I feel it percolating but it has not found its egress as yet. The unconscious presses upon me much in the way you feel the need to urinate, that bodily pressure. So hello, unconscious. Ah, it sees an opening. I just sent off my copy of Bambi versus Godzilla, a recent book (2007) by David Mamet, writer, actor and playwright. He did the screen plays for “Hoffa” and “The Untouchables.” At times he slows to sludge but then like a phoenix he soars. His takes on actors, screenwriting and movies are terrifically acute, given his background as writer and director. Of course, he draws upon his ethnicity and laces his prose with yiddishisms which are always apt. Some smart wit said that Yiddish is Jewish rap, in that it is for a special group while keeping outsiders out. So true. However, as I stray in this paragraph, Yiddish words have become part of the American lexicon. “Putz,” “schmendrik,” and the glorious “schmuck” are commonplace, so commonplace a whole new generation doesn’t know their derviation. By the by, the above three words are Yiddish for penis; however, the smallest dick is a schmendrik — go away, don’t bother me; the second, if I have this right, in size is the schmuck. The putz is enormous and god bless you all and a merry Christmas at that. An anecdote of some note, and only from New York City: there was a law case brought from one councilman against another in the city council because one was referred to as a putz. Now these are fighting words. Imagine in court how that had to be defined, explained and adjudicated.
Back to Mamet. (That unconscious has opened up completely now, so hold on.) He takes after Olivier, finding him starch; he lauds Tony Curtis in “The Boston Strangler” and “Some LIke It Hot.” He likes Endfield’s “Zulu,” which is very intense and exciting. He cites “Gun Crazy” as a top-notch film noir. Jordan, my son, is several things as an artist and one is that he does screenplays; I forwarded the book to him knowing full well that when we read that which we like — or don’t like — it falls like talcum powder upon the unconscious mind. As Freud said brilliantly, nothing is ever forgotten (give that some measured thought). It may be suppressed (conscious effort) or repressed (unconscious effort), but it is there. Remember that when working with children and your spouse. — and your self.
Today I am lying fallow, as most of the week is spent in retirement twaddle. I read blogrolls for potential reviewers; I read emails to see if I can market the book into other areas; I think; I write books that go nowhere, but I am used to that, having written short stories over a period of three decades with little encouragement except my own inner grit. I fight off despair or whiffs of sticky depression, as I was reared in that tar and have spent not an inconsiderable part of my life pulling away and out of that. A very wise therapist once wrote that one of the major characteristics of an able therapist is that he should have had a depressive for a mother. I did. And what did the therapist wisely say, that the capacity to “hold” within you the torture tinctures of mother’s depression, not to be eroded by that, but to contain it, serves very well when clients come to you as a therapst. A client’s pain and anguish as well as rage and fury can wear upon the therapist, unless he can hold a great deal of shit in his pot without being destroyed. My pot is as large as the crater in Arizona. Who knew that mom was rearing me to be a shrink?
Are you wagging your head about the twists and turns Freese’s unconscious is taking him today? C’mon, let us see what other mental lint is in the stream of consciousness. It is a beautiful Arizona morning as I look out the bay window which is behind my desk. The sun and blue skies, the sun and blue skies, always the sky and the sun, that fireball in the sky. I was thinking last night how I would like to be in New York when the first half inch of snow dusts the streets, covers railings and sills and I crunch along the pavement reveling in the sheer wintry beauty of it. I miss the seasons, I miss the clothing for each season, I am sullied by the same weather every day here in Arizona. Perfection sucks. I am a seasonal person and I have wishes to return to my enclave: imagine this, dear reader — the snow is fresh, falling lightly, the streets are getting a coating and I am in a good diner or bistro-bakery having a cup of joe with a butter-slathered bialy. You know, if I had my family around me, close and dear ones, it wouldn’t be a bad time to kick off — almost as gravitationally holding as “Rosebud.”
Adieu.
Leave a Reply