2010 Classic Literature Round Up

One of my more rececnt posts about George Bernard Shaw has caused a bit of a maelstrom. Indeed, I was wrong, or at least misreading the quotation. It seems as though experience is not valuable for its capacity or breadth, but for its quality. This goes back to Nietszche. The Superman stands on the subway platform and feels the rush of wind whip his hair, he knows the pulse of the city, paces the heartbeats of the individuals in the cramped cars. The ordinary man waits for the doors to open.

Anyway, enough of my metamodernist rehashings. Post postmodernism has been very good to me this year. Some notes I'd like to make on the close of 2010.

As much as I hate Sarah Palin, refudiate is a cool word.

Here are my top three books of classic literature that I read this year:

1. Sentimental Education: A superb bildungsroman in the French style. Flaubert's masterpiece.
2. White Noise: Talk about post postmodernism. This book is entertaining, funny, and profound. A must read for anyone who enjoys classic literature.
3. War and Peace: A sprawling masterpiece, this book is a great way to learn about the Napoleonic wars, but it's clear that Tolstoy's best moments are domestic descriptions. That's why Anna Karenina is better.

That's it guys! Hope you have fun tonight, and I'll write you next year.

Daniel Adler's Room in Post Postmodernism

So remember Christmas in Post Postmodernism? I'm getting a $40 gift certificate for pretty much anything I need.

I need a dresser. The two small endtables I have in my room in which I store my undergarments are literally overflowing with clothing, especially after having visited my Uncle Jacques and receiving a number of cashmere items.

So I'm going to get a dresser. This will be good for a couple of reasons. 1. It will organize my clothing and 2. it will prevent me from owning another pair of shoes (boat). In the meanwhile, boxers pile high on top of my open drawers, and turtlenecks are drowning under t-shirts and sweaters.

I'll also be able to store more books on top of my new dresser, which will be a boon. I'm starting Thomas Wolfe's (not to be confused with the asshole in white pants) Look Homeward, Angel. It is a serious American bildungsroman that takes place in North Carolina and Harvard. You can look forward to many posts about post postmodernist examples from this book.

The Value of Experience

"Men are wise in proportion, not to their experience, but to their capacity for experience."
-George Bernard Shaw, The Revolutionist's Handbook and Pocket Companion, "Man and Superman"

Unless I am wrong, which I often am, this means that the wisest men are the men who are most willing. Which means that those who have tried the most drugs, had the most lurid sexual adventures, and have lived most unlawfully are the wisest. Surely this is not what Shaw meant? Or is it?

Central to the Shavian paradigm is the idea that man wants to better himself. So all of the experience that can, and does, benefit man will also enlarge his wisdom, right? Take hard drugs for example. The willingness to encounter alternate states of mind must be worth something, but not to the point of detriment. Robbing banks would be applauded by Socialist Shaw, but if it endangered your life, which it most likely would unless you were a professional, the act would be condemned.

It seems then that we, and I, Daniel Adler especially, have to strike a balance between breaking down our most rational thoughts and fears, and understanding what will harm our being in the long run. In other words, as long as you try what comes your way at least once, you won't be lame.

The Life Force: Post Postmodernism

The setting of the scene is a good example of post postmodernism: This after shoveling a long driveway for thirty bucks. The excercise made me really sore and really sweaty, like a sewer rat. I felt powerfully alive as I saw the wind kick up the top layer of the snow dunes, from behind winter glass:

The Life Force. It blows through the trees, and whips up the snow dust-like. It ricochets through the ages, through Siberia and Assyria, Boston and Normandy. Now I sit in the kitchen, watched the pines sway and I feel it in the lactic acid buildup in my forearms and the soreness of my quadriceps as I breathe in the blue skies: that there is untapped life.

I shiver and get goosebumps from thinking about a woman, who will one day rear my children and show them that there is life to be lived. But even before then when we go to London and Los Angeles and feel the warm sun or cold mist, we will experience as much as the world can offer.

