Saturday

Nov. 30, 2002

Antimatter

by Russell Edson

SATURDAY, 30 NOVEMBER 2002
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Poem: "Antimatter," by Russell Edson from The Tunnel (Field Translations Series).

Antimatter

      On the other side of a mirror there's an inverse world, where the in-
sane go sane; where bones climb out of the earth and recede to the first
slime of love.

      And in the evening the sun is just rising.

      Lovers cry because they are a day younger, and soon childhood robs
them of their pleasure.

      In such a world there is much sadness which, of course, is joy . . .



It's the birthday of the playwright David Alan Mamet, born in Chicago, Illinois (1947), who wrote Glengarry Glen Ross (1984) and Speed-the Plow (1988). He said the revelation of twentieth century drama is "that you can apply the Aristotelian unities to a microcosm, to a very, very small human interchange…It [doesn't] have to be about conquering France. It can be about who did or did not turn on the gas on the stove."

It's the birthday of the poet Robert Lax, born in Olean, New York (1915). He was Thomas Merton's closest friend at Columbia, and they wrote to each other for almost thirty years after Merton entered a Trappist monastery. Lax converted to Catholicism too, and spent his later years living as a hermit on the Greek island called Patmos.

It's the birthday of Lucy Maud Montgomery, born in Clifton, Prince Edward Island (1874), author of the Anne of Green Gables books.

It's the birthday of Mark Twain, born Samuel Langhorne Clemens, in Florida, Missouri (1835), who wrote Life on the Mississippi (1883), The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), and his own favorite, The Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc (1891). He was cynical and irreverent, but he had a tender spot for cats. There were always kittens in the house, and he gave them names like "Sin" and "Sour Mash." "Mamma has morals," said his daughter Suzy, "and Papa has cats." He swore constantly and without shame. His streams of profanity broke his wife's heart on a daily basis. One day he cut himself shaving, and she heard a string of oaths from the bathroom. She resolved to move him to repentance, and she repeated back to him all the bad words he had just said. He smiled at her and shook his head. "You have the words, Livy," he said, "but you'll never learn the tune." After he published The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, he found himself awash in cash, which he invested in a typesetting machine that was very complicated and very ingenious and demanded more and more investment and in the end would not work. He had to declare bankruptcy, and he decided to go on a worldwide lecture tour, the proceeds of which he would use to pay back all of his creditors. His visits to Africa and Asia convinced him that a God who allowed Christians to believe that they were better than savages was a God he wanted no part of. He was a funny man and is remembered for his humorous sayings. He said, "It is better to keep you mouth shut and appear stupid than to open it and remove all doubt." He also said, "Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life."

It's the birthday of Jonathan Swift, born in Dublin, Ireland (1667), the author of Tales of a Tub, and Gulliver's Travels. He once said, about a book he admired, "That is as well said as if I had said it myself."



Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.®

 

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