David E. Williams, an interview

Several Years back there was a small business in my neighborhood called Germ Books and Gallery. As the name suggests, it was a bookshop and art gallery. It was located just a few blocks from my house, and I, being a bookshop enthusiast, soon became a regular customer. The store was small and deliberately discriminating in the materials it sold. I would describe the store as a purveyor of unusual, contrarian, and sometimes dangerous ideas. The largest section was devoted to science (or speculative) fiction. There was, of course, a non-SF fiction section, usually containing the works of notable experimental and/or transgressive authors. And there were also sections dedicated to “fringe topics” such as UFOs, conspiracy theories, the occult, as well as various viewpoints criticizing contemporary politics and civilization from all manner of perspectives. These were the types of books that you might not find in your average bookshop, and there was a whole store filled with them! I was enchanted by the place.

But Germ was not merely a store. It also served as a community forum that hosted musical events, conferences, readings, art shows, and it served as a place to meet different types of people with a tremendous range of ideologies. As I became a regular presence there I got to know the owner, David E. Williams, who had taken up the mantle after Germ’s founder, Jennifer Bates, died in 2007. I’m sorry to say that I never knew Bates personally. From what I’ve heard about her, she sounds like a true visionary. 

I was somewhat surprised to learn that David E. Williams is a musical artist of international renown who has been practicing his art for decades. He was gracious enough to give me some of his CDs and I have been a fan ever since. He is a man with a piano and a unique vocal style. His lyrics are dark, humorous, passionate, and enlightening all at once.

Sadly, in 2011, Germ closed its doors due to a number of reasons. The whole story of Germ is one that is worth telling, but it is not my story to tell. However, I can verify that its brief existence had a profound impact on a number of people, myself included. I continue to maintain regular contact with David E. Williams, and that is who I want to talk about today. Recently Mr. Williams released his first full length album in four years entitled Trust No Scaffold Built of this Bone. When I heard that he was planning to release something new, I mentioned that I’d like to review it, or better yet, interview him. He seemed receptive to the idea.

After the album came out I spent several months listening to it, and we finally got around to conducting the interview over a series of emails. What follows is our dialogue (the first interview I’ve conducted since my journalism class in college):

Me. Given that some of the readers of my blog may be unfamiliar with your work, how would you describe what you do in your own words? I mean, do you classify yourself under a particular genre or scene or tradition of music?

DEW. A lot of the genres with which I'm associated did not even exist when I first started writing and recording my own songs. Even goth wasn't a term that was bandied about in the late 80's. People would say "postpunk." The first review of my first EP in 1987 compared me to Syd Barrett and Warren Zevon, which are almost unimaginable comparisons today.

I think of myself in the troubadour model, basically, singing my songs and playing my instrument. I think of myself much more as a songwriter than as a musician, although it's fun to act like a musician on other people's projects.

An early reviewer called me "Barry Manilow's evil twin." That's obviously someone trying to be funny, but it's more accurate than a comparison to Death in June or something like that. Maybe I'm closer to a Billy Joel than Barry Manilow. Cue the sound of a million pages of your blog clicking off now!

Me. I can see arguments for either side of the Barry-Billy question... So you have released a new CD, Trust No Scaffold Built of this Bone, which came out in May. Are you taking any new approaches in terms of style or songwriting?

DEW. The new CD is a further walk down a theme in the form of a question. Can David E. Williams write and sing a good David E. Williams song that is not about leukemia or stealing medicine from an epileptic? Can I, in fact, find the essential truth in almost any subject, like William Carlos Williams with his wheelbarrows and plums. Peanuts, candy, a dog and a bird. Those are all really good things. "Quackadoodledoo" is a funny onomotopoeia for us humans, but it's really the language of life. For many humans, in fact, it is the very sound of the food we eat. And it's important to remember that food consists mainly of the same elements that appear in bodily waste. That's so simple and so obvious, but so ignored. And why? 

After my grieving survivor album, Every Missing Duck is a Duck Missed, I wasn't quite sure what there was left to write about. A customer at Germ told me that puns were the language of alchemy and then I thought a little bit about puns that are two, three, four and five times removed from their original source -- puns on puns on puns on puns, with the first couple of puns missing. It may sound stupid, but, you know, there are still some literature professors out there who are probably trying to defend Burroughs and his cutup nonsense.

As for the music on this record, it is probably worth noting that most of these songs were written on piano, but a very conscious effort was made to not have them recorded as "piano songs with a dude singing." There is some of that, but in most instances, they are refigured into synth pop, polka, the rest of it.