And when it comes time and we feel there must be a pathway to more resistance, we will follow and change accordingly. And we may depict the soft golden light on a red country silo, or it may be in the dark shadows cast by looming skyscrapers, but either way we will feel it and love it.

Your JFK Flight Status is: Cancelled

It is snowing in New York. There are 50 m.p.h. winds and an expected foot through tonight. Luckily, I am in the warm confines of my great uncle's house, where we are drinking malbec and eating crab cakes with remoulade and brussels sprouts (the crisp browned leaves and healthy vitamins make it a personal favorite. They grow on stalks, and are not baby cabbages, btw.) It isn't helping much, because I'm getting really fat as you can see.

My baby girl is in L.A. and was supposed to come home today, but when she checked her JFK flight status, her flight was cancelled. Now she's coming home Tuesday or maybe even later. This is actually a southeaster, so if you're thinking about flying to the Philadelphia airport, you're out of luck.

Meanwhile, I'm reading George Bernard Shaw's "Man and Superman," which is supremely dope. The introduction alone outlined the difference between the men who act as artists by modeling the great writers and studying how to write, but lack the creative passion that separates the artist from the amateur. Shaw goes on to mention that David Copperfield and Hamlet are lesser characters than those allegorical figures in Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress, because they are mere puppets through which the authors enact their own thoughts and feelings. While these characters are some of their most interesting, they are not representative of a cohesive philosophy or religion, and thus, come up short. These notions sprawl through my mind at present like the clouds that pour the tiny flakes that blanket the tarmac at JFK airport.

Christmas in Post Postmodernism

For Christmas this year, I received an e-mail from a company offering a $40 gift certificate and the chance for you to have a tv stand, if I blogged about it on my site.

During the process of my decision, I vacillated between the notion of selling out, and remaining true to my cause. Maybe my followers will scorn me for a truer blogger, more dedicated? But this is also a sign of how big your blog has become in the course of a year – that this post which took ten minutes to write, is itself worth $40.

 I decided that the mention of the decision I had to make would be an excellent example of postmodernism (due to the self-consciousness of this post), and that the sentiments of guilt and resultant intrigue in being able to choose a material item from the site, which I have no doubt I will not need – although an attractive pair of boat shoes caught my eye – will be a good example of modernism and will ultimately be overshadowed by my greed and covetousness.

In any event, this is my Santa tracker. And I hope the expression of my fears and ideas about the process provides a good example of postmodernism; my attempt at relaying said feelings has succeeded, and that the vacillation between these two styles is a good example of post postmodernism.

Merry Christmas!

David Copperfield is So Post Postmodern

Young Charles Dickens

 So I'm reading David Copperfield, which makes Great Expectations look like chicken feet. Dickens employs certain techniques that are very far ahead of his time, such as switching from the past tense to the present for a rush of immediacy. Take this sentence from chapter XVIII, "A Retrospect:"

"I think continually about my age. Say I am seventeen, and say that seventeen is young for the eldest Miss Larkins, what of that? Besides, I shall be one and twenty in no time almost."

Here, the narrator, a much older man writing his bildungsroman, remembers his youth with great perspicacity. Sorry. But the way he moves to the thought process of his younger self is worthy of emulation and the hinted second person address is similar to what I'm working with.

J.D. Salinger knew it too. He mentions ol' Davy in the first sentence of what is obviously the best bildungsroman of the 20th century:  

"If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth."


Dickens is a boss. 'Nuff said.

Metamodernism, or Post Postmodernism Redefined

I was talking to Anthony last week about my shitty novel, and I described my attempt to make it fit into metamodernism, with the oscillation between first, second and third persons. "This will show," I said, "that the narrator is able to pass judgment upon himself, and encourage the reader to do so simultaneously."

Anthony looked at me blankly. He suggested that one of the characters be allowed to pass judgment on the narrator. That’s metamodernism. So I found a scrap of paper and noted this point before it escaped my memory. But how to make it happen, I wondered.

