Valley of the Dollars

Our economy has been worsening for some time, but suddenly I feel like the signs are all around me, and growing more intense. This week, I learned of two friends who have lost their jobs. My employer is preparing for another round of job cuts. We just released our most recent earnings statement, and it was dismal.

On top of that, my 401K lost $8,000 in value over the last quarter, thanks to the slipping markets, and prices and expenses are on the rise.

I try not to stress about it too much - after all, what can I do? We all just have to ride it out. But it is troubling.

It’s especially hard to work in a place where people are perpetually leaving. Change and loss is always hard, but it’s especially hard when it comes in waves and keeps returning, so you never quite feel that you’re done with it.

As an antidote to the somber news, Bob and I went to see “Valley of the Dolls” on the big screen last night at Clearview Chelsea Cinemas, where a special showing was being hosted by drag queen Hedda Lettuce. Quite hilarious. I haven’t laughed so hard in weeks.

(Photo: Architectural detail, Williamsburg, Brooklyn, March 2008)

Love on the Subway

Last night I got to indulge in one of my favorite activities. I went to Chipotle on St. Mark’s Place after work for a burrito, and I sat in the window watching the parade of cute guys on the street below. Chipotle is built up above the street, so from the window I have a great vantage point! And St. Mark’s Place, with its erstwhile bohemian atmosphere (and its proximity to NYU) always attracts lots of cuties.

People-watching really is one of my favorite activities - I’m not kidding. Not only because people in New York are so interesting, but also because a lot of them are so attractive!

I have a friend who says he falls in love on the subway every morning. I know just what he means.

When I first started practicing Zen, I had the idea that I was supposed to quell feelings of desire. But as I understand it now, elimination isn’t really the goal. It’s more about what to do with desires. When I see an attractive guy, of course I feel a flush of desire - but the trick is not to cling to it, not to obsess about it, not to become envious or fixated. Instead I just think, “Geez, that guy is HOT!” (or “hawt,” as some of my friends spell it). And two minutes later, ideally, he’s gone from my mind. (If he’s really cute, he might hang around slightly longer than that.)

Human beings are amazing, when you think about it. All the different ways we’re put together, the ways we attract each other, the things each of us finds appealing. What a panorama, a spectrum! I wouldn't want to stop desire completely - as if it were even possible. Where's the fun in that?

(Photo: Shadow in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, March 2008)

Short Story

Note on wall near Gramercy Park:

You looked lonely.
I'm lonely too.
I'm sorry I didn't say hello.

The lobby of 85 E. 4th St.
April 19 or 18 10:30 p.m.
(?)

In Watermelon Sugar

Yesterday I was walking in SoHo, taking photos of street art (above), when I came across a few tattered old books scattered on a windowsill. Obviously they were giveaways.

Most of them were nothing I wanted. But one was by ‘60s avant-garde novelist Richard Brautigan: “In Watermelon Sugar.” I knew Brautigan because I picked up a copy of his book “The Abortion: An Historical Romance 1966” at a stoop sale in San Francisco in 1991. I read it and remember liking it, bizarre and unusual as it was. So I grabbed “In Watermelon Sugar,” a Dell paperback from 1968.

I got a special bonus: Inside the back cover, an old train ticket from Greenwich, Conn., to Grand Central Station. No date, but it was a ConRail ticket, and MTA took over the Metro North trains from ConRail in 1983...so it’s at least that old. The fare was $2.35 (as opposed to $13 for a ticket bought on board the train today).

I opened “In Watermelon Sugar” to a random page. It was a chapter titled “The Watermelon Sun”:

I woke up before Pauline and put on my overalls. A crack of gray sun shone through the window and lay quietly on the floor. I went over and put my foot in it, and then my foot was gray.

I looked out the window and across the fields and piney woods and the town to the Forgotten Works. Everything was touched with gray: Cattle grazing in the fields and the roofs of the shacks and the big Piles in the Forgotten Works all looked like dust. The very air itself was gray.

We have an interesting thing with the sun here. It shines a different color every day. No one knows why this is, not even Charley. We grow the watermelons in different colors the best we can.

This is how we do it: Seeds gathered from a gray watermelon picked on a gray day and then planted on a gray day will make more gray watermelons.

It is really very simple. The colors of the days and the watermelons go like this --

Monday: red watermelons.
Tuesday: golden watermelons.
Wednesday: gray watermelons.
Thursday: black, soundless watermelons.
Friday: white watermelons.
Saturday: blue watermelons.
Sunday: brown watermelons.

