Broken Harmonium

It’s sunny here today. I went out in it at two o’clock in just my sweater, no jacket at all. But I saw some weird things while I was outdoors and they made me think about human life these days. Everyone is so disconnected from each other. The only thing that unites us is the exchange of money, but we ought to be loving each other like good Christians or like people who have read James Joyce.

On my way back from the store, I heard a woman screaming abuse at her husband. They were parked in a pickup truck in a lot next to Ninfa’s Elite janitorial service, but I don’t even know why they were there. That’s one thing. Also I stopped and talked with Karen’s friend Jean who was getting into her car. She told me she’d been living in Idaho with her daughters, but it didn’t work out. Now she’s staying with a friend while she waits to be approved for Section 8 housing. It could take up to six weeks for this to happen. And then I went inside the salon to say hi to Kim and Karen, but they were too busy with clients to talk to me. So I let myself out the door and went home. Finally, I observe Roger pottering doggedly, stubbornly with his project of reconstructing a Willis truck.

In all of this I see so much disharmony among people, like a noisy kind of music, atonal and arrhythmic, that hurts to hear. It all goes on under a cloudless blue sky, perfectly sunny and beautiful, as if no one had a problem in the world. Even this doesn’t make sense. Meanwhile, my neighbors in Betty’s old house ride flatulent motorcycles around the streets.

But, I got what I went for at the market: a wild cherry Pepsi and jerky for Aesop. At least the soda tastes sweet.

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Jarring

Quarter after nine.

It’s very cold out this morning, but the trip around the corner is short; maybe a quarter of a mile or less. I went outside without much self consciousness, sort of in a state of nature. I didn’t care what anyone thought of me. What happens on January 20? Seems like it should be something special for some reason. No doubt it’s someone’s birthday somewhere in the world… I felt rather happy when I got up, fed the dog, and walked to the market, but began to feel more serious when I sat down to think. In fact, nobody seems very happy with life right now, as if nothing was worth writing about or commenting on. It’s a situation like the ennui in Baudelaire. People just do their perfunctory work and don’t get excited for anything: there’s no romance in our experience; no passion and no love. In this sense, everybody is dead, and the anesthetic snow falls generally on the world. We seem to turn inward and ignore others, and pass up opportunities for good things to happen. All around me the world has gotten ugly with selfishness and apathy for anything other than making money to survive. Every individual is so isolated, looking at life with tunnel vision, blind to the potential for beauty and joy. It takes two people to turn it around before everyone is dancing in the streets. But first there must be music that everyone hears and agrees on. As it is, the tunes are all discrepant and jar with each other. The result is mayhem; and who said anything about beauty in the dissonance? 

Not Stupid

After midnight.

My case manager is coming to see me tomorrow for an appointment. Since thinking about it, I’ve decided I’m going to request a different person for the job. What had been elusive to me is now quite clear: C— treats me like a moron. I may be psychotic but I’m not an idiot. There’s nothing wrong with my IQ, so why does he condescend to me like some kind of fool? My guess is that he doesn’t have his own mental health issues, so he’s kind of clueless on how to relate to clients. Unfortunately it comes across quite offensive to me, even insulting. There’s a phrase in Ulysses that I remember: “Hooray for the goddamned idiot!” It stuck with me and I said to my professor, “I’m not stupid.” He looked surprised and said, “I don’t think you’re stupid at all!” It was before my diagnosis with the illness, yet it’s still true that, with the right medication, my mind is very clear and sharp. 

Observations

Quarter after nine.

I’ve bought a small package of cream cheese so I can hide Aesop’s pill inside a piece of it. I slept in today; guess I was tired since the long trek to Silver Lane yesterday afternoon. The air outside is a bit less polluted than lately but we still could use a good rain. At five I got up and read “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry.” It’s essentially about the commerce of the poet with posterity through his language, time not being a factor. I think Byron also wrote a poem or two on the same theme. Joyce likely read both the Whitman and Byron and used the idea in Portrait of the Artist. Maybe it’s not a matter of who had the idea first, but who could write it the best. It seems like forever ago that I studied Joyce. I wonder if he and Virginia Woolf might’ve made a good match? He claimed that he didn’t care for intellectual women… In a few months the centenary for Ulysses will be over with. Did anybody read it again or for the first time? The professor I knew said he considered it his public service to lead students through Ulysses. Probably the book will always be celebrated but unread due to its difficulty and reputation for the same.

Ten thirty. The pill in the cream cheese went down like a charm. I’ll remember that for next time… At the market, Thomas told me he’s studying computer programming at the community college, just a two year degree. As he spoke I was distracted by a white object in his ear that looked like a coiled cigarette butt. I have no idea what it really was or the purpose of it. I also saw a dubious character, tall and slouching with long black hair, carrying two fishing rods and a tackle box, enter the store. I imagined that he had gone fishing in Kelly Pond, but you wouldn’t score anything very good to eat out of that hole. Times are strange, but even stranger when you hang out by the convenience store. I don’t know if I see an average cross section of people or if it’s a hive for weirdos. In the latter case, I’m one more of them.

Bloomsday 2022

Eleven AM.

I realized almost too late that today is Bloomsday! I haven’t done anything Irish to celebrate it, either, except to listen to U2 in the past two weeks. What are others going to do on this day that honors James Joyce?

What the World Needs Now

Eleven twenty at night.

