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It was a Kodak Bantam camera with a lens that folded out on a rail, very charming and dainty, with little metal knobs to set the f-stops and one to set the shutter. You could put it into the palm of your hand like some inlaid treasure of inestimable value. Because it was so miniature in consequence, I honored it so much more. I did not treasure things for their material worth; I treasured them for their personal meaning to me, the decorations of my life as a young boy. The camera used 828 film which is no longer available –again, we are given immediate obsolescence, such as digital cameras having taken over from film. A recent read through camera magazines informed me that I was “obsolete.” I will always be a film man.

The tiny Kodak was a pleasure to hold in my hand as I was growing up. Many snapshots were taken of my sister and I with it. The snaps were 3 1/2 x 3 1/2 inches I believe, as memory fails me. The edges were scalloped as was the fashion then, and I never saw a color snap made with that camera nor a slide. It was encased in a leather case and by the time I gave it over to my son the case had fallen into such decay it was of no consequence.  Jordan has it now as he has my Nikon FE as a personal gift to him. It had replaced a Pentax K1000, great little camera to learn about depth of field and f-stops. I bought the Nikon in 1979 and for about two decades I photographed and registered our family lives together. I made sure that I was in the shots for too often fathers record and leave themselves out. Several years back, 1999, in fact, Rochelle died and I purchased an expensive non-digital camera for my son at B&H in New York City, the place for camera buffs. It was a grand and well worth it; he was aching with the loss of his mother and so was I. It was a mutual gesture, to make “merry” to alleviate the sadness. I was in such agony, and so was he. Unmentioned agony is so heavy to bear. I had to make my way into relating to him in a whole new way. I was no longer the father within a context, I was the father in a photo whose other half had been torn away — Rochelle, she who always photographed so well.

Somewhere in his house in Chicago two cameras rest, one has the history of my childhood molecularly integrated into its dark bellow and interior case, and the other has Jordan’s history as a baby, toddler, adolescent within its more modern and intricate recesses. I fantasize late at night  that both cameras chat about the places they have been, the scenes set forth before their eyes, the care by which they were handled and the value given to them by their owners. I hope they exchange photos and comment about skylight and polarizer filters, camera errors as well as camera tips that the owners should have been aware of. And I hope in solemn pleasure they mourn the loss of the faces of those who have gone on. And I am sure that the little Kodak will mention to the very sophisticaded Nikon that the greatest picture of all was taken in 1969, a picture of Rochelle sitting in the passenger seat, window down, and resting her arms on the 65 Mustang — top down — convertible and looking at me with all the love she could give, she of the Hedy Lamarr face, European, Mediterranean and Hebraic.

I am thinking of what photo that the FE might crow about — I have no idea. I do know that Rochelle would choose those pictures in which she is sitting in Amish country with Jordan and Brett as small children, to the right and left of her, on her lap, her arms embracing them. Oh, mothers, how often so cannily wise about what is important and what is not.

After Rochelle had died I went for a new camera as well, a point and shoot compact, Ricoh GR1s. I give its nomenclature because I give it respect. Do not chuckle — do you step over a worm during a rainy day or do you thug it to death with your shoe? The camera is terrific but not reliable in terms of mechanicals. Recently I had it repaired for I was not going to go digital. I love retro, I love that which does not expedite me. New is not necessarily better — growing old has taught me that; it is only the press of culture to advance speedily, quickly, to nowhere. Digital is Iraq.

When it is my moment, I hope Jordan retrieves my Ricoh and places it with the other two, for in the grand sweep of time he too will be remembered. Do not shy away from the inevitable, reader, for in its dramatic and sad-tinged feeling, we can carve out a presence of meaning, whether for ourselves, or for those dear to us. In a way I die every and each day, but I note that, I feel it deeply, I taste the loss and in some casual or remarkable way, it makes tomorrow more to be cherished and this very moment most important — and endearing. All is in loss. Despair is for those unaware and unawakened.

