What Is It All But Luminous Page 9

  Richard Wright, Native Son (1940)

  Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White (1860)

  Kathryn Stockett, The Help (2009)

  Doug Glanville, The Game from Where I Stand (2010)

  Jim Harrison, Legends of the Fall (1978)

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Swan (2007)

  Thomas Wolfe, Of Time and the River (1935)

  MOVING INTO A SECOND SIMON AND GARFUNKEL OLD FRIENDS TOUR, JUNE 2009.

  My wife came up with a notion:

  —How right your voice would be on “Born at the Right Time,” a song from the heart of Paul’s solo career. Now we are engaged in making a set list for a Simon and Garfunkel tour of the Far East. Our individual work is included—subsets within our show.

  “Love begets love,” I heard in Kathryn’s comment. To play in Otherman’s turf is a generous turn that brings the Divine into play, it shades the light of the harmonies. Relaxation sets in. We practice. His song becomes ours. We move to “For Emily,” my solo, a new middle eight is divined on guitar (from whither?).

  —He’s illuminating you, she says to me.

  The Muse bit the ass of my beautiful wife, and I had an ear for the insight. A spiral of trust climbing in colored light. Love makes the Slinky rise.

  The windy thing about fathering is having to do “The Groucho.”

  When my son is released from his playpen

  onto the New York sidewalk, his little feet pump in sprint time.

  Winded, I run with him and the jumping blood.

  I run with my head as near as can be to his.

  I want the vibrational joy.

  Right response is rest. My x and y axes are put to a test:

  I must run to keep up,

  and do the long-strided sweep of “The Groucho” to get down.

  A friend of mine, Dr. Rony Shimony, goes to a dentist named Gardenschwartz. A Garfunkel has to sometimes ask himself, “What’s in a name?” Why does Beryl Sprinkel go into government? Why does Barack Obama? What’s with Kelly Tripucka, the basketball star? The Ayatollah and the Bogwan Shree Rajneesh may be totally cool, but Lee Iacocca and Oksana Baiul? An’ Netanyahu—who’s kiddin’ who? Arthur Streeb-Greebling goes to Dr. Penbendish; Dr. Haldanish sees Boutros Boutros-Ghali. Who’s the irate Iranian who, each time he fails to pack it, says: “Ach,…my dinna’ jacket”? I know of two women, last names Urdang and Zwail. Both work in colonics…on Joey Buttafuoco. Something’s being said here.

  Early reunion with Paul Simon. “He’s illuminating you,” Kathryn says. c. 1976

  Tired of reading Macaulay’s England,

  I followed the air at sundown.

  The older I get, the more it’s about the air…

  how extremely divine the Tahitian air,

  as I stare at the darkening cove.

  I must share my appreciation.

  —Are you from here? I grope in English

  to the Polynesian girl cleaning my room at the tub.

  —No, not here—from Raiatea,

  she answers guardedly. She seems twenty-two.

  —I know it. I say and pronounce it back to her.

  Then I act out how beautiful the air feels to me here.

  …and so she smiles bashfully,

  dropping her head into the towels

  she holds at her bosom.

  Where have I seen this feminine grace,

  this supreme law of serene acceptance in a face?

  In the paintings of Gauguin!

  (a man with an indigo muse)

  The blues drew Paul into the South Pacific,

  but this is what held him the rest of his life.

  TOGETHER WE THROW OUR BEAU INTO BED, WE SWING HIM HANDS AND FEET, KIM AND I; AND SING HIM TO SLEEP:

  Hoist and tickie, hoist and fly

  “It’s always the same zebra,

  we just get to see it from all the angles,”

  I said about life some years ago,

  “the eight-year-old angle,

  the twenty-six, the sixty-five.”

  Now I see the shape of it,

  ways of behavior,

  the smell of what’s relevant,

  animal stripes from flank to mane—

  But who can explain the embrace

  of the deceased

  as the soul revolves to face the beast?