Me. That's interesting, in particular the idea of puns on puns on puns. Some of your lyrics have the feeling that some kind of inside joke is involved. When I think of your recent work there seems to be a more personal quality, as opposed to your earlier CDs in which a lot of the songs tell fictional stories (assuming that stealing medicine from an epileptic is fictional). Compare, for instance the difference between Hope Springs a Turtle and Every Missing Duck is a Duck Missed. "Trust No Scaffold" also seems very personal. As such, I think your songwriting tends to be more contemplative and less cynical. Would you agree with this?

DEW. Well, a story song is only less personal in the manner that a short story might seem intrinsically less personal than a poem. Some people enjoy the naughty story part of my catalog to the point of using them as pornography. On the other hand, it is probably difficulty to find a song anywhere that is as naked and confessional as "Here Comes the Cold Narrator." I think I can say that objectively; I'm not bragging, because perhaps naked confessionalism is not the be all/ end all that doctrinaire naked confessionalists seem to think it is.

Me. Being sort of a full-time naked confessionalist myself I can understand the temptation to elevate that particular form of expression. Maybe it was an underlying motivation to do so in my last question. What about domesticity? On "Trust No Scaffold" there is a song about picnics, there's "Closet" which is sort of a Williams Carlos Williams-esque pastiche of scenes in a house, and there's the line from “Peanuts, Candy, a Dog and a Bird” that goes, "Tables ain't no places for a couch-fighting man" (one of my favorites), all of which point to domestic life, in my opinion. Is this a new theme?

DEW. Look, I'm as dug into naked confessionalism as the next guy, obviously -- Plath, Joy Division, me, on and on and on. But there is also the great T.S. Eliot quote about poetry being an escape from emotion rather than an expression of emotion. And confessionalism done poorly comes dangerously close to "identity" art -- the worst of the worst! 

As for domesticity, those images were not consciously implanted, but hey, you certainly found them. Perhaps it's further worth noticing domesticity depicted as terrorist and jailer, with for instance, "Turn Off All the Very Hot Things."

Finally, I like that image of the "couch-fighting man," I always see it in my head, some Don Quixote with a sword fighting a couch that ever eludes him. That's the sort of thing that's funny to me.

Me. Huh. I had a very different interpretation of "couch-fighting man." I was imagining The Couch as an arena in which the fight occurs. Yours is funnier. I'm glad you brought up "Turn Off All the Very Hot Things." After first listening to the new CD it stood out to me the most. It's the last song on the album and makes for a powerful conclusion as the music cuts out but President Nixon continues speaking and concludes his point about never giving up. At the beginning of the song, your lyrics are about fearing technology. Do you see Nixon and the song's narrator as holding rival opinions?

DEW. I also like "Turn Off All the Very Hot Things." Almost to the point where I dare not dissect the gossamer that binds the heat fear part with the Nixon part. As they said on Seinfeld, one doesn't dissect gossamer! Civilians and outsiders could probably draw some comparisons between the singer's neuroses and those that civilians and outsiders usually attribute to Nixon. That is absolutely not a connection that I was trying to create. Whatever you think of his politics, Nixon's speech here is fabulous, with a transcendent humanity unthinkable in the cardboard cutouts that have come after him.

Me. Changing gears here, you have two prominent guest vocalists Lloyd James from Naevus and Andrew King, a former member of Sol Invictus who released an incredible solo album last year. How did you come to work with them, and what was it like?

DEW. I've known both of them since Lloyd invited me to play at a small club with Naevus and Andrew King in London in 2002. We've done all kinds of things together over the years-- they were both on the DEW tribute album, I've played on two or three Naevus songs (live and on CD); Andrew even had a live a cappella performance and art show at Germ in 2005, when it was on Girard Avenue. We made it part of the Fringe Festival that year.

Me. Dang. I hadn't found my way to Germ yet in 2005. Andrew King is really a fantastic singer. I'd love to see him live. "Trust No Scaffold" was released by Old Europa Cafe, an Italian record label that has put out a couple of other CDs by you. I understand you have a following Europe. Do you have a sense of how your European fan base compares with its American counterpart?

DEW. The fan base in Europe is small, but not as small as in the US, where it is smaller. Subtract Philadelphia and we're talking even smaller.

Me. We are the few, the proud, and the privileged. Speaking of privileged, I'd like to thank you so much, David, for agreeing to this interview.

Trust No Scaffold Built of this Bone is available for purchase from Mr. Williams’ web site, along with a number of other David E. Williams releases.  

