little of interest to want to seek any further knowledge regarding any of the subjects investigated. All in all a disappointment.

https://msarki.tumblr.com/post/161848367868/whores-for-gloria-by-william-t-vollmann

…I haven’t told the truth for so long now that I’ve given up lying.

William T. Vollmann’s name has come up often and been noticed on lists of books deserving to be remarked upon. For some reason I have resisted reading him, but my being recently compared to him by another writer I am intimate with, I decided to examine a bit of the fuss behind the legend of Vollmann. Whores for Gloria signals my starting point. And what a point it is.

…Virgin Mary candy full of sunlight and ocean fruit…

The narrator’s voice is natural and through the use of no punctuation the dialogue between all the players is easy to discern, understand, and know at all times just who is talking. But the subject matter perhaps excludes too many of us on purpose. And I like it that Vollman’s work is exclusionary. Becomes a sort of fraternity I have been temporarily made member of. In this particular case a membership in what might be referred to as a gutter club. Flying dirt balls of emotion and most certainly a fated dead end. It is obvious to me that Vollmann has studied his whoring subjects well. His disturbed protagonist is named Jimmy.

It isn’t easy for me being this close-up to Vollmann. Too few pages of pure joy, reading pleasures somehow massaging the pain and loss that permeates everything everywhere. Jimmy’s absent love conjured up in real time, futile attempts at recovering some sense of belonging in the world, even in light of his daily encounters with a confounding nature called time. And sadly, time being something apparently needing to end for him.

…alley by alley I will search and destroy…he could not believe that he was actually remembering anything because he had not done that since before he started drinking, and he felt uneasy…

In light of Jimmy’s incessant delusion in his remembrance of his long-lost Gloria the story is as much about forgetting. Fueled by alcohol his escape from the horrors of the Vietnam War seemed to morph into a parallel fantasy regarding the woman of his dreams brought to life through the seedy culture of San Francisco’s Tenderloin district.

One night Riley hopped a freight into town, and because he had been living the life of himself he was in bad shape.

For me, my first exposure to William T. Vollmann was portend, portend, portend. And for more of that I will be back. [b:Butterfly Stories|45683|Butterfly Stories|William T. Vollmann|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1348089356s/45683.jpg|44857] is calling.

https://msarki.tumblr.com/post/161653555123/the-naturalist-theodore-roosevelt-and-his

Perceived as a swash-buckling president, a rough rider, hunter, and preservationist dressed in a buckskin suit, Teddy Roosevelt has, in my lifetime, maintained his larger-than-life persona and for good reason. This book is the first study I have been subjected to regarding the man, and I could not have been more surprised over how much I did like him early on in my reading as I learned of his exploits, trials, and personal loss. Roosevelt like many others did not escape a lifetime of personal tragedy. He endured more than his share. And his evolvement as hunter to protector is of course as unsettling as it is amazing. Roosevelt lived in a vastly different time than we can comprehend fairly today. Financial and societal privilege afforded him many opportunities that most of us have only read about. But unlike others born into this privilege Roosevelt used his to further an agenda for good and to mark his time in history as significant and admirable. Theodore Roosevelt overcame poor health, a weak body, a childhood of city privilege and elitist pressures, to become a naturalist of the first rank. Focussing on the naturalist and human side of his subject Darrin Lunde provides his reader with a most-rewarding portrait of one of our country’s larger-than-life individuals who ever walked the earth.

After his evolvement as a naturalist and his two terms as president of the United States, Roosevelt seemed to change. And the last quarter of the book disturbs me to no small degree. What had previously come in the opening three quarters was a fascinating study of a man engaged with principal and courage. But beginning with the eagerly anticipated and extravagant African safari at the end of his presidency this endearing portrait of Roosevelt became a bit disgusting as he seemed to posture and demonstrate a pretentiousness absent in his early years. Cloaked behind a Smithsonian facade of scientific collection marched a loud and obnoxious cavalcade of pomp and bulge. For example, his sanctioned and personal killing of so many lions appeared to be wasteful, cruel, and extreme. Each subsequent page to follow felt uncomfortable. My disgusting reading about this particular safari was growing by the page and it became more difficult to remain enamored with the man who did so much to protect our lands. Though he did preserve a mass of wilderness for us, he failed in many respects to save the creatures inhabiting these spaces. Roosevelt was a hunter first who protected his sport through conservation. But, in fact, he was a killer of trophy wild animals who, with bad eyesight and poor skills, maimed and made suffer the most beautiful ones roaming the wild among us.