Today would be a day of gray watermelons. I like best tomorrow: the black, soundless watermelon days. When you cut them they make no noise, and taste very sweet.

They are very good for making things that have no sound. I remember there was a man who used to make clocks from the black, soundless watermelons and his clocks were silent.

The man made six or seven of these clocks and then he died.

There is one of the clocks hanging over his grave. It is hanging from the branches of an apple tree and sways in the winds that go up and down the river. It of course does not keep time anymore.

Pauline woke up while I was putting my shoes on.

“Hello,” she said, rubbing her eyes. “You’re up. I wonder what time it is.”

“It’s about six.”

“I have to cook breakfast this morning at iDEATH,” she said. “Come over here and give me a kiss and then tell me what you would like for breakfast.”

Magnolia

I thought you might like to see the Japanese magnolia that’s blooming in the courtyard outside my window. For most of the year, this tree looks pretty nondescript. But every spring it explodes into a cloud of big pink petals.

In the middle of the photo near the bottom, you can also see one of the big green buds on the horse chestnut tree. I love that tree because it shades my window and gives me some privacy from the apartments across the way. We don’t really own it - it’s growing just outside the wall of our backyard, so it belongs to the neighbors. I’m always afraid they’re going to cut it down.


I did go to the Zendo for a few hours of yesterday’s retreat, and I’m so glad I did. It was great to reconnect with my practice after a dry spell.

In the end, I have to remember that whatever doubts and hesitations I have about practice are just more thoughts - just transient flashes of brain noise. Not that they’re meaningless. But they’re not really all that important, either.

What’s important is showing up, being on the cushion, breathing, being. Paying attention to what’s real. I was glad to be reminded of how simple it is. I plan to go back this morning, and then I’ll be back on schedule.

Last of the Curlews

Here is a legendary Reed family story about one of my childhood traumas.

It was the early '70s, and I was six years old or so. I sat down to watch an animated TV movie called "The Last of the Curlews," which as I recall was broadcast with sponsorship by Burger King. My mom sat down to watch it with me.

The movie was about an endangered species of bird, the Eskimo curlew. It told the story of one particular curlew who thought he was the last of his kind - until he found a mate. Then, in the movie's climactic scene, a hunter kills the mate. The curlew is left alone again, his species facing extinction.

My mom remembers watching this with me and thinking, as the movie's final scenes began: "Oh no!"

Sure enough, I burst into tears and still remember, to this day, how gut-wrenching that movie was. I've read more about it since then and learned that it was produced as ABC's very first "After School Special" in 1972. (I seem to remember it airing in prime time, but maybe I'm wrong, or maybe I saw a rebroadcast.) It won an Emmy the following year.

You know what, though? I wouldn't wish that movie on my worst boyhood enemy. It may have been realistic, but it was also way too harsh for many kids - definitely way too harsh for me. I think it's telling that I don't ever remember seeing it air again.

Does anyone else remember this movie?

(Photo: Anteaters, Brooklyn, March 2008)

Pet Sounds

Just as I wrote yesterday's entry, it warmed up considerably. I almost didn’t even need my jacket. Woo hoo!

I’m finally getting back to my normal schedule after California. It always takes me a few days to settle into my routine. Today’s goal is to get back to the gym - I’ve been such a sloth lately - and to sit a while.

Tomorrow is another monthly retreat at the Zendo. I think I will go, at least for part of the day. I need to apply myself and get back to practicing. I’d also like to talk to my teacher a bit about my recent malaise, and finding the right balance in my practice.

Do you ever think we just have too many choices in life? Our ancestors had only one religion, for the most part - the one they were born into. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing to have other options, but it does lead to a sort of restlessness, and what can become an endless quest for the perfect path. And no path is perfect, you know?

I’ve been grooving lately to the Beach Boys’ album “Pet Sounds,” from 1966. “Pet Sounds,” which routinely lands on lists of the all-time best albums, was both influenced by and had an influence on the Beatles. In fact, I've read that “Pet Sounds” wouldn’t have happened without the Beatles’ “Rubber Soul,” and “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” wouldn’t have happened without “Pet Sounds.” In any case, it is indeed a stellar album - not peppy lightweight Beach Boys tunes like their earlier songs, but a bit doleful, with richly layered instrumentation. I’m loving it.

(Photo: Long Island City, Queens, March 2008)