I don’t like to consider the money aspect of things like some guys do. Indeed, the cynicism about the oligarchy etc is very trendy today. We are not what we are by virtue of our bank accounts or our sources of income. It’s a fallacy to say money makes the world go round when what really does it is love. Somebody in a high place set a bad example for everyone by replacing the ❤️ with the💲. Every situation is slow to change, particularly public opinion, but I thought I’d help it along as I can. Try dusting off the old Beatles collection and play “Money Can’t Buy Me Love.” John Lennon said, paraphrased, “You in the cheap seats clap your hands, and you in the balcony just rattle your jewelry…” Maybe that’s a bit cynical too, though his intentions were good. There’s an episode in Ulysses that refers to the “foot and mouth disease,” which infects most people from time to time. More important is the recurring theme of “metempsychosis” that brings everybody together, regardless even of race or ethnicity.

“He proves by algebra that Hamlet’s grandson is Shakespeare’s grandfather and that he himself is the ghost of his own father.”

While it sounds like nonsense, Joyce pulls off something like this with his book. The question is whether we really treat each other like family.

2 February

Nine twenty five.

I walked through the foggy morning to the market where it surprised me to see Doug behind the counter. I have no idea what the situation is, and maybe it’s none of my business. I got in and out of there and didn’t say much to anyone. Again I observe how the store has become less personal and human than when Belinda owned it. Now it’s an economic enterprise, a game of numbers and quantities above all else. The customers themselves are numbers as well… On my way there and back along Maxwell Road and N. Park I went very carefully, keeping my eyes open to the traffic. I dunno anymore. Everything seems so desolate and lifeless— dead, like the Ireland of the James Joyce story. We need an infusion of humanity in our lives, but we stubbornly persist in error. We’ve made a desert of the places where we live, refusing to love each other, rendering ourselves robotic and heartless. I’ll be looking forward to Groundhog Day, which happens to be Joyce’s birthday, and the anniversary of the publication of Ulysses a hundred years ago. They say the pen is mightier than the sword. Perhaps the centennial is a test of this proverb. 

Centennial

Nine o’clock.

Another dreary winter morning with a touch of fog. Cold: 37 degrees out. Frankly I’m depressed lately, so it was an effort to drag my feet to market today. Heather had on her Ghost of Gatsby T-shirt, an advertisement for a local rock band. I understand that they’re pretty good, though I imagine they are much younger than I am. I’m a dinosaur of rock, pretty much. I like most things that are done intelligently and with quality. Accordingly, this morning I bought myself a new hardcover copy of Ulysses, and I realized then that this year is the centennial of its publication in 1922 in France. Its theme of universal love makes me self conscious of the way I proceed about my life: am I a hypocrite? I’m just an old bachelor, irresponsible and free as a bird, instinctively pulling away from entanglement with women. I don’t want to compromise in any way for any reason; and the price of this is the loneliness I often feel. Can I honestly say “I love everybody” when everyone is a stranger to me, or is this a kind of intellectual stunt, a delusion by dint of mental gymnastics? It’s the sort of objection that Sartre would raise. Maybe it’s easier to feel universal love with a bellyful of beer or wine? Aesop is hungry for breakfast, so I won’t put it off any longer…

Ten o’clock. I’m trying to think of a counter argument to support Joyce. The world would be a better place if everyone held the same love in their hearts and shared it with everybody. It is good to read Ulysses because we all could use a dose of humanization. We all need to be churched in James Joyce. 

Broken Harmonium

Quarter of nine.

I wasn’t feeling so great when I stepped out the front door and set out for the market. Just one of those things. It’s another gray morning like yesterday, a chill 41 degrees, so I put up my hood outdoors and strolled along quite slowly. As I was getting out of bed I thought of maybe giving Ulysses another read to see the things I’d missed the first time. The book is more than just an encyclopedia of random details. But if I do that, then I might as well give Carl Jung a second chance also, for both he and Joyce were collective thinkers. And you know, after all, collectivism may not be for me, or perhaps it depends on my mood on any particular day. How important is this vision of the unity of humankind? There’s an element of Christianity in this: love your neighbor as yourself, suggesting the identity of self and other. Yet this wasn’t what I was thinking on my way to the store today. I bought a Coca-Cola this time— and missed the polar bears on the red label. Just now, my dog Aesop rejected his breakfast again. So many little things can throw off the harmony and peace if we let them. It’s hard to keep ourselves together when everybody has a will and interest of their own. Still, there is something good to say about the thing called fellow feeling. It’d be nice if someone sort of translated Ulysses into plain English for everyone to understand it. The very obscurity of it contributes to the confusion we all experience. 

Loveless

Quarter after nine. I think I might schedule a ride to take me to the bookstore for tomorrow. I don’t know; everyone is so apathetic these days, it doesn’t matter what I do. Yesterday I got pretty excited thinking about my birthday next month. I’ll be 55 years old, and it happens that 5 is my soul number in numerology. Five means things like sex and rock and roll and other extraordinary pleasures. I might get my heart’s desire or then again maybe not. Nothing happens unless you put some effort into the endeavor. As of now, nothing is happening anyway. There isn’t even a breath of air outdoors to disturb the trees. It’s cloudy and cold, gray and lifeless as a cadaver. But Aesop ate his dog food and gives some signs of life. There’s something alive. I just heard a mail truck over on N. Park to break the spell of silence. “The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls / And tenement halls.” Hello darkness, my old friend… I’d kind of like to buy a nicer edition of Dubliners. This gives me an excuse to go to the bookstore tomorrow. I see so much of people missing opportunities to enjoy life, and religious asceticism makes the situation worse. You won’t go to hell for having a good time today. And yet I feel I’m whistling in a hurricane. “It is better to have loved and lost / Than never to have loved at all.”