Pictures from this morning's meeting

Daishin and me


Daishin and Sprite

You can run but you can't hide

Yesterday was a long day of writing, with a break for a quick lunch with Muttering Madzub. In the evening, I met up with Shogen at the house of a friend of his where people had gathered to watch the Pacqiao-Cotto fight.

I'd predicted a late TKO win for Pacquiao, but I ought to have been wrong. Cotto took such a beating, the fight should have been stopped in the middle rounds. He's a good fighter, but he didn't belong in the same ring as Pacquiao (I'm not sure anyone does at this point). He showed tremendous heart, but what good did it do him to take a one-sided beating? He said he intends to keep on fighting, and I wonder if he realizes that every punch he took last night is a punch he won't be able to take in the future.

I don't think Mayweather has more than a small chance against Pacquiao. He's much bigger, but so is Cotto, who couldn't hurt Pacquiao at all. Mayweather is such a light puncher, he couldn't put Marquez (his most recent opponent) away, even though he could hit him at will, so he doesn't have enough power to keep Pacquiao off. Much is made of Mayweather's speed, but Pacquiao is at least as fast, and I wonder how much speed Mayweather will be capable of once he's taken a couple of Pacquiao's punches...

Okay, time to get ready for the sangha meeting at Modified. There will be dokusan and Dharma talk from me. Bring your own cushion, and be sitting on it by 10:20.

Tanka

for Amy

Dark morning. Awake before her, I make tea,
pour some in a cup - with
the words Wake Up! in calligraphy -
take it to the bedroom,
get her first smile of the day.

Story from 1996

THE WORK ETHIC

for Hal Sirowitz

She’d been working there for about three weeks before my visit. I didn’t want to go there. I wanted to meet her in a cafe, but she’d lost her driver’s license, and the bus took too long to get to the center of town. She’d have had barely any time to eat and talk with me before she had to head back there.

I arrived just after one. I was nervous. I didn’t know how to act in a place like that. I think I probably acted so nonchalant that it was obvious that I was agitated.

It was a big, detached house. It looked a bit like an old hotel, and that’s how it was run. There was a reception desk in the hall, with a young woman sitting behind it. I told her that I’d come to pick up Louise, that she was expecting me. The woman paged her, then told me to take a seat. "She’ll be down in a few minutes."

There was a couch in the reception area. I sat on it and waited.

Louise came down the stairs. I’d wondered what she’d wear in a job like that, imagining rubber dresses and thigh boots. She was wearing a T-shirt and denim shorts over black tights, and was putting on a wool scarf and a leather jacket.

She smiled when she saw me. I stood up and she hugged me. I kissed her cheek. "How’re you doing?" I said.

"Okay." She took my hand and led me outside. The receptionist gave her a cold look as we went.

We got in my car. "Where do you want to go?" I said.

"Wherever."

"Well, I don’t care. You’re fussier than me, so you decide."

"How about the Aztec?"

"Fine."

* * *

It was sunny, and the sky was a luminous blue. But it wasn’t warm. When we got to the Aztec Cafe, I wanted to sit inside. Louise insisted on sitting outside, despite the cold. She said that after being in that one room of that place all morning, she had to have at least an hour in the open air before going back to it. I couldn’t argue.

We sat outside and looked at the menu. She told me what she wanted and I went inside to get it. A chicken salad and a pot of coffee for her, a bagel with cream cheese and a glass of orange juice for me. I loaded it onto a tray, paid for it and took it outside.

"It’s really good to see you," I said after we’d spent a few minutes eating without saying anything.

"It’s good to see you," she said. "Even with bagel in your teeth and cream cheese on your face."

I covered my mouth with my hands. "It always happens. Everybody else can eat bagels without making a mess..."

She laughed. "I’ve got some gum. Less gross than using a toothpick." She gave me a stick of gum. I put it in my mouth and chewed. I wiped my face with a napkin.

I gave her an exaggerated grin, showing most of my teeth. "Okay now?"

She studied. "Yeah. Nice and clean."

I spat the gum into the napkin. "How’re you handling the job?" I said.

"Okay. It’s not like I’m ever going to like it or anything. But I’m managing. I hope you didn’t come to town to save me."

"No. I wouldn’t know how to. If I did, I would have before."

She smiled. "I’m not your responsibility."

"I know. But I wish I could help."