On  7 April I will be giving a reading with other authors at a local branch of the Southwestern Authors society. I will read “Little Errands,” a story from Down to a Sunless Sea. A story as simple as that of a man trying to mail a letter, it becomes an act of obsessive-compulsiveness brought to a heightened extreme. I had read Kafka’s stories, particularly “In the Penal Colony” and “The Burrow.” Both stories are bizarre, thus their appeal, and very much grounded in detail and nitty-gritty realities The burrow story drove me to distraction, for it is so neurotic in nature, so stressful and frustrating that one can easily read into it a metaphor for the species. And what do we identify with? If memory serves me correctly, it is some kind of gopher. As this creature struggles underground in the maze he created, to find egress — but continually blocked and frustrated in his efforts,  the story drives the reader into feeling the neurotic strains Kafka plays with. So, in emulation, although I cannot remember the inspiration for “Little Errands” exactly, I attempted to do the same in my story.

I find that everything is in the details when I come to write. When a character blows his nose, that is sufficient, in some cases, to simply state so. Other times we may want to examine that wet, semi-fibrous stuff. And, indeed, we should call it “snot.” It all depends, it all is determined by the writer. I don’t think it is a matter of taste; I believe it is a sense of observation, of seeing accurately. I recall very early in my writing “career” that I took a course in Greenwich Village given by the noted Marguerite Young, a relative of Brigham Young, that savage and murderous Mormon charlatan. Famed for having written My Darling, Miss Macintosh, a two volume behemoth that she devoted years to writing, at the time she was living off that reputation and in her late sixties or seventies. Sitting beside her was a blond-haired young man wearing a short black cape, a literary sycophant that served apparently to soothe her in her dotage — a bit much. In any case I dropped out soon after but not before she said something in class that I am sharing with you and that I have always found of use. In essence she said to throw everything you know into your writing, the “kitchen sink” she said, given that you don’t clog the arteries of your narrative. I found that insightful and I continue to do so.

When I reread portions of The i Tetralogy  from time to time, I sense that the book’s richness comes from my having lain down “pilings” of details on which the story is scaffolded. In an earlier blog I gave the parable about the fly caught in the vat of milk and how through his efforts to escape he turned the milk into cheese. It is this kind of interesting detail that I am using to advance the novel as well as to deepen it. Goddam it, all I am doing is to trying to make the read interesting, to use the tangential in powerful ways, to not let a whisker disappear that I can use to embroider my design. Perhaps it is a serendipitous consequence for my not having learned to plot my books — I feel my life is plotless so why struggle with that device. I just sink into the tar pit, just play dinosaur and wallow into it until I disappear. I guess my hope as a writer is to intrigue you with how shit clings to the shoe, how gum sticks to the hand, how Scotch tape clings aberrantly and annoyingly to the fingertips.

So in “Little Errands” the obsessive-compulsive behavior is tweezed out and enters the perfume of the story by my own anality, detail embossed upon details so that a Klimtian effect — damascene – is achieved in that the character merges with the details and almost disappears.

I am an aging New Yorker who dearly misses Dr. Brown’s Cel-Ray and brisket on rye. Living among the elderly here who play and cavort as if in a second childhood, I feel misplaced, but I am always the observer. Unfortunately it took decades before I could metabolize what i “experienced.” I have been an English teacher, the director of an alternative school, a writer and a therapist, and all of these attributes, in the last several years, have merged, and I am having the time of my life expressing myself. I am direct, often blunt — I have no time to suffer fools: a mentor of mine said it best. “Matt has to be felt.” That about sums up my childhood. Growing up, I walked around with a sign on me: “Vacancy.” Now, I own the complex itself and enjoy being its landlord.

The book works with the idiosyncratic pings, dings and dents we accrue just by living — and a major accident or two. I don’t particularly feel drawn to misery, but it does like company, and often my characters are people who don’t want me to say anything or to comfort them. Mostly they want their shadow intertwined with mind as I silently accompany them. Using different styles — reportorial; interior monologue, et al — I try to join these characters in their angst and anxiety, for they are only disparate parts of myself. It is in writing that I take the puzzle pieces that Susan Alexander so carefully figures out in Xandau and see what emerges. It is with the conundrum that I discover who I am.

I was not inspired. This book is a working out and a working through of events that occurred in life over thirty-three years. The reading of a newspaper account about the desecration of Juan Peron’s tomb led me into a macabre tale that also deals with the Jewish experience in Argentina. The unhappy life — but a brave one! — that my cousin experienced with cerebral palsy moved me. He died at 21 as a cab driver because his twisted arm could not handle the wheel well. Sometimes I feel a writer must experience post-traumatic shock disorder to function. I did. Isn’t all writing an attempt to metabolize?

