sylvia plath ted hughes interview 1961

this country makes you such an outdoor-phobe. after ages today, I found two mosquitoes trying to bite me. I killed one on my face, flicked off the other, and started reconsidering the pleasurable nature walk; worrying about zika, west nile, etc.

but something or the other caught my eye, and thankfully I diverted but went on. and then I saw these, they reminded me of the lines "tiger tiger burning bright" and of Pollock's painting titled 'tiger'. they were just like audacious flames in the surrounding greenery. and I surprised a snake hiding under the flaming bush.




Fort Worth is the greener and more western (also cooler, and less xenophobic) cousin of Dallas. no wonder the temperature is a couple degrees less here more often than not, despite it being further south.

we often think we like certain people for who they are, for their nature, their qualities and characteristics. without really thinking about it. but often we give ourselves and them too much credit, us - for thinking we knew them before we liked them; and them - by crediting to them characteristics that we admire. we create stories out of the people we think we like, we shape them in our minds into what we want them to be. we probably do that to ourselves too. in order to like ourselves or to justify doing that.

but some day those layers will peel.

will we then trash them because they failed while being oblivious of what they were being measured up against? or will we discover them for what they are and humbly concede our own dishonesty? will we ever find out?

are we really intelligent beings, who can reason our likes and dislikes, or are we simply better off for being animalistic and failing to explain.

JF on reading and writing again, in 'Why bother?', quoting an anthropologist to describe not just himself and his relationship with the world (at least he made something out of this identity) but that of many other inconsequential ppl like me (where are you guys?). just had to post this (blame it on my period, and me trying to jostle my attention away to the much too familiar smell and feeling of a hard bound, a comfortable couch and a grey weekend):

"her (Heath's) research effectively demolishes the myth of the general audience. For a person to sustain an interest in literature, she told me, two things have to be in place. First, the habit of reading works of substance must have been "heavily modeled" when he or she was very young. In other words, one or both of the parents must have been reading serious books and must have encouraged the child to do the same. On the East Coast, Heath found a strong element of class in this. Parents in the privileged classes encourage reading out of a sense of Louis Auchincloss calls "entitlement": just as the civilized person ought to be able to appreciate caviar and a good Burgundy, she ought to be able to enjoy Henry James. Class matters less in other parts of the country, especially in the Protestant Midwest, where literature is seen as way to exercise the mind. As Heath put it, "Part of the exercise of being a good person is not using your free time frivolously. You have to be able to account for yourself through the work ethic and through the wise use of your leisure time." For a century after the Civil War, the Midwest was home to thousands of small-town literary societies in which, Heath found, the wife of a janitor was as likely to be active as the wife of a doctor.

Simply having a parent who reads is not enough, however, to produce a lifelong dedicated reader. According to Heath, young readers also need to find a person with whom they can share their interest. "A child who's got the habit will start reading under the covers with a flashlight," she said. "If the parents are smart, they'll forbid the child to do this, and thereby encourage her. Otherwise, she'll find a peer who also has the habit, and the two of them will keep it a secret between them. Finding a peer can take place as late as college. In high school, especially, there's a social penalty to be paid for being a reader. Lots of kids who have been lone readers get to college and suddenly discover, 'Oh my God, there are other people here who read.'"

As Heath unpacked her findings for me, I was remembering the joy with which I'd discovered two friends in junior high with whom I could talk about J.R.R. Tolkien. I was also considering that for me, today, there is nothing sexier than a reader. But then it occurred to me that I didn't even meet Heath's first precondition. I told her I didn't remember either of my parents ever reading a book when I was a child, except aloud to me.

Without missing a beat Heath replied: "Yes, but there's a second kind of reader. There's the social isolate - the child who from an early age felt very different from everyone around him. This is very, very difficult to uncover in an interview. People don't like to admit that they were social isolates as children. What happens is you take that sense of being different to an imaginary world. But that world, then, is a world you can't share with the people around you - because it's imaginary. And so the important dialogue in your life is with the authors of the books you read. Though they aren't present, they become your community."