Last year I realized that what would make my work stand out from others is the character’s ability to talk to himself through time. That is, his younger self can address his older self, and vice versa. Dave Eggers does this, kinda, in A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. He uses a Real World interview that is ultimately conducted by himself, to address unconscious questions that plague himself and the reader. But this is the only part of the novel in which it happens.

Gabriel’s older writing self will be the prophet of his younger, passionate self. The younger self will be able to pass judgment on his older self, and vice versa, making the heart of the novel a self vs. self conflict. That is metamodernism.

The Cockroach Knows

    How often have you walked down the street, completely tuned out to your surroundings, focused on what's ahead, or worried about some arcane blasphemy that will never pass? That is the opposite of philosophizing.

The philosopher admires the wind blowing the tree limbs, the orange clouds of sunset floating across an azure sky, and thinks to himself that this is life. He remembers death, and understands life. This is what it means to be in the now, and the birds know it, and the dogs know it, and even that three inch long cockroach that sat on top of the manhole, waving its antennae around in the air, breathing in all the beauty of the midsummer - he knows it too.
 
That's why I couldn't kill him. Oh boy was I tempted, as he perched there fluttering his tentacular antenae, and I looked at the older man sitting on the stoop, a cigarette hanging from his lips, his salt and pepper hair whiting from the roots, to see if he saw this creature, this enormous confident creature. He didn't, but he looked at me and nodded. And I looked back at the cockroach, staring at him, and I said to him, "You can stay. You have the right." And I walked on down the street, with my hands in my pockets, admiring the night and examining the people, my neighbors.

-Welcome to Post Postmodernism, or maybe Metamodernism. This will be addressed tomorrow,
 Love,
Daniel Adler

Life Lesson #42

At a dinner party when he was seventeen, Gabriel remarked that this dressing smells like his favorite. He held the wooden salad bowl and healthfully scooped two servings before he passed it to his left. His Uncle Charles helped himself and handed the bowl to Peter, who received the bowl with a scant amount of balsamic vinaigrette-covered salad left. Two more people to his left still had empty salad plates.

Peter knew that there had been an injustice done and remembered his son’s comment. He saw the sizable portion on Gabriel’s plate and told him that he had taken too much. “Put some back,” he commanded. Gabriel defended himself by showing how much he had taken, and was confident that that he had done no wrong. But beneath Peter’s vehemence, he began to see that he had more before others had any.

Peter passed the bowl back across the table. Gabriel’s cheeks burned as his aunts and uncles looked on approvingly, silently. He put a serving back, returned the bowl to his father, and dinner proceeded.

Le Petit Mort

It’s called Le Petit Mort not because it makes you feel like dying, but because it’s the closest thing to pure life that we can know. The male brain cannot think about anything during the few seconds during which it occurs. Try it. Nothing. Your gaze will blur as your mind goes blank and then your eyes refocus and you can think about work tomorrow, or what you’re going to eat for dinner, or how your socks smell.

In studies, most people are happiest during sex. That takes into account all other pleasurable activities, such as eating, sleeping, reading, and blogging. This is no surprise. The transience of the act is part of why it is so appreciated. Obvi.

It’s called Le Petit Mort because it is ultimate life. And life and death are two sides of the same coin. You feel so alive, so consummately in the now, that the only thing it relates to is death. You want to be kept in that position forever if you could , with your brow furrowed and sweat pouring down your hot stretched oh-face. It would be perpetual bliss, but the only thing you’re even close to being forever locked into is that point sometime in the future when you will no longer exist. That and taxes.   

And when you are old and impotent and death closes in, you will feel nostalgic about your youthful virility. You will wish you had some of it back, but you can only enjoy the memories of her spread-eagled, like Candice Crawford, on the floor, and the sounds of the grainy softness, and you will feel both closer to and farther away from death in the distance of those memories. That will be Le Grand Mort.