I am chuckling as I freely associate to the Passover service where a young child will ask four questions: Why is this night different from all other nights? is one. My book is not so much different, although that might make a publicist cringe. It is only special in that it reveals who I am. And if I am an interesting person, if I have soaked long enough in brine and produce a good pickle, then what I write expresses all that and you, the reader, might like to experience the juices. Culturally speaking, if the Star of David was no longer the symbol of the Jewish people i might be so bold as to suggest another: the question mark, for it is in my background to be Talmudic — to ask a question, and then another. It goes a long way if you become a shrink. My stories ask painful questions, and I don’t answer them. . .I just ask another, “annoyingly” valuable question.

When I was supporting my family in the vibrantly hectic life of my middle age, I wrote novels, essays, short stories and articles. I struggled and faced rejection at the hands of editors, although I must say that the sweetest no I ever received was from The New Yorker. The dear editor pointed out — gently — why the story failed, but like a good nurturer also stressed where I had succeeded. These infrequent and spare morsels sustained me as well as my not inconsiderable ego. The skinny is this: I have a treasure of work sitting on shelves that in my autumnal years I take out and restore, refurbish and redo, rewrite or shelve again. In that light the next work is a science fiction fantasy that I have worked on for years with a decidedly analytical slant, and the major thematic issue, to quote Khrishnamurti, is the awakening of intelligence. My whole life has been the awakening of intelligence, from the first primordial moment when I oozed from the womb. Think of a distorted Gulliver’s Travels as told by a shrink — “So you feel very tiny and your limbs are bound.” It is called “Gruffworld,” and the very first chapter before it was put on the back burner was published in a major science fiction magazine in the eighties. My son, who did the jacket for this present book, will do the graphics and interior drawings. I hope to have it published within two years as I hear the whistling scythe of the grim reaper in the distance; however, death is a friend if we connive with him, for it energizes oneself. It redeems daily experience so it is not wasted. Kafka said it well: “The meaning of life is that it stops.”

I  am not a big fan of control but self-publishing gives that illusion to you. Nothing wrong with that unless it becomes delusional. The publishing world is shambling into the future. The center doesn’t hold. Take advantage of that. (I believe Thoreau only published 75 copies of Walden.) I’ll sharpen my intent. I write not for you, dear reader, but for me. I don’t need the conventional wisdom I hear all the time about how many words to write on a daily basis, et al. It is all conditioning. The real and often bitter struggle for any writer is to fight off all the cultural do’s and don’ts. The real writer is inner-directed and emancipates himself. If you are hung up on being published by Random House, you are literally hung up. We are in an egregious gilded age –produce, be fertile and get it in print, anyway you can. Work on yourself, that is your literature! The rest is persiflage — and corruption.

As to marketing successes, i have readers somewhere. I have family that revels in the very intimate gift that I have given them, for it is in memory and not the headstone that we are cherished. I view my works as a giving. That I can produce them is the self-treasure I own. I often give free copies to individuals in the hope that they will engage me as to their contents. Meshuga? I think not. After all, on a daily basis, I see you, I engage you, I give you of myself if so inclined. Is that not a definition of a book?

Struggling with my weight in an endeavor to avoid diabetes and to lower my blood pressure, I resolved to join Weight Watchers, which I did recently. I am perhaps the only man in a group of about 35 to 40; it fluctuates. I find the plan itself sane and doable, and my pressure within three weeks has become almost that of a young man’s. It is due to portion control, I believe. But all this is by the way of an introduction. The group is led by a cheerful woman, who does not chirp but is pleasant. The Tuesday before Easter she led the group with a pair of rabbit ears on her head; I don’t find that too crazed nor do I feel a need to comment upon it. For that day she was showing us how to prepare a meal for the “holiday.” She spoke about ham and deviled eggs and other items for that dinner. Passover comes in late April. However, the two holidays are linked historically. I observed that she did not mention that other holiday. I am wondering if she will advise the group about a meal for Passover; I think not. I intuit that. I may also be surprised. I asked puckishly about the point value for a matzoh, but that died in mid-flight.