"If you could help, you would. I know that. Why do you think I’ve never asked you for help? Because I’ve always known that if you could help me, I wouldn’t have to ask. You’d just do it."

"I didn’t realize you knew that. I’m glad you do."

"Of course I do. Anyhow, I’m all right. It’s not killing me. I just accept that I have to do it, and I do it."

"Do you have to do things you don’t like?"

She made a face. "I don’t like any of it. Did you think I did?"

"No, I mean like...Well, do you have to give head?"

"Oh, yeah. You couldn’t really do the job if you wouldn’t do that."

"That’s what I meant. You used to have a problem with that." Although she’d slept with me the night we’d met, it had been weeks before she’d sucked my cock. It wasn’t that she disliked doing it, it was that she found it to be more intimate than anything else, and she couldn’t do it until she was sure about the guy.

"Yeah," she said. "Well, the first time I did it on the job and the guy came in my mouth, I felt pretty hysterical. But then I made myself think about the money I get for it, and how much I need it. That makes it easier."

"I guess it would. Knowing that you have to."

"How long are you here for?" she said.

"Just till tomorrow. I have to get back to work."

"You’re driving twelve hours each way for a two-day visit?"

"Yeah." I laughed. "I know, I’m insane. But I needed the break. I had to get away. It wasn’t so bad - I actually enjoyed the drive. It’s a good feeling, covering so much country."

"I’ll take your word for it."

"Do you want to go do something tonight? Have dinner or go to a club or something?"

"I would. But I’ve already arranged to meet somebody."

"Oh. Okay."

"I would like to," she said.

"Don’t worry about it."

"Will you be in town again soon?"

"Yeah, probably. I hope so."

"Well, give me some notice and we can plan something."

"Okay."

* * *

I drove her back to work. We sat together in my car for a couple of minutes before she got out. "I’m glad you came," she said.

"Me too. I’ll try to stay for longer next time."

"That’d be good." She leaned over and hugged me. I kissed her mouth. She opened her lips and hesitantly gave me her tongue. Then she said, "Take care of yourself."

"You too."

She got out of the car and closed the door. She smiled at me. Then she went into the house. I watched her go up the steps, push the door open. I saw it swing shut behind her.

* * *

I was staying at a friend’s apartment. He wasn’t around much - he was working nights and going to school during the day - but he’d given me keys and told me to treat the place as my own. That evening I sat in his living room and flicked through the channels on TV. I thought about one afternoon years before, when I still lived in town and had no plans to leave. Louise and I were supposed to meet some friends in the cafe of a bookstore. As we walked there, we stopped at a bank so she could cash her paycheck. With the money in her purse, we went to the bookstore. We were early and it would be another half-hour before our friends showed up. Louise wasn’t into looking at books. She had a joint in her pocket and wanted to go somewhere and smoke it. I wasn’t into getting stoned, so she said she’d go and smoke, then come back to the bookstore.

I was browsing when she came back in tears. She’d lost her money. She’d met a couple of people she knew slightly, and she’d sat in their car with them and sparked up the joint. For some reason she’d taken off her purse, which she wore on a thong around her neck. And she was so stoned she’d forgotten to put it on again before she’d left the car. She didn’t know where either of the people lived. There was ID in the purse, but the address on it wasn’t her current one. We stood there in the bookstore and she sobbed and said, "What am I going to do? I haven’t got a cent now." And I wanted to help her and I wanted to yell in her face.

* * *

That went on. Different things happened to her, all pretty much the same. Then I moved to another state. We never talked about breaking up. We just did.

* * *

I stopped surfing the channels and made myself switch off the TV. I went to my friend’s kitchen and searched for something to eat. He didn’t have much, mostly canned stuff. I emptied a small can of soup into a pot and heated it, then sat at the kitchen table and ate from the pot. It was around nine-thirty. I hoped that Louise was having a good time, that her evening would be without tears or crisis.

I didn’t feel tired, but I decided to go to bed and try to sleep. I’d be up at five, to start driving home. Knowing I wouldn’t see him before I left, I wrote a note to my friend, thanking him for letting me stay there.

I fell asleep quickly, but I woke in the middle of the night and couldn’t drop off again. I lay there for a long time, looking at the window. I could see the moon, shining between the telephone wires.