The Strabismics Pt. 5

  There is a violence to snorting. It takes physical force to ingest, more than smoking.  Buckley licked a wet finger to make stick the little granules that didn't make it into his nose. He gummed them with a finger like a fishhook. He pressed one nostril and sniffed, and did likewise to the other before looking to to the ceiling. Gabriel watched his friend's Adam's apple bob and tried to control his shock.  Buckley looked at him with the look of people who have just removed their glasses but he was still wearing his glasses.
   
Kevin snorted a line. They leaned back into their respective couches and relaxed. Gabriel smoked another bowl and watched wisps billow from the huge bong's mouth. After a few minutes of relaxation and mental labyrinthing they stood up to leave. They dapped Kevin, saying thanks, and nodded at the kids on the couch.
   

There's no doubt that drugs are a social cohesive. Alcohol is a social lubricant - you drink to make friends easily. If you are with people as they try a drug and you don't partake, you are on the outskirts of their social circle – you aren't able to relate over the most basic feelings; you are on a different plane. As a result, you grow farther apart, watching them herd buffalo, you cry like an Indian on a ledge, judging their actions, dissociating yourself (that fundamental human instinct of categorizing and differentiating that has created such vast gulfs between groups and classes, races and ethnicities, creeds and beliefs) as patently different because they separated themselves by choice.

Due to that choice they fundamentally disagree with you, since you were offered it too and rejected it. So it's not surprising that Buckley and Gabriel grew apart over the course of time, especially when Buckley got deeper into opiates.

Your comments and critiques on this vignette are appreciated.
Love,
Daniel Adler

The Strabismics Pt. 4

 During the meanwhile, they load the bowl of the largest bong, and smoke it. Reality goes hazy at the edges and expectation about the future becomes anxiety about the present, what are those kids thinking, no, don't worry about them, building tension settles into complete relaxation and mental wandering, whose cat is that?

Gabriel stands up and moves towards the cat. He had a cat growing up. You have to work for their affection; running to them and rubbing them like dogs doesn't work. Cats and animals in general, but especially cats, are super-sensitive to energy. They have to be relaxed to permit your touch and only feel relaxed if you feel relaxed.
  

This cat is large. It has a clearly unhealthy paunch, but he is good natured and lazes sleepily. Gabe plays with the cat by sliding it back and forth on its excess skin and fat. He does this for about a minute, then scratches the cat's head one last time before he sits back down.
   

Buckley and Kevin finish preparing the powder. They chop it up with credit cards until it is fine. They analyze the color, decide it is too dark and swear. Like chemists, they pipette four drops of water. This is perfect. They chop it again and then again. Now it looks like umber salt. Buckley produced another Jackson and Kevin weighs him out its worth on the cleverly disguised Neil Young CD case scale. Buckley waits patiently, watching the powder the while. When it's in his hand he empties some onto the table and with his credit card, lines it up, chop...chop. He rolls his last 20 tight, puts his nose to it as he leans to inhale and jerkily snorts it in a spray and a twitch.

Pt. 4 of 5 -Daniel Adler

The Strabismics Pt. 3

    Kevin wore a black hoodie with an American flag bandanna and thin gold rimmed glasses. He strutted toward them and they began introductions. He was medium height with a short aquiline nose, sallow cheeks and sleepy eyes. His fuzzy hair fell to his shoulders under the rag Gabriel complimented for its patrioticness, for which Kevin thanked him. As they turned to walk back to Kevin's apartment,which was the same building they had leaned against, Kevin lit a cigarette. Gabriel noticed two natty dredlocks resting on his left shoulder.

They turned the corner and waited for Kevin to smoke his cigarette to the filter.
 He opened the door and led them up two flights of stairs and along a badly scratched wooden floor. Long spartan-gray walls showed a hallway without any signs of life. When they stopped Kevin opened a door to expose a room clouded with cigarette and weed smoke. The loft had a staircase that overshadowed the vestibule. Chili pepper light bulbs hung on a string over the large bright windows at the room's opposite end.