Pride compels me, here, to draw a distinction between young fiction readers and young nerds. The classic nerd, who finds a home in facts or technology or numbers, is marked not by a displaced sociability but by an antisociability. Reading does not resemble more nerdy pursuits in that it's a habit that both feeds on a sense of isolation and aggravates it. Simply being a "social isolate" as a child does not, however, doom you to bad breath and poor party skills as an adult. In fact, it can make you hypersocial. It's just that at some point you'll begin to feel a gnawing, almost remorseful need to be alone and do some reading - to reconnect to that community.

According to Heath, readers of the social-isolate variety (she calls them "resistant" readers) are much more likely to become writers than those of the modeled-habit variety. If writing was the medium of communication within the community of childhood, it makes sense that when writers grow up they continue to find writing vital to their sense of connectedness. What's perceived as the antisocial nature of "substantive" authors, whether its James Joyce's exile or J.D. Salinger's reclusion, derives in large part from the social isolation that's necessary for inhabiting an imagined world. Looking me in the eye, Heath said: "You are a socially isolated individual who desperately wants to communicate with a substantive imaginary world."

I knew she was using the word "you" in its impersonal sense. Nevertheless, I felt as if she were looking straight into my soul. And the exhilaration I felt at her accidental description of me, in unpoetic polysyllables, was my confirmation of that description's truth. Simply to be recognized for what I was, simply not to be misunderstood: these had revealed themselves, suddenly, as reason to write."

Why bother?

"All of a sudden it seemed as if the friends of mine who used to read no longer even apologized for having stopped." Franzen is talking about America but this is global. same goes for blogging.

on a related note, so far in life I always found ppl like me, and felt at home with them. at least for a while before we changed. Very few have stayed. But they've changed too, and I have. And now there's no one like me, neither the old nor any new. I miss that.

and I feel offended when someone assumes I'm reading a self help book. yes I will always remain enough of a snob to think that beneath me.

and given that my blog is becoming my diary of sorts, I might as well record this here. I'm having sleep issues, a "strange kind of jetlag". and then I find myself dozing off behind the wheel, at 70 miles an hr. that sounds so funny.

as a result, I read more.

and yet, there is fate. or more simply, a chain of incidences.

years ago, I wrote a post about how I thought I was not a feminist. and in fact, when I wrote that, I did not understand feminism as I think I do now.

for a very long time, I also ignored or waved away any claims to persistent and pernicious racism, especially here in the US. I thought that many years of discrimination had messed up with the minds of those discriminated against such that they failed to realize that it was over, that they should move on.

I have to say I was wrong on both issues.

plus the white conservative ideology of preserving and sustaining the rights of the privileged in this country, hurts and sets back any efforts to restore rights to those who have been so far deprived. whether we talk in terms of race, gender, or even gender identity. they see the total sum of rights as a constant, and giving someone new rights so far unknown is perceived by them as taking an equal amount away from those privileged.

plants, pets, and offsprings

even my cactus is dying on me. the succulent I couldn't bear to see falling limb by limb, so I put it down. the cyclamen has more yellow leaves than flowers in it, and I can't decide which it likes better - the texan summer sun or the american indoor atmosphere. only the money-plantish-es are going strong, sprouting leaf after leaf after leaf. I'm not even sad, I'm disgusted with myself. especially when I look at the cactus, that once had a huge orange bulb-ous-ness on it; now has lost color, become flaccid, and is slowly shrinking away into the lil bit of earth in that tiny red pot. is it dead, is it gone? should I throw it in the kitchen bin now? the only silver lining is as if these suicidal plants are just paving the way for my easy getaway to my summer home, cos I hate texas in the summer. (I shouldn't with the same vehemence anymore though, cos now I'm a spoilt elite who doesn't really stay outdoor long enough in the heat, who has a car for all weathers, even a tiny pink-handled car door umbrella that stays there so weather doesn't sweat me either way. compare this with when I was a car-less student, poor so no cabs either. but memory works with a strong bias, all that's forgotten, not to be compared with. I still hate texan summers.)

house greenery is lovely to have. but is a huge responsibility, almost like pets. I mean, now they have some self-watering pods etc. etc. but they don't seem to work too well for too long of a missing human presence. I forgot this when I brought these plants home, forgot that my life was still nomadic, forgot that although I wasn't bringing home a pup (which I never did for travel and potty reasons), these would need me too.