When the Conquistadores came to Arizona with their swords and the friars with their crosses and bibles, one had to choose conversion or die. Here I am in Green Valley, Arizona and apparently there is no other religion than Christianity. Like Ellison’s The Invisible Man, it is more than I don’t exist — I can’t be seen. I’ve grown up in schools on the East Coast where recognition for both faiths was part and parcel of education. What the beef here, dear reader, is that I experienced that intolerable and supersuccessionist belief that the world contains no others than the majority religion — to wit, the new testament is an improvement over the old. Really! It is at moments like this that I immediately identify with the black man or any minority. I am not there.

Few Americans know anything about Judaism or Jews other than the usual comedic rigamarole, yiddishisms, movie stereotypes; movie producers and heads of studios going back decades who were Jewish spent an inordinate amount of time becoming attentuated, assimilated and antiseptic. They presented Jews as reeking of schmaltz, playing fiddles, haggling, chiseling and other stereotypical attitudes. With Jews like these who needs enemies. All in all, I believe the average non-Jew has no idea about what a Jew is, although Mel Gibson feels free to direct a snuff film, a homoerotic one at that, which exudes anti-Semitism.

Although I hold no brief for Obama, he did explicate black rage in his speech and not all that his pastor advocated or described is untrue; what white America has difficulty with is black rage which is considerable and in many instances justifiable. We’d rather not see, rather not look at it. We are still debating and discussing the bombings of Dresden during W.W. II. Vonnegut wrote Slaughterhouse Five about his experience during the allied raids. I have come far afield from a minor event in Weight Watchers.

Summing up: no one likes to be excluded, no one likes to be more than dismissed — not to be recognized; no one likes to feel that his or her existence is of no importance; no one likes to sense that neutral sense of superiority which does not declare itself but assumes everyone experiences in the same way. I may come back to this, for I do not like any kind of diminishment, subtle, direct or simply obtuse. I don’t feel that I have to go about educating people about becoming and staying human beings — that is their task. I was galled about the implicit premise that Tuesday that Passover did not exist.  When that holiday rolls around, I suppose I’ll get a few Jews together and capture a Christian child to devour. . .How many points is that?

Sabrina Williams at Breenibooks.com had reviewed Down to a Sunless Sea, quite favorably at that. She then asked to read The i Tetralogy.  In our correspondence before the review she shared how the book was unnerving and that she felt “bludgeoned” by it. The review came in today and I feel compelled to share some of the highlights with you,

The book: “. . .is a raw and disturbing look at the destructive capabilities of humanity. The i Tetralogy  is a frightening book from the outset, plunging the reader into unimaginable despair.”

“The book was probably the most difficult, but most important book I’ve ever read. Freese has mastered the art of writing in a way that will be revered. The story drives the reader to such despondency that it cannot be consumed all at once. . .”

“Often, when a book impacts me in the way that The i Tetralogy  has, I will pursue an interview with the author. However, in the epilogue, Freese lays his story bare in such a way that it is essentially another facet of the tale. After finishing the book, I felt I had an insider’s view into the mind of a literary genius — a dark and poignant journey. . . No matter where the reader begins, the impact of the book will be profound.”

See the  links for her website and the review.

Another review just came in and what a review, all 13 paragraphs of it. I need to read it carefully for what it may teach me, although my initial impression is that it is lacquered with academic polyurethane : “…the story conjoins a Freudian view with an almost Heiderggerian analysis of existence within a moment — Dasein summoning Freud.”  Come, come, now. Modestly, he says, “I ain’t that bright.” Before I get into this, see http://prickofthespindle.com for the review by the editor-in-chief, Cynthia Reeser. A few weeks ago and unusual for me, she formally rquested if I would give her permission to cite lines from the book, which I did. Apparently this little book of 15 stories has become a tabula rasa for all kinds of literary and personal projections; however, did I on unconscious levels send forth these messages that Reeser sees in my little book? Who knows?

On a conscious level like a pee stain on a man’s jockey shorts, it is there for all to see, but I am fascinated by the twists and turns reviewers are giving to my book which only substantiates an earlier blog consideration that my book is no longer mine — I have been expropriated, the oil wells and the national bank are now state owned. Am I complaining? No, it is all fun, my fellow writers — learn from this. And what is to be learned? It seems to me that you do your best work and leave it at that — can’t please everyone, because it is so hard as a writer, if you are honorable about your craft, to please yourself. I am left in a quandry and you would be too after reading the book and then this review. Read the review, reader, and comment. Thought: I will give a free copy of the book to the first five readers who request it and agree to submit a review of the book for this site as well as put it up on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Email me at: ifreese@hotmail.com

This review hits on the themes in my stories in an astute way. See http://www.riverwalkjournal.org/main/. Riverwalk journal is also under links.