They walked to the seating area where there was a record player, a couch with two kids with half-closed eyes who nodded at Buckley and Gabriel as they sat down next to them, and an armchair for Kevin.  The coffee table was littered with bongs, scattered and trayed ash, empty cans of cheap beer, and cigarette cartons.  From where they sat they saw, on the other side of the staircase, a kitchen with exposed shelves of granola, cereal, and canned goods of a various assortment.
   

Kevin extracted what must have been about half a pound of weed from an open backpack that courted his chair's leg, looked up at our two friends, and asked how much. Buckley looked at Gabriel and said “Eighth?” Gabriel nodded and took out a twenty. Kevin placed clots of green onto his digital scale, picking up and removing, replacing like a great chef. He handed Buckley a drug-filled plastic sandwich bag, which he had rolled up and licked to keep sealed, the way most drug dealers do.

Gabriel took it from Buckley, who was thinking about his ultimate goal of the trip. He unrolled the bag and inhaled. It smelled like Jamaican petrichor – the way Bob Marley's backyard would smell after the first rain of the season. When he looked up, Buckley was pointing to Kevin's lap at two different viscous liquids, one russet, one chocolate colored. Kevin pointed to the chocolate one. Gabriel asked what these liquids were. Buckley, without looking at him said, "Resin. They need to dry a little before we add Tylenol PM."
"Why do you add Tylenol?"
"It allows for easier nasal ingestion."
"Oh."
"Once we add it, we chop it up to create a powder. It'll probably take 20 minutes."

3 of 5- Daniel Adler

The Strabismics Pt. 2

They took the 6 train to Union Square and transferred to the L train. Bohemian accordian music floated hazily along the platform. Their bellies fluttered with the unknown. After a few minutes the silver train bulleted to a slow stop, humming as the robotic man's voice said, Stand clear of the closing doors please.

By the fourth stop in Brooklyn, they were alone with a little Mayan-looking mother with a brown sugar colored baby in a stroller, a girl with a pallor that oddly matched her pink hair and fishnet leggings, a dude in a tank top and colorfully inked sleeves, and a couple of punks wearing denim vests and baseball caps with the brim flipped up. The subway rumbled to their stop, and the punks joined them in waiting for the doors to open. They walked up the stairs and the indigo spring sky devoured them.

 Buckley strutted into the brisk swinging a jean-jacketed arm as he held his other to his ear to call his man. There was no answer. Buckley left a message. They would wait five minutes. They stood in the style of rebels without a cause, arms folded, smoking cigarettes, a booted foot bent at a 90 degree angle, propping them against the brick wall.
  

Around them square buildings sat clunking in industry. Mesh steel fences hovered gravely as shreds of plastic bags caught in barbed wire flickered in the wind. Behind the fences was more of the ubiquitous brick plated with black steel grated windows and smokestacks filtering into the sky. Wind whispered at them through newly budding trees.

On the opposing corner was an organic food store and what seemed to be a cafe. They ventured down the empty street eyeing straggled hipsters smoking outside the cafe.
 Five minutes was up. Buckley called. Luckily, their man answered. He would be down in a minute. They went back to the brick building built on the subway station and waited ten minutes. First thing you learn is you always gotta wait.

The Strabismics Pt. 1

This is the first installation of a chapter in my forthcoming book, Hot Love on the Wing. To my younger readers, proceed with caution, it is rated M for Mature.

It was Easter weekend and he hadn't seen Buckley for a few weeks.  Their friendship had plateaued due to Buckley being set on making new friends at school and spending most of his time there, although he missed Gabriel.
They manhugged, with their arms x'ed around each other's shoulders and an arched gap between their pelvises. It was Friday afternoon and the evening sunshine darkened so when they sat down there was an odd play of sunshine across Buckley's bed and onto his face; it looked like a nasty birthmark. Gabriel hadn't been smoking weed and didn't miss it, but social smoking was a delight. Buckley packed a bowl eagerly and he said this was the last, melancholically, but that he knew a guy from Stony Brook who had a friend who lived in Bushwick.

“Bushwick? Isn't that in Brooklyn?”

“Ya man, it's off the L train. Supposed to be real fire.”

