Concerning Gravity and Literature

Comrades -

I’m currently sitting in a rather average hotel room in Los Angeles after spending the day sauntering (yes, Jeremy saunters, very good) around the architectural-hodge-podge-cum-racetrack that is West Hollywood. Sadly despite the radio station’s proclamation on my journey into the megalopolis from the dusty oppression of Palm Springs, that this was ‘the cultural capital of the world’ – a statement which inspired incredulous guffawing for whole minutes from a man who is frankly a stranger to guffawing, wouldn’t recognise guffawing if it (laughing heartily, naturally) punched me about the nuts and took my picture – culture, other than atrociously photoshopped billboards plastered with the upcoming delights of the New Shows for the Fall Season, has been thinner on the ground than the gold that once led people here in their thousands… Or maybe it was oranges that led people here…? Was scurvy a major issue for the weary travellers on the Oregon Trail? If it was, then that metaphor slips from ‘weak’ to ‘terminal’, and in the interests of sparing us all another dreary family-huddled-around-the-hospital-bed-scene let’s pretend it was gold and history be damned. To be honest, if you’re looking for historical accuracy, then I think even at this early stage it is safe to say that your best interests would be better served elsewhere. Likewise, brevity. Off you pop.

Which is not to say the Angelinos are lacking in the opportunities for culture – one of the joys of such a huge population (with the associated cumulative wealth that comes with them, even the poor downtrodden ‘illegals’ on whose brown, bent backs the entire shaky edifice of Modern American Capitalism totters uncertainly, creaking and groaning) is that, regardless of who you are or what you want, however arcane or perverse or outlandish or queer your whims and desires and requests, you can likely find it here. In fact it’s possible that what you want can only be found here. In which case then, bring me your huddled masses, for I have found three shops in the municipal district of West Hollywood that can sell you Ogden’s Nut Gone Flake on vinyl, in its original tin, for a surprisingly reasonable price. Come, travellers of the world, for here – and only here – can you find a stage production of naked men on motorbikes producing a version of The Sound of Music set entirely in San Francisco. O give me your poor, tired and oppressed, for the thing that ails you – the lack of PVC nurse outfits for girls of all sizes – can be cured in moments by at least three conveniently located and helpfully-staffed boutiques on Santa Monica Boulevard alone. All you need is a credit card number and ideally a girl to wrap the outfit around (and probably some talcum powder, but we’re moving some way from the point here). Perhaps it’s this which makes America such a (seemingly, natch) alluring and (apparently, natch, again) inclusive place. And so, on one’s travels: diamonds, cultural diamonds, occasional and hard to spot yes, but that’s what makes them precious.

All of which is a characteristically long-winded way of saying: Hey! I found a fantastic bookshop this morning! Imagine how long that introduction would have been if I’d have found something really interesting.

And in the bookstore (which I can’t really claim to have discovered, incidentally, it being the most famous bookstore in the whole of the West Coast, although having wandered around it for over an hour and having shockingly failed to be hit upon by either Adrian Grenier or Zooey Deschanel I can exclusively reveal that The Movies Are Full Of Lies, Just Lies Goddammit) amongst the ten-foot stacks of wonderful and varied and extremely reasonably priced art books all of which were regretfully passed over on account of being too heavy to put in my suitcase, I wandered happily in the wonderful muted quietude that only occurs when surrounded by piles of compressed paper. See also libraries, archival storage rooms and Staples Office Supplies (or rather ‘hear, also’).

Swiftly, without warning, and with some force, Mark Twain leapt out at me and hit me on the back of the head. This was something of a surprise and I fear I may have Let Australia Down Overseas with an exclamation in coarse vernacular. A quiet but extremely concerned apology came from somewhere above me. A Man With Excellent Hair was atop one of those wonderful sliding ladders that run along bookshelves in old stately homes (although I have to confess the last one I recall seeing was in a pornographic clip and it certainly wasn’t used to any educational benefit), holding in his hand a book I couldn’t make out, blurred as my vision suddenly was, but I’m assuming it was someone whose name, alphabetically, was rather close to Mr Twain’s. All pain aside, this was something of a fortuitous incident, and loathe as I am to incline toward any notion of fate or divinity, was certainly a happy if rather painful coincidence, for Mr Twain has been rather on my mind recently, and having him briefly connect with the other side of my skull was not entirely unwelcome.