I urge readers to see Jane’s comment to my blog, At 67. She has had her dose of adversity — a cancer survivor; divorced; recent rejection for a  MFA which she was more than qualified for; a crazed family background — so what else is new? However, as I read her missive I was moved and realized how much she is dear to me. Lucky me. i must add an addendum. Overlook her spelling or grammar mistakes; she knows how to rifle out a sentence, believe me, one that is right on. I am moved by the passion of the letter, the intent, the openness and her forthrightness. If you ever get to read her introduction to Down to a Sunless Sea, you will see how well she composes her thoughts and how expressive she is. Her comment was written in the strength of white heat, and that always moves me. Reader, keep an eye on Jane Holt, for she is working on a novel that I believe will make you emotionally reel. Kudos to you Jane, for letting us hear you from the gut! Isn’t it true, sweetheart, that when we are in pain — or blue — we often do our best writing?

I observe myself aging. To observe is not necessarily to experience. One looks, the other feels and thinks. Here I will only observe, for these observations will allow me to experience them in quieter moments of reflection. Actions have slowed down a bit; I bend cautiously, sometimes with exertion. In my mind the young man is fleet-footed, in actuality I am not. My hair, once black, has turned to a gray and the hairs themselves seem not as soft as when I was a younger man. I am gray all over. I no longer can look straight down my chest to my tool, for the belly extends over like a half moon to block my view. When I rest my hands on my chest, I really rest them on my own personal crater. The body betrays and the body does not lie. I am aging I suppose in other areas.

I don’t feel, or I don’t believe, that my core self is any different than it was at 40. Inside I am still me, narrow here, open and expansive there, emotionally stingy for that, largesse for this. I am still impatient with others, aging has not moderated that. I ask myself here, what is it I want from aging? Does it provide solace or sorrow, or should I experience a kind of generativity which Erik Erikson spoke of, the capacity for giving of one’s wisdom, the whole ball of wax and human lint we accrete from a lifetime’s living? I really need to examine all this, and this little essay is just a self-questioning.

The grand pleasure of my life is watching my son, Jordan, struggle to find his way, acting upon life as an artist — he is presently writing a screenplay which is a kung foo script; he plays the bongos and something of the guitar; he’s taking an art class in drawing — he grows and grows, experiments, which gives me much joy. Of course, dear reader, he is brilliant. Brilliant not in academics but brilliant, I believe, in asking the right questions, in living. God bless. He is me, he is not me, he is his mother, he is not his mother, he is his own self-amalgam.

The other personal conquest of my old age (did I really admit to that?) is the reward of a lifetime, for I have been writing in solitude for about 40 years and at last in my sixties I have seen two books published, both well-received. I have constructed a patrimony for my family. Long after I am gone they can point to a grandfather or great grandfather and say that at least one Freese got out of the rubble of that family and made something of himself, left something of value. From shit rises life. I have the capacity, it seems, to endure, to take adversity and slowly convert its straw to gold. I persist, I persevere. I metabolize my own self-depression as it abrades and debrides my crucible and somehow and in some way I turn it into art.

I just associated to a passage in The i Tetralogy.

Pages 329 to 330

A horsefly buzzing about a barn fell into a barrel of milk. Overcome as milk soaked his wings, flooded his mouth, blinded him, his antennae sagging from the weight, he was drowning, but he persisted. In some remarkable way he managed to circumnavigate the barrel. With wings draping, body and head all awash with thick milk, again, somehow, he made one orbit of the barrel. Exhausted, feeling he was about to go under, he leaped with his body upward in what he felt was the last gasp for air, exposing parts of his lower body. In such fits and starts he contemplated yet another orbit of the barrel. Well, now, he thought to himself, I am still here, alive, not yet drowned. Encouraged, he moved his wings and scaly legs, his peeping antennae, and this time he sensed he was not so inundated by the barrel’s milk, and so another circle of the vat was accomplished. In such fashion he made his orbits, until he felt substantial basis to what was below him. Finally he felt little drag on his body, and with that he commenced walking, then trotting and then he took flight and flew off the barrel top, for by his efforts, his struggle, he had turned milk into cheese.

