Okay, it's time to deliver the coup de grace to the Great River Journal; the only question is how to do it. I could just send all my faithful subscribers a post card saying it's over, maybe returning their subscription money if it's come in since the summer issue. That would pretty much strip the bank account, and I'd have to scramble to pay the rest of Adam's fee for doing such a good job on the web page. (Quite rightly, he hasn't mounted it, and won't until he's paid in full. Once it's up, however, it will be there for a while -- the legacy of the hard work and occasional flashes of genius generated during the GRJ's brief span.) Or, I could keep the subscription money, since I deposited it in good faith. I've been told that $10.00 or even $17.50 isn't much to a subscriber, they wouldn't care and the loss wouldn't harm them as much as returning several times that sum would do to the GRJ bank account.
I could turn out one more issue, announcing the demise in the editorial, and filling the present glaring deficiency in submitted material with some old, previously published stuff that I really like. I did promise one person that I would publish her article this time; she made a huge scene when for time constraints it was not published last winter; she called me up late at night (after fortifying herself with a certain amount of liquor) and shrieked at me for 10 minutes. In the half year since then I have stayed angry, not speaking to her unless cornered; in truth that phone call was one solid reason I want out of this -- I do not enjoy, nor even do I wish to tolerate, being blasted for editorial decisions. Customer service is not where my vocation lies, and to have to be nice in the midst one of those contretemps is inimical to my nature. ANYWAY, if I don't publish and include that damned article, I'll have to reopen the whole subject with the crank and I am loathe to do it.
Hell, I am so cross with the whole subject that I am loathe even to address it; I don't WANT to do ANYTHING more with it. But I am honor-bound to take it on one more time and not be half-assed about it, or else notify subscribers of the truth of it and let it go. I'm trying to think how relieved I'll be having put down the burden, and how proud I'll be that I didn't just abandon it. So far it's not helping me get going.
Plus, Mary is busy beyond belief, and doesn't have much time to help. I groan audibly when I think of doing it alone. Like this: GGGGHHHHHAAHHH.
Saturday, September 23, 2006
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
What about men? Dear Jon [no, it's not what you think]:
Well, Jon, I don’t know what’s so yesterday about leaving the toilet seat up -- I had a house guest last year who repeatedly committed that faux pas, and in the guest bathroom, no less. Civilization comes late to some, to others not at all.
I know well that you listen to many males in your occupation -- I think of it as your well-founded vocation, actually. I remember your relating to me how tough it can be to explain and demonstrate to some men the existence, characteristics, and usefulness of Feelings, Emotions and the like. I thought at the time that it was like training someone in the use of a very well-engineered prosthetic device. I have since first posting the above (below? previous, anyway) blog learned that men might very well be hard-wired NOT to be able to express themselves relative to women. In a New York Times review of the book “The Female Brain”, it’s noted that as soon as the communication system within the brain of the male fetus begins to develop, it is immersed -- “marinated” is the word the reviewer used, for God’s sake -- in testosterone, which effectively "prunes away" great numbers of its working connections. I could only think, “Ick.” Then I thought, “Oh, well no wonder.” Then I thought, “My God, men really ARE handicapped.”
After this acid bath, the birthed and maturing male brain is further discouraged from the practice of self-expression by those factors you mention: lack of male models, psychological and modeled patterning by the father of isolation from other and then from self, and then the shaming by women of men’s stunted growth in that area.
It must be extraordinarily difficult for men to learn the skill of communication, to quell their fear of it long enough and consistently enough to get good at it. (Must be like sending a woman through Marine boot camp -- it can be done, but it’s not easy on either the teachers or the students.) The logical teachers of the art of communication are women -- they’re born to talking and listening, using their intuition and emotions as source material, and they become skilled at it very quickly in their lives. Compassion from the teacher is required, and a lot of it; many women are so bruised by life at the hands of silent and judgmental men that there’s not much inclination toward compassion, and that’s a real problem, MOSTLY FOR THE WOMEN. If we don’t exercise our built-in empathy, practice forgiveness, love ourselves enough to stop being so damned defensive, this unhappy chain will continue for yet more millennia.
I did watch Andre Agassi’s exit from the game, and cried right along with everybody else (even Que es mas macho John McEnroe seemed a little leaky). Andre’s trainer and philosophy guru Gil Reyes had a lot (everything?) to do with Agassi’s arrival at the Zen of tennis, and of life. I think that the manner in which Andre comported himself in the second chapter of his career has done a lot for encouraging men to be compassionate themselves, open with their feelings, gentle with children and women, and yet completely Manly Men.
And, yes, dear Jon, you did a great deal for 2 of my sons, at a time when it was sorely needed and deeply appreciated. By all of us. That they are indeed strong, capable, interesting AND sensitive men today is attributable in no small measure to your love and guidance during their adolescence.
