I’m planning and writing a post for later this week on the poetry of Tomas Tranströmer (in translation). It’s the kind of thing that will be academic in tone, but is really not up to the rigors of an established journal or destined for publication. It will be a personal reflection. Be sure that I will actually read his work before I comment on it. This last statement must seem obvious; why would anyone with the slightest bit of intellectual integrity comment on a work without first having experienced it first hand?
That leads to the topic of this post lifted from an brief post on the New York magazine website (http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2010/10/south_park_creators_apologize.html?imw=Y&f=most-viewed-24h10). I should state that I deeply enjoyed the movie Inception. The complexity of the narrative and the refusal to provide answers are what drew me into the fiction and allowed me to empathize with the characters and engage in the action. The two point which I found most compelling are what turned off a lot of viewers and reviewers. I admit that the line between too abstract and too mysterious is thin for any artistic endeavor. Nolan, in my opinion, managed to stay on the correct side of the divide.
I am also a fan of South Park. Though I’m not a satirical person by nature, I find the humor of South Park, the Daily Show, Real Time, etc. to be cornerstones of my world view and approach to thinking of solutions to today’s big questions. They balance my own rather sentimental/angry nature. Such a relationship to this kind of humor is the reason why I was so disappointed to hear of their co-opting of College Humor’s parody for their own. Their explanation implies that they have not actually seen the film which is the subject of their show.
Some may say that this is simply the continuing evolution of a culture based on a skeptical valuation of sincerity. When truth is devalued, the concept of honesty must soon follow. To me this view is preposterous and the antithesis of the cultural use of humor. The one thing I expect from a great comedian is honesty – an unflinching portrayal of truth through a very personal experience with, and view of, reality – Shakespeare’s clown. When artist fail in this expectation they fail in adding to humanity and become just another pile of hypocritical bullshit.

Salinger and the Strain

For obvious reasons I’ve been thinking about J.D. Salinger lately. Mostly I have been contemplating the role or the artist in society. What upsets me most about his passing is the legacy of unfulfilled talent and ability. I can’t help but feel that an artist of his caliber owes it to mankind, society, or some unflinching higher power to use such a rare and noble gift. The same feeling haunts me with the passing of Vic Chesnutt, Jay Reatard, and the attempted passing of Artie Lange. Often when I struggle and feel that I should give in, it is this sense of duty that compels me to continue. I exist because I feel I have gifts to share even if they are below the status of greatness.

My first encounter with Salinger came when it was supposed to; I was an over-read and undereducated teenager with a serious chip on my shoulder. I was bewildered by Holden Caulfield more than I was inspired. Growing up in North Columbus as the brainy kid in a crime infested neighborhood, gave me a cataract view of the trials and tribulations of an upper-middle-class kid. If anything my world was too brutal, too real – I longed for even a hint of phoniness in the blight. It was difficult to see the horror in conformity where conformity means comfort – even in the repetition of a meaningless pattern of existence. Where I grew up conformity meant drugs, jail, violence, and an early splattered death.

Now I have to admit that I misunderstood Holden as a character. When understood as an artist, the fakery and repression of any life lived according to an outmoded standard becomes a real horror. Holden’s rejection of society comes at the price of isolation and the regret of detachment. Becoming a ‘catcher in the rye’ means that Holden will never be able to access the unconscious joy of running and playing in the fields – being an artist ultimately means being a spectator, a recorder, of life. Such an understanding of Caulfield as a character is why so many young people have felt a kinship with the book and Salinger. Caulfield, we are lead to believe in the book, succumbs to madness in his attempt to settle the conflict between living in a world which offers the happiness of innocence and the fact that such innocence is opposed to the ideal truth of art and the artist.

Salinger couldn’t solve this riddle either. The ‘solution’ grasped at by Chesnutt, Reatard, and Lange leave a void where their talent should be. This void has to be more horrible and wasteful than the strain.

I left my apartment at 9:30 this morning and returned home at 2:30 in the afternoon. It was a long ride on a series of buses, a lot of walking, and plenty of time to dwell on the pain and the depression which had gripped my being for the last six months. Depression is nothing new to me; the dulling of the world and the melting of joy has always been a companion of mine. I can vaguely recall the times when I have been happy but those times have never felt real to me – the brief bright encounter with a power which is denied me in the normal flow of life. But I’ve never encountered a depression as deep and narrowing as this one. I struggle to get up in the morning. Fractured dreams warn me from sleep. I sit on my bed with a knife in my hand contemplating the unimaginable. Yesterday the only thing that stayed my hand was the sudden eruption of my alarm clock.
I sat on the bus feeling the vast separation between me and the world. There were people obviously on their last legs in dirty clothing and stinking of alcohol. There were women with their children wrapped in Sunday Best heading to one of the many churches that line Cleveland Avenue. And then there was me, straining to break through the barrier between my emotions and the music calling from my mp3 player – a barrier that never existed before these last few months. I switched buses and found myself riding through campus, the place I had spent the last two years of my life. It’s hard to describe how vibrantly beautiful the girls are, how they have no fear for the future or their right to be in it. Young men with an ease of movement I could never know. That familiar feeling of ugliness filled me and I could barely stop myself from screaming for an end to the constant pain. The pain of not belonging and desperately hoping to belong to something meaningful.
The purpose of the trip was to borrow a twenty from my sister. I had not eaten in four days and I could no longer ignore the weak desperation. It was one of the lowest points in a life filled with low points. I struggled to hide my fear, the constant yearning for some kind of end, from her knowing that she could see through my veneer of stability – she is my sister after all.
I am not sure how long I can hold out with rent due in ten days and nothing to my name with the exception of a few degrees. It is not that I am afraid of death or the unknown, my life will end just as yours will, but I can not escape the hope that no life should end like this. I want people to remember that I was here and that I tried. I fought so hard for what I have and to see that stripped away is unbearable. The only doubt that grips me is the amount of hope I should invest in such a life. Dignity is worth something, something that is sorely missing from the life I am leading on the edge of the abyss. My only hope is that by reading this blog you will not feel the loneliness that encircles me. I want meaning just as you do. I don’t want to go unnoticed. Please remember me.