Disquiet, Please!

by David Remnick

  Standing in her living room, surrounded by her art collection, my mother frequently warned us that death brought out the worst in people. “You kids might think you’re close, but just wait until your father and I are gone, and you’re left to divide up our property. Then you’ll see what savages you really are.”

  My sisters and I had always imagined that when the time came, we would calmly move through the house, putting our names on this or that. Lisa would get the dessert plates, Amy the mixer, and so on, without dissent. It was distressing, then, to discover that the one thing we all want is that toadstool. It’s a symbol of the people our parents used to be, and, more than anything in the house itself, it looks like art to us. When my father dies, I envision a mad dash through the front door, past the Hibel and the Bradlingtons, past “Cracked Man” and “Balloon Man” and into Indian territory, where we’ll push one another down the stairs, six connoisseurs, all with gray hair, charging toward a concrete toadstool.

  2006

  JACK HANDEY

  IDEAS FOR PAINTINGS

  BECAUSE I love art, I am offering the following ideas for paintings to all struggling artists out there. Some of those artists may be thinking, Hey, I’ve got good ideas of my own. Really? Then why are you struggling?

  These ideas are free of charge. All I ask is that when you have completed a painting, as a courtesy to me you sign it “Jack Handey and [your name or initials].” And, if the painting is sold, I get approximately all the money.

  Good luck! Let’s get painting!

  STAMPEDE OF NUDES

  The trouble with most paintings of nudes is that there isn’t enough nudity. It’s usually just one woman lying there, and you’re looking around going, “Aren’t there any more nudes?” This idea solves that.

  What has frightened these nudes? Is it the lightning in the background? Or did one of the nudes just spook? You don’t know, and this creates tension.

  MADE YOU LOOK

  This idea is difficult to execute, but could turn out to be a masterpiece. It depicts a grandly dressed lady looking straight at you. At first, her look seems to say, “Quick, look behind you!” So you turn around, and when you look at her again her expression now seems to be one of smug satisfaction.

  THE BLEAK HOTEL

  A man is staring out the window of a bleak hotel room. He looks depressed. From the side, flying through the air, is a football. And you realize, If he’s depressed now, just wait until he gets hit in the head by that football.

  THE REPENTANT CAMERON DIAZ

  Cameron Diaz, her tear-streaked face lit by a candle, gazes wistfully at a photograph of me.

  THE WEARY PEASANTS

  Some tired-looking peasants are walking down a road at sunset, carrying sheaves of wheat. A nobleman in a fancy coach is coming up from behind. This creates drama, because you’re thinking, Why don’t those peasants get out of the way?

  SELF-PORTRAIT WITH STARTLED EXPRESSION

  The key here is to be able to constantly startle yourself as you’re painting. One option is to hire a professional startler, but that can get expensive. (The best ones are from Ireland.) Be sure to use opening the bill from your startler as a free startle.

  THE DEATH OF HERCULES

  An old Hercules is being lifted into the air by angels. On the one hand, it makes you sad, but on the other you think, He’s still in pretty good shape.

  ABSTRACT WHITE NO. I

  This is a solid-white painting. You might be asking, “Is it okay to put in a fleck of color here and there?” I give up. Do whatever you want.

  THE BOXERS

  Two boxers are whaling away at each other in a boxing ring. But then you notice that the people in the audience are also fighting one another. And it makes you ask: Who are the truly barbaric ones here, the boxers or the spectators? Then you can turn the painting over and read the answer: “The boxers.”

  THE FRENCH LOVERS

  A French dandy is embracing his beautiful buxom lover in a lush, overgrown garden. This painting should be in the shape of binoculars.

  STILL LIFE WITH RABBIT

  A wooden table is chockablock with fruit, cheese, and a glass of wine. To one side is a dead rabbit, a dead pheasant, and a dead eel. And you’re thinking, Thanks for the fruit, but, man, take better care of your pets.

  STILL LIFE WITH BEETS, CAULIFLOWER, LIVER, AND LARGE GLASS OF BEER

  Just kidding. Only the beer.

