A Creature Of Habit

I like the French word for 'habit’: habitude. Ah-bee-tood. It’s not as harsh as the English word ‘habit.’ That short vowel ‘a’ is rasping. Severe. “You’ve got a bad habit of looking at me the wrong way, mister.” I picture Jean Harlow. A smart-ass platinum blonde. That’s not the kind of habit I’d ever want to get mixed up in. I want habitude. French ‘habitude’ sounds comfortable, like a venerable armchair in an opulent study. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. It just means that you’ve grown comfortable with a certain routine, a manner of dress, a way of doing things. You’re dignified. You have preferences. Inclinations. You’re a man of the world. A femme fatale. A deadly coquette. An enchantress. You enjoy European squares with baroque fountains and elegant statuary. “I have the habit of impulse, monsieur, and cannot always restrain myself.” J'ai l'habitude de l'impulsion, monsieur, et je ne puis toujours me retenir. And then whip out your rapier and execute a flawless thrust at an imaginary opponent. You’re not in the habit of duels, but it’s sexy to appear capable of anything. Breaking out of habits is even sexier. But only if you fall back into your habit once you escape. That makes you appear vulnerable, and is a boost to your overall panache, which is yielding and genial. Habits are things you break. Habitude is where you live. Habits are rabbits. Habitude is gratitude. Latitude. Largesse. You can go a long way with habitude. It’s like sailing a yacht, while canoeing on a pond. Habit is the dull routine that one day turns into a crisis. You need to be rid of it. Ditch it for some habitude.

I have a long list of habits. Some of which I’ve broken. Gladly broken. Some I miss. Most I don’t. I don’t miss smoking. The first six months were torture. I was constantly angry. I had to exit a bus once because it was winter and the driver hadn’t turned the heat on. Deep down I knew how grotesquely patrician it would be to yell at the guy. Privileged, I think, is the proper term for that these days. Privileged because I was Hamlet. My privilege extended back to the 14^th century. I lived in a castle with a treacherous uncle and a lascivious mother. I moped around pushing boundaries. I was brutal to poor Ophelia. So I got off. I dinged the bell and got off the bus. I even gave a nod to the driver. My Hamlet nod. The nod of an aggrieved prince in a time before YouTube. And walked the rest of the way. Resumed a measure of calm. I never thought I could ever feel so good about ditching a bad drug. Not so with booze. Alcohol I miss. That was a tough one as well. Brandy, Guiness, cognac, tequila, Glenfiddich, martinis, I loved them all. Loved the movie Barfly. Mickey Rourke as Charles Bukowski. I felt right at home. That was a difficult divorce. Still miss it. Gives me nostalgia. Imaginings I won’t go into. Maybe another time. I’m still waiting for that long slow distance between me and the fantasies I dare never entertain.

I’ve cultivated some good habits over time. Running is a big one. It’s beyond habit. It’s an addiction. If I don’t run, I don’t feel right. I feel off. Dull. Uninspired. My mitochondria have gotten use to the daily renewal, either through running or doing a dumbbell routine. When it comes to dumbbells, I’m a natural. I feel comfortable around anything I don’t have to assemble or learn how to use while being surveilled by agents I only dimly comprehend. Running is an antidote to the dopamine trickle of social media. I remember privacy, it wasn’t just a location or a circumstance, it was having an interior nobody but you were allowed to enter. Are tattoos a way to restore identity? I’m stunned whenever I see somebody running while gazing at their phone. Maybe they’re developing a new run and looking at a map. Running is a meditation. It’s good for people who get bored with the shenanigans of their monkey mind. I like gorilla mind. Gorilla mind is thumping your chest in the wilderness. Breaking your chains on a Broadway stage as the paparazzi drive you insane with their flashbulbs. You end your run swatting at airplanes. That’s a terrible analogy. Running is fun. It isn’t tragic. It can be, I suppose. But mostly it’s exhilarating. You feel a surge of good health. That said, who wouldn’t feel eased of life’s absurdities by swatting at Curtis Helldivers while atop the Empire State Building?

