a shandean commonplace book

Years before ever seeing California, I wrote a story titled “Oakland in Rain.” Rain served as an easy metaphor for the unexpected in a place known for abundance, and it provided a texture of melancholy. The nameless protagonist—an exiled drunk who was, of course, a thinly veiled version of myself— had lost her mind and believed the weather communicated with her: rain meant soberness, that she had been absolved of some sort of punishment. Plagued by her wild inner life, I imagined her wandering the city, intent on getting lost in the Catholic cemeteries, where she took note   of lemons in the wet grass (an offering?), the sky, a hawk on a tree. But no matter where she went, nothing was ever quiet enough. Despite my best efforts, the narrative was bleak; it lacked tension and a convincing resolution. Now, why am I telling you all this? Well, one day I woke up and it had been raining in the Oakland of my actual life. Outside my window, the cottonwood trees looked like the day before, but

I suppose one reason why we are seldom able to comfort our neighbors with our words is that our goodwill gets adulterated, in spite of ourselves, before it can pass our lips. We can send black puddings and pettitoes without giving them a flavour of our own egoism; but language is a stream that is almost sure to smack of a mingled soil. George Eliot, Silas Marner

Back then I was going steady with fog, who could dance like no one’s business, I threw her over for a leaf that one day fluttered first her shadow then her whole life into my hand, that’s a lot of responsibility and a lot of relatives, this leaf and that leaf and all the other leaves hung around, I told her I needed space, which was true, without it I’d only be a soul, and no one’s sure that wisp is real, that’s why we say of real estate, location, location, location, and of speech, locution, locution, locution, and of love, yes, yes, yes, I am on my knees, will you have me, world? Bob Hicok

         After Ken Workman When someone asks me for my papers, I think of land acknowledgements. Ken says, You know him as Chief Seattle. I know him as grandpa. It’s important that when you’re here, on this land, you know where you are. A man named Lee invented the Southern strategy; now it’s gone digital. Ready or not. Don’t make people perform their pain. My name tells you my father’s name, his father’s, his, and so on. Yet no heads nod. Aphorizing again, the keynote says solidarity is a verb—a nation solidarities its aim solid. The game: geographic realignment. Miami-Dade. Dekalb. King. We could win where we play the hardest. Center base. Power forward. Running back. I’ve never lived in the South, yet I know generous people. We live in Puyallup, the woman in the video says, Everyone got messed up bumpers but the cop pulled me over. You know why. All of this is just an excuse to do the right thing. You know what kind of person needs an excuse to do the right thing. The opposition say

And then the gray concrete of the subway platform, that shore     stripped of all premise of softness or repose. I stood there, beneath the city's sequential grids     and frameworks, its wrappings and unwrappings like a robe sewn with birds that flew into seasons of light,     a robe of gold and then a robe of ash. All around me were briefcases, cell phones, baseball caps,     folded umbrellas forlorn and still glistening with rain. Who owned them? Each face possessed a hiddenness.     DO NOT STEP ACROSS THE YELLOW LINE; the Transit Authority had painted this onto the platform's edge     beyond which the rails gleamed, treacherous, almost maniacal,     yet somehow full of promise. Glittery, icy, undead. Sharp as acid eating through a mask. I counted forward     in my mind to the third rail, bristling with current, hissing inside it like a promise or a wish; and the word     "forward" as if inside it also, as if there were always a forward, always somewhere else     t

What are we waiting for, assembled in the forum? The barbarians are due here today. Why isn't anything happening in the senate? Why do the senators sit there without legislating? Because the barbarians are coming today. What laws can the senators make now? Once the barbarians are here, they'll do the legislating. Why did our emperor get up so early, and why is he sitting at the city's main gate on his throne, in state, wearing the crown? Because the barbarians are coming today and the emperor is waiting to receive their leader. He has even prepared a scroll to give him, replete with titles, with imposing names. Why have our two consuls and praetors come out today wearing their embroidered, their scarlet togas? Why have they put on bracelets with so many amethysts, and rings sparkling with magnificent emeralds? Why are they carrying elegant canes beautifully worked in silver and gold? Because the barbarians are coming today and things like that dazzle the barbarians. Why don