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nexttrickanvils · 5 years

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Partners

Written for Day 3 of Ryukita Week: Partners in Crime

Characters: Yusuke Kitagawa, Ryuji Sakamoto, unnamed OCs

Notes: Takes place a few years post-game.

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Ryuji looked around the crowd and nervously tugged the collar of his dress shirt.

What was Yusuke thinking, asking him to be here? What was Ryuji thinking, saying “yes?” It’s not that he didn’t want to support his husband. It’s just… Ryuji could feel the stares and disapproving looks from the minute they walked into the museum. God it was like his second year at Shujin all over again.

“Why would Kitagawa-San bring someone like that here?”

“Isn’t he a little too old to be dyeing his hair like some teenage punk?”

“He looks like he’s going to threaten someone any minute now.”

...Whatever. Ryuji ain’t here for these people, he’s here for Yusuke and like hell he was gonna spoil his husband’s big night.

“Not enjoying the show?”

Ryuji turned to the right and saw a young woman in a teal dress that seemed to match her long hair. He remembered seeing her picture in the event pamphlet… what was her name again? Kai- something or other?

“Nah just uh… this um… I ain’t- I mean I’m not used to this kinda event. I’m mostly here for my husband.” Ryuji responded, scratching the back of his head

The woman smiled, “Nothing wrong with that, these shows can be overwhelming for newcomers. But I’m sure that your husband is incredibly thankful for your support. Not to mention this must be an exciting chance to expand your horizons and connect with him.”

“I guess?”

She turns to the painting in front of them, “Well why don’t I give you a head start? Do you have any thoughts on this piece?”

Ryuji takes a deep breath as he looks at the painting, a portrait of a woman who looked like she was playing a large instrument in the ocean. He tries to really take in the picture and find something to say something besides “the colors are nice.”

“...It’s… it’s weird but it kinda feels calming...”

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From a few feet away, Yusuke smiles as he watches Ryuji and Kaioh-San discuss her latest work. He was pleased that at least one person saw his husband’s enthusiasm and earnestness…

“Hmph, they’ll let anyone in here these days.”

“Apparently he came with Kitagawa.”

“So he’s here out of pity then?”

...A shame that others refused to see what he did. Though Yusuke cannot say he didn’t expect this, having been on the receiving end of various gossip over the years. He shoots a dark glare at the older pair before attempting to join Ryuji and Kaioh-San.

He took three steps…

“...Listen to him. He sounds like a child trying to be an adult...”

“What does Kitagawa see in him?”

...and walked straight to the two “gentlemen.” Immediately upon noticing Yusuke, the two were all smiles.

“Good evening Kitagawa-kun!”

“How are you enjoying the show so-”

Yusuke’s expression further darkens, “If the two of you have a problem with my beau then say it to us directly instead of prattling behind our backs.”

He walks away and continues his original path before the two could sputter a response.

Ryuji had long since walked away but Kaioh-San still stood before her work. As Yusuke approached her, the teal-haired artist bowed in greeting.

“Evening, Kitagawa-san. I’m sorry that you’ve had to deal with such rude guests tonight.”

“Ah… you saw that? But please do not feel that you must apologize for the actions of others.”

“They won’t apologize so I might as well in their stead. Your partner deserves one as well, I can tell that he’s a good man who doesn’t deserve all the impolite talk he’s been getting.”

“Speaking of Ryuji, have you seen where he went?”

She points to the west and Yusuke sees Ryuji bashfully speaking with a small crowd.

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Ryuji wasn’t entirely sure how he got here. One moment he was stepping away to get something to drink, the next he got caught up in a conversation with a small group about one of Yusuke’s paintings. He couldn’t really tell them about Yusuke’s methods or anything technical (“This sh- stuff flies right over my head. You’re better off asking the artist himself.”)

But he gladly told them about the inspiration (“This was during the first snowfall of the year...”) and just how determined Yusuke was to get it right (“You should have seen the way his eyes lit up when we saw that sunset, he had to get it perfect.”) He was surprised by how genuinely interested the group was in what he had to say.

“Hahaha! Living with Kitagawa-San sounds like quite an adventure.” replied a middle aged man

“Eh, I dunno if I’d say that. But I’ve known him since high school so maybe I’m used to it and...”

“Hmph, it would explain why you heap so much praise on this mediocre piece.”

Ryuji and the others turn to see a young woman with a bored expression on her face.

“What did you say?” he asked with a glare

The woman shot one back, “You heard me. I’ve seen Kitagawa’s early works and there was a spark of creativity there. But now it seems he’s reduced himself to “charming” landscapes. Anything to pay the bills I suppose...”

“BULLSHIT!”

All eyes are on him with that shout. The woman looked at Ryuji like he personally insulted her.

“Excuse me!?”

“You heard me. You didn’t see how hard Yusuke worked on this-”

“Hard work doesn’t always equal quality. You can “work hard” on a piece of pottery but it could still be misshapen or have cracks. No one will or should give it a pass because of how hard the artist worked. But I guess someone like you wouldn’t understand.”