  Arthur Jr.’s inner joy

  NOW THAT MANY MAY EXPECT TO LIVE A GENERATION BEYOND AGE 65,

  WHAT ARE THESE EXTRA YEARS ABOUT?

  a) Devotion to raising James and Beau with Kim

  b) Giving. Compassion. Global awareness.

  c) Maximize my reputation as one of the world’s truly good singers

  d) Travel: India, China, Tanzania, Nepal, Dubai, Greenland, the ocean floor

  e) Write my autobiography

  f) Create a fabulous lair of a second home in the Alps

  g) Poll for sociological insight

  h) Movie work—hang out in L.A.

  i) Enjoy my friends; fall in with a new crowd

  j) Develop a new skill—speak Chinese, scout for baseball talent

  k) Rabelaisian pleasure-seeking

  l) Defy cynicism in government—serve it with honor

  m) Amass millions, S&G tour

  n) Be a better Buddhist—do all I do now with increased ichinen. If it’s all in the eye of the beholder, then enrichen the beholder.

  How to remember de rock ’n’ roll of de early days. It was so long ago. We didn’t know…how could we have but known what would develop? Who knew? We were shadows of our future selves. Fresh from de monaural, we thought stereo was big. We had melody, chord changes, grooves, we didn’t know you could sing de song a little bit and machines would make it so beautiful. Who knew, in dos early days, you could drop de melodies and de chords and just bark out de words, angry-style? We thought we were hip—we didn’t know about de hip and de hop an’ de hype. We balanced our sounds in dos days—who knew you could boost de bass and shake de room? We didn’t know de tunes could be so piercing in de treble. We didn’t have digital. We didn’t pierce anything. People’s skin was so empty. Nobody knew to put ball bearings in de eyebrow and in de nose. We were dumb. It was analogue. We didn’t even know you could put blue and red pictures on ya neck. Fe life. In dos days we just had Elvis an’ de Fab Four. We didn’t have vowels before our things—der were no iPads, emails, no e-tunes. FAX were tings ya knew. You couldn’t Google, you couldn’t tweet a song. You couldn’t steal a copyright yet. We didn’t know how to break de heart of rock ’n’ roll. It was de Dark Ages.

  —Life is for enjoyment.

  This is what eighty-year-old Mabel Morris said to me

  at a nursing home in Hollywood forty years ago.

  I was taping her for Bookends. (She wore a pin

  that read “MGM.”) But I say, now that I’m nearer

  the other end,

  —Life is to spend; we give it up for…something.

  These days I sing “Bridge Over Troubled Water”

  for a full arena with fear of hernia. My mind is torn

  between mortal and might—do I hold the finale

  in check? I feel a tear to the right of my gut,

  but it hasn’t torn yet…

  So I give them my heart, my strength, my spleen.

  I span that bridge from town to town and give away

  what might have been to spend what’s left of the

  life within.

  I don’t think of cake when I think about birthdays—

  every year a candle in the grand candelabrum.

  I think of a blade, with every swing descending through

  the years—everything nears the pendulum.

  AUGUST 11, 2008

  Who will speak at whose funeral? When I said, “You’ll outlast me, you live more carefully,” he said, “Write out what you want.” Okay…it’s hard to say I knew Artie well, he was enigmatic to himself.

  Which of us was more aware? Which the elder? I was born November 5—he
on October 13, a few weeks premature. Were we both conceived at the same instant—February 5, 1941, the dead middle of winter in the heart of World War II? Was I born at the right time?

  For two-thirds of a century his arm has been around my shoulder. He’s dazzled me with gifts. I nurtured him in his youth. He brought me into prominence. I taught him to sing. He connected my voice to the world. I made us stand tall. All of our personal belongings are intertwined.

  We say it’s exhausting to compete but we shine for each other. It’s still our favorite game. It goes on, this embrace, whether I speak for him or he for me. Love ruled our lives. It rules the mourners, and the winner of longevity.

  SIMON VS. GARFUNKEL

  Nam myoho renge kyo Baruch atah Adonoi Elohenu Melech haolam: Blessed art Thou, my God, King of the Universe—I give you my awareness and my appreciation for sustaining my life throughout and bringing me alive to this point. Be with me again today, throughout the day, ever-present. Help me, guide me to be a better man—one who is aware, as much as possible, of the hurt I cause others, of the sharpness and power of my tongue. Extend, O God, my ability to see the fool I am, the harm I do, and all my great limitations. Today I want to walk a more humble path, to love You and all Your manifestations on earth. I need You to carry on in decency. Let me respect my simple self as a statement of beautiful life, but help me not be “proud,” nor preen my feathers, nor to find any human being as less than me, for this is to judge. And You are the judge and giver of all life. Connect me, dear Lord, to my earliest days when I knew my relationship to You and sang to You with prayer. Today I pray to find that line again and serve Your way.

