family matters!

“Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house; not a creature was moving, not even a mouse …”

I’ve just learned from my boys, who were on my doorstep when I was coming back from getting a baguette, that they have had a letter from their grandmother!  They went away after a glass of Jack Daniel’s, with 100 Euros in their respective pockets, and much much good cheer before going to join their mother and our friends Eric Watson and Guislaine for dinner.  (Eric is one of the few people in the world who can play the Concord sonata from memory) 

I’ll say what I always say: it’s too bad that mom and dad not correspond more often with their grandchildren.  I mean: like every day!  That way, they could have real concrete influence, because what happened to you this year would begin happening to the boys: they’d start wondering why all of a sudden they were getting this flurry of letters, and they would just about have to begin responding, and thus not only improving their English but deepening their understanding of life from opposite shores, not only geographical ones but diachronic ones.  This is the major (but not mortal) sin of my parents this year: their refusal to get down to a real veridical correspondance.  I still think they can surprise us all, but for the moment they can’t get beyond the Hallmark level.  They are stubborn to the point of killing me. 

PJ has another tatoo on his right arm, that he showed me this evening.  It’s the story of Laöcoon, the Greek priest whose sons died with him when he sought to warn his city of imminent danger.  The ink work is impressive (breathtaking in fact) but it worries me to death that he be walking around with Proserpine and Laöcoon on his arm.  As for John, he is absolutely stunning, and hard to shut up.  I cut everyone off after one glass of Jack Daniel’s, because with these young and powerful men the sky’s the limit, and they had much to prepare for before calling it a day.  They’ll be going to midnight Mass, and coming back over here tomorrow to give me yet more misery with the supreme power of youth coupled with an incredible dose of despair that I can’t help but admire, and of course, fret over. 

Both are in dire straits, and dangerous waters, and, as Helen’s mother says, the times are not tender for our youth.  They have several things going for them — especially the opportunity to study without having to worry about paying the rent.  They seemed to me to be seriously implicated in their respective studies.

Their cruise speed is already way beyond mine.  I gave up playing baseball with them because their throws hurt too much, and mine were so pale in comparison.  Now it’s the same with concepts, and the hurly-burly juggling with ideas and the irrestible desire to win an argument.  I could no sooner win an argument with these little two-eyed monsters than I could beat Tiger Woods. 

They were ecstatic to hit the road again with the pockets filled with Euros: thanks to their grandparents, thanks especially to the grandmother who never tells me about these secret letters.  That’s OK: my only gripe is that I don’t understand why they can’t increase and multiply like in the first episode of Harry Potter.

My deepest affection and love goes out to  you on this night before Christmas.  I’m filled with the music and the images of “The Hours” and the cadence of “The Waves” and it’s all I can do to write here instead of going out the river Seine and doing a very bad imitation of Virginia walking out into that stream as an ultimate hommage to all that is precious in life.

Jack Daniel’s here I come!  Merry Christmas to one and all.  And a tender thought for both the doctor Elghammers.   They’ve been through a lot, and deserve our praise. 

There is a special kitchen utensil called the Romertopf (German of course) which allows for cooking over long periods of time with no fat, and nothing left to clean up in the oven.  Here’s a recipe for porc shoulder that I am proud to have pulled off all by myself.  For those of you who have major cooking duties in store over the next few days, I hope you’ll forgive me for being so naively content with such a simple recipe!

You need 500 grammes of potatoes, and as much of leeks.  You cut the potatoes as you would for hash browns, and the leeks into stubs of about 2 inches.  A first level of potatoes and leeks goes into the bottom of the Romertopf, which has been soaking in cool water for about a half hour.  Then you place the meat, and cover it over with the rest of the potatoes and leeks.  Helen advises adding a little butter, but this is not necessary with the Romertopf cooking process.  Don’t forget to add a few bay leaves and thyme (My taste requires quite a few bay leaves and lots of thyme: I suppose it’s because I keep praying for lots of time left to fulfill myself).  As usual, you heat the oven progressively, because the romertopf is fragile.  10 minutes at position one.  3 minutes at position, etc, until you hit 6 (400 degrees F.), then you must wait an hour and a half before digging in to a wonderful meal, which, for a momentary bachelor like me, will be at least 3 meals.