 The parable is apt.

As I am musing and reflecting on all this, I feel I cannot really account for anything, that is, what is this essence we have that puts us straight into life and leaves us in a dither? If I think about it, here I am pounding on keys to describe something about me that cannot be accounted for, much less described. It goes beyond the temporal fact of my human aging. I seek to define what I am experiencing at this moment and I am overtaken by the feeling and the thought that who and what I am is unaccountable for. I look out the window and see the Arizona sun, the arcades overhanging my walkway, the Arizona rocks that populate the ground, the inoperable water fountain, my hands skipping along the keys, the monitor, the daylight and, for the life of me, what is all of this? Meaning must be delayed, like seeing a ship  adrift; that first sighting is sufficient, the meaning of that to be later determined.

At 67, I imagine, makes this particular self-cartoon look at the other creatures in the panes aft and stern, to determine his place. At 67 I am with pondering, questioning, and with the rue that comes from having left so much time, so much dazzling day after day unexplored, unsampled and simply put out of mind. At 67 I am of mind. Not only is it carpe diem, it is also tempus fugit.

intuitionism n. the doctrine that all things are apprehended in their real nature through intuition  Webster’s New World Dictionary

There’s the rub! It is on this interface that Jane and I slip. I dare not go on. For twice I have tried to write this blog and the computer ate it up. My rational mind tells me that I am probably doing something wrong. My intuitive mind (perhaps not a contradiction in terms) says that on some levels I don’t want to write this, that perhaps Jane is right in her assessment and I am defending against it. Jane and I have wrestled over her latest comment (see The Sixties Redux). I reminded her of an exchange in Judgement at Nuremberg, a film she enjoys because of Spencer Tracy’s performance as the judge. In a conversation he has with the defending lawyer, the brilliant mouthpiece, Maximillian Schell, he cautions him by saying that all the logic in the world does not make it right, referencing the Nazi actions. We are all invested in either know/feel or know/think; often we favor one generally over the other. The average and “normal” human being has a healthy blend of both. That is why the “all” in the definition above is too extreme.

As a working therapist I endeavored to have clients use reason, to make choices, to reason out as their behaviors inflamed them with aberrant actions at times. However, for me to understand them I had to often going inside myself and metabolize all that they presented to me — pauses; dress; attitudes; acting in; dreams; defenses — splitting, rationalization, denial, reaction formation. I took in reservoirs of behaviors, often inundated by the swells and waves of the torrents given me. Some of this responding to reason, some of this responded to my ability to touch the client –with words — emotionally, to make tactile feelings subject to awareness. It was here I was best effective. Psychotherapy is not common sense; it is also not the applied use of reason, like paint enameled on a closet door. Therapy is always relationship and relationship, it is my belief, is mostly conscious and unconscious feelings, what I call the substrates of our shared human dialogue as individuals.

If you think about rationality in the extreme or in a humorous extreme instance, reason distances. It provides cool, objectivity as opposed to subjectivity, keeps one safely apart and afar, makes sense, gives order, abets decision-making and so on. Feelings are flipping fish in one’s grasping hands, disorderly, close and hot breathing, demanding, warm, often intractable, often endearing and moving. Consequences for a rationalist are ending results, a sense of completion, the aha experience, prove for x, young man. Consequences emotionally often have deep and profound impacts, think of the moon pockmarked by meteorites. And I will now go out on the limb. I believe that no client leaves therapy “cured” because of the application of reason. Human beings are moved and are changed by feelings — and reason — but essentially by their emotions; the therapist must find a way to instruct the client in the wonderful uses of reason to make his way in the world and must profoundly make a difference in how the client uses his emotions to be moved into changing him into a conscious and self-aware human being open to all the varieties of human experience. All the insight in the world does not make you human.

As to Jane and I. I believe Jane invests in rationality for her own personal reasons, not to be cited here. And I am deeply invested in feelings, ergo, I write books, became a therapist, “the impossible profession.” Jane can deal with squeaks on a bike’s tire and I need to apply three-in-one-oil. So be it. I ooze, she stands firm. She reasons, I emote. It all comes down to, I imagine, to how we dispense our favorite human ploys.