Tin Ear

Time was, when I had nothing interesting to say, I could eavesdrop and hear something remarkable that I could use.  I don't know if I have lost my ability or if conversations have truly become so deadly dull, but I haven't heard anything good in a very, very long time.  I've watched Season One of "Homeland," the HBO show that won just about every Emmy.  I watch it, but I am not crazy about it.  It has always reminded me of a network show without commercials.  There are nice plot twists and I love looking at Claire Danes for whom I fell when she was in the Steve Martin film "Shop Girl" (for which she should have gotten much critical acclaim).  But thinking about it this morning, I realize that there has not been a memorable line in the entire f'ing series.  And since they've taken out the nudity, it is really commercial t.v. without commercials.  There are many better shows than this, shows with good writing and wonderful dialog, but this one appeals to the masses for precisely the reason I don't feel strongly about it.  There is no language worth recording.

But I can't find it anywhere.  I hear people telling stories, some of them bizarre in their own ways, but never in remarkable language.  And I recognize my own has fallen to the pedestrian level.  But Jesus Christ, there should be something living to steal.

I will have to quit something and make more time to read.  I just bought four books and couldn't wait to crawl into bed and take them on, but I am so busy and tired all the time that I've only gotten through four pages.  Yikes!  I used to read a couple books a week plus articles.

It is part of the Master Plan, I believe.  And it is A Plan, I am convinced, and not just my wild paranoia.  The Masters of the Universe (read "Very Rich") have gotten together and decided to speed up the assembly line.  And if you are not working on it, you will get nothing.  Some of past Masters of the Universe gave lip service to education and would actually mention books of literature.  President Kennedy gave his top 10 list while he was in the White House.  Now I know that President Obama has said that "Homeland" is his favorite show, but. . . really?  He touts the Community Colleges because they can TRAIN and RE-TRAIN people for jobs.  I have always resisted training.  People should have job skills, no doubt, but to tout colleges as places of training. . . is unforgivable.

I haven't much hope of hearing good stories any more while sitting in cafes and bars and on the verandas of restaurants.  But as I say, maybe its me.  Perhaps I've developed a tin ear.  I know I've lost the ability to make a phrase, though I'm hoping to get that back for Christmas.

My friend sent me a link to an article in The New York Review of Books yesterday.  He had extracted this:

I come, not to bury Cheever, but to praise him.

John was my teacher then my friend. Forty years later I write early every morning, like him. Like him, instead of deciding what new work to read I reread Flaubert’s “A Simple Heart.” I have never let one of my students pay for lunch. Two strong bourbons are now my wild outer limit, unlike him. But that lesson also comes from John. Unlike Cheever, I’ve never made a sexual move on one of my students, even when they beg. (And lately there’s been far too little begging.)

John Cheever, now unfairly known as the gloomy, sodden satyr of suburbia, was at least rarely gloomy. Fact is he was more fun per minute than is legal in a nation this Republican.

I read the article, and here, in the words of Cheever himself, is my own extraction.

They left for the mainland the next morning, taking the six-o’clock boat. Mother got up to say goodbye, but she was the only one…I heard the children’s voices and the car go down the drive, and I got up and went to the window, and what a morning that was! Jesus, what a morning! The wind was northerly. The air was clear. In the early heat, the roses in the garden smelled like strawberry jam. While I was dressing, I heard the boat whistle, first the warning signal and then the double blast and I could see the good people on the top deck drinking coffee out of fragile paper cups….

The sea that morning was iridescent and dark. My wife and my sister were swimming—Diana and Helen—and I saw their uncovered heads, black and gold in the dark water. I saw them come out and I saw that they were naked, unshy, beautiful, and full of grace, and I watched the naked women walk out of the sea.