  Help me, find me again in my lost state today, with all my “wisdom” and separation. Let me see my true helpers—my wife, my sons, my friends—as your gifts to me. Shepherd me again as in days before I was five feet. Pull me back, please God, from my sharp-pointedness just before—not after—I cut another with acute “accuracy” and cause pain to others, for all of them are Yours. I do love this world with an immensity that is bound within it. My remorse, my sins, are crushing but I will not be crushed. With Your guidance, please God, from this moment on, I will seek to extend my goodness and I will see signs around me that You wish it.

  MID-TOUR, NAGOYA, JAPAN. July 8, 2009. This is the fifth season. Beyond discontent. This is what is meant by bewitchment. The end of wonder. Heart-springs spent in a winter down under.

  In the arena the echo’s extreme,

  the sounds sing twice as they fall.

  Writers tend to win: well-timed jokes take all.

  At the sound check, this from Paul:

  “You know the joke of the big vagina?”

  (I’m the bounce, he has the ball)

  A woman with one goes to her doctor,

  All depressed, she tries to stall.

  —Open wide, he says with maximum gall.

  You have a big vagina.

  You have a big vagina.

  —You don’t have to tell me twice, she tells him.

  —I didn’t, he says.

  Reverberant laughter rafter to wall

  Fertility fills the hall.

  This is the season of victory

  Sushi returns from sashimi

  Time and reason are done with me

  The runner can walk again.

  Whole nations have been impregnated,

  Gone is the time to be seen.

  Now I can see. The screen is black.

  I belong to the back of the balcony,

  To the tree of expanded vitality runny with song.

  WHAT IT WAS:

  VIDEO * 1) OLD FRIENDS * 2) A HAZY SHADE OF WINTER * 3) I AM A ROCK * 4) AMERICA * 5) KATHY’S SONG * 6) HEY, SCHOOLGIRL * 7) BE-BOP-A-LULA * 8) SCARBOROUGH FAIR * 9) HOMEWARD BOUND * VIDEO * 10) MRS. ROBINSON * 11) SLIP SLIDIN’ AWAY * 12) EL CONDOR PASA * 13) BRIGHT EYES * 14) A HEART IN NEW YORK * 15) PERFECT MOMENT * 16) NOW I LAY ME DOWN TO SLEEP * 17) BOY IN THE BUBBLE * 18) ME AND JULIO * 19) DIAMONDS ON THE SOLES OF HER SHOES * 20) THE ONLY LIVING BOY IN NEW YORK * 21) MY LITTLE TOWN * 22) BRIDGE OVER TROUBLED WATER * 23) THE SOUND OF SILENCE * 24) THE BOXER * 25) LEAVES THAT ARE GREEN * 26) CECILIA

  When do-si-dos are over, show the hidden heart—honor your partner.

  AUGUST 2009. ALL IS WELL RIGHT NOW. I FALL ASLEEP WHEN I HIT THE PILLOW. I CARRY NO DEBTS. MOTHER AND JULES ARE GONE FROM HERE. DAD IS LONGER GONE. I HAVE GIVEN JEROME A “SAFETY NET” FROM FINANCIAL DISTRESS. HE AND CINDY ARE MARRYING NEXT MONTH. BEAU IS DEEPLY SECURE, I BELIEVE, HAPPY AND PLAYFUL. KATHRYN AND I ARE DEEPER IN LOVE. SHE CAPTIVATES ME AND WINS MY RESPECT THROUGH THE YEARS. WINNING A TONY THIS YEAR IS A VALID OPTION FOR MY GIFTED ROOMMATE, LOVER, MOTHER OF BEAU AND JAMES ARTHUR—the bildungsroman—JULIEN SOREL. MY OWN WORK PROSPECTS HAVE BIG S&G SHOWS, MAYBE IN 2018. THE CAT IS ALWAYS FINE. THANK GOD MY HEALTH IS GOOD. THE PHILLIES ARE IN FIRST AND MAY NOW WIN A SECOND WORLD SERIES IN A ROW.