…Scouting around the first day, they saw seventy or eighty buffalo grazing in the open about a hundred yards from the edge of the swamp. It was too dark to shoot, but, heading out again early the next morning, Roosevelt and his party let fly a hail of ammunition to bring down three of the massive bulls.…It was a real chore for him to write in the field, and he joked that it was his way of paying for his fun.

What confounds me is the thinking that must go on in the head of any blood sport hunter. These men must have ignored the fact they were killing a creature that belonged on the planet just as much, or more, than they did. A wild creature of feeling, free to roam the plains being massacred by a privileged as well as massive and pretentious army hiding behind a cover of science, their rabid blood lust and joy celebrated on these killing fields. Conservation’s legacy handed down by Mr. Roosevelt is sadly tarnished by this horrid and destructive behavior not only by him but also by the hand of his son, Kermit.

…his Scribner’s accounts almost gave the impression that he was trying to provoke a reaction from the anti-hunting factions, as he documented his kills—botched shots and all—in unashamed detail…”I felt proud indeed as I stood by the immense bulk of the slain monster and put my hand on the ivory,” said Roosevelt, and then everyone began the work of skinning …

During this African safari Roosevelt and his companions killed or trapped approximately 11,400 animals, from insects and moles to hippopotamuses and elephants. In this biography Darrin Lunde has provided facts and story enough to honor Theodore Roosevelt as one of the most important naturalists who ever lived. And due to countless excesses he did help our evolving natural history museums to thrive. But at the cost of so many innocent and free lives, it saddens me.

https://msarki.tumblr.com/post/162119548768/the-mad-habit-2017-by-m-sarki

The accounting that follows places itself within a specific time frame spanning the years 1995 through 2017. And I believe in my heart that one of these main characters, my teacher, editor, and friend [a:Gordon Lish|232097|Gordon Lish|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1267719924p2/232097.jpg] will be remembered for what he gave the literary world through his tyrannical teaching, editing, and authoring of his own work. I am impelled to give an accounting of our relationship in order to counteract anything that might be reported by another critic not so flattering nor tolerant of our relationship. In his teaching, Gordon insisted that a writer maintain a required gaze upon the object. When writing short poems I learned it was paramount to do so, and by default, I found it much easier to compose verse in this manner. But when faced with crafting a longer work, and one that encourages digression in many forms, the task itself becomes at times overwhelming and insurmountable. Life does not behave in a non-digressive manner so why does writing have to? Untold events alter everything.

For the most part, this new book covering the career of Bob Dylan offers little new. But for the obsessed and interested fan it is still fun to revisit the greatest song and dance man to ever hit the stage. Unfortunately, there is a large segment of the book devoted to Dylan’s transgressions, which reportedly were many. Readers are bombarded and reminded almost constantly how prolific Dylan was at being unfaithful to his love partners. Unsure of how this behavior translates into the history of his art, but it does seem to be important to many Dylan biographers. As I neared the end of what I hope will be my last Dylan bio, there was a bit feeling of satisfaction knowing more than I should about the man. And still he remains an enigma.

https://msarki.tumblr.com/post/161347680418/truck-a-love-story-by-michael-perry

Michael Perry writes a good story. He comes across as honest on the page, and though he lives in a more outdoorsy environment than most of us, he remains a gentle, thoughtful, and humorously self-deprecating individual. He obviously reads much and enjoys learning about the big wide world he lives in. His small-town characterization of midwestern rural life is obviously more involved and believable than the stage and radio personality of a celebrity the likes of, for example, Garrison Keillor. Perry actually does own a pickup truck and relies on it just as much as any long-term relationship. The love affair for renovation and rebuilding of his never-forgotten International pickup is rewarding on many levels and offers more than a mere glimpse into the heart of a man. Of course, this charming book leads Perry into finally settling down with a woman of like mind and their beginnings at building a new life together.

While engaging his readers in charming and humorous anecdotes, teaching us along the way by demonstration by his own personal mistakes, Perry is not at all shy in voicing his opinion. He courageously takes a stand over any injustice or ridiculous social stigma he is confronted with. I like that about him. But promoting a highly charged or political social agenda is certainly not his modus operandi. It simply happens occasionally in the course of a day. Perry is not at all a critical or judgmental person. He seems to be extremely tolerant while realizing his own inadequacies and hopes others respect him as well. He seems at times to enjoy promoting himself as a country bumpkin, but he is far from that. Michael Perry is one authentic writer and this is another chapter in his life story.