The cover of Trust No Scaffold Built of this Bone

Getting over Winesburg, Ohio Syndrome

Last week had a lot going on. I turned 32. I try not to make a big deal about birthdays, but one can’t help but reflect on his life on his birthday. This year I found myself reflecting on what I thought I would be when I was 16; a writer, or maybe an artist, or a filmmaker. I believed in these possibilities pretty firmly well into my twenties. Then somewhere along the way I gave up those dreams and went to grad school for library science. I still don’t know why I did that, except that I love libraries and hopefully I will one day actually work in one.

The trouble with the writer/artist/filmmaker dream is that I almost never write/make art/film. It seems all I can do just to write in this blog a couple of times a week, and sometimes I can’t even do that. I’m just not an innate writer. I’m a reader that wishes he could be a writer. Still, I get some personal satisfaction in writing now and then, and from time to time someone tells me they liked something that I wrote. So, here’s to writing as a hobby. Cheers!

Another fantasy that has faded over the years is what I might term the Winesburg, Ohio Syndrome, which has to do with self-inflicted exile, something that many a great writer engages in. I call it Winesburg, Ohio Syndrome after the Sherwood Anderson book of short stories called Winesburg, Ohio. I must confess I haven’t read this recently (not since 2005 by my reckoning) but I remember that all of the stories somehow relate to one character, George Willard, who represents the author. As it happens, George Willard is the only character who leaves Winesburg and makes a name for himself in the big city. Each of the stories showcases the various peculiarities of people in a small town, and subsequently vilifies small town life as repressive, isolating, alienating, almost some form of imprisonment. 

Growing up in the small town of Dryden, NY, I sensed a similar resentment to small town life from my peers. I guess it sort of rubbed off on me, because I started planning my departure in my teens, and eventually found myself in Philadelphia at the age of 23, not entirely due to my own planning. I will readily admit that my desire for self-exile was based on some completely unfounded self-perceptions, which I think could be accurately termed delusions of grandeur. 

City life has had its positives and negatives. I’ve met a lot of great people and had interesting experiences. I don’t regret the decision of moving here, but it has made me realize that some of my dreams were unrealistic, and it has given me a respect for what I lost by leaving my hometown. There are certain social opportunities a small town affords that can never be fully realized in a city.

Now I am coming to a point where I may consider something completely different for my life. I must investigate the opportunities. I don’t think I’m ready to move back to my hometown, or the vicinity thereabouts. But maybe I am? I know that I still want to see more of the world, but not necessarily move there. I don’t think I like the idea of Philadelphia as a home-base.

Anyway, these are the types of things I think about on my birthday. Right now, I am not looking to leave Philly, but I could see it happening. Moving back to Dryden isn’t the only option though. Other places under strong consideration are Asheville, NC, or somewhere in Tennessee. 

Here’s a picture of me on my birthday:

P.S. That night someone asked me, “Why Ron Paul Forever?” but I sort of shrugged it off, not wanting to get into a political conversation. In retrospect, I think the answer is somewhat simple. Obviously the notion of Ron Paul being “forever” is at best wistful, and a bit ironic. But I would say “Ron Paul Forever” because, as politicians go, Ron Paul seems to avoid political power games when possible and I think we need more politicians who are not afraid to express the views of their constituents. I think most politicians follow the party line, and Ron Paul deviates, and I want to see more deviation. So that’s my answer, in case you’re reading this Colleen.

Poison/antidote

The term "pharmakos" later became the term "pharmakeus" which refers to "a drug, spell-giving potion, druggist, poisoner, by extension a magician or a sorcerer." A variation of this term is "pharmakon" (φάρμακον) a complex term meaning sacrament, remedy, poison, talisman, cosmetic, perfume or intoxicant. From this, the modern term "pharmacology" emerged. 

(From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharmakos)

Thus far, my choice for best album of 2013 is Abandon by Pharmakon, a noise project by someone named Margaret who I think lives in New York City. I've seen Pharmakon perform twice, once at the good old Germ Books shop that used to be on Frankford Ave. (I loved that place.) But I don't really remember that performance very well... Then earlier this year I saw her at Kung Fu Neck Tie. That was very memorable, and one of the best shows I've seen in a while, although I wish I'd worn ear plugs.

The experience of the show was to be part of a group of people, mostly men, standing in a circle in a darkish room around a table on which there are some kind of machines. And there is a smallish feminine humanoid pressing buttons on the machine and apparently screaming into a microphone but the screams are only echos heard on the background of a larger rumble so deep that it shakes your being. Not much happens other than she paces back and forth somewhat hunched over screaming something indecipherable and handling the controls on the machine. But it was still really intense to witness, to feel.