Although most druggies won't admit it, the adventure of picking up the drugs is half the pleasure of consumption. Since Gabriel had never been to Bushwick he decided it would be fun to go.

As he felt his thoughts and worries begin to evaporate, Buckley took out a piece of aluminium foil with a black letter on it and an empty pen. He lit the black letter with a lighter and hovered the pen over it as he sucked in the fumes. 

“What the fuck are you doing, man?”

Buckley nodded profusely as he finished inhaling the last of the smoke. “Dude, I'm trying to quit Oxycodon, so I smoke this opiate resin.”

Gabriel looked at him like he was five feet underwater. “What? So you're smoking heroin?” He tried to be amiable, unjudging about Buckley's habit. This is my friend, he is a good guy. Maybe it isn't the way it looks. But it looks like he's smoking crack. All those times we smoked weed under the bridge and now...

“Dude, it's not heroin. It's much safer than heroin because you couldn't possibly smoke enough of this to die.”

“You might as well smoke heroin. You look like a crack fiend.”

“Trust me man. It's much safer.”

“I just don't want you getting caught up in these drugs man. Mary is one thing, but this resin shit is weird.”

“Try it and see for yourself that it's not that weird.”

For a second, Gabriel debated whether he should try, but his gut warned him. “Nah, I'm okay.”
    Buckley finished his drug and his phone vibrated. It was a text message from his man in Bushwick. "He said go to the Morgan stop and he'll meet us there."


Lamb and Mouthfeel

 I always get the purple wine lips. We like pinot noir best. I ask her what she detects and we don't look at the label. Sometimes chocolate, a hint of vanilla, blackberry, and usually cherry. We playfully talk about mouthfeel and the tannic nature of the grapes. But every joke is half serious.

Perhaps with a lamb shank, with ripples of flaky meat in a white bean Cassolet Toulousain and a bed of leafy greens with a balsamic vinagrette, the pinot is ideal.

What is it about lamb? Maybe it’s something in the cultural unconscious that takes us back to the days of animal sacrifice. Every time you eat lamb it’s like you play god.

Moment of post postmodernism: I always write about food. I love food. It is one of the three most carnal urges, along with sex and sleep. And although sometimes you don’t have the best meal, you know that you still need it and it is gratifying in itself. It just helps when it’s especially dank. Like lamb shank with pinot noir.

PB 'n' J 'n NYC

I eat PB 'n' J every day at my desk in Brooklyn, New York. Sometimes I'll blog while I'm eating it, or social bookmark, or read the New York Times.

The bread, for the sake of variation, is changed loaf by loaf. Right now, I have two slices of Potato Bread, but this is aberrant; tomorrow I will buy a fresh loaf of whole wheat/oat bran medley.

The Peanut Butter must be natural with or without salt added, but processed peanut butter is really nasty. Once, when I was in college, I bought the peanut butter and jelly in a jar combo, thinking it would save me time (because I was really busy smoking weed and reading Denise Levertov). It was a bad idea.

The preserves must be 100% fruit, or at least close to it. Jam has corn syrup and jelly has all kinds of nitrites and other shit in it.

I don't mess with organic milk because I'm a lowly writer, but I dig the 1%. You cannot drink anything else with PB n' J. If you do or try to deny me, I won't be your friend. I buy it by the half gallon and drink it from the carton. By Friday I'm usually running low, but it's a Friday so it's okay.

It's healthy and sweet, packed with protein and omega-3s and vitamins. I love my PB 'n' J with milk.

Daniel Adler's 100th Blog Post

Hey Guys and Gals,
This is my 100th blog post, and it has been nearly a year since I started this thing. I want to thank y'all for staying tuned, and I want to reassure you that there's a lot more good stuff to come. I hope you've enjoyed reading excerpts from my forthcoming novel, Hot Love on the Wing (which believe me, still needs about a year of work). My ideas and thoughts on our moment of late postmodernism, post postmodernism, metamodernism, or whatever you want to call it, are always subject to interpretation based on our the definitive quality of our interaction. And my hopes and love for Brooklyn and New York can always be enhanced with more information.

