Excerpts
Hey, dreams, I dreamed you. I’m not something you curb a dog for.
There’s this guy I know who was raised by professional clowns in New Mexico. When we met seven years ago in New Orleans I was terrified of him but now he can be counted on to bring things to my attention that I would have otherwise missed, like this passage from the introduction to The House of Blue Leaves by John Guare.
I’m right here in the heart of the action, in the bedroom community of the heart of the action, and I live in the El Dorado Apartments and the main street of Jackson Heights has Tudor-topped buildings with pizza slices for sale beneath them and discount radios and discount drugs and discount records and the Chippendale-paneled elevator in my apartment is all carved up with Love To Fuck that no amount of polishing can ever erase. And why do my dreams, which should be the best part of me, why do my dreams, my wants, constantly humiliate me? Why don’t I get the breaks? What happened? I’m hip. I’m hep. I’m a New Yorker. The heart of the action. Just a subway ride to the heart of the action. I want to be part of that skyline. I want to blend into those lights. Hey, dreams, I dreamed you. I’m not something you curb a dog for. New York is where it all is. So why aren’t I here?
When I was a kid I wanted to come from Iowa, from New Mexico, to make the final break and leave, say, the flatness of Nebraska and get on that Greyhound and get off that Greyhound at Port Authority and wave your cardboard suitcase at the sky: I’ll Lick You Yet. How do you run away to your dreams when you’re already there? I never wanted to be any place in my life but New York. How do you get there when you’re there? Fourteen minutes on the Flushing line is a very long distance. And I guess that’s what this play is about more than anything else: humiliation. Everyone in the play is constantly being humiliated by their dreams, their loves, their wants, their best parts. People have criticized the play for being cruel or unfeeling. I don’t think any play from the Oresteia on down has ever reached the cruelty of the smallest moments in our lives, what we have done to others, what others have done to us.
I’m not interested so much in how people survive as in how they avoid humiliation.
I forget I live in New York until I’m just a little humiliated, then it is very clear to me that I am in New York. Last night I was getting on the 4 train at Grand Central Station when I realized I was standing next to Mary Gaitskill. You could see her deflate when she became aware I recognized her. I didn’t say anything to her at first but this tension kept building up– this woman had written the single greatest novel I read this year, Veronica, and all I wanted to tell her was that I have loved it and it had left me ruined for days. Against my better judgment, knowing she’d probably rather be left alone, I told her I loved her books and immediately felt like a ten year old kid. I think I went bow-legged and bucktoothed for a minute. Ah, minor humiliation; the lagniappe of New York.
Tags: John Guare, Mary Gaitskill
The House of Blue Leaves is one of my all time favorite plays. I saw a performance of it years ago (’93 maybe?) and to this day I recall the actress playing Bunny, how she stuffed newspaper into her boots, how she kept remarking on the fact that she could feel her fingernails growing. What a great play.
oh god i would’ve lost my shit if i saw mary gaitskill at the train station. i felt the same way when meeting joan didion, all body parts, all clumsy, all swollen with embarrassment.
and i think it’s totally appropriate she deflated, makes me think she’s just as weird as her characters, which i like and appreciate.
Good for you, Catherine. And shame on Mary. As authors, and as readers, we are constantly trying to do great things, and to find voices that impact us. If MG did that for/to you, and I know she did for/to me, and I ran into her, I’d probably have a similar reaction. My eyes would bug out, I’d look away, scrunch my eyebrows, mutter to myself, “No, probably not her…can’t be…” then look back. If she deflated, well, then I’d fill her back up with my own hot air about how much I’ve enjoyed her work and thank her for that experience. I’ve got Veronica sitting right here, have mostly read her short stories, but I will pick this up now, moving it to the top of the to-read list. Thanks.
There will be a production of The House of Blue Leaves this Spring on Broadway, starring Ben Stiller. Seeing my first John Guare production was one of the deciding factors in my moving to New York when I did. It was a revival of Landscape of the Body at Signature theater. He writes the most invigorating plays of any playwright I know. They’re immensely clever, in love with the pitfalls of New York dreamers and the fervor for life that runs through them is spooky! Ah yeah! John Guare!! He has a new play premiering in NYC this year which takes place in New Orleans, A Free Man of Color.
“And shame on Mary.”
Shame? Why? What did she do? Or, what didn’t she do? “Deflate”–that irks you? She shrunk? When I’m at a train stop and I see someone I know–I deflate–I just want to ride the train in peace. Should she have invited Lacey out for beers? Come on, give Gaitskill a break.
oh god i would’ve lost my shit if i saw mary gaitskill at the train station. i felt the same way when meeting joan didion, all body parts, all clumsy, all swollen with embarrassment.
and i think it’s totally appropriate she deflated, makes me think she’s just as weird as her characters, which i like and appreciate.
I felt similarly seeing Lou Reed in the lobby of a concert hall in Chelsea a few years ago. We made eye contact and I think he sort of nodded at me, in a way, but I didn’t go up to him or say anything to him. I was afraid of bothering him, but even more than that, I was afraid of embarrassing myself. Actually, what I think I was most afraid of was tainting my listening of the Velvet Underground with some vague feeling of disappointment that, in person, Lou Reed was an asshole (which I’ve heard he is). Regardless, I’m glad I didn’t talk to him, because that’s what I wanted, a nod and an untainted listening experience of his music.
That said, I think you did the right thing, because I don’t think there’s really a “right thing” to do in a situation like this. You followed your intuition, and that’s all you can do. If you would have felt regret at not communicating your admiration of her writing to her, then well, that would be bad too. Humiliation is usually better than cowardice.
I felt similarly seeing Lou Reed in the lobby of a concert hall in Chelsea a few years ago. We made eye contact and I think he sort of nodded at me, but I didn’t go up to him or say anything. I was afraid of bothering him, but more than that, I was afraid of embarrassing myself, of being inarticulate, childish, or simply uncool. Actually, what I think I was most afraid of was tainting my listening of the Velvet Underground with some vague feeling of disappointment that, in person, Lou Reed was an asshole (which I’ve heard he is). Regardless, I’m glad I didn’t talk to him, because that’s what I wanted, a nod and an untainted listening experience of his music.
That said, I think you did the right thing, because I don’t think there’s really a “right thing” to do in a situation like this. You followed your intuition, and that’s all you can do. If you would have felt regret at not communicating your admiration of her writing to her, then well, that would be bad too. Humiliation is usually better than cowardice.
Yeah, definitely no shame on her. I think she just didn’t want to talk to the 105th person who has inevitably recognized her since she’s been subletting in Brooklyn. She may be able to blend in other places, but everyone in Brooklyn Heights and Cobble Hill could spot her from a mile off.
Yeah, definitely no shame on her. I think she just didn’t want to talk to the 105th person who has inevitably recognized her since she’s been subletting in Brooklyn. She may be able to blend in other places, but everyone in Brooklyn Heights and Cobble Hill could spot her from a mile off.