Tomorrow I’ll be going to the open market to flirt with Véronique, who always looks forward to being able to fling it with that great guy “Georges.”  Fruit (tangerines and pears) and probably oysters and various sea food in case the boys show up unexpectedly.  (If they don’t, I’ll eat it all up with gusto.)

I suppose I’ll have to convert the grammes into something understandable over there, but I must confess: it’s wonderful communicating something like a recipe.  I think I’m influenced by the old geezers doing ceramic art, and sticking to it through thick and thin.  I’m sticking to this blog idea through a lot of thin: it takes will-power and stubborness.  Thank God there’s Mona to thank for a little responsiveness and attention.  As Malebranche wrote, attention is the natural prayer of the mind.  Be attentive: get on this blog.  And, should you try my recipe after purchasing a Romertopf, bon appétit!

BTW (by the way) does anybody over there remember those auratic moments when Dad would make fudge?  This was a major event at the Collins home in Catlin!  I mean, a big deal!  Mother cringing at all the dishes to be scrubbed, and the pots to soak, but at the time no one besides her paid attention to that: we were all intent on getting our share of the fudge!  He had a pretty mean recipe for fudge, and of course his sweet tooth is now legendary.  He has to hide his candy like I hide my Jack Daniel’s.  Tomorrow night I’ll be hitting the Jack Daniel’s pretty hard, in order to wiggle back into the universe of Virginia Wolff, and to stave off all the ill feeling (with its source in unresolved adolescence) at being alone on Christmas Eve.  (I “do” Virginia Wolff at Christmas time because at any other time of the year it would throw my off pace: she’s dangerous for anyone who doesn’t move her lips when she reads.)

I ain’t lookin to compete with you; Beat or cheat or mistreat you, Simplify you, classify you, Deny, defy or crucify you.

All I really want to do, Is Ma’am be friends with you.

No I ain’t lookin to fight with you, Frighten you or uplighten you, Do you down or bring you down. 

All I really wana do, Sally, is be friends with you.

I ain’t looking to block you up, shock or knock or lock you up, Analyze you, categorize you, Finalize you or seduce you.  All I really want to do, is ma’am be friends with you.

I don’t want to straight-face you, Race or chase you, track or trace you, Or disgrace you or displace you Or define you or confine you.  All I wanna do is copy this for you.

I don’t want to meet your kin, Make you spin or do you in, Or select you or dissect you, Or inspect you or reject you; All I really wanna do, Sally, is be friends with you.

I don’t want to fake you out, Take or shake or forsake you out, I ain’t lookin for you to feel like me, see like me or be like me, All I really wanna do, is wish you a happy holiday back in Danville.

It’s two days before Christmas here in Danville, Illiniois, and most people are now off work, and either traveling home or shopping and preparing for being with family.  For us at the Elghammer’s, we still wait for Christmas morning when there are gifts under the tree and we celebrate the birth of Jesus.  Because we are Catholics, we are ending the season of Advent with prayers to be a better people and thanks for all that we have.  You, our extended family abroad, are in our prayers.  To all of you, my brother Tom, Helen, PJ and JJ, Laure and Yas and her family, the Sylvies and all others my brother has crossed paths with, we send our wishes of love and hopes for a better New Year.

In America today I believe once again the world and circumstances stepped in to remind us of the true meaning of Christmas.  That we are all one family, connected by life and love, and our job is always to reach out to help others, especially those who are less fortunate than we are.  That is why I believe my brother’s web site is important — Family Matters reaches out and rem inds us to stay in touch with each other.  (No matter how asinine the posts of my brother can be at times) 

Though America is fearful now, with less to live on and rough roads ahead, uncertainty around every corner, we will become stronger because of it — we are reminded that life is not what you have, but who you are and what you do with that.  Our kids are at the beginning of their lives, we in the middle, and our parents at the highlight of their twilight.  What do we each have in common?  The choice to live the life we have, in the best way we can.  I choose to live my life with my family in my heart, always.  You are all a part of who I am, and a part of th life I choose to live.