  THE EXPULSION OF ADAM AND EVE

  Biblical themes sell well. In this one, God hovers over Adam and Eve, kicking them out of the Garden of Eden. As they leave, in an aside to Eve, Adam imitates the expression on God’s face.

  THE JOLLY DANCER

  The scene is a flatboat on the Ohio River. A frontiersman who looks like me is doing his funny cowboy dance. Everyone seems to be enjoying the dance except for an insane simpleton who looks like my so-called friend Don. Crawling up behind Don is a big snapping turtle.

  UNTITLED

  This can pretty much be anything. Just remember to make it good, and to put my name on it.

  2006

  HENRY ALFORD

  THE KNOWLEDGE

  In preparation for an expected onslaught of visitors to York, England, W. H. Auden’s birth city, cab drivers have been memorizing some of his poetry.… When tourists arrive to celebrate the centenary of Mr. Auden’s birth this year, their cabbies will recite his verse. —The Times

  E was me Norf, me Souf, me East and West,

  Me working week and me Sund’y rest,

  Me noon, me midnight, me talk, me song;

  I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.

  ’E ’ad a gentleman friend, Mr. Auden did, dinnee? Bit of a trouser man, orroight? That seems to be the way nowadays, innit, wif actors and MPs and clergy and wot ’ave you. In my day, there weren’t a need to fling yer spanky knackers into other folks’ faces all jumble-wumble and ’ere’s-mine-guv’nor. Though the missus did drag me to see Mr. Rudolf Nureyev at the ballet once. That man packed a full bag of groceries, dinnee?

  Lady, weepin’ at the crossroads,

  Would yer maight yer love

  In the twilight wif ’is greyhounds,

  And the ’awk on ’is glove?

  ’Ello, ’ello—bit complicated, that one, it starts to go ower yer ’ead, so supposin’ I shed some light on some of its more shadowy byways. Crooks and nannies it ’as. Now, this ’ere is wot they call parsin’, not as in parse-the-butter-please-luv but as in parse-the-poem-so-we-don’t-all-feel-like-bleedin’-eejits. What Mr. Auden is doin’ in this one, I think, is forebodin’ some of the messin’ about we’re currently seein’ in the Middle East, a topic on which I ’ave a ready familiarity, ’avin’ long been a fan o’ the chickpea in its various fried and non-fried guises. The ’awk on the glove, of course, bein’ yer vivid symbol of the U.S.’s imperialist leanin’s and its might-makes-right attitude toward both its client states and other superpowers, orroight? Mr. Auden asks us, Is it roight that the country wif the most advantages should act this way? Course it ain’t, guv’nor. But that’s life, innit? ’Snot fair! ’Snot fair atall! The bone Mr. Auden would like us to chew on ’ere is the question: Does Mr. Bush ’ave any conception or understandin’ of all this? Does ’e, then? Yer as welcome as Christmas to yer own opinion, but I think not. Mr. B. simply thinks ’e’s sendin’ a message to those wogs over in Arsefuckistan, if you’ll pardon my parlay-voo. Problem is, the message ain’t in their language, see? It’s a birfday ’at on a cactus—needles where yer wants ears.

  Self-drivers may curse their luck,

  Stuck on new-fangled trails,

  But the good old train’ll jog

  To the dogma of its rails.

  Corblimey, ’e was good, Auden was! Prince of a writer. Don’ fink ’e ever drove a cab, but ’e mighta done, ’e mighta done. The writah mightah triedah done.… Nah—’e was a tutor, professor, reviewer. Collaborator. If I remember my preparatory materials correctly, ’e was collegial-like wif Mr.
Christopher Isherwood, and I believe the collegiality extended into other areas, such as each other’s Y-fronts. But yer can ’ardly blame Auden, can yer? I mean, ’is mate’s name was practically I sure would. So yer would, wouldn’t yer? Of course yer would. I mean, Bob is, after all, yer uncle.

  Sing, Ariel, sing,

  Sweetly, dangerously

  Out of the sour

  And shiftless water,

  Lucidly out

  Of the dozin’ tree,

  Entrancin’, rebukin’

  The ragin’ ’eart

  Wif a smoother song

  Than this rough world,

  Unfeelin’ god.