I'm a bad caretaker. dunno what kind of mom I'd ever make.

when I was lil my biggest ambition was to get rich, be a wife, be a mother.

now I've resolved the opposite, for one of those above at least. I don't want to be a mother ever. rich - I now don't care to be (still holding onto the philosophy that money is critical on the negative side, not so much on the positive). a wife I am, and that in many ways cannot be reversed.

having kids is not only a big responsibility that I may never be ready for, but there are a couple other serious stuff involved. first, what haunted me for years - what if my kid turns out to be a demon, a human devil, a murderer, rapist, abuser, narcissist, a hitler, ...., .... what if. but these days its another very serious, non-paranoid thought. having kid(s) makes people risk averse. very risk averse. and materialistic. yeah I know, I know, you will say it does the opposite - self-sacrifical and all. not denying that. the mother can go hungry to feed the kid and all, but can at the same time 'do anything' to buy food for her starving kid. to say the very least, having kids robs people of their independence in making their life decisions, everything is then motivated by a sense of security, of well-being, for their offsprings. people cannot risk losing their jobs if there are kids waiting at home. people cannot afford to be idealistic with mouths to feed. people cannot afford to be heroes when their kids are at the mercy of the heroism. money, purchasing power, well being, becomes the dictator then. you then have to make compromises, you have to settle, you have to be realistic. or you could be like Gandhi, and earn the simultaneous reputations of a 'mahatma' and a bad father.

aaahhh, but I'm not destined for great things anyway. but I still like my rebel-attitude, my middle finger, in response to things that leave me with a bad feeling. or maybe I still simply like to believe that I have control, that I am not beholden.

food and peoples

I'm raving about this documentary right now, another solo movie watching in my new-find The Modern art museum in FW. hardly 20 odd ppl in the auditorium, just about half of them alone (one reading a book while the ads played before the movie started). I like such crowds, we laugh together, share the space a lil more privately, a couple of voices get louder than in other movies - ppl repeating dialogues for those who didn't catch them.

I love movies about food (one of my fav Chinese movies so far is 'Eat drink man woman') .

top that with a documentary about the streets and cultures of LA (my fav amongst all the cities I have ever wanted to move to). man, I had to see it.

and now I'm in love with this guy Gold. not in that way. its very like how I feel for Anthony Bourdain and Michael Palin. there's something about each one of these guys. watching them travel and sample different things and places (for Gold all of that is in LA itself - a city of countries and ethnicities) makes me salute them inwardly in admiration of their openness, frankness, a very strange combination of self-confidence and self-effacement when facing the wide world in front of them.

Gold's love for LA and for people of the city and of the world ("we are all citizens of the world, we are all strangers together") brought me to almost-tears (especially in these days of growing xenophobia), while his humor, procrastination, doggedness (he eats at a place many times before reviewing it; his record is 17 times), kept me grinning throughout. "you could take notes while you're having sex, too, but you'd sort of be missing out on something".

sad I'd never heard of him before I went to LA. I'm thinking of taking a sabbatical there in the near future, maybe a semester of driving around, walking, and eating out.

I got so hungry watching the movie (was a noon show too) that I headed straight to my favorite Korean restaurant and for the first time in my life devoured two portions (kimchi fried rice with beef, and a bowl of spicy pork & rice) alone. (won't try to review the place, cos Gold's professionalism and standards made me realize how presumptuous I was in reviewing any place ever). even had the owner(?) come up to me to ask if both were for me and if I was a Korean food fan. in this life I can't decide which things I love most, but food definitely tops that everchanging list very often.