Museums Are Zoos For Artists

Museums are zoos for artists. Artists are zoos for museums. But. I just want to know one thing. How strong is a gorilla? Gorillas are very strong. Gorillas can bend thick bamboo, uproot trees, and break termite mounds open. And yet their tenderness is legendary. If you know how to dip a mountain in wildflowers, you can overflow the edge of anything and arrive at some semblance of goodwill. You may stumble a little along the way, but that’s to be expected. Perfection, in this life, is unattainable. No one visits the afterlife without an attorney present. Whenever I visit the underworld, I put a magnificent bone in my suitcase along with an array of entertaining items. Tentacles, tits, and pieces of bright pentameter. You can find redemption in almost anything these days. So get ready. Some life is about to happen. If you feel like singing go ahead. But root the descriptions in good honest dirt. Keep an eye on the weather. Nobody can choose the direction of the wind. Not from the timid sanctuary of a motel room. No, what you want is a mutation. Form is the downfall of content. You can’t trap an image in a cube of rain. Not unless you intend to start something, just when I’m looking around for an exit ramp. My stream of consciousness indicates I'm chronicling something gnomish and wet. But the speedometer tells me we’re going head over heels in verbal embroidery. We could end up anywhere. Dancing in a Kentucky roadhouse. Or lost in some old melody with a dreamy tempo and a provocative thread.

One should undress before crawling on a pyramid. A negligee if you have to. It’s going to be hot. That Egyptian sun is murder on the skin. It’s up to you. I’m not entirely sure what rejuvenations lie in store, but I’m sure the journey itself will merit our gratitude. Wear something appropriate to the afterlife, assuming it’s just a casual visit and not an entire stay. Find a bedsheet. Try cutting through the fabric in an erratic fashion. Whatever it ends up resembling will not matter. What’s important is socks. Or a rattlesnake jacket with a plus sign and a history of chains. It will accommodate the rain quite well if it has been sewn with dragonfly thread. The zipper must be provocative, and consistent as gas. Rehearsal is good, but it behaves too much. Remember: wood before swan equals aluminum during credibility. Meanwhile, if the map widens our absence I will imitate something itchy. I have a feeling it’s all going to work out fine in the end. I know something about snorkeling and mechanical nouns. The future is an elusive phenomenon. I’m more comfortable in the past, where everything is predictable, because it already happened, but not set in cement, because time is fluid. Time is an aquarium in a psychiatrist’s waiting room. Just getting it started requires a vigorous push and a madeleine dipped in lime blossom tea.

I’m not equipped with Proust’s prodigious memory. I can barely remember the subject of a conversation ten minutes after I’ve had the conversation. I’m lucky if I can remember who I was talking to. Koko Taylor? Willie Dixon? Wang Dang Doodle? Smack me into umber and I’ll come out cinnamon. I can barely control who I am much less than manage who I’m not. I love the Fauves in the same way I love a junkyard pumpkin. I give my spit a zip code and shine my shoes. Things get done quickly here. I don’t need a reason to fall in love. Like most things in life, it comes as a surprise. Gravity is easy. You can feel it in your bones. And in bed. Spreading you like butter. Heave that emotion into a sentence and see what happens to the mirrors. That feeling you get after a dental filling is a blunt example of disembodiment. I’ve been there. Yesterday morning I woke up on the ceiling. Gertrude Stein handed me the newspaper. I heard there was an ape in the salon last night. No one knows how he got there. But man could he cut hair. 

 

The Art Of Mowing

I used to mow my father's lawn. I remember the arduous task of bringing the lawnmower to life. This required pulling on a rope repeatedly until it engaged a spring-loaded rotor, which in turn rotated the engine's flywheel and crankshaft, initiating the combustion process. Once the engine started, the recoil starter disengaged, allowing the engine to run independently. It made quite a racket and had a lot of power. The yard, front and back, was quite large, so it was a job that took several hours to complete. I was living like Gregory Corso at the time, or John Keats, adepts at couch-surfing. Mowing the lawn was a way to compensate for the kindness of food and lodging provided for the few days, sometimes weeks, it would take to find a job in order to secure an apartment. Rents in Seattle in the 70s were phenomenally cheap. It’s why I moved back to Seattle after ten years in California. The nascent flowering of what would soon be Silicon Valley had already begun driving rents and real estate way up. It would be another ten years or so before the same phenomena would convert Seattle from being one of the most livable of cities to a dystopic hellscape of unaffordable homes, “suicidal” whistleblowers, cratered roads and drones.