The live show can't be duplicated. If you watch a YouTube video of it I'd say you are missing ninety-nine percent of the experience. This new record Abandon takes you closer, but it is much more polished and a different sound entirely. I haven't heard previous Pharmakon recordings as they have mostly received limited release from small labels. Last Thursday I was down at AKA Records on 2nd Street and there was Abandon for sale on CD, so I bought it without hesitation. I've probably listened to it almost ten times since then, but it's difficult to explain my fascination.

The record opens with a scream that morphs into a high pitched multi-toned droning ring. There are some vocals, screamed and distorted. They are more recognizable than you hear at a live performance, but you still have to follow along with the lyrics in the booklet to understand them. There are four tracks, each ranging from six to seven minutes long. Then there are blank tracks from number 5 to 98, each six seconds long. Track 99 is twenty-seven minutes long. This track distribution somewhat reminds me of certain editions of the Broken EP by Nine Inch Nails, from back in the 1990s, which was a very good industrial album. I wonder if it's a nod. To me Pharmakon emits a similar energy to early NIN, but updated for our times.

I don't really want to go into describing how the noise variates throughout the album, or make comparisons to other projects. I will say that in a few tracks I detect a distinct rhythm and melody which I've find to be uncharacteristic of most Power Electronics. It makes them almost song-ish, in a real "song" kind of way.

Noise is a weird sort of genre to collect and in particular industrial or post-industrial noise, which I would liken to the horror genre in film. The idea is to be uncomfortable, profoundly uncomfortable. I remember when I first started getting into collecting this, back in 2008, I got very enthusiastic and wanted to share my findings with other people, but upon trying to play them a sample or two it was difficult to convey the reasons for why it is worthwhile. The best way to listen is alone. For this reason, what I take from the genre is the theme of alienation. You confront yourself when playing a noise CD. If you allow yourself to sit through whole songs and actively listen to them you are forced into introspection. The live experience also tends to be alienating. Communication is futile. This isn't really party music. It's meditation music.

What I find interesting about collecting this genre of marginalization is the paradigm shift that develops when it becomes a regular part of your life. I remember those first few years of being an industrial noise fan and suddenly feeling that there were more and more aspects of noise influencing our culture, that noise was on the up and up. Maybe it is, but I now wonder how much of this sentiment comes from having it on my radar. That is to say, because this is something I like, now I hear more about it, mainly because I'm paying attention, but nothing else has changed.

I've noticed this is true in general, in how people think. When you form an opinion about a subject, or start to care about it, then you are more sensitive to where and when the subject fits into whatever information you encounter on a regular basis. This generates sympathy for that opinion. Perhaps it creates a bias.

Recently, in a conversation with a friend, he commented that the perception that things are getting worse in society is largely due to one's fixation on negativity and an increase in the availability of information to verify such a viewpoint. So if you come to the opinion that a negative trend is growing in society, you will start to become more aware of evidence to verify this while perhaps blocking out other contradicting factors. It's an intriguing idea and when I first heard it, I thought the point was that society is not changing all that much, or that people aren't acting all that differently. But I can't agree with that.

Perhaps the point is to ask what is getting better, focus on that, and stop complaining. I can't do that either. I'm a natural born complainer. But for the sake of argument, let's take the terms "worse" and "better" out of the parameters. Let's instead ask, is society growing or dying? Is society more stable or less? Are communities in our society generally stronger than in the past, or more broken? Are individuals better socially acclimated or worse? These are pretty subjective questions, and we are really only limited to our own life experiences to verify them with accuracy, and even our life experiences taint our objectivity.

I like to look for historical evidences. I tend to look at forms of collective power like censorship and taboo, which change over generations. So for instance, early Hollywood had the Motion Picture Production Code which banned showing certain lascivious, lewd, or violent behaviors. But this was abandoned in the 1960s, as the movie rating system formed to allow for previously forbidden things to be accessible to adults. They were only movies after all. At the same time, behaviors prohibited by the code have been replaced by ideas prohibited by the establishment, academia, and the media. I don't think I need to give an example. Just think of something that would never be in a mainstream movie now but would have in the days of the old code. If you make a list of these these you would have a good idea of the new movie code.

Values have changed. I question the new values. But there seem to be many who like the new way. Perhaps they see it as the antidote, what I see as the poison. The Wikipedia quote at the beginning of this blog post discusses the word pharmakon and it's root pharmakos, and demonstrates that the definition encompasses both poison and antidote, that which changes or makes different, bodily or mentally. Enter "pharmakon" into Google Translate and you get "drugs." Better or worse, it could be one or the other. It could be both at the same time. This reminds me of a passage from Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose when Brother William asks the herbalist Severinus if he keeps poison in the infirmary. He responds:

"Among the other things. But that depends on what you mean by poison. There are substances that in small doses are healthful and in excessive doses cause death. Like every good herbalist I keep them, and I use them with discretion."