A history book for children. Written in an unpretentious, matter-of-fact way, with words and pictures that respect the intellect of kids while promoting a love for books and reading. Andrew Carnegie did much to help the disadvantaged and is responsible for many libraries throughout our country. The book also is honest about what a ruthless businessman Carnegie was and how he sometimes mistreated his workers. But the book does so much to further social awareness and offers hope to all who desire to lift themselves up and succeed. Acquiring a love for reading cannot possibly hurt in establishing one's place in the world, and is a fine place to begin a life journey.

War is madness. My Lai is a tragic piece in our U.S. military history. It was a mistake to think I might be interested in this accounting.

https://msarki.tumblr.com/post/160903888508/going-sane-maps-of-happiness-by-adam-phillips

…Those of us who don’t find madness inspiring are surprisingly short of options; and, at present, there is not much help available.

Being impelled to record notes while reading is always the most promising sign that once again I have stumbled onto a very important book. There is so much good to retain in Going Sane. But the reader should not be so naive as to not expect a bit of disjointed rhetoric when addressing the subject of sanity. Such a wide-ranging topic that would be difficult at best to pin down and keep focussed on. There are diversions to be expected in a concept so insanely complicated to explain.

…Imagining possibilities for ourselves involves telling stories about what we think we are like, what we think we want, and what we think we are capable of…

…The sanity of True Genius, we must assume, is that the True Genius is a fallen creature who can write—who can describe things—from the point of view of the unfallen…The sane genius transforms everything that might disturb us, “the wildest dreams,” into something that is familiar and reassuring…The horrifying, the dispiriting, the bizarre are made utterly convivial by the sane True Genius…Sanity checks the madness…only the sanity of True Genius can manage and bear madness…Madness requires genius to make it viable. Indeed, that may, ultimately, be what genius is, what sanity has to be: a talent for transforming madness into something other than itself, of making terror comforting…Sanity is this talent for not letting whatever frightens us about ourselves destroy our pleasure in life; and this, for Lamb, is essentially a linguistic talent.

Thank goodness for great fiction and the courage it takes to read it. But then to see and understand the truth in fiction and apply it to our lives is where the trouble begins for most of us. Figuring out what makes one tick is key to enjoying a healthy and satisfying life. Exploring all options that come to mind is critical to developing an understanding of what one truly wants. This does not mean to act out every fantasy or dream one holds. It means to investigate the idea, the possibilities, to extend the behavior out by using reasoning in order to consider the consequences. To think we ever have life all figured out is insane at best. To understand and accept that the best we can hope for is a muddling through is infinitely more sane.

The infantile pleasures of being loved, adored, stroked, held, cuddled, infinitely attended to and responded to, and thought about; of only sleeping, eating, and playing, these are the truly satisfying pleasures…It is, in fact, a form of madness to not know, to forget, to attack and trivialize what really makes you happy…The sane adult is aways smuggling his childhood into the future, refashioning his childhood pleasures as legitimate adult interests…It is the madness of modern human wanting not to want to know about its own wanting….

…The deeply sane must not betray their desire; the superficially sane accommodate their desire to the needs of others…The superficially sane tend to convince us that we are the products of our environments; arguing that if you give people the right upbringing and education, you will make them well adjusted. The deeply sane, on the other hand, tell us that there is always more to us than our environments; that there is something within us—call it genius or a life force or instincts or genes—that exceeds the world that we find, and to which we must pay our most serious attention because it is driving us, one way or another, into what we are and will be…

…The sane person’s first acknowledgement is that her life is moved more by luck than by judgment; she sees her relationships as coincidences rather than destinies, her talents as unearned gifts, her bodily life as genetically contingent, her parents as giving her a good or a bad chance, and so on. The only necessities her life has are the ones she ascribes to them. The second acknowledgement of the sane is that they are, peculiarly, animals who are often unconscious of what they want; and that some of the wants they are most conscious of serve to obscure their keener satisfactions. And this is because their third acknowledgment is that what they most want they must not have because it is forbidden them…

…Sanity should not be our word for the alternative to madness; it should refer to whatever resources we have to prevent humiliation.

https://msarki.tumblr.com/post/160690210793/dreaming-the-beatles-the-love-story-of-one-band

It was never a pressing need for me to read any book about the Beatles. Born in northern Michigan in a small fishing town back in 1953, I grew up with them. It feels like only yesterday when as a thirteen year-old boy I made my way downtown to Loeffler’s Electronics to pick up my pre-ordered copy of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Band. It felt like precious cargo walking home with that LP tucked under my arm. When I placed it on the turntable in the basement a new world opened up for me. I had never heard anything like what my ears were now experiencing. These British pop stars had turned a new corner, one that was in some ways expected based on where their music had been going. But change is slow coming to a little town up north on Lake Huron. And I would never again be the same after my entire Beatle experience.

