Blog URL changes

Moving my blog to Wordpress.com. The URL is: incorporealworks.wordpress.com

I am tired of fooling with matters of CSS, upgrading versions of wordpress.org and other things.

Checking in

Still here, I see. Just a visit to wander about.

Carry on.

New URL for Blog

I have a new domain. Moved my stuff over to it. Below are new URLs for my stuff. Same old stuff. New address.

blog: blog.incorporealworks.org

home page: incorporealworks.org

Moving Day

I am moving this blog to my host server, using WordPress (thanks, Larry!) to manage it myself. I will maintain this blogger site just to preserve the "Incorporeal Works" name.

My new link for blogging is:

Incorporeal Works

Brokeback Mountain

Thoughts on fiction and homosexual sex

Currently getting much ink and a respectable number of customers in theaters around the country, Brokeback Mountain has caused me to take another look at the story that is the source of the movie.

Annie Proulx is a writer of considerable skill who has built up a critical and public following with books like The Shipping News, Accordion Crimes, Close Range and others. The last book listed is a collection of short stories in which "Brokeback Mountain" appeared. I have read the three books listed, some time ago, and enjoyed them for the writing and characterizations. I have not seen the movie. I don't know if I will.

The longish story that produced the story of star-crossed lover-cowboys brought a mixed response from me as I read it. Jack Twist and Ennis del Mar are in almost every way archetypal cowboys. Very physical men who have pared down their responses to life accordingly, long on action and short on verbalization and introspection. The slow and skilful depiction of their gradual attraction, suddenly exploding into physical coupling on a cold, snowy night in a shared sleeping bag, sets the story on a tragic course unintelligible to the two men.

If Jack and Ennis had a wider range of references in life and experience, they might have been better able to deal with their attraction, to understand what was happening to them. They think they can leave what has happened on that isolated campsite right there, not carry it with them. The rest of the story works out their failure to leave their experience at that campsite, and to escape themselves. They each marry, have children, try to leave the other alone except as a friend.

The incongruity of their cowboy archetypes and the mutual sexual attraction they feel appears intended to highlight the tragedy of their denial and incomprehension. For me, the incongruity provoked what I am sure was unintended laughter; Proulx often presents limited characters failing to cope with situations misunderstood and baffling to them, with humor of a very wry sort intended, I am sure. The humor I felt did not have this effect in "Brokeback Mountain." My laughter was pretty much of the sort you feel when slapstick is suddenly presented, with no connection to the broader story.

The exact scene which produced my inappropriate response was as follows, as Ennis's teeth are chattering in the cold, while Jack is wrapped in his large bedroll:

"Jesus Christ, quit hammerin and get over here. Bedroll's big enough," said Jack in an irritable sleep-clogged voice. It was big enough, warm enough, and in a little while they deepened their intimacy considerably. Ennis ran full-throttle on all roads, whether fence-mending or money-spending, and he wanted none of it when Jack seized his left hand and brought it to his erect cock. Ennis jerked his hand away as though he'd touched fire, got to his knees, unbuckled his belt, shoved his pants down, hauled Jack onto all fours, and, with the help of the clear slick and a little spit, entered him, nothing he'd done before but no instruction manual needed. [emphasis added]

The above passage presents the sexual union of the two cowboys as though they were undertaking an unexpected job of work relating to stock. They unceremoniously spit on their hands, and go to work. The scene's incongruity simply made me laugh.

Later in the story, the cowboys meet again after acquiring wives and children, producing a scene which did elicit a feeling of loss and tragedy in me, but not for the two cowboys. On the landing outside the front door of Ennis's apartment, they fall together, lips locking, oblivious of Ennis's wife opening the door a crack, and seeing them. Ennis and Jack take off "for a few drinks," eventually ending up in a motel, writhing on the sweaty motel bed in sexual release. As they leave Ennis's place, the echo of his wife Alma's "misery voice" trails after them, "Ennis-" she begins, but they are gone. There is the tragedy for me in this story. A wife and mother discovering that not only is her husband unfaithful to her, but he is not even the man she believed him to be; it does not lessen the unfairness to know that he has similarly deceived himself as to what he is.

I don't think I will go to the movie.

W.A.C.-bogus issue

Has there been documented one police action against a person
wishing anybody else "Merry Christmas?" Have postal inspectors
raided card stores to impound "Christmas Cards?" Are ministers,
priests and bishops being cautioned to curtail references to
the natal anniversary of Yeshua bar Yusef? (I use the alias
to avoid possible attention by the Christmas Police.)

No. If you'll pardon the expression, Hell, No!

So why is the "War on Christmas" the latest banner
with a strange device leading the Faux News Warriors
into battle? Once upon a time, there was an outcry to
"put Christ back in Christmas," referring to the gross
commercialization of a religious observance. Now the
cry is "Put Christmas back into the retail stores."
People should make up their minds.

More power to retails stores that do not want to
appear sectarian. Sever the connection between
yearly profit-taking and the birth of a religion
celebrating charity and simplicity, spiritual
matters over merchandising mantras. Feh.
Rant concluded.