As anyone who appreciates wit and wordplay will gladly inform you, Mark Twain is without a shadow of a scintilla of a sliver of a doubt the wittiest and wordplayiest of them all. He is also a gifted observer of society and a storyteller of no small import. Additionally he is someone whose work I have not really read as much as I pretend to have, but all that I have read I have loved, and so to fill this Mark-Twain-shaped-hole in my personal literary jigsaw puzzle I took the slightly dented copy of The Portable Mark Twain (possibly not quite portable enough, as the throbbing in my skull would attest) to the cashier and, with a fumbling gesture familiar to anyone who’s ever tried to quickly figure out what the difference is between any of the denominations of US currency, purchased it. Leaving the store I looked back, partly to check if I could remove the sudden piercing crick in my neck, only to see the Man With Excellent Hair still frozen atop his ladder, one hand raised in the universal gesture that says ‘It was an accident, I’m terribly sorry, please please please don’t sue me‘. If I were half the humanist I claim to be I should have run back to the store and wrapped my arms around his legs screaming ‘Thank you!’ however that would be moving back towards the pornography clip again and I thought we’d drawn a discreet veil over that so let’s move on.

The reason Mark Twain has been on my mind is due to recently reading an excellent new Australian novel called Jasper Jones. Written by Craig Silvey, it’s as delightfully and idiosyncratically Australian as one could ever hope a book to be without falling into some dreadful ocker pastiche, and part of its careful balancing is I’m sure based on Mr Silvey’s textural and structural referencing of the works of Mark Twain throughout (in addition to some rather graceful allusions to Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird). So even if you’re not tempted to read any Mark Twain, then I can happily attest to having a very enjoyable couple of days sitting around a pool in the company of some wonderful characters who were in many ways more vivid and certainly more fully realised than the moneyed geriatrics I physically found myself with. When I say I physically found myself with them, well, take your mind out of the gutter at once, such thoughts do you no favours. In short: consider it recommended, it is a much easier, funnier and more satisfying read than, say, this rubbish. Try it here. The book was a gift from A New Special Friend, of whom more interminably later.

Reading the introduction to The For All Its Claims of Portability Still Rather Heavy And Sharp Mark Twain while pressing an ice pack to my head, a key phrase caught my eye -

“Mark Twain’s genius was constitutionally eruptive, and for that reason much of his best work is to be found in his short fiction…”

- and with a tingle I thought, ‘Bloody hell, Jem, that’s you, that is’, although I should state at this point that my internal monologuist has a somewhat higher opinion of me and my work than anyone else does or should, and even I was quibbling with him about the use of the word ‘genius’, although equally I should state at this point that I wasn’t quibbling too hard because one doesn’t want to fall out with one’s internal monologuist, as then Doubtless Bad Things Will Happen.

Okay, so it was just the phrase ‘constitutionally eruptive’ that lingered and curled around my mind like cigarette smoke around a femme fatale’s silhouette. That lack of persistence, that inability to See Things Though, that unsticktuitiveness, that wasn’t a curse – it was gift! A gift! The gift of ‘constitutional eruption’! Spew out an idea and forget it; like a New South Wales premier, there will be another along in a moment. But for those brief moments trapped in the sterilised room with the bloody thing thrashing about, tenderly reaching over to smack its bum so it learns how to cry, well, it can occasionally be magic. And yet these moments are lost, like Rutger Hauer’s tears in the rain.

Which returns me – actually vaguely appropriately – to A New Special Friend*. See, New Special Friend (who hereafter will be lumbered with the not hugely romantic acronym NSF for purposes of reducing this already ridiculously longwinded post by the barest amount) is something of a planner, not really a skill I’ve ever acquainted myself with and if I’m terribly honest something I have on some level always equated with ‘obligation’, which in turn is something that my family will tell you I have an almost psychopathic aversion to – actually it’s probably more correctly a sociopathic aversion but we’re splitting the hairs on the head of a lunatic here. Anyway NSF has recently started a list of ’101 things to do in 1001 days’ which sounded like a hell of a challenge, not least of which was finding 101 things I wanted to do in the rest of my life, let alone in the next three years. Still, boredom and jetlag make for strange bedfellows and so I embarked with optimism and vigour on writing out a similar list.

I made it to 19. Number 19 was ‘Find 82 things to do in the next 1001 days’ which I think either turns the whole idea into a recursive loop from which I will never escape, or is possibly just cheating.

One of which, number 9, was

stop fucking about on facebook and write a blog or something

(Aside: Obviously I am much more concise when in private, so to speak. Plus as you can tell, a lot more stern. It really is amazing I still manage to achieve so little)

And, with a flourish to rival The Worst Magician Ever pulling an entirely-expected-and-actually-often-glimpsed-beforehand rabbit out of a threadbare hat, here we are.

All fluster and bluster and flimflam and jibberjabbery aside, the last 1600 words can quite neatly be summed up in the phrase ‘This is my new blog, and it’s called Jeremy Saunders Is Constitutionally Eruptive‘. Some of the posts will include hilarious and heartwarming stories of throwing up, so it’ll work on a whole number of levels. Well, two levels. And two is a whole number. I may not know much about ‘math’ but, well, I know what I like.

JEM OUT

*Although, and I shouldn’t really have to mention this, but NSF is NOT Rutger Hauer.