Dreaming the Beatles is a collection of essays telling the story of what this band means to a generation who grew up with the Beatles music on their parents’ stereos and their faces on T-shirts. I cannot imagine what that might have been like. I grew up in a home where even the mention of the Beatles was prohibited. The band’s first appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show was cause for the future downfall of our country’s youth. My father was the president of our local School Board and the Iosco County News headlines one day soon after the first British Invasion abhorrently read, “Sarki says there will be no Beatles haircuts in Tawas Area Schools.” For years my three brothers and I were marshaled down to the basement for our customary two-week butch haircut. There we would squirm as our father cut away with his motorized shears, nicking our necks until they bled with regularity. But by the time Sgt. Pepper’s was issued there was no longer much that old Dad could do. Bangs were in and his boys were defiantly wearing them. Of course, I had a cowlick that prohibited a proper look. My style was more in tune with today’s spiked hair, except mine scrambled anywhere it wanted to except straight down.

As was predicted, mind-expanding drugs were introduced into my small town and the destruction of our youth became imminent. The Vietnam War certainly had something to do with it. Some of us survived. The Beatles for us were an everyday occurrence. Nothing existed without the Beatles’ mark upon it. Everything they said or did was reported and discussed. Hence the need for no further reading in a book about them. But now, so many years later, this title interested me. And the memories it brought forth were worth my time in reading it. The generations that came after ours have, and will have, their own set of experiences. But they will never be like our moments were back then, when British pop exploded in our bodies. And then it expanded and morphed into a world of psychedelic music, changing our minds forever, and opening us lucky ones to something bigger, more promising, and positively brighter. So come bless these boys in the band, and their passing that now-eternal audition.

https://msarki.tumblr.com/post/160400369043/fire-shut-up-in-my-bones-by-charles-m-blow

My disappointment in this book is unrivaled in light of the level of anticipation I had for reading this memoir. During the 2016 political campaign and the emergence of Donald J. Trump as a force to be reckoned with, Charles M. Blow took voice with the opposition and became a champion to me for his attacks on this awful man and now his presidency. Blow’s writing for the NY Times is always powerful and poignant. His appearances as a commentator on television prove to be remarkable events in themselves. But sad to say this book is a different story.

One admiring reviewer describes his awe in the author's command and use of the English language. Not so. But should have been. Too sweet and flowery for my tastes. Didn’t feel honest. And a not-so-admiring reviewer states he may have fire in his bones, but certainly not in his writing. It's tedious and boring and he takes what would be a gripping read of his difficult young life and turned it into a carefully worded, deliberately constructed poetic recitation. I get absolutely no sense of any "fire" whatsoever. I wish it were not so, but I must concur. And I know why this book fails on par with his articles. It feels as if a different man is speaking on the page. Not the Charles M. Blow I was attracted to. Sort of takes the starch out of his stance.

https://msarki.tumblr.com/post/160400256978/by-grand-central-station-i-sat-down-and-wept-by

All about feeling. Lyricism, poetry, decoration, or rhetoric; nothing matters if the body cannot feel words strongly and with intimacy. There is no use comparing this work to Ray Carver’s as the style is so contrasting as to cause a shudder in one’s bones. But feeling exists in both writers’ words; powerful and heartfelt. The beauty from the onset of Smart’s troubling love affair erupting in the foreground is on the level of the ugliness present in a Carver tale. Both as experience to the nth degree. So let’s quit the comparisons and leave the work alone to stand on its own merits. Let’s not even call it a poem, though it is lyrical and beautifully written. If Sharp’s words become pretentious and decorative then my review will be a scathing reprehension of her work. But let me read first with an open mind and a body willing to feel all she has to offer it.

…The sand of catastrophe is loosed and every breast is marked with doom.

Great early line, but by midpoint she has lost me. Smart veers from her object, this love or obsession, and removes herself to Ottawa and home. A father’s desk. And misunderstanding. Though lost at sea I remain in her boat as my journey is short and rather painless so far. I am thinking the book is not the work of genius Brigid Brophy claims it is in her original foreword republished in this Vintage edition. Again, more unfulfilled publisher hype, at least so far.