Thompson's bookstore

this kinda may be a review.

the first time I heard of this place (I'm sure I saw it a couple of times before and thought of it exactly what it looks like from the outside: a fancy place. and given that I don't tend to usually like fancy places, I dismissed it in my mind) was when a server at a downtown (Fort Worth) restaurant chatted with me and sis asking us where we were headed after devouring those delicious fried duck legs, and recommended us to try this 'really cool place' for drinks: Thompson's, a few blocks down. and he told us to go to the basement bar that had a stairwell leading down to it from the street level. we were anyway headed in the same direction to another new and recently cool discovery of ours (not me and sis), a door away from this place. there was a burly guard/bouncer/usher standing right out the front entrance of Thompson's and we asked about going into the basement bar. I thought he asked for my passport, which annoyed me a lil because only a foreigner (hah!) carries a passport for a drinking id, and I told him that I had my state id and showed him this. he was friendly, even looked at it and then repeated again his demand: "password". I went "uh what?" only to hear the word again. password. sis and I looked at each other, and then got the story out of the guy; apparently you could enter the basement bar only with a password. whoa. the password could be found on facebook or from someone who knew it etc. etc.

we didn't want to go to the regular upstairs bar/lounge, because I still thought it looked too fancy for my taste, so we just went where we had planned before: La Perla Negra (another cool place, worthy maybe of another review another day). but of course, I felt denied. and yes I had to look it up later to figure out the password mystery of this place. the place is actually called Thompson's bookstore because at some point in history the space was used as a bookstore. incidentally, the basement was used as a chemist's or a pharmacy of some kind. and the password is to keep it feeling like a mysterious and secret speakeasy. although on weekends you don't need the password and can get down into the basement from the upper level lounge through a secret door. I'll get to that.

so I'd been wanting to explore this place since I read about it and since I was denied entry.

we happened finally this last weekend to try it. it has a dress-code, so don't go in your flipflops and cutouts please. maybe it was that, or maybe it was my first impression of its fanciness from its name on that building so simply and yet pompously written, that as soon as we were inside I whispered that it looked pretentious. there were about three seating areas in the small lounge space, each with a sort of circle of an assortment of ancient sofas and armchairs and footstools with a solid wooden coffee table at its center. in short it was like a large living room segmented into three seating areas for a large gathering of people. the decor is really old world, muted lights, oldish lamps, leather and ornate mismatched furniture, polished old wood, large bookshelves (full of hard-bounds) along most walls, with the bar running lengthwise through the whole room along one wall. so you often end up sharing a coffee table with other guests, couples or sets of friends. and the sofas are really comfortable. the first thing I did was to set out looking for the door that led down to the speakeasy. none to be found. hmm. we asked the lady usher at the door this time, and she said the bar down was full (to capacity) at this point in time.

five minutes of settling in, getting used to the darkness, finding an unoccupied large seat for the two of us, I started to change my mind. there seemed to be no bustle of servers rushing in and out. only two bartenders who left the bar now and then to ask about the other guests. there was a hardbound encyclopedia on the side table to my right, and also a lamp on it that would not light, and there were books - Shakespeare, Homer, lots of classics, also Sidney Sheldon and John Grisham, and just a lot of books. and no one cared that I hunched down by the bookshelf and leafed through, only to have postcards, photos, exam questions, notes, fall from the pages. even something about the caste system, where else but the Indian caste system and something about India and China trade, etc. etc. one book had a handwritten line on its first page, "If you give this book to someone else, let me know who its with." just lil tidbits of personal histories falling from those pages.

part of the ceiling is also done up in old books. full yellowed pages, torn from books, stuck haphazardly on top of each other like a random collage, some with pictures, that you can stare up into.

its a strange place that really felt like a house party.

they are known for their cocktails, named after songs or books. ours were "actually tasty" according to hubby, unlike drinks usually. I had a regular Negroni (two; after a couple of glasses of wine earlier that day) because I'd been hearing about Campari lately and wanted to try, and hubby tried Killing Pablo and one more (forgotten). but for me the best was feeling so much at ease in there lounging around. you can pull up a leather-topped stool and stretch your legs without asking/bothering anyone or calling attention to yourself. actually that was it. you just did not call attention to yourself in that place, everyone just let be each other. at the same time smiling or looking at each other as at intriguing strangers at a party.

oh yeah, and the secret door. a wall of bookshelf near the entrance swings into a door, down to the basement, just like that. and no one gasps and exclaims at it. its just so normal in there. the basement did not have the same Victorian armchairs and couches, its a lil more sparse but brighter down there. with sheer curtains separating lil circles of barstools from each other. no smell of the spirits/chemicals that I had been told about, but yes the same feeling of easy anonymous camaraderie as up above.