Where sunshine is the new noir

A good Phoenix Noir event at the Tempe Public Library today. Jim Sallis, Chuck Kelly, Robert Anglen, Kurt Reichenbaugh, Patrick Millikin and I talked and read to a lively crowd. My right hand aches from signing books. Afterward, Kurt gave me a ride home.

Two more events this month. Watch this space. Or the Twitter updates over to the left.

Tanka

Afterward, she falls on him
and, through their damp skin,
he feels her heart
hammering, hammering,
reaching for his.

The world, not the living room

This piece, by the great novelist Larry Fondation, appears in the French magazine Transfuge. He was kind enough to include me...


Los Angeles Literature: Apocalypse, Redemption and Reality

Drought, fire, flood and earthquake. The four seasons of Los Angeles.

Sunshine and noir. Paradise and Armageddon.

Riots and flames in 1965, and again in 1992. All cinder and ash.

The apocryphal tale of Lana Turner sipping soda at Schwab’s – discovered by Hollywood and going on to the bright lights of stardom

There has always been the sense that opportunity looms large here; there has always been the sense that the world will end here.

Los Angeles is the ultimate city of duality.

Disaster films and fairy tales, fifty-room mansions and bungalows burning to dust in the Angeles National Forest.

It is ingrained deep in our imaginations – past and present, here and elsewhere. The world sees us like this; we show ourselves to the world like this.

Los Angeles is the most uncertain of cities.

Literature has helped form the image of the City. If it continues to do its job, it will also paint it new.
**
Over the years and decades, Los Angeles fiction has tried to keep up with the myths of the City. Along the way, much of that fiction – aided and abetted by film – has itself become mythical: Double Indemnity, The Big Sleep, Ask the Dust, The Day of the Locust, to name just a few.

James M. Cain, Raymond Chandler, John Fante and Nathanael West all wrote about a Los Angeles they knew well – the hard-scrabbled LA of the Depression-addled 1930s. They wrote about the times they lived in and they wrote so well as to cast a spell on their successors and to create a vision and indelible image of LA for the world at large: LA as noir.

Since the Thirties, much good work has come out of Los Angeles, depicting Los Angeles -- but very little of it so iconic. Chester Himes, Pynchon (in his two LA books), Bukowski, Christopher Isherwood and, of course, Joan Didion have all portrayed Los Angeles skillfully, insightfully, even brilliantly. But the only emerging images able to compete with noir have come from music (and later film) – the golden surf and sand of the Beach Boys and the marijuana romanticism of the hippies of Laurel Canyon.

Contemporary Los Angeles fiction has four roads to take. Thus far, it has taken only three. In my view, the road not taken will produce the new iconography.

The three avenues LA fiction has recently explored are:

1. Dreamy LA – The dreamscapes of the Laurel Canyon sound now can be found in hallucinatory words by writers like Aimee Bender, Joy Nicholson and Francesca Lia Block, whose “Weetzie Bat” books defined a kind of 1990s punked-out, teenage Los Angeles. This avenue, however, leaves out 90% of the very interesting city that LA has become.

2. Fabulist LA – In a piece for the Los Angeles Times Magazine in 2005, writer Alan Rifkin made a case for LA “Fabu-Lit,” a “fantastical literature peculiar to Los Angeles.” The exemplars here are writers like Steve Erickson and Carolyn See, who present often post-apocalyptic visions of a Los Angeles ravaged by flood and nuclear attack, respectively. Erickson, in particular, is a terrific writer. His work deserves to be widely read. Yet these fictions leave the obvious and glaring gap of a “now” that links past and future.

3. The Los Angeles Past – Current writers such as James Ellroy and Walter Mosley have chosen to write now about what LA was like “back then.” Both these writers, among a number of others, have successfully dredged up the horrors and pains of Post-World War II Los Angeles and painted searing pictures of those times.

But the extant issue becomes this: there is nowhere to go from here. We eventually get to the present. And here lays the road not taken. A new gritty realism that confronts Los Angeles as it is now, not as it once was or might someday be. This is the current challenge. And, the first pillar of that challenge is a recognition that – as it was in the Thirties heyday of LA Literature – Los Angeles is a poor city, a city with a smattering still of poor Southern whites, the homeless, ghetto-bound Blacks, and back-broken immigrants, largely from Mexico. Poorer still amidst the current global recession. While acknowledging both the past and the myths of the City, the next great Los Angeles novel will depict and embrace the city’s poverty, and transcend it.

