Some have been writing me to ask me how Mark has been recovering from surgery. That's probably harder than to talk to than you'd think. Good days and bad days, just what you'd think. The good days often include visits from friends. Visits from friends take on the significance of a vacation to a Caribbean island when you're confined to the 480-square feet of your apartment. The bad days--the bad days are those days when all you are are those 480 square feet, or worse, the months ahead. The likelihood of further surgery, further restrictions of activity, movement, the position you must hold. Boredom. Agitation. But even on bad days there are hours of interest. Placing orders from Fresh Direct. Listening to Jane Eyre, a chapter at a time. Watching Ingmar Bergman's The Hour of the Wolf, and for eighty or so minutes you're stranded on a Swedish island with a tortured painter and his wife, and as much as you're transported by the rocks, windblown bushes, and Liv Ullman's transparent face, you're tremendously relieved that the apartment is not that Swedish island.
At least he's not hurting physically. That is the very good thing.
All this stillness in the house has had other beneficial effects. On this weekend we would have been driving back to New York from New Smyrna Beach, where we'd been scheduled to teach all week at a conference. Instead, I am finishing my new book: the friendship book, the Denise book. The book that had a title not so long ago, and now I'm not sure whether that was ever the title. The book, in that way, has a mind of its own. I'm in the process of naming individual chapters. As some of you already know, I like lists. Here, then, is a list of chapter titles. (The repetitions, by the way, are intentional.)
Volcano
Still
Process Analysis
A World Out There
Mask
Palace of Empty Rooms
Romance and Betrayal and Fucking
Dig
Animal
Good Deeds
Space Dog
Lava
Sometimes Relationships That Didn't Happen Are Worse Than The Ones That Did
Emma and Cathy
Implosion
Famous Writers
Alp
Tsunami
The Mother of the Book
Monster
Sex is Charging Up the Air
Furious
Tilt-a-Whirl
Neatness and Niceness
If This Were a Movie
Through the Window
You've Done It
Wave
Technical Writer
Artist Colony
Table
Break
Oiled, Sooted, Smeared
Spill, Spill
High Maintenance
Dream
Ain't No Mountain High Enough
Windstorm
Romance and Betrayal and Fucking
Stunned
The Fall
Flu
If This Were a Movie
Homing Pigeon
Mystery Beast
Yes And No
Treehouse
You Who I Don't Know How to Talk to Anymore
Another Life
It is Hard Work to Be Dead
Is This Just Vulgar Electricity or the Edifying Fire?
Damage
Palo Alto
Bye
The Dead Can't Talk Back
The Freedom of Failure
Chemicals and Chance
Failure
Mask (Reprise)
The Narrow Door
Pasture of Darkness
Intruder
8 comments:
Great list. enforced quiet can be beneficial, clearly. I'm glad Mark is 'on the mend' or at the very least out of pain.
Thanks, Elisabeth--for both things.
Hour of the Wolf is strong on so many levels: about Art, relationships, solitude, fear (adult and young) of the night. Besides the final image, I'm partial to this clip (especially the haunting sequence beginning around 5:00): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRk7dVCXpBs
Is there a 'written' equivalent of such power?
"If This Were a Movie"—I can't wait to read what you do with this title (twice).
Glad Mark is mending, sorry for the bad days, glad for the good; healing is never a straight line, is it?
Hey, Nick! Thanks for passing this on--I'm glad you're a fan. I know it's a movie I'm going to be coming back to again and again. When it was over, I was almost dumbstruck--that final sentence, incomplete. I realized that the experience of it was beyond language, like music.
Thank you, Elizabeth. You're right--thank you. That's sort of become my own mantra lately: [blank] is never a straight line. Substitute whatever variable for blank.
The promise of natural disasters, a tilt-a-whirl, AND a pigeon! Exciting. I left _Famous Builder_ in my classroom today, with the intent of digging through for an excerpt to show my high school sophomores as they begin work on personal narrative pieces. xxx
Thank you so much, Laura, for the vote of confidence. And how great to hear that you're looking for a Famous Builder excerpt. I hope that goes well.
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