I listen to Abandon by Pharmakon and think about how our solution can become our problem.

I finally saw The Artist

When I was young, we had a Christmas Eve tradition to go the candlelight service at the Reformed Church in Interlaken, NY, the town where my parents grew up. My grandfather was the pastor. I have a lot of memories from that church, and that Christmas Eve service in particular. I remember one year, I think when I was five years old, I wanted to partake in communion. But my parents said I couldn’t because I was too young and didn’t understand its significance. I started crying, and when they asked why I was crying, I said I was sad that Jesus died on the cross for me. This didn’t help my case for why I should eat the body and blood of Christ. It’s a good thing that he died for you, said my mother, you should be happy, not sad. Clearly I didn’t get the point of communion. I just didn’t like being left out.

Even though we attended various other churches over the years (seven, by my count) we always went to the candlelight service in Interlaken. After my grandfather retired and moved to another town, we stopped going every year, but some years we did anyway for nostalgia’s sake I suppose. I believe the last Christmas Eve we went was four or five years ago. I enjoyed it, seeing people who had been on the periphery of my life since I was a child. There was one guy I would always talk to who was a classic movie buff. In one of those last years that we went to the candlelight service, he and I got into our typical conversation about old movies and more general talk of how my life was down in Philadelphia, and he asked if I had a girlfriend. I said I did not, much to my chagrin. "Don’t worry," he said, "One of these days you’ll go to a silent film festival and meet the perfect woman for you."

That sounded like an ideal scenario, said I. Since then, I have yet to go to a silent film festival. Yet, I still think of his comment (prophecy?) with fair regularity. This last weekend I thought of it again as I watched The Artist, a silent film from 2011 that garnered some critical acclaim and major awards. Back when it was in theaters, some friends of mine recommended that I see it, but I never did. When it became available on Netflix last year, I started to watch it several times but usually abandoned it before getting past the first ten minutes. (Too be honest, I am the type of guy who likes the idea of silent films, more than the actual films.) Now I have finally seen it and have a several thoughts about it.

Watching The Artist on a television made me realize that I should have seen it in the theater. Silent films are really quite different than modern movies in that they require a more disciplined attention span and level of concentration to understand what is happening. Watching it on TV or a computer screen in one’s home leaves one open to potential distractions that could be eliminated by sitting in a dark theater. Secondly, the film is a tribute to the era of silent film, in which television did not exist, so watching it in a theater would be necessary to optimize the experience that its creators intended. This is true about most any movie released in theaters (not counting mumblecore), though I think that for The Artist, it is especially true.

Contemporary silent films for mainstream audiences are a rarity, so the success of The Artist is somewhat phenomenal and speaks to how really well it was made. Every shot of the movie is beautiful, and the story is well-paced. It has a meta-something-or-other quality in that it tells the tale of a silent film star named George Valentin whose career careens into obscurity with the advent of talking pictures, while simultaneously his young protégé, a woman named Peppy Miller manages to successfully transition into movies with sound. It is ostensibly a love story about these two characters. But the form of the film draws a nostalgic emotional response from the audience which is refocused as empathy with the characters that are undergoing a departure from the nostalgic period in question.

The plot is that Peppy Miller, an avid admirer of Valentin by clumsy fluke gets thrust into the spotlight with him. Later they happen to meet on the set of a film and her gives her some advice about her image. There is also a strong chemistry behind them. Yet they part ways. In the years that pass Peppy rises to stardom taking on roles in talking pictures, while Valentin, as a silent film star becomes more obsolete. One scene I liked was when they are sitting in some restaurant with their backs to each other. Peppy is being interviewed and Valentin can hear what she’s saying, though she is unaware of his presence. The interviewer asks Peppy what she thinks about the studio canceling all silent film production. She says that people no longer want to see the inauthentic gesturing of silent film actors; they want to hear the actors. “Make way for the new!” she proclaims. At this point Valentin stands up, gets Peppy’s attention, and performs a gesture as if to allow her to pass by. Then he walks away. This distresses her because she is in love with him.

Valentin’s situation only grows worse as he becomes more washed-up. I won’t spoil it for you by going into the events of the second half of the film, but it’s important to note that Peppy becomes instrumental in Valentin’s survival. I am interested in musing upon this "out with the old and in with the new" mentality. This film is largely about changes that occurred in history because of the advancement of technology. It reminds me of the technology cycle that I’m sure you’ve heard talk of somewhere at some point, in which popular technologies are mass produced to the point of excess, when they become incredibly cheap and typically lower in quality, but then are surpassed by some superior technology that can supposedly do the same thing better, and the massive quantities of the old technology are viewed as trash, and are trashed until they become rare, at which point some enthusiasts dedicate themselves to preserving what remains.