  Aristotle has always been dry to me.

  Vico’s New Science 1720s look at developing Western consciousness from earliest Man through the Greek Golden Age is insightful.

  Out of the bathroom comes Beau.

  —No, two Hershey kisses, Mommy. Two? I made pee pee and poo poo.

  One day I take my son to Nicaragua. Mr. Gomez has called the William Morris Agency and booked me to sing at his home in Managua—sixtieth birthday, hundred guests poolside. My boy came for the life experience, to extend his good fortune, to further impregnate the gods. The boys and I did the show we do. Junior sang “The Very Thought of You,” then stayed beyond my departure with the host.

  James Arthur Garfunkel, age sixteen, on a motorcycle trip in the South of France

  Now he and Gomez go rolling along to a place where cigars are made. Over lunch, when they ask him to sing, he gets up and launches into

  —Smile, though your heart is aching

  Smile, even though it’s breaking…

  and brings two hundred women to a hush. He is a harbinger of universal laws. In a factory shack in Managua, Nicaragua, rolling takes a pause.

  SHORTLY AFTER THIS I LOST MY VOICE.

  Love worms its way into the interstices. It plays with the stitching at the seams. The edge of a satin blanket on the baby’s upper lip. Asleep facedown, I bring my cheek to the corner of the pillow for the cozy. My baby calls me “Ovie,” sounds like oven. It used to be “doll of dolls,” in time it changed to “of.” Yes, Love brings all pomp to defeat. I call her sweeter than sweet.

  Now I’m in the warp and weave of alive, there is no plan no next as known, I’m on my own; the tour is off the voice still mending the money is all given back. I will take my Kathryn to St. Tropez and look at her. Maybe we’ll look at the Mediterranean Sea and see white and blue—at three on the terrace a robin’s egg shade, air blue, may surround her; at six in the morning opalescent ivory looks out from my calendar.

  JUNE 2010

  What is the singing voice to me?

  A name, a skill, or a flag I see? A certain

  thrill—the gift of glide, the ride on the

  cusp of emotion, uplift from the heart

  to the cords, love for the song, for the

  sound…FOR 4 MONTHS, THE GIFT IS GONE.

  Somewhere past the middle of the ’60s, I took a room at the Hampshire House. I remember the carpet—cherry vermilion. A balcony looked up the axis of Central Park. Dead center, 25th floor. I was new to fame and to room service. It must have been spring. I smelled it at the terrace—standing there in my underwear, toes in the rug, drinking freshly squeezed. Equidistant from Central Park West and Fifth Avenue, the world was mine, I was a rock. The air was kissed. I was the arrivist.

  More chart success and real marriage have brought me here to my family while I fight for my voice to return. Forty-four years have passed. They still like my friend and me. Our “Old Friends” show, our scarcity, have made us, perhaps, the hottest tour on earth. The world awaits for two one-inch cords to mend and return to symmetry—the pinnacle of purpose prepared
for me.

  Yesterday my five-year-old son went to his classmate’s birthday party. The magician, Domino, did his show. The act was lame. My boy said, “I saw the penny drop,” and gave the trick away. The mom who booked him felt cheated. Moments of “ta-dah” fell flat with the kids three times in a row. Poor Domino.

  If you play for the crowd, you’re subject to whim. Fate makes a foolish object of him whose magic turns tragically gradually grim.

  gnarly tree

  surrounding me

  twisted limbs are gnashed

  and bent above

  offshoots from the trunk of many years

  the hidden “g” in what appears

  to be my funk and fears

  dancing in the branches

  attorney’s notes, the need to sing,

  gone is everything that palliates;

  rip-off rates, my soul invested

  and everywhere I turn

  domestic concern nested

  in a tree house

  under a bower

  beneath all this

  and in the shade of it

  my love holds me in her kiss

  hyacinth exhalations

  from her baby’s breath

  and bare neck and shoulders

  wrap around me in comfort-

  soothing, steady, honeysuckle comfort

  gnats above can’t touch us

  This is my Kathryn.

  Under my arm

  a garland of beauty

  charm of the arbor

  my darling

  my harvest

  my karma

  Soon I will die

  And so soon will we all, my friends;

  Important lives will end.

  With what?