The lawn mower was old and stubborn and hard to start. It was the hardest part of the mowing job. I liked the uniformity of the process, the machine vibrating its power in my arms, pulling me along like a mechanical mule, a Martian rover with rotating blades. I liked the combined smells of newly mown grass and gasoline. The strong smell of freshly cut grass is caused by green leaf volatiles (GLVs), quite generally a mix of various oxygenated hydrocarbons, which are released when grass is damaged. In the French movie Perfumes (Les Parfums), Emmanuelle Devos plays a famous French “nose” who can discern with acute sensitivity a universe of odors. She refers to the smell of newly mown grass as the smell of carnage. I would, as a rule, mow the lawn in orderly strips, going back and forth, lost in thought. When I was finished mowing, I would rake. Raking took a lot longer. But there was something Zenlike in the motion, a meditative rhythm.

Lawns appear to be disappearing. A lot of the new McMansions use every square inch of property, leaving room for little else but a few rocks and some beach grass. A number of luxurious dwellings use artificial turf, which I find quite off-putting. Why would anyone do that? Grass is not a rare metal. It’s everywhere. It does require water. But this is Seattle. It rains a lot.  Mowing, it would seem, has lost its allure for a lot of homeowners. Many yards now have been landscaped to accentuate rocks and moss. The effect is enchanting. The larger homes, the ones upwards of two million, will quite often have a fountain and a statue of the Buddha, seated in a lotus position with a benevolent smile and a large well-exposed belly, soliciting a rub for good luck. I find this curious. That people blessed with wealth should allude to an eastern philosophy whose tenets advance non-attachment, deliverance from our enslavement to material possessions, even within our thoughts and emotions. Is this because once wealth is attained, it seems only natural to despise it? Does the effort to acquire wealth have a damaging effect on the psyche, recommending that a Buddha should be seated strategically somewhere in the garden, ideally near a fountain, as a talisman to the further grip of the material world, or as a warning to people not to seek wealth and property, it’s just a headache, an ongoing anxiety? Wouldn’t a more apt religious figure be someone espousing a gospel of joy and prosperity, the idea that God rewards faithfulness and devotion with material wealth and success, or one of many celebrities hosting meditation videos on YouTube, Sam Harris or Kevin Hart? A Buddha in a lotus position does, I must say, look far better suited to a setting of lobelia, elephant ears and water hyacinth than a podcast celebrity smiling sagely out of a backdrop of bugleweed, spirea and stinking hellebore.

It was British engineer Edward Beard Budding that we have to thank for the invention of the lawn mower. It seems appropriate that Budding, who worked as a mechanic building and repairing machinery for textile mills in the Stroud valleys, that the words ‘beard’ and ‘budding’ should constitute the bulk of his name. Budding was granted a patent for the first mechanical lawn mower in 1830. The machine was based on a tool used to uniformly cut carpet and comprised of a series of blades around a cylinder. Cast-iron gear wheels transmitted power from the rear roller to the cutting cylinder, allowing the rear roller to drive the knives on the cutting cylinder. It must’ve been a hell of a thing to push. Lawn sports like croquet and lawn tennis had become quite popular in England, as well as in the U.S. By the mid-19th century in America lawns were firmly established as a signature of the prosperous American homeowner’s landscape. However, it was evident in the Flintstone cartoons that the prehistoric Flintstones had a grassy front yard with a cobblestone walkway and a driveway, as well as a grassy backyard with a pool and a coconut tree, thus belying the lawn as an eccentricity of the industrial age.