There’s a documentary about pinball machines called Special When Lit that I think illustrates the technology cycle well. Pinball machines were at first highly lucrative and their manufacture increased immensely over a short period of time, but when video games were introduced, pinball machines were slowly replaced, and, if I remember correctly there is currently only one company making pinball machines today. The documentary features the stories of several near-fanatical pinball machine collectors. You get a sense of their urgency and sadness that pinball will no doubt be lost to our culture.

Here’s a question: are there some things in our culture that we are losing that are perhaps more important than consumer products like silent films or pinball machines. I think there are. I’m not really going to go into what I think is being lost, but I think it’s an interesting question to ponder, and I would encourage you to do so. What do you remember having as a child that was precious to you but you no longer have? What is keeping you from it? Can you recover it, or recover from losing it?

Do you have a real community that you call your own? What holds you together? Have you lost something with them over time? Are you building anything with them? Do you have any roots at all? Are you planting new roots? If not, why not? Is it because everything becomes uprooted so quickly these days? Do you even need roots? Maybe you don’t need roots, but if not, then what do you need? Just something to consume, or is there something more?

That’s a lot of questions. They are kind of weird. I find myself asking these questions all the time. At different junctures in life I’ve had different answers. But I sure would like to firm up my answers. I’d like to preserve what good things we are close to losing, prevent them from dying, help them to continue to grow, prune them of disease and evil, and water them with my life. One of the guys in my small group at a Men’s Retreat a few weeks back said that our small desires are connected to the more deeply rooted desires of our heart. I think about silent films and I get a nostalgic feeling. I think about old arcade games and I get a nostalgic feeling. These are small desires, like most pleasurable things. But as such, they are signals that, if we pay attention to and meditate on, could lead us to the deeper desire.

I once knew a professor who told me that the word art has a similar origin as the word arm because both of them reach. (I never did the research to find out if this is true and I never heard of it elsewhere but it makes sense. Think about the words arch and archery, which also seem to have something to do with reaching.) Might it be possible that The Artist is named such because it is a film about reaching back and grasping onto that thing we are desperate not to lose because we love it so much, as Peppy Miller does with George Valentin? Watch the film and you’ll see what I mean. Or don't watch it and just think about what you're reaching for when you get that nostalgic feeling.

A guy named Dagon

I once met a guy named Dagon. I only knew him for two days. He was a really nice guy. He hosted me in his dorm room when I was visiting Elim Bible Institute in upstate (or possible central, depending on your definition) New York, south of Rochester. (I don't know, people tell me I'm from central New York, not upstate, when I say I'm from outside of Ithaca, but I always thought that any part of New York that wasn't the Greater NYC area was upstate.) I was considering Elim Bible Institute because I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life. I mean, Art School was out.

I mean, Art School was out unless I wanted to go it alone, take out a lot of loans and pay them back with whatever job I found, if I really thought I could find one with an art degree. My parents were teaching me a lesson about economics, saying they wouldn't help me out with tuition if I didn't choose a sensible degree or go to an unaccredited bible school, which they also thought might be a good idea. I did horribly in economics in high school. Anything related to numbers I just blocked out of my mind. I blame this on getting placed in advanced math classes in the junior high. I wasn't a prodigy. I could understand algebra and geometry, but when we got to trigonometry, a fuse blew and the calculations stopped making sense. I don't think I was mature enough to understand trig, or calc, or econ for that matter. So I eschewed math and decided I needed that tuition assistance.

Not that I was any great and skillful artist, but I had an artist's temperament. One time, when I was a junior in high school, towards the end of the year, I was standing in the hallway with my friend Jason, clearly the most skillful artist of his class. He was a senior and was about to graduate, and said to me, "Albi, you're the greatest artist I know." And I took it to heart and really thought I was a great artist, if not a skillful one. Because I fit in with artists, and that's what my Art School dreams were all about. I just wanted to fit in. And besides, I'm sure you've all come across something that people claimed was art and cost a lot of money, and you said, What? And I was certain I could do something like that; be a con-artist.

But another part of me seriously considered going to Elim Bible Institute. They had a one year program. I forget what it was called, something about New Horizons, and you would just go and study the Bible for a year and get your brain imbued with mission, if such a thing is possible. I now think God can give you a mission whether you go to school and do a lot of studying or not. Last week at church, the pastor said that at some point we shed our faith, the faith of our childhood, like a snake sheds its skin. The old faith is stale, a routine that we live in that is brittle and hard, cracked and calloused. I'm not sure if the one-year Elim program would have helped me shed the skin, or if it would have been like putting lotion on it to maintain it for as long as possible. The point is, your faith needs to be soft, sensitive, maybe even vulnerable, to be aware of what God wants for you, what your mission is.