  This bit ’ere that I’ve memorized for the ed-you-fication and innertainment of me passengers is not entirely related to the followin’ anecdote, orroight, but I will tell you that I once drove Miss Vicky Entwistle from Coronation Street all the way from Tower Street ’ere in York to Paddington Station. Very good tipper, Vicky Entwistle is. Very good, sure as nuts. I don’ give two monkeys about ’er theatricalizin’, but I’ll praise her way round a pound note, I will. ’Er fans worship ’er, and the ol’ gal worships ’em right back—as I always tell me wife, “We must love one another or die alone.”

  Yer need not see what someone is doin’

  to know if it is ’is vocation,

  yer ’ave only to watch ’is eyes:

  a cook mixin’ a sauce, a surgeon

  makin’ a primary incision,

  a clerk completin’ a bill of ladin’,

  wear the same rapt expression,

  forgettin’ ’emselves in a function.

  But, see ’ere, I’m a driver, I am, so I can’t intirely forget meself in a function, roight, I’ve got to keep me beady eyes peeled for—[CRASH]—Oh, crikey! Bleedin’ Christ! Jaysus H. Christ. Are yer a’roight, guv? Dinnit see ’im comin’! Roight out o’ nowhere ’e come! Eyes of a killer ’e ’as. ’Ow is’t? Are yer able to move? ’Ere’s an ’andkerchief for stanchin’ purposes, orroight?

  Oh, God in ’eaven, whatever ’ave we done to deserve this? Where’s Auden when yer needs him? “Lady weepin’ at the crossroads” doesn’t even begin to describe it, now, duzzit? Nah, nah. But I suppose “unfeelin’ God” ’as some of the resonance that we ask o’ the classics.… Take the thick wif th’ thin, and this were a bit o’ thin, wot? Orroight, ’ang on, guv. ’Ang on. Just keep breavin’. We’ll ’ave you in ’ospital in no time, sure as nuts. No time atall … Yer niver knows where a poem’ll take yer, do yer? One minute yer parsin’ some of the better Auden, and the next yer covered in blood, face down on the back seat of a cab that ’asn’t ’ad a proper washin’-up since the Profumo affair. Nasty business, poetry. Nastier than a tainted cockle. More of a prose man, meself.

  2007

  SONG OF MYSELF

  DOROTHY PARKER

  THE LITTLE HOURS

  NOW what’s this? What’s the object of all this darkness all over me? They haven’t gone and buried me alive while my back was turned, have they? Ah, now would you think they’d do a thing like that! Oh, no, I know what it is. I’m awake. That’s it. I’ve waked up in the middle of the night. Well, isn’t that nice. Isn’t that simply ideal. Twenty minutes past four, sharp, and here’s Baby wide-eyed as a marigold. Look at this, will you? At the time when all decent people are just going to bed, I must wake up. There’s no way things can ever come out even, under this system. This is as rank as injustice is ever likely to get. This is what brings about revolutions, that’s what this does.

  Yes, and you want to know what got me into this mess? Going to bed at ten o’clock, that’s what. That spells ruin. T-e-n-space-o-apostrophe-c-l-o-c-k: ruin. Early to bed, and you’ll wish you were dead. Bed before eleven, nuts before seven. Bed before morning, sailors give warning. Ten o’clock, after a quiet evening of reading. Reading—there’s an institution for you. Why, I’d turn on the light and read, right this minute, if reading weren’t what contributed toward driving me here. I’ll show it. God, the bitter misery that reading works in this world! Everybody knows that—everybody who is everybody. All the best minds have been off reading for years. Look at the swing La Rochefoucauld took at it. He said that if nobody had ever learned to read, very few people would be in love. There was a man for you, and that’s what he thought of it. Good for you, La Rochefoucauld; nice going, boy. I wish I’d never learned to read. I wish I’d never learned to take off my clothes. Then I wouldn’t have been caught in this jam at half-past four in the morning. If nobody had ever learned to undress, very few people would be in love. No, his is better. Oh, well, it’s a man’s world.