Merry Christmas everyone! And always keep love in your hearts!  Love, Mona

What a horrible experience it is to be silenced. not to be able to honor the contract of a blog experience: regular posts.  So I’ll take advantage of this “rare” opportunity to wish all of you, Sue and Marc included, Sarah and Jim included, a very Merry Christmas.  Of course I’ll be thinking of you when you have that famous dinner over at the Elghammer’s, either tomorrow or on Christmas day.  And I’m sure, between there and here, then and now, there has never been a greater distance.  I’m counting on that to allow the hope that these words somehow hit home.

The only thing I have to put in a stocking under the Christmas tree is a sentiment, and no mean amount of proof, that I’ve failed miserably in getting back in touch with my family.  I think it would take a genius far beyond what I’ve been able to muster to pull that off.  Dad has said in two of his letters abroad “I love my family.”  So do I, but the only difference between his exclamation and my clear expression of suffering and disappointment, is that a family is no gaurantee of anything.  Paths diverge, and people sink and rise, and times change.  This is no doubt the worst Christmas I have ever envisaged.  There can be no greater disappointment than the one I try to get rid of, either by working or by sleeping, but it just won’t go away.  The message I keep getting is that I should have started down this road long ago, instead of waiting until the last moment.

Here’s where I’ll be on the 24th-25th.  Probably watching a film called “The Hours” based on Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Wolff.  I’ll be wearing a gilded silk tie and one of the sportscoats my sister Sue offered me on one of our famous trips back home, when, if I understand correctly, we made fools of ourselves wanting to play baseball instead of doing God knows what else.  I’ll be listening to music on the portable stereo system also offered by my oldest sister, and will be concentrating on music I’ve been trying to understand for more than 20 years now.  Sooner or later, I’ll probably be able to put the music of PJ’s band on that machine.

I wish you a very merry Christmas.  It’s not because I cannot share in the mirth that my wish is for all that imperfect or lukewarm or somehow tarnished.  It is a real and authentic wish for momentary merriment, and authentic thanksgiving.  Because the mere fact of being together is indicative of great blessings, and sheer luck.  I cannot bring myself to saying that I wish I could be there, because the thread has been cut, and it’ll take years to tie it back up.  So try to be good to each other, as I have not managed to do with any of you.  Don’t forget Uncle Tom and Aunt Norma, who from over here just have to be the most underestimated couple in the history of the Vacketta saga. 

My dear Dad and my dearest Mom, merry christmas to you, whatever that may mean in your solitary confinement.  Dear Mona, thanks again for rising to the occasion of an unlikely effort to make amends and to build bridges over a desert of failed promises and an rather extended tour abroad.

 Mona and Mom are very much on my mind as I write today.  Mom, because once again she has made this regular as clockwork family gesture toward her son and grandsons, in the form of a money transfer, which, thanks to the mutability of current events, has become feasible once again (one euro = one dollar)  So thank you Mom, once again, for this, on my behalf, and on behalf on the boys, who are hard-pressed for money these days!

Mona, for another kind of generosity, no less precious.  In my mind Christmas (the Christmases that counted) were all involved with the memory of Cloe and the house in Fairmount.  Thanks to the long and detailed messages I’ve been getting from Mona, who chooses to spent her first waking moments with her brother, I all of a sudden realise that for you people over there today, she has taken over from Chloe, and although she would probably say no, no, no,  this remains a moving thing for me to contemplate.  It’s the first time I realise how important a cog she has become at times like Christmas.  So I say thankyou to her on behalf of everyone, and would like to express once again my gratitude and love to her for the many and sundry things she does as a matter of course.

I wait: you know that because of my lists.  I wait while confessing my self, in its past, present and future guises, displaying the sufferance of what has been done, and insisting on remaining on this glidepath, on climbing back toward the source, toward a life that seems 9 times out of ten more unhappy than happy.  The pourcentage makes little difference.  What counts is Christmas, New Year’s, the Inauguration, the multiple birthdays on their way up again, etc.