“Okay sure I ain’t really the artsy type but I know that art don’t gotta be perfect! And I know there sure as hell more to art than saying something’s trash just cause it’s not what you want!”

The woman narrows her eyes at Ryuji, “I will not be lectured by some vulgar imbecile!”

She sulks away and it’s only then that Ryuji realizes what he did and said.

Shit. Shit! SHIT! SHIT SHIT SHIT! He probably just burned ANY goodwill he made with the other guests. He probably just screwed up Yusuke’s night.

He freezes as he feels a hand on his shoulder. Dammit it’s probably a security guard telling him to get the hell out.

“Ryuji...”

Ryuji turns around and sees Yusuke smiling. He wishes he can return that smile.

“Sorry babe. I couldn’t keep my trap shut and...”

“You have nothing to apologize for. That woman has a reputation for being particularly harsh and bit of a contrarian.”

“...I still shouldn’t have...”

A loud laugh rang out and the two looked over to the man that Ryuji was speaking with earlier.

“I admit I wouldn’t have chosen the words you did but I can still admire the passion behind them! You should consider yourself a lucky man to have him at your side, Kitagawa-san.”

Yusuke simply nodded, “I do. Thank you.”

---------

The rest of the evening played out without much drama. A few guests continued to glare at and gossip about Ryuji but they were quickly silenced with cold glares from Yusuke.

Eventually the two found themselves ready to head home to their small apartment. They wished everyone a good night, called for a cab as they exited the museum, and waited.

Now that they were alone, Ryuji looked at Yusuke and sighed.

“I’m sorry.”

“What for?”

“I feel like I kinda ruined the night for you.”

“I already told you that you had nothing to apologize...”

“Not just for that! Kaioh-san told me about those two guys you confronted. And I noticed all the glares you kept giving people all night. Some of those people might’ve even thought of buying a painting or two until you stepped in to defend me. You don’t gotta do that for me, I’m used to this kinda shit. I know this ain’t really my scene.”

There was a brief silence then Ryuji felt Yusuke’s hand on his chin and a kiss on his lips as he turned to face his husband. Yusuke soon pulls away only to rest his forehead against Ryuji’s.

“Ryuji, you are my partner. You are also my friend and one of my greatest inspirations. If those who judged you harshly could not see that, then perhaps it is best that they merely pass by my art.”

Ryuji stared at Yusuke for a moment before smiling and bursting into laughter.

“Geez, I still don’t get how you can say all that cheesy stuff! But… thanks babe.”

The two stood together like that until the cab arrived to take them home.

#Persona 5 #Ryukitaweek2019 #Ryukita #Yusuke Kitagawa #Ryuji Sakamoto #Anvil Writings

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corkcitylibraries · 4 years

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Book Review | Ottessa Moshfegh’s Death in Her Hands

by Dr. Sorcha Fogarty

Although the hotly anticipated Death in Her Hands is the fourth published novel by Ottessa Moshfegh, its writing predates her two most successful books – 2018’s My Year of Rest and Relaxation, in which a disaffected young woman attempts, with the aid of prescription medicine, to sleep for a year; and her 2016 breakthrough, Eileen, a thriller recounted by an anxious and alcoholic protagonist. It makes sense to read Death in Her Hands in this context – the novel has a lot in common with both books, and is experimenting with many of the same formal challenges that make Moshfegh such an interesting and exciting writer. With her third novel, Moshfegh has crafted another macabre, isolated female protagonist, and again uses genre—this time a murder-mystery—to set a character study into motion.

Essentially, the novel is the author’s latest treatise on malignant isolation, a rambling, close-up psychodrama that explores the mysteries of an unreliable mind. Vesta Gul is an elderly widow who lives with her dog, Charlie, in a cabin on a lake in a small, snowy town, far away from her old life with her recently deceased husband. Her existence is solitary by choice, but also decidedly lonely: “It had been so long since I’d socialized at all. The winter had been long. And I had no friends, nobody to meet for lunch, to go to the cinema, even to chat to on the phone. I didn’t even have a phone.” One morning, she discovers a handwritten note in the birch woods, the text of which supplies the book’s opening: “Her name was Magda. Nobody will ever know who killed her. It wasn’t me. Here is her dead body." She finds no dead body.