While reading Chapter Six I was forced to do a bit of research on Elizabeth Smart as the text offered no reference point from which to ascertain what in the hell she was talking about. Canada and war and who knows what else? The writing seemed good enough, certainly not the poetic genius Brophy claimed she was, but somewhat better than most, and of course, lyrical. But if Smart is going to keep me reading I am going to have to add something to the conversation. And I am not happy about it. Suspicions remain that I have again been hoodwinked by the blurbs and reviews. Now I am concerned that too much respect is being given to Smart on my part and I subsequently will be disgusted with myself for succumbing again to charms. The object of Smart’s love was the poet George Barker who history reports would shamelessly would go on to have a total of fifteen children from several different women. (That in itself makes me hate him.) And Smart herself would carry four of them (which does not help). And as I pick up again in Chapter Seven I finally say enough of this flowery crap and shut the book down for good.

https://msarki.tumblr.com/post/160295487663/population-485-meeting-your-neighbors-one-siren

My first introduction to Michael Perry’s work was his latest publication, [b:Montaigne in Barn Boots: An Amateur Ambles Through Philosophy|34217513|Montaigne in Barn Boots An Amateur Ambles Through Philosophy|Michael Perry|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1491691011s/34217513.jpg|55268410]. After reading that fine book I decided to go back to the beginning and chronologically read all the full-length memoirs Perry has written. Population: 485: Meeting Your Neighbors One Siren at a Time afforded him some well-deserved attention. But honestly, as popular as the book appears to now be, I was expecting much more. From the very beginning I found myself a little disappointed. For some reason I was not expecting so much about him being an emergency medical technician and volunteer fireman. But by Chapter 7 Perry had gotten me again with his simple take on community in the chapter My People. He speaks about humility and the assumptions writers sometimes have that they are better than what they are. How that same vanity can cause problems in relationships. But the fire department provided a point of access for him in meeting his neighbors more authentically. He admits, at this point of his writing career, to having written nothing of “considerable reputation.” And when asked at a reading, “What’s the secret to making a living as a writer?” he answers that he discovered the secret years ago while cleaning his father’s calf pens. A childhood spent slinging manure taught him that you just keep shoveling until you’ve got a pile so big, someone has to notice. I really admired his answer, and maybe it applies to all of us if we just keep working hard at piling up our body of work.

By the two-thirds mark I have matured in my thinking and wholeheartedly accept this memoir on its own terms. That of a brother and son, an emergency worker, a fireman, and serviceman to his county and community. Not exactly what I had in mind for the book that got Perry “in” and on the literary map. Thought it would be more about the quirky small town and its people, and it is, just not exactly. This entertaining and educational book is more about service and what that entails. It is the intimacy involved in getting to know death, disease, and destruction on a personal level sooner than most of us who generally carry on until the end comes instead to meet us. Perry confronts death straight on, and almost every day. Or what potentially could result in his own end, but certainly not without the instruction and details that accumulate in order for Perry’s benevolence to grow. It feels endearing to be in his company, and his character being one that will certainly last and predictably thrive through all the fated adversity to come. And this very good book was more than just a touching memoir. It has heart. And life. And hope emanating from a gifted and fascinating personality.

…Captive of my heart and feet, I’m a wandering fool, but I’ve got the sense to keep returning.

Free kindle edition promotion all-day tomorrow, Saturday, April 28.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00NABN9TA

https://msarki.tumblr.com/post/159838938858/houdinis-box-by-adam-phillips

…Real magic is the illusion that there is such a thing as real magic…

Years ago Houdini became for me more than just a famous magician and escape artist. I felt I knew him. Back in grade school my mother provided me a book allowance so that monthly I could order a few dollars worth of titles off a scholastic list our teacher provided. I remember ordering a book about Harry Houdini, eagerly awaiting its arrival, and after reading it being in awe of his story. I could not believe all the trouble Houdini made for himself. There was also a Paramount Pictures film made the year I was born in 1953 about the life of Houdini that starred Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh. I loved that movie. And my blood rushed within every dangerous obstacle and subsequent escape Houdini ever made. Reading Houdini’s Box has now taken me back to that time as a young boy and also forced another look into what originally impressed me so about this man. Of course, it isn’t really Houdini I am looking for. In fact, it is my very own mirror I am gazing into.

