Blog – Page 46 – Clara Hsu

Intention

There’s nothing more satisfying than walking into a used bookstore. Yes, such oddity still exist and thriving. The Russian Hill Bookstore on Polk combines creative paper gifts and a large inventory of books. I went in with no particular reason, mainly to kill time until the next appointment. But in the back of my mind I was hoping to find something interesting, a good read but must be entertaining and fun. Vance Bourjaily’s Confession of a Spent Youth was my latest conquest. After a beautiful chapter on love, I needed a break.

Scanning the shelves, one particular book leaning face front caught my eye. The cover was wrapped in plastic with the curious title The Chinese Bigamy of Mr. David Winterlea. I knew right away my prayer was answered, even though I didn’t pray very hard. But I must be off to work now and will tell you more about the book tomorrow. A long day of piano teaching awaits.

A Good Book

Reading Dan Brown’s Angels and Demons was like eating a bag of potato chips. You pick one and put it in your mouth, and before you know it, you empty the bag. I’ve not been so active a reader, gluing to the pages for hours forgetting meals and forsaking sleep until the bitter end. But then, like eating a whole bag of chips, there is that empty feeling and what the hell? A rush was what I got and I kicked myself for wasting my time, especially upon the last chip, with a James Bond like conclusion, it tasted stale.

Reading good literature is hard work. I usually can’t read more than half an hour in a sitting. My brain needs rest and time to digest when the language is rich. However there is always a sense of elation, a feeling of accomplishment when I finish a good book. An author’s use of language and their subjects’ character, to me, are much more essential than plot. But of course it cannot be overdone. Orhan Pamuk’s Snow comes to mind, and also Arundhati Roy’s God of Small Things—both of which I humbly put away, unable to finish.

The good books? Nabokov’s Lolita, Hubert Selby Jr.’s Last Exit to Brooklyn, Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eyes, Pearl Buck’s Good Earth, Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Reinaldo Arena’s Before Night Falls, Anthony Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange, Cormac McCarthy’s The Road… and on and on. These books are my teachers as they demand as much as entertain. But there’s one book which I recently finished, which is quite curious and odd, that I would like to talk about tomorrow.

After the Beat, What Generation?

carlos2 — Carlos Ramirez. Click image to see Carlos perform.

For one thing, we don’t smoke anymore. And instead of hard drugs, we take psychotic medications and depressant. Alcohol, yes, but most of us has wised up. Even coffee is replaced by tea. Jack Hirschman and David Meltzer are still holding up the Beat, but then what? Poets are still poor, poetry reading is still free, thank God, at least in San Francisco.

The Beat Generation rose from the river of ever rushing poetic fervor. I don’t know who’ll be the next to go viral. The cosmos still holds the upper hand in this matter. But the gems are gleaming in cafes and salons, worthy of a much wider audience. Last night at the Red Poppy Art House in the Mission, Carlos Ramirez and Greg Pond traded Langston Hughes in songs and verse with an attendance of twelve. There was no photographer, no recorder. The magic of Hughes’ poems sung with child-like joy by a nimble seventy-something year old Carlos of great white beard ceased to exist after the reading, except for those who were there.

I Don’t Know Allen Ginsberg

And I couldn’t get past the first four lines of Howl. I told Gerry Nicosia I didn’t understand Howl and he stared at me like I was mad. You call yourself a poet? (He didn’t say that specifically). I think he let it go because I was a new friend and a Chinese immigrant and I didn’t know anything about anybody for that matter. But seriously, if you’re living in San Francisco and writing poetry…?

I can’t relate to a bunch of guys getting high fucking each other being thrown in jail and psychiatric wards. My life experiences are that of middle class motherhood hard-working family first self last type of things. And if Allen Ginsberg is alive today I don’t think we’d be friends.

I watched Howl the movie last night. James Franco as Allen Ginsberg somehow did not convince me. Again, what do I know? My gut feeling said so. But the cartoons that accompanied the reading stimulated my dilatory comprehension. The voice lifted the words from the pages and I laughed and sighed and cringed until his holy holy and I saw what he saw and heard what he was saying and I was blessed and forgiven.

School of Self Discovery

Self discovery, I guess, is a slow learning process. Information comes by drip and drop and not always in a timely, logical and precise manner. The absence of discipline somehow works best for me. School makes me tired. I’m one of those people who needs space between information.

Last night I picked up the New Millennium Writings, a collection of short stories and poems that includes winning works from their semi-annual competitions. Pamela Uschuk’s Shostakovich: Five Pieces, winner of the NMW Awards, winter 2009-10, wove scenes of Russia, Stalin, everyday living and music into one brilliant tapestry. There’s a lot to be learned there. To render poetic images without losing the reader is always a great accomplishment. I’m always looking for holes in a poem. It gives me some kind of pervert glee when I see the logic is not being followed through. Hers has none of this flaw and I love it.

I figured out two things before I went to bed. There are meander poems that begin at one point and end at a place that is completely foreign and incomprehensible. The problem with these poems, in my opinion, is that they fail to carry the emotion through the unrelated imagery. Then there are poems soaked in metaphors, comparing, for example, nature to language. It is all good if you can pull it off. In most cases I find them pompous and tedious. Reading the New Millennium assure me that my view of things are indeed subjective. I read the “challenging” poems again, trying to nudge my way into the poet’s verse, but found myself very sleepy.

Waiting

It’s like throwing a bottle with a message into the ocean. In this case, a query letter dropped into the sea of literary agents. The initial excitement cooled down as time passed and when I received the very nice form letter in the mail after six weeks of idling I had no drama left but a sigh of relief. Thank you. I may go on with my life. Submission has to become mechanical without emotion like brushing teeth, cleaning the toilet or putting on my shoes; stoic as someone who leans on the pier fishing . The bait is out there, as long as the line is connected.

To Begin At The Beginning

The beginning is a point in time when something happens. So I choose today, fair and warmer in San Francisco, with Bay to Breakers just finishing up. A middle-aged man stood on the edge of Golden Gate Park. Backpack strapped on his bare shoulders, white socks and running shoe, his penis nodded limply as he meandered. No one paid attention to him. He was just part of the scene. I held tight my sweater, coat and scarf. Even if I had the nerve to strip I don’t have the constitution. It takes guts to face the world naked. I admire those who celebrate their bodies with conviction.