My body with its weight strives toward its own place.  Weight makes not downward only, but to its own place also.  The fire mounts upward, a stone sinks downward … My weight is my love; by that I am carried, whithersoever I be carried.  I am inflamed by thy gift and carried upward: the fire blazes within, and I go on.  The past is akin to the below, and love lifts me up toward the above of the future, which is pure quiet, a place perhaps where Dad is the scout for us all.  As long as I am not in my place, which is you, restlessness and the impatience of desire are my lot, and no doubt that of my mother.  They are the effects of my weight.  Rememoration makes me run backward, but to do so in order to attain the future that you promise in the very moment of my weight.  Things a little out of their place become unquiet, but when they have been put in order again, they are quieted.

Much of this comes from the Confessions by Saint Augustine.  An Arab from North Africa (a Berber arab) who has become a great father of our church.  I put him in my pantheon next to Muhammad Ali, seeking to drown out the noise of people talking about Ali Baba and the sleezy governor of Illinois.  I think the fire in me is strong enough to take on someone like Rush, and bring him down.  We’ll never know.

  As amazing as it may seem, I think I have just succeeded in praying for myself, for my family and for my country.  I could get used to this.  I love you all, and think of you much more often than you might believe.

Mona was good enough to explain to me that the Illinois governer, blagojevich, is weighing heavily on Obama’s chances of governing properly.  At least for those for whom his demise or his discreditation is a necessity.  We all recall the inception of the Clinton administration, both its beginning with the scandal of homosexuals in the miliatary and the follow-up, in his second term, with Monica, and what is now called the Clinton rules: facts need not get in the way of a juicy scandal.  So here we are again: Obama and Blago are both Chicago democrats, who know a lot of other Chicago democrats, some of whom gave money to both of them, therefore both are products of a corrupt political machine.

Let me tell how much hate and disdain I can muster before such an incredible turn of events.  Let me tell you how close I can come, now that I can no longer muster enough energy to mobilize a militia, to what extent I feel outraged by such shit. 

The Republicans are excited again, this time in something more homosexual than heterosexual (as with Sarah Palin): the whiff of scandal coming from what for them is the Democratic asshole.  Thus do they swoon, from one end of their spectrum to the other, with the ever-present Rush Limbaugh, who never stopped suggesting that it was the Clintons that murdered Vince Foster, and who now suggests, in a faggot posture of “well I don’t know for sure” that he just can’t understand how Obama could possibly be unaware of all the stuff swirling around him.

Thus do the Republicans swoon, and start their standard dance around the only thing left for them to munch on: the sacred pothole of ignominy, in combined efforts to undermine America’s new president.  These people inspire shame and outrage: believe me, in the times of the Old Testament, these people would have undergone the rage of Jewish prophets. 

A last comment in the direction of my father: it is not because I object to your politics that you can continue for long to cut me out of your ambit of daily concerns.  I don’t give a damn that you listen to Rush Limbaugh: I’ve been through the wringer of first being shocked by what this guy can give out on free networks, then the inevitable fascination given that I love my father, followed by the simple conclusion that at age 59 I don’t know my Dad at all!  I can’t explain to myself how such a conjunction of planets works (that between Rush and my Dad), and worse, I suspect that that conjuction is far more powerful than something as intangible as being his son.  This is what I believe: if my Dad is such an infrequent correspondant, it’s because he’s been consulting and covorting with whores, radio and television whores, people who pander to whites, especially elderly whites, telling them that what has come in their stead is worthless, and dangerous, and that it is not too late to resist!  Please, my dear, try to find a place for the entreaty of your son within all this (useless) cacophony.  Please please hear my call. 

Please Dad, I need your presence from over here: you have to answer my call.  I’m no longer interested in politics: for me what had to be was what came to pass.  Now we can get on with business as usual, with the daunting tasks of getting the country back on new rails.  If you so choose, go on listening to your soul-buddy, but don’t give up on your flesh and blood son.  Try to concentrate on what makes your life unique, on what crosses your mind, on what takes place as you follow the prescriptions of a discipline of the body and of the mind.  We’ve only just begun on that score, and the whole political bag is an obstacle to progress.  Please, my dear, sing with the greatest of the blacks: “papa’s got a brand new bag.”

Let me tell you the truth, Dad.  I’m as jealous as any female that  you spend time with that mother-fucker instead of spending time with me.  Hear me, man!

Here’s the latest from Mona on Mom and Dad.  “Dad is more resilient and trusting in life than Mom.  He takes his current state with bitter acceptance whereas Mom fights her stage in life every day.”