  LA ROCHEFOUCAULD, indeed, lying quiet as a mouse, and me tossing and turning here! This is no time to be getting all steamed up about La Rochefoucauld. It’s only a question of minutes before I’m going to be pretty darned good and sick of La Rochefoucauld, once and for all. La Rochefoucauld this and La Rochefoucauld that. Yes, well, let me tell you that if nobody had ever learned to quote, very few people would be in love with La Rochefoucauld. I bet you I don’t know ten souls who read him without a middleman. People pick up those rambling little essays that start off “Was it not that lovable old cynic, La Rochefoucauld, who said …,” and then they go around claiming to know the master backwards. Pack of illiterates, that’s all they are. All right, let them keep their La Rochefoucauld, and see if I care. I’ll stick to La Fontaine. Only I’d be better company if I could quit thinking that La Fontaine married Alfred Lunt.

  I don’t know what I’m doing mucking about with a lot of French authors at this hour, anyway. First thing you know, I’ll be reciting Fleurs du Mal to myself, and then I’ll be little more good to anybody. And I’ll stay off Verlaine too; he was always chasing Rimbauds. A person would be better off with La Rochefoucauld, even. Oh, damn La Rochefoucauld. The big Frog. I’ll thank him to keep out of my head. What’s he doing there, anyhow? What’s La Rochefoucauld to me, or he to Hecuba? Why, I don’t even know the man’s first name, that’s how close I ever was to him. What am I supposed to be, a stooge for La Rochefoucauld? That’s what he thinks. Sez he. Well, he’s only wasting his time, hanging around here. I can’t help him. The only other thing I can remember his saying is that there is always something a little pleasing to us in the misfortunes of even our dearest friends. That cleans me all up with Monsieur La Rochefoucauld. Maintenant c’est fini, ça.

  Dearest friends. A sweet lot of dearest friends I’ve got. All of them lying in swinish stupors, while I’m practically up and about. All of them stretched sodden through these, the fairest hours of the day, when man should be at his most productive. Produce, produce, produce, for I tell you the night is coming. Carlyle said that. Yes, and a fine one he was, to go shooting off his face on the subject. Oh, Thomas Carli-yill, what I know about you-oo! No, that will be enough of that. I’m not going to start fretting about Carlyle, at this stage of the game. What did he ever do that was so great, besides founding a college for Indians? (That crack ought to flatten him.) Let him keep his face out of this, if he knows what’s good for him. I’ve got enough trouble with that lovable old cynic, La Rochefoucauld—him and the misfortunes of his dearest friends!

  The first thing I’ve got to do is get out and whip me up a complete new set of dearest friends; that’s the first thing. Everything else can wait. And will somebody please kindly be so good as to inform me how I am ever going to meet up with any new people when my entire scheme of living is out of joint—when I’m the only living being awake while the rest of the world lies sleeping? I’ve got to get this thing adjusted. I must try to get back to sleep right now. I’ve got to conform to the rotten little standards of this sluggard civilization. People needn’t feel that they have to change their ruinous habits and come my way. Oh, no, no; no, indeed. Not at all. I’ll go theirs. If that isn’t the woman of it, for you! Always having to do what somebody else wants, like it or not. Never able to murmur a suggestion of her own.

  AND what suggestion has anyone to murmur as to how I am goin
g to drift lightly back to slumber? Here I am, awake as high noon what with all this milling and pitching around with La Rochefoucauld. I really can’t be expected to drop everything and start counting sheep, at my age. I hate sheep. Untender it may be in me, but all my life I’ve hated sheep. It amounts to a phobia, the way I hate them. I can tell the minute there’s one in the room. They needn’t think that I am going to lie here in the dark and count their unpleasant little faces for them; I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t fall asleep again until the middle of next August. Suppose they never get counted—what’s the worst that can happen? If the number of imaginary sheep in this world remains a matter of guesswork, who is richer or poorer for it? No, sir; I’m not going to be the patsy. Let them count themselves, if they’re so crazy mad after mathematics. Let them do their own dirty work. Coming around here, at this time of day, and asking me to count them! And not even real sheep, at that. Why, it’s the most preposterous thing I ever heard in my life.