In any case, I didn't choose Elim, so I'll never really know what would have happened. I visited only a few other schools. The first school was SUNY Geneseo. At least I think it was. I just remember we were in the area and decided to take a tour. It wasn't someplace I was actually considering, but I remember the feelings of excitement I got at the possibility of moving out of my parent's house and living on a campus. I also visited Roberts Wesleyan, where I was hosted for a night by one of the students. We sat in this guy's dorm room with his friends and watched a basketball game while they drank beer. Then we went out to the movies and saw Payback starring Mel Gibson. I didn't care for basketball, and got the sense I wouldn't fit in there, so I didn't think of Roberts Wesleyan as an option after that.

We also visited Messiah College, where I got a tour, but didn't spend the night. I had no strong feelings about that place. On that same trip down to Pennsylvania, we visited Eastern College, which my mom had heard about while listening to a pledge fundraiser on Christian Radio. For any person whose child went to Eastern College and donated $20, some other donor had pledged to donate an additional $20. So we arranged to have me stay at Eastern for a night, and I stayed with a couple of guys, Joel and Travis, and not much really happened. We watched a bunch of comedies like Wayne's World and Dirty Work, and I met a lot of their friends. And I felt like I fit in there, so that's what I picked.

In retrospect, I now realize that, had I foregone my parent's assistance with tuition and studied art at a SUNY school, I would have come out with the same amount of debt I accumulated going to Eastern. But that required too much number crunching for me. And besides, I got a sensible degree. I was an English major. Who knows what would have happened had I gone to Art School? Who knows what would have happened if I went to Bible School?

Still, I remember from time to time that I once knew a guy named Dagon for two days, and always thought it strange that this was his name. I mean, he was a Christian, and it is a name from the Bible, so it almost makes sense. However, Dagon was the pagan god of the Philistines, or as the dictionary says, a Phoenician god of agriculture; not a very Christian name, per se. There were a lot of farms around there. But I never asked him the story of his name, and I never saw him again.

The Long Goodbye: Book, movie, and goodness in general

Spoiler alert: I'm going to talk discuss the plot of both the movie and the book versions of Raymond Chandler's The Long Goodbye and specifically how the twist ending differs between them.

A little more than a week ago I finished The Long Goodbye, a detective novel by Raymond Chandler (I'm almost done with his entire oeuvre, just a few pages left on Playback, and then I'm going to give the posthumously released Poodle Springs a try.), who many say is the greatest of all crime writers. I am not very familiar with crime/mystery fiction, but I must say that Chandler is now one of my favorite authors, having read most of his books in the last six months or so. The Long Goodbye is his longest book, and I've heard it called his best. I'm still partial to The Little Sister, and a few of his short stories stick out to me, like Goldfish and Red Wind. But The Long Goodbye is a fine book. I watched the movie version directed by Robert Altman a few years ago, so I had a vague notion of how it ended, but the book was very different from the movie. And the ending is quite different, although the major plot point that Terry Lennox faked his death, and he's still alive, remains intact.

After finishing the book I decided to re-watch the movie. I remembered liking it the first time I watched it, but I didn't recall the details of how it differed from the book. The primary difference is that the story is set in the 1970s, the time of the movie's release (1973). The costumes and scenery and style of dialogue were all updated. But the moral compass of the film was also updated to 1970s morality. To me, this was more interesting to think about. Raymond Chandler builds the protagonist of his novels, private investigator Philip Marlowe, into a simple, smart and tough, at times funny hero-figure. He is always good, and he is almost always right. In Altman's film version, screenwriter Leigh Brackett turns Good and Right on their heads.

Here's the plot of the novel:

Philip Marlowe observes a guy making a drunken fool of himself in the parking lot of a night club. He decides to help him out. He takes him home, gives him a place to sleep and sobers him up, and learns his name is Terry Lennox. We find out that Terry Lennox is rich, or at least married into a rich family. Marlowe keeps running into him, so we learn that Terry gets a divorce. Then he leaves town with Marlowe's help. Some time later he returns, shows up at Marlowe's office, asks him out for a drink and tells him that he's remarrying his ex-wife. After this, Terry regularly drops by at Marlowe's office, and they go for a drink in the late afternoon. If you know Marlowe like I do, after having read several of Chandler's novels, then you know he's a loner, and this short-lived relationship with Terry Lennox is about as close to friendship as he ever gets.