I told Mona I agreed with her on that.  I do.  But I can’t let it stand, not without all kinds of negative emotions that have to find on outlet somewhere.  So here goes: this is a great picture of our Dad.  Someone almost wise in his acceptance and trust in life, resilient even!  Great picture!  So what am I doing scratching my head, and fooling with memories that just won’t go away?  Why not just take that picture, declare it a definitive likeness, and go on to something new?  And leave Dad on his glidepath all the way into the open arms of the Lord God. 

My problem with that is that our father has a very bad temper, and that we all tend to forget that, given the presence of another temper on the female side, of another nature altogether.  I’m not sure that this has been eradicated by an arm jutting out of heaven with blessings and forgiveness.  This is a man who used inspire fear in the help he hired.  This is a man who, probably, still must be handled with care: that means carefully, prudently, so as not to set off the chain reaction that we all know of.  I speak of this only because of my temper, and my anger, and because it amused me to find a reference to that anger in Michel Foucault.  “What is anger?  Anger is, of course, the uncontrolled, violent rage of someone towards someone else over whom the former, angry person, is entitled to exercise his power, is in a position to do so, and who is therefore in a position to abuse his power.  When you read all these antique treatises on anger you see that the question is always that of the anger of the head of the family towards his wife, his children, his household, or his slaves.  Or it is the anber of the patron toward his clients or those dependent on him, or of the general towards his troops …”

The truth is that nobody’s saved yet, and that final glide path into the arms of the Good Lord may be something invented by Disney but is nowhere to be found in Holy Scripture.  My name is Bagdad café, and I’m calling on my father to get out of his retreat!  Will you please go quickly, urgently, to some Catholic priest and explain to him that you have a son who says that there is a question of honor between us, and that you can’t just sit on it and hope it’ll go away.  You seem to be in fairly good shape, and yet you’ve pretended to be half blind.  You seem to be in good hands, medically speaking, but the pain is described as too intense to be able to write more than every 60 days!  A game of cards at Thanksgiving is of the order of the possible, but a session between you and yourself, at the bequest of your son, is beyond your pay-grade — a little bit too much to ask for, even for Christmas.  Too much, too late, too complicated, too weird, whatever.  So please, get thee to a Catholic priest and explain to him how hen-pecked you feel, with all the repeated harrassment of this “person” over in France who has got it into his head that you owe him and his sons something that you think you shouldn’t have to fork over.  Make a photocopy of this post and show it to a priest.  I dare you to do that.  You can be half blind and do that.  You don’t have to write to do that.  And it doesn’t require having a particularly good hand to make the play.  But at least there will be a witness to what is going on. 

Basically Dad, you cut and run.  I am dictating neither content nor style to letters, just form.  On the phone you cut and run.  In you letters, you cut and run.  Tell the priest I can’t resolve myself to accepting that respecting the fourth commandment means cautioning all of that.  I have requested in every way shape and form imaginable to be inscribed in your exercise routine, and this has been politely refused.  I don’t see how a father can do this.  I feel normal in asking you to exercise your talents for life and humor by projecting them overseas in a form intended to last, in a form designed to elicit responses and rejoinders that you are free to ignore.  But you cannot ignore the requestfor a form of relation defining the bond between father and son.  without the form, no relation.  That’s where we are as Christmas approaches.  Two years ago I was distracted, and you were basically used to and comfortable with that easy distance.  Then I almost died, and your s ole comment was like a tongue of fire at Pentecost: “you must have been scared shitless.”  It happened a second time, and will happen again.  But distraction is no longer an option.  Your presence for your mother is now required on another front.  Go see a priest please.  I have.  He didn’t approve this message.  Told me I should leave you alone.  I got angry at him, and he threw me out of the presbistary.  I’ll see him again next Sunday. 

Joseph K. was born on December 7th.  You can go to the Gerulski blogs, referenced here, then to the Chiaffredo private golf course, to see how overjoyed everyone is.  I offered up a Mass for Joseph K., with a message, which of course went unanswered.  As my addressee was God and his dominions, that’s not very important.  But I must confess I thought this would do the trick and bring about a minimum of reconciliation, just before Christmas.