I know well that you listen to many males in your occupation -- I think of it as your well-founded vocation, actually. I remember your relating to me how tough it can be to explain and demonstrate to some men the existence, characteristics, and usefulness of Feelings, Emotions and the like. I thought at the time that it was like training someone in the use of a very well-engineered prosthetic device. I have since first posting the above (below? previous, anyway) blog learned that men might very well be hard-wired NOT to be able to express themselves relative to women. In a New York Times review of the book “The Female Brain”, it’s noted that as soon as the communication system within the brain of the male fetus begins to develop, it is immersed -- “marinated” is the word the reviewer used, for God’s sake -- in testosterone, which effectively "prunes away" great numbers of its working connections. I could only think, “Ick.” Then I thought, “Oh, well no wonder.” Then I thought, “My God, men really ARE handicapped.”
After this acid bath, the birthed and maturing male brain is further discouraged from the practice of self-expression by those factors you mention: lack of male models, psychological and modeled patterning by the father of isolation from other and then from self, and then the shaming by women of men’s stunted growth in that area.
It must be extraordinarily difficult for men to learn the skill of communication, to quell their fear of it long enough and consistently enough to get good at it. (Must be like sending a woman through Marine boot camp -- it can be done, but it’s not easy on either the teachers or the students.) The logical teachers of the art of communication are women -- they’re born to talking and listening, using their intuition and emotions as source material, and they become skilled at it very quickly in their lives. Compassion from the teacher is required, and a lot of it; many women are so bruised by life at the hands of silent and judgmental men that there’s not much inclination toward compassion, and that’s a real problem, MOSTLY FOR THE WOMEN. If we don’t exercise our built-in empathy, practice forgiveness, love ourselves enough to stop being so damned defensive, this unhappy chain will continue for yet more millennia.
I did watch Andre Agassi’s exit from the game, and cried right along with everybody else (even Que es mas macho John McEnroe seemed a little leaky). Andre’s trainer and philosophy guru Gil Reyes had a lot (everything?) to do with Agassi’s arrival at the Zen of tennis, and of life. I think that the manner in which Andre comported himself in the second chapter of his career has done a lot for encouraging men to be compassionate themselves, open with their feelings, gentle with children and women, and yet completely Manly Men.
And, yes, dear Jon, you did a great deal for 2 of my sons, at a time when it was sorely needed and deeply appreciated. By all of us. That they are indeed strong, capable, interesting AND sensitive men today is attributable in no small measure to your love and guidance during their adolescence.
Saturday, September 02, 2006
What about men? The Sequel
On the other hand, there’s the thing about men that even Hemingway acknowledged -- the curse of loneliness. That’s the drawback to the splendid isolation men seem to prize; thus isolated, they are safe from vulnerability, and for vulnerability, read “intimacy”.
Hence, intimacy, with a woman, threatens the loss of independence, loss of opportunity to have sex with any OTHER woman [who will have him, but that’s another story], or freedom to do all those fun, faux-jousting things like play poker and smoke cigars and eat junk and pull ligaments shooting hoops with each other until dark or until somebody ELSE’S wife makes him come home (pussy!).
As for intimacy with another man -- YIKES! we won’t even discuss that here; way too scary. For this kind of intimacy, it’s much more comfy to substitute that ligament-pulling b’ball, or, for the less robust, chess or academic department politics; it’s still rivalry, competition, you know, MANLY stuff. It is said that all sorts of intimate conversations are held in these contests, that they say many, many things to each other without the use of mere words, but the topics seem to be truncated, limited to subjects such as, whose is bigger, who’s smarter, who’s tougher, etc. Short conversations indeed.
When are the conversations about their common terrors? Do they admit their loneliness to each other, and seek comfort through this confession? Do they share their fears of impotence, of death, of irrelevance? Men can write about these things, and some beautifully -- McGuane in "Gallatin Canyon", his new book of short stories, Robert B. Parker, James Lee Burke, the aforementioned Hemingway; what happens to those men whose medium of expression isn’t words, or painting or music, or to those who have been successfully conditioned OUT of exercising self-expression except through violence, or its bedmate, depression?
I am not the first woman to be puzzled and sorrowed by the terrible, even if self-inflicted, wounds of men. I remember a Phoebe Snow song from the 70s, “Have mercy on those men with no feelings”, with the haunting line “10 stories up and out on the ledge”. Another one, sung by Margaret Whiting and then Rickie Lee Jones, “The Ballad of the Sad Young Men” I reprint in full here:
Oh, hell -- I’ve felt that myself in RAISING those kids; so angry and frustrated, and, here’s the kicker, so damned LONELY in that endeavor, I could understand how someone could hurt a child very badly, or over an extended period of time do great psychological or social damage to them. I had not much help in the trenches of child-rearing, not from absent husband (5 days a week on the road, making as much money and gaining as much corporate power as possible, as fast as possible), not from extended family (scattered to the winds, as my mother often said), not from peers (all of whom were, like me, ashamed to admit they had trouble being housewives and mothers, to admit even to themselves that they might need help). Anyway, there we were, all of us mothers of sons, doing our damnedest, but against the heavy odds of isolation and loneliness, and shame. And without a guide book but with the best of intentions, trying mightily to teach our sons how to be human, sensate and sensitive, courageous, discerning, loving. And to sustain their sense of humor!