One day, Terry shows up at Marlowe's door, disheveled, with a gun in his hand, and asks Marlowe to drive him to the Tijuana airport. Marlowe doesn't ask any questions; he just takes him. As Terry is leaving to get on the plane, he tells Marlowe that he killed his wife. But Marlowe is suspicious about the circumstances and doesn't believe him. When Marlowe gets back to Los Angeles the cops take him in for questioning regarding the death of Terry Lennox's wife, but he refuses to say anything about having just driven Terry to the airport. He refuses to believe that Terry could have done this.

Marlowe is held in a jail cell for a while and eventually he is informed that Terry committed suicide in a small Mexican village after writing out a confession to the murder. Marlowe is released. He still refuses to believe that Terry committed the murder.

Somehow word gets out about his loyalty to his friend and he is soon hired for a job on the basis of his ability to stand up to the cops. At this point the rest of the plot begins, and at first it seems to have little to do with Terry Lennox, but slowly everything some how points back to Terry. Marlowe uncovers the true murderer and is vindicated. But the real mystery is, Why did Terry lie to him? Marlowe is left puzzling over this when he is visited by someone who claims to be able to prove that Terry committed suicide. Marlowe quickly figures out that this man is Terry in disguise, that he faked his death by bribing the police in Mexico. He is disappointed. There is a significant amount of violence and death throughout the novel that can be directly attributed to the fact that Terry faked his death.

Marlowe was only half-correct in his assessment of Terry. He knew that he wasn't a murderer, but he was unaware of how he was being used. He allowed himself to befriend this individual and then gave him  more credit than he deserved. The title of the book is The Long Goodbye and refers to how we reconcile with the death of a friend. But when the truth is revealed, Marlowe's friend is not dead, only their friendship. The book ends with Terry walking away. "That was the last I saw of him," Marlowe narrates.

Now consider the plot of the movie. It begins with Terry showing up at Marlowe's door, asking for a ride to Tijuana, with no explanation for how they met or the nature of their relationship. Then the rest of the story happens, mostly the same but severely truncated and missing many major characters from the novel. But instead of Marlowe discovering the killer in this lengthy and substantial subplot, he learns that he was wrong. Terry murdered his wife after all. Marlowe is made a sucker for helping him. He goes in pursuit of Terry, finds him in Mexico and guns him down.

Unlike the Marlowe of Raymond Chandler's imagination, Altman's Marlowe is gullible, incorrect, and lacks self-control. The film rejects Chandler's 1950s sense of morality as fraudulent. It reacts against the novel by telling a mostly similar story, but making its meaning be the opposite. The fact that Marlowe is entirely wrong, rather than half-right, and he responds to this truth with a murderous rage (which the film attempts to depict as justice) completely undermines Raymond Chandler's message that goodness must be naive at times or else it isn't worth it.

Here's a excerpt from the novel. Marlowe has come out of an inquest involving the suicide of one of his clients. He and a police officer named Bernie Ohls have been talking. Ohls says:

"You're an awful lucky boy, Marlowe. Twice you've slid out from under a heavy one. You could get overconfident. You were pretty helpful to those people and you didn't make a dime. You were pretty helpful to a guy named Lennox too, the way I hear it. And you didn't make a dime out of that one either. What do you do for eating money, pal? You got a lot saved so you don't have to work anymore?"

I stood up and walked around the desk and faced him, "I'm a romantic, Bernie. I hear voices crying in the night and I go see what's the matter. You don't make a dime that way. You got sense, you shut your windows and turn up more sound on the TV set. Or you shove down on the gas and get far away from there. Stay out of other people's troubles. All it can get you is the smear. The last time I saw Terry Lennox we had a cup of coffee together that I made myself in my house, and we smoked a cigarette. So when I heard he was dead I went out to the kitchen and made some coffee and poured a cup for him and lit a cigarette for him and when the coffee was cold and the cigarette was burned down I said goodnight to him. You don't make a dime that way. You wouldn't do it. That's why you're a good cop and I'm private eye..."

Raymond Chandler tried to give us a way to think about how we approach various situations in life. Yes, the world is a cynical place to live. You get get used-up sometimes, but according to Chandler, that's no reason to not be Good. Altman and Hackett instead show us a Marlowe who is delusional in his judgment of character, and who in turn becomes a victim/avenger of fallacy. The 1970s Marlowe is a product of his environment and a slave to instinct. The 1950s Marlowe believes he can overcome the evil of the world with good. Both storytellers have a claim on the truth. I can understand both outlooks, but I prefer 1950s Marlowe.