…To boast is to shout down claims of one’s inferiority, the vanishing act in which one’s shame disappears…

For years I made efforts to overcome my fears. Whether it was learning to stand up to bullies or embarking on long-distance excursions in order to prove how adventurous and brave I was, I continued to fail at convincing even myself. My list of sallies is long and could be construed as winsome. I was lucky to survive them. Even after more than six decades fear, in its many guises, continues to threaten me and I reluctantly face it willingly with the confidence to succeed in light of its many dangers.

…The sheer scale of fear between people—the terrors and uncertainties people can generate in each other—make a life of exits and more occasional entrances a virtual necessity. A person who is running away from something, the psychoanalyst Michael Balint once remarked, is also running towards something else…Things are not frightening because they are real, they are real because they are frightening.

Surprised at the age of thirty-two to learn from a substance abuse center that I was an alcoholic, and immediately carrying through on the center’s instruction, I attended the first of my initial one hundred contiguous AA meetings. After establishing a base of sobriety I branched out into paid therapy sessions beginning with a respected past member of the clergy who had gone into private practice. Dr. Tom Bumpus was my first terrible mistake in recovering from a disease that had affected me in ways that are still present at my current age of sixty-three. I believe it was my second session with this crackpot when he asked me what I thought my problem was. I remarked that it was this fear I had felt for so many years that was at the root of what ailed me. He called me a liar and informed me that all addicts are liars and I was no different. I was shocked that this so-called doctor would treat my most honest attempt at expressing the truth behind my disease with such disdain and ridicule. I walked out his door never to return. But Tom Bumpus scarred me and continues to haunt my good nature even thirty years later. Reading Adam Phillips immediately conjures up that doughy goofball and I remember how he made me feel so ashamed and doubtful of myself. Of course, because he was an authority figure, I questioned my truthfulness and attempted to place the blame on my failures directly on my own inability to perhaps be honest with myself. But thirty years of uninterrupted self-examination has provided me ample opportunities to prove and galvanize my belief in the power of that fear, and I remember still vividly the many times I have been forced to flee or overcome it by standing my ground and taking steps towards it. If asked the same question today I would answer that for good or bad, fear is the driving force behind me.

…the absence of desire and real death, of which the death of desire is a foreshadowing, are the two great hauntings…

This morning I am feeling old and unimportant. My wife is still in bed as she generally remains sleeping for another two hours after I initially rise to read and write in quiet. But I am bothered this morning by her oldness too. She is not the same young girl I met when we were seventeen. Though she remains desirable to me, and most likely will always interest me sexually, she could not possibly be as alluring to others these days as she used to be. Nor am I. Looking back on our life together I can see where her attractiveness played a most important role in my personal happiness. She being desired by a person not myself. And I am grateful that she stayed faithful to me. I was rarely jealous, and if I was it was of my own doing. Beverly was remarkable in the sense she could have been with just about anybody she wanted to, but instead chose me. But now it does not matter. She is no longer the young woman she used to be. Not only have I lost interest in our risking an infidelity, but she cares little about the sordid fantasy as well. It used to be what we did for fun. We were collaborators. And my reading Adam Phillips this morning led me back to a time I believe was seductively delicious. This morning he mentioned [b:In Praise of Older Women: The Amorous Recollections of András Vajda|1396806|In Praise of Older Women The Amorous Recollections of András Vajda|Stephen Vizinczey|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1183270721s/1396806.jpg|1386976] and I remembered Beverly enjoying that book herself many years ago. And this morning I wonder what that book would mean to her now? The novel details a young man’s obsession with older women and his being with them sexually. Perhaps my young wife, even back then, was subconsciously dwelling in the possibility?

Adam Phillips posits that escape is about what it is we want. One can either escape into doubt about what one wants, or one can escape from doubt about what one wants. For example, a pervert knows exactly what he wants. And he will flee from the confusion and uncertainty about what he wants and whether, in fact, he wants anything.

The convinced are in flight from the experimental nature of wanting, from the fact that you can only find something else that you hadn’t known you wanted. The unsure are in flight from acting on inclination, from following the compass of their excitement. For the unsure there is always a safe haven of compromise, of world-weary wisdom about the impossibility of satisfaction, and the noble truth in disappointment: whereas the convinced live in a different kind of inner superiority, the belief that they really know what everyone really wants, but that they are the only ones with the courage, the recklessness, the moral strength, or the good fortune to be capable of the ultimate satisfactions that life has to offer.

The teacher [a:Gordon Lish|232097|Gordon Lish|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1267719924p2/232097.jpg] instructed us to be open and frank in order to entice, and as Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, to name my bird without a gun. It is a fact I continue to follow their advice. And trust their words ambiguously.