If you have any ideas for me as to what I should blog about, feel free to drop a comment. To all you new viewers, don't be scared to follow me. I'm working hard to make my blog the most interesting one on the internet, and with your help and my hard work, it will be.
All my love,
Daniel Adler

Lunch Time in Post Postmodernism

Gabriel enjoyed lunchtime the most. For thirty minutes every six hour shift, he was allowed a meal, usually a hero, or a sub - a sandwich, for those who don’t understand late 20th century regional dialects that have probably died out by the time you’re reading this. Interesting how certain accents are becoming less and less prominent today. The American Southern accent is becoming increasingly infused with that California lilt that ends sentences in a slightly interrogative tone. If you watch the old Hollywood movies with Katharine Hepburn, you can see the pronounced rigidity of her New England accent “William, my dear, I absolutely love you.” Try it yourself with your jaw unmoving, admire Cary Grant's perfect Mid-Atlantic accent, the one they taught in acting school. By the time you future generations read this, there will probably be an American accent that has taken the place of regional dialects, or who knows, those regional twangs may become more prominent due to the regionalization of our huge country.…anyway, where was I, yes, the hero.
  

 It was toasted so that the bread sometimes burned and cut the roof of your mouth if you weren’t careful. And of course Gabriel added all the trimmings - mayo, mustard, pepper salt, oil vinegar, lettuce tomatoes, pickles, red onions, jalapenos and bell peppers, provolone.  If his shift were five and a half, he would stay on extra to get lunch, which did not bother O’Donell in the slightest; he enjoyed watching the lad eat. It reminded him of his own youth and  the nostalgia he felt took the place of the son he had never had. Gabriel ate ravenously, scarfing the sandwiches as if they were his last. O'Donnell pretended to chop, but actually watched tv and glanced at his employee to make sure he was enjoying his idea of fine food. Gabriel usually worked weekend afternoons, which was enough to give him money and the nighttime to play when he wanted.
  

-Hot Love on the Wing,
Daniel Adler


Paris and New York in Post Postmodernism

In Paris the boulevards beneath skeiny tree branches and high stone apartment buildings suggested exclusivity and history. Glances of emptiness from men and those of mild interest from women showed that it was their Paris. With the confidence of Napoleon they walked past him. In passing the Champ D'Elysees, the Louvre, or as he meandered along the Seine, he played the tourist, removed from people and focused on the sites. These were international symbols of French greatness. This was theirs, their history.

 New York was just the opposite, he mulled. It depended on foreigners, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free. There was less to be collectively proud of in New York. You could easily become a New Yorker, but when you talked to your neighbor about the oncoming spring, there was expectation, not pride.  In Paris even the cherry blossoms were French.

The regions of the United States won't understand that for some time yet. When Americans appear as that, instead of a melting pot of races, the stew will have a distinctive taste. Although New York and Paris share seasons, equal lengths of spring and fall. Weather unites denizens. Sun all year round spoils you, can lead to complacency. In the best cultural capitals, wet winters and hot summers represent life's extremes.
-Daniel Adler

Resignation

Endless ages come slow to those who fight,
Sweet sadness' inevitable delay;
Courtly gardens bloom throughout the dark night.

Old men and young carry venomous spite,
Because they know dusky soft ends of days,
Endless ages come slow to those who fight.

In their longings for clear foreboding sight
They drop to their knees, count red beads and pray.
Courtly gardens bloom throughout the dark night.

Even the men who lived lives full of right
A lovers'sharp glance makes them beg to stay,
Endless ages come slow to those who fight.

And in the blinding brightness of sunlight
She calls it off and it begins to fray
Courtly gardens bloom throughout the dark night.

And when our crops have pestilence or blight,
We hope for a ripe, more bountiful day.
Endless ages come slow to those who fight.
Courtly gardens bloom throughout the dark night.

-Daniel Adler