This story brings me much information about myself.  Perhaps my Dad knows it all already.  I’m not exactly a good person.  It took me a long time to get into the mood of offering a Mass to Joseph K.  It took a long time for me to move out of the hate and revenge I felt for this guilty family.  I succeeded, but these victories are short-lived.  It’s not one Mass that will suddenly turn me into someone I am not: someone intent on revenge and restoration of honor.  But, this said, I remember well the Mass, that I described for Tony in an email that of course he left to die.  It was, as all Masses are, really impressive, with the French pronunciation of Joseph K. Chiaffredo, during the Offertory, putting a cherry on the cake.  (only for me, because the baby is not yet well-known over here)

One day, later on, I’m sure I’ll meet Joseph K., and I’ll talk to him about his namesake in Kafka’s work.  I’ll do my best to pull that young man out of the orbit of his family, which has to be, from my point of view, a limiting, deleterious influence on anyone intent on flying high, and on answering the call on the human.  I would be disappointed to see Joseph K. brained washed into becoming a Republican, assuming that this party survives its present-day catastrophe.

  Then again, this didn’t work so well for my own sons.  I’ve had only a deleterious influence on them.  (?? that remains to be seen, and it will take a long time, just as it will take many years before I’m able, at last, to work a little magic with Joseph K.)  But, in the same way I was able to control my fierce desire for some kind of black magic across the ocean, so too I have been able to exonerate my sons from any kind of expression of linkage or fealty.  Everybody’s free to do his own thing, but there are people out there with designs on lives! 

As Sting says in that old song: “I’ll be watching you.”  It goes for my boys, and it goes for Joseph K.  Sounds like a threat?  No, not a threat, but an extension of the family reunion, a delicate plant that was, one fine day, burnt down like a holocaust.  Let us remember days in which efforts to become more human are burned down. 

When Mom called yesterday I was at the “House of Europe” talking with people across a span of at least three generations on the subject of television, education, and the way techniques of the self have to take care of their grounding in systems of care.  (One of the most encouraging signs of the transition period in America is the likelihood that Obama and his government will push hard for a new system of health care.)  These days, in whatever I do, be it work with the association I helped found, or work with international artists having chosen ceramics as their favorite mode of expression, or in translations of works of philosophy, I always think of what I have and am still attempting to put into place here on the blog, without the technical expertise that would enable it to be far sexier in being able to feature photos and videos and links to other sites.  (This will come to be) 

All the stories you hear when you get out into the world: young men talking to older men about their path through role playing and video games — the incredible stories coming from Japan of young people who lose it because of these activities, and other young people who construct life-long commitments because of the same activities.  There is so much going on “out there” both for good and bad, portending the worst and the absolutely unknown (perhaps the dawning of a new renaissance — who knows!), that I must confess to being often overwhelmed my the magnitude of it all.  PJ is someone who got caught in the mesh of on-line role playing, and went far on what I call a journey into the night.  He came back.  John was never tempted by this: John early on had his ear cocked for sounds and words put to sounds, words disturbed and energized by sound, and lately, PJ has made up for this gap by become, himself, a producer of sounds.  God knows how it will all end.  Here, it will end, as often, with a quote:

“Henceforth, the care of the self is an obligation that should last for the whole of one’s life.  It is no longer linked solely to the critical pedagogical moment between adolescence and adulthood.  In Epicurus, at the start of his Letter to Menoecceus, you can read: ‘We must not hesitate to practice philosophy when we are young or grow weary of it when we are old.  It is never too early or too late for taking care of one’s soul.  Who says that it is not yet time or that there is no longer time to practice philosophy, is like someone who says that it is not yhet time or that there is no longer time for happiness.  We must therefore practice philosophy when we are young and when we are old, the latter (the old), to grow young again in contact with good things, through the memory of days gone by, and the former (the young) in order to be, however young, as steadfast as an old man in facing the future.”  (Michel Foucault in English translation)

My old man has cut off communication with me.  Two months now since I’ve heard from him.  I think he’s equating me with Mary, as he started to do when I was a youngster: he really should have second thoughts about this, and get back to his son, so that his life can receive the magnification it deserves.