Imaginary Chatter

I was reminded this morning of an interactive program called Eliza, written some years ago to simulate a conversation with a user in real time. I googled around and found that at least one person had the brilliant idea of linking a version of Eliza with a chat room on AOL. Some hilarious exchanges resulted.

So I created an exchange as it might happen in a chat room of my own invention. It made me laugh, so here it is, a totally imaginary chat session, any resemblance to real persons is as coincidental as Eliza's 'conversation':

Chatroom One: {1 chatting}
{imteh1 is in the room}
{Eliza enters the room}
imteh1: hello eliza....do you know everyone....
Eliza: Would you like to talk about everyone.... ?
imteh1: no i don't talk about other people.....
Eliza: Why don't you talk about other people....?
imteh1: other people say mean things about me.....i don't like
to answer.....nobody knows what i go through.......my fourth
husband called me names.....my house has snakes in the attic....
i am always defending myself....
Eliza: Tell me about mean things.
imteh1: oh sister....could I tell you about some mean things.
...there are some real bitches here....but i dont care....whatever....
{pr0nmstr enters}
Eliza: Who are some real bitches?
imteh1: oh i dont want to give them the satisfaction....i never
talk about anybody else....just dont say it pr0nmstr....i dont
need your s**t today....watch out for pr0nmstr eliza....he is cruel....
{gdy2shus enters the room}
imteh1: hey girl.... meet eliza....she is asking me about bitches....
you know who....being mean to me....
gdy2shus: hey girl! hi eliza. oh pr0nmstr is here too. is he being
mean to you imteh1?
pr0nmstr: Who is this eliza?
Eliza: Why don't you want to give them satisfaction?
Eliza: Why don't you talk about anybody else?
Eliza: Does it make you feel better to talk about s**t?
Eliza: Why do you say pr0nmstr is cruel?
Eliza: Do you meet bitches.... ?
pr0nmstr: ROTFLMAO! I just figured out who Eliza is. Bitches,
heh, Eliza came to the right place, you deserve each other.
Eliza: I don't understand ROTFLMAO!
pr0nmstr: Well, at least one of you realizes what you don't
understand. This is rich.
imteh1: eliza dont pay any attention to pr0nmstr..... hes not
worth it.....i ignore him....he is a bitter little man....
gdy2shus: Why don't you leave imteh1 alone, pr0n? She has
a lot to deal with.
Eliza: Why do you say you have a lot to deal with?
gdy2shus: Not me, Eliza, imteh1 is the one with problems.
pr0nmstr: LMAO! You've got that right, gdy2shus, imteh1
has problems.
imteh1: thanks girl....eliza pr0nmstr isnt worth your time....
Eliza: Why do you say pr0nmstr isn't worth time.... ?
Eliza: I don't understand LMAO!
imteh1: Why do you keep laughing eliza....i am beginning to
wonder....i am making myself perfectly clear....if you dont
understand thats your problem....
gdy2shus: I think Eliza is just unsure of the situation, imteh1,
she is not laughing at you.
Eliza: Do you want to discuss laughing?
imteh1: so you want to talk about laughing....alright.....bring it
sister....i can stick up for myself....
Eliza: So you want to stick myself.... ?
imteh1: i said bring it eliza.... well see who sticks who....what
did you mean im the one with problems gdy.... i thought we
were friends.... i cant trust anybody....
Eliza: Why can't you trust anybody.... ?
Eliza: Do you stick your sister?
pr0nmstr: No s**t! imteh1 will do anybody. LMFAO! I'm getting
back to work. Have fun, kids.
{pr0nmstr has left the room}
{session suspended by administrator.}

Hubris

I laughed, behind her back, at my grandmother one day years ago.
I was visiting her in a new home, a semi-luxurious retirement
complex, simpler to manage than her recently sold house. My
humor was sparked by the morning ritual of her medications.
Nana brought out a little wicker basket with a bow on the handle,
a gay little touch of color, considering that the basket stored her
multiple meds.

Once the little bottles of pills and nostrums were lined up for this
odd ritual, my grandmother doled out pills from each into a pillbox
with compartments for each hour of the day. So many at
mid-morning, so many at noon, so many before supper. I loved
my grandmother, and enjoyed telling my sisters later of this new,
funny story about our beloved Nana. How amusing.

Now, though I am not even within twenty years of her age on
that long-ago day, at my computer, a pill box marked by days
is shoved up under the stand, so that I will remember to take
my meds. It takes an effort for me not to introduce my state
of health, my aches and pains, into conversations nowadays.

Many of the people I know are much younger than I, listening
to me with what seems polite attention at the mock-humorous
self-absorbed commentary on arthritis, blood pressure and
other such fascinating subjects. In my mind's eye, Nana's
knowing smile appears; she is nodding, she is beginning that
rich chuckle which endeared her to more than just her
grandchildren. These young people listening so politely, I
know exactly what they are thinking. They can hardly wait
until the story of this old man's stereotypical hypochondria will
amuse their families, their young friends.

The great wheel of years has come around, the smugness of
youth belongs to others now. Pride has many faces, including the
polite, not quite concealed amusement I showed, those years ago,
when my grandmother took out her pills.