Anyway, I still don’t completely understand the human male. I’ve come to accept him as he is, learned to enjoy some of that machismo, while staying well clear of its baser consequences. And sometimes I just throw up my hands and retreat in bafflement.
Since my last blog which poked a little fun at them, a couple of men have asked me if women have any handicaps, and I respond that of course we do, but I just can’t see them as clearly, standing here and not over there looking at us and scratching my balding head.
I would love it if somebody out there would offer some of that clarity here, either way.
Hence, intimacy, with a woman, threatens the loss of independence, loss of opportunity to have sex with any OTHER woman [who will have him, but that’s another story], or freedom to do all those fun, faux-jousting things like play poker and smoke cigars and eat junk and pull ligaments shooting hoops with each other until dark or until somebody ELSE’S wife makes him come home (pussy!).
As for intimacy with another man -- YIKES! we won’t even discuss that here; way too scary. For this kind of intimacy, it’s much more comfy to substitute that ligament-pulling b’ball, or, for the less robust, chess or academic department politics; it’s still rivalry, competition, you know, MANLY stuff. It is said that all sorts of intimate conversations are held in these contests, that they say many, many things to each other without the use of mere words, but the topics seem to be truncated, limited to subjects such as, whose is bigger, who’s smarter, who’s tougher, etc. Short conversations indeed.
When are the conversations about their common terrors? Do they admit their loneliness to each other, and seek comfort through this confession? Do they share their fears of impotence, of death, of irrelevance? Men can write about these things, and some beautifully -- McGuane in "Gallatin Canyon", his new book of short stories, Robert B. Parker, James Lee Burke, the aforementioned Hemingway; what happens to those men whose medium of expression isn’t words, or painting or music, or to those who have been successfully conditioned OUT of exercising self-expression except through violence, or its bedmate, depression?
I am not the first woman to be puzzled and sorrowed by the terrible, even if self-inflicted, wounds of men. I remember a Phoebe Snow song from the 70s, “Have mercy on those men with no feelings”, with the haunting line “10 stories up and out on the ledge”. Another one, sung by Margaret Whiting and then Rickie Lee Jones, “The Ballad of the Sad Young Men” I reprint in full here:
Sing a song of sad young menWhere were these guys’ mothers when the little boys were learning about the world? I admit mixed success with my own sons: they are all sensitive, all thinkers, and while they’ve each had moments of stunningly poor judgment, not to mention visibly wrestling with the demands of overweening ego, on the whole they do okay. They married strong, capable, interesting women, and they love and value them. Since there are three male siblings, there have been some (to a woman, their mother, anyway) very scary competitions, and times when I truly thought somebody might die -- certainly some kind of urge had taken over through which the desire to kill was almost palpable.
Glasses full of rye
All the news is bad again so
Kiss your dreams goodbye
All the sad young men
Sitting in the bars
Knowing neon nights
Missing all the stars
All the sad young men
Drifting through the town
Drinking up the night
Trying not to drown
All the sad young men
Singing in the cold
Trying to forget
That they're growing old
All the sad young men
Choking on their worth
Trying to be brave
Running from the truth
Autumn turns the leaves to gold
Slowly dies the heart
Sad young men are growing old
That's the cruelest part
All the sad young men
Seek a certain smile
Someone they can hold for a little while
Tired little girl does the best she can
Trying to be gay for her sad young man
While the grimy moon
Watches from above
All the sad young men
Play at making love
Misbegotten moon
Shine for sad young men
Let your gentle light
Guide them home tonight
All the sad young men
[Lyrics by Kurt Elling, music by Tommy Wolf & Fran Landesman, from "Close Your Eyes"]
Oh, hell -- I’ve felt that myself in RAISING those kids; so angry and frustrated, and, here’s the kicker, so damned LONELY in that endeavor, I could understand how someone could hurt a child very badly, or over an extended period of time do great psychological or social damage to them. I had not much help in the trenches of child-rearing, not from absent husband (5 days a week on the road, making as much money and gaining as much corporate power as possible, as fast as possible), not from extended family (scattered to the winds, as my mother often said), not from peers (all of whom were, like me, ashamed to admit they had trouble being housewives and mothers, to admit even to themselves that they might need help). Anyway, there we were, all of us mothers of sons, doing our damnedest, but against the heavy odds of isolation and loneliness, and shame. And without a guide book but with the best of intentions, trying mightily to teach our sons how to be human, sensate and sensitive, courageous, discerning, loving. And to sustain their sense of humor!
Anyway, I still don’t completely understand the human male. I’ve come to accept him as he is, learned to enjoy some of that machismo, while staying well clear of its baser consequences. And sometimes I just throw up my hands and retreat in bafflement.
Since my last blog which poked a little fun at them, a couple of men have asked me if women have any handicaps, and I respond that of course we do, but I just can’t see them as clearly, standing here and not over there looking at us and scratching my balding head.
I would love it if somebody out there would offer some of that clarity here, either way.
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