**
The best LA novel of the past 20 years happens to be a record album – NWA’s Straight Outta Compton, a switchblade sharp documentary picture of the Los Angeles inner city.

Like nothing else, “Compton” confronts – by biting your face off – what LA is now to increasing numbers of its denizens – in Chandler’s words, “something more than night;” in mine – something beyond noir.

Indeed though, there are good, even great, books about the Los Angeles “now.” James Frey may deserve ambition points for Bright Shiny Morning, though the novel reads as if it were written by someone who has read about LA but has never been here (though Frey indeed has lived here). Dennis Cooper, perhaps America’s greatest prose stylist, effectively depicts the ennui of LA and elsewhere, particularly in his “George Miles Cycle” of novels. Recent work by Richard Lange, Dan Fante, Sesshu Foster, Hector Tovar, Jim Krusoe, Gary Phillips (in The Perpetrators.) and Salvador Plascencia all have notable merit. Yet none of these works define the “LA Now.”

The next great Los Angeles novel will be post-realist. American Post Realists already exist. Post Realism is defined by the use of the tropes and devices of post-modernism for a different effect. Brautigan, Barthelme and Barth et al. largely played with language for its own sake – to create linguistic effect. Exceptions existed – notably Barthelme’s “Indian Uprising” -- a surprisingly political story for the playful 60s and 70s crowd. It is not my purpose here to examine Sixties era American fiction. Suffice it to say that it delved into more private than public realms. Whereas the future of American fiction – especially that rooted in Los Angeles – lies in its ability to reclaim it public function. Fiction about the world must replace fiction about the living room. Post Realists reposition plot, narrative attack, character development and non-linearity to covert political effect – not for didactic or polemical purposes, but rather to depict life as it is lived now. We live in an age of too much information, not a lack of information. Too little interpretation and elucidation, and too many random and unconnected factoids. We live in a time that witnesses the growth of poverty, not its reduction. The rise of violence at the expense of peace. An age of dissonance, not harmony. Official terrorism by the powerful and unofficial terrorism by the powerless. In the prescient words of Benjamin Barber, Jihad vs. McWorld. The challenge to all fiction is to witness and represent our times. Nowhere is this more needed or more true than in Los Angeles, one truly 21st century city.

I can think of five amazing Post Realist American books – none thus far set in LA: Eric Miles Williamson’s Welcome to Oakland , Chris Offutt’s Kentucky Straight, future Nobel laureate William T. Vollmann’s Whores for Gloria, Kim Addonizio’s novel-in-poems Jimmy and Rita, and Barry Graham’s (as yet unpublished) When It All Comes Down to Dust . These books tell it like it is about Oakland, Kentucky hillbillies, the San Francisco Tenderloin (two), and Phoenix, Arizona. All these books fuck with your head, on the page and in your brain, the way great literature should.

Los Angeles is ground zero for so much dichotomous and diversionary cacophony. In our literature, the closest we’ve come is likely Plascencia’s “The People of Paper,” a book about immigrants and illusions and much more. I say this with a wink, not a nod, to the fabulist school that claims him because this novel is all too real.

Outside a select and celebrated few – Cain, Chandler and West among them -- most 1930s authors have been neglected, forgotten, ignored or downplayed in the United States. Writers such as James T. Farrell, Ellen Glasgow, Jack Conroy and Henry Roth rarely get their due. Even John Dos Passos’ masterpiece, The USA Trilogy, remains vastly underappreciated.

Instead, many critics trumpet the Post-World War II era of American fiction as a kind of Golden Age. I take the opposite view. Much of the literature of the past several decades has been overly introspective and self-indulgent. University writing programs turn out scores of harmless craftspeople, superficially skilled stylists who have nothing to say. Chain bookstore shelves are redolent with works of glittering shit, finely wrought bits of nothing, the fool’s gold of the written word.

For decades now, there has been no Fante, no Nelson Algren, no Jack London or Stephen Crane. Yet the new realities of our age, a time of limits, will force our literature once again to address the margins – as it did in the 1930s. This will reinvigorate American literature, and great public fiction will again emerge from Los Angeles. I am naturally suspicious of the glamour of gold. But our times will almost forcibly birth a new era in American writing: the Literature of Iron -- a fresh body of enduring, meaningful and deeply moving work, work that matters.

At this point, though we know what it may look like, the next great Post Realist novel of Los Angeles is as yet unwritten, by someone who may be as yet unborn.