Vesta, whose name is derived from the Ancient Greek ἑστία: hestía, “to dwell”, indeed dwells upon the problem. She becomes convinced that the murder is real, despite the absence of a body, and begins to investigate haphazardly. It’s impossible to ignore, reading Death in Her Hands, how much detective work resembles writing a story. In fact, Vesta lingers over it, looking up “top tips for mystery writers” to aid her investigation and deeming the task “a creative endeavor, not some calculated procedure.” Death in Her Hands has been described as a novel which shows another way of dealing with loneliness and unnameable grief: desperately clamping onto a familiar story form in order to organize one’s pain, fear and the voices in one’s head. In a New York Times interview, Moshfegh called Death in Her Hands a “loneliness story.” Widowed and friendless in her twilight years, Vesta lives in an isolated cabin, in an area she just moved to, with only her big, lumbering, loyal dog for company. Each time Vesta returns to an idea, her theories become firmer in her mind and more extreme. It makes for a dynamic relationship with the reader—that of listening to a wide-eyed storyteller who embellishes every chance she gets, her language growing more and more graphic, seemingly outside of her control. “There were probably worms and maggots crawling up her lips and into her mouth. How could she talk at all with a mouth full of stuff like that?” Vesta wonders of the missing victim. The narrator has no internet, no phone, no friends, and is disdainful of the area’s residents, who she sees as uncultured, impoverished, unhealthy Even when Vesta relates the admittedly mundane details of her solitary life—talking to her dog, eating stale bagels, reading books she doesn’t particularly like—her voice is enlivened. She self-aggrandizes while insisting she’s “just a little old lady.”She despises the locals,. Her daily schedule revolves around walks with Charlie and a weekly grocery trip for rubbery bagels and rotisserie chicken. It would be mind-numbing — the loneliness, the boredom — were it not for the urgent task that falls into her lap: solving a murder. But amid the Agatha Christie-style mystery is a metaphysical examination of Vesta’s own life, including deep-seeded regret and resentment toward her late husband.

In a way, Vesta’s plight mirrors the anxieties and frustrations of life under stay-at-home orders. Many of us have wallowed in our own versions of isolation in recent months, wherein time has become blurred and loneliness has festered. At one point, Vesta makes a remark that could have been lifted from a COVID-10 quarantine diary: “Each day was like the day before, apart from the dwindling number of bagels, and the varying weather”. Bearing in mind the widely known connection between loneliness and psychiatric disorders, Vesta’s solitude makes her susceptibility to obsessive thinking all the more believable. As Vesta gets lost in her own imagination, she reveals more about her identity, which she is now only beginning to understand: the heartbreaks of her upbringing; the controlling nature of her late husband; and the expectations of life that have been unmet in her older age.

What was so remarkable about Moshfegh’s 2018 novel, My Year of Rest and Relaxation, was how entertaining it was despite its protagonist spending so much time sleeping, the novel relying, to a great extent, on the habitual. Just as with Rest And Relaxation and Eileen, Moshfegh has created another reclusive woman in Death in her Hands, and these are all women who are all trying to fix what ails them, clinging onto some sort of twisted hope that they can overcome their problems through actions which are usually counterintuitive. “Hope”, in the words of Seamus Heaney, glossing Václav Havel:

“is a state of the soul rather than a response to the evidence. It is not the expectation that things will turn out successfully but the conviction that something is worth working for, however it turns out. Its deepest roots are in the transcendental, beyond the horizon. If hope is a moral imperative, telling stories may be one way of obeying it.”

Moshfegh clues us in relatively early that this novel may neither be mystery nor murder at all. Perhaps the real mystery being unravelled in Death in her Hands is that we must decide whether the stories we tell ourselves guide us closer to the truth or keep us further from it.

Death in Her Hands is available to borrow from Cork City Libraries. Visit us at www.corkcitylibraries.ie to reserve a copy.

#corkcitylibraries #lovereading

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jillmckenzie1 · 5 years

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Colorado Poet Series: Interview with Alyse Knorr

The local literary scene is, one must remember, a community. (One you can be a part of, by the way, whether you’re a writer or reader!) In fact, after I interviewed the poet Elizabeth Robinson who connected me with fiction writer David Hicks, and it was David Hicks who recommended that I reach out to poet Alyse Knorr.

It was my pleasure to read two of Alyse Knorr’s poetry collections, Copper Mother and Mega-City Redux for the purpose of this interview. These collections of poetry and prose respectively are both delightfully dense and unusual explorations which perpetuate insightful cultural commentary within each of their respective narratives.

First, a little bit about Alyse:

Alyse Knorr is an assistant professor of English at Regis University and editor of Switchback Books. She is the author of the poetry collections Mega-City Redux (Green Mountains Review 2017), Copper Mother (Switchback Books 2016), and Annotated Glass (Furniture Press Books 2013), as well as the non-fiction book Super Mario Bros. 3 (Boss Fight Books 2016) and the poetry chapbooks Epithalamia (Horse Less Press 2015) and Alternates (dancing girl press 2014). Her work has appeared in Alaska Quarterly Review, Denver Quarterly, Columbia Poetry Review, The Greensboro Review, and ZYZZYVA, among others. She received her MFA from George Mason University, where she co-founded Gazing Grain Press.

Now, about Copper Mother (Switchback Books 2016):

“Through a startling mixture of forms and language, Copper Mother generates an unusual love story—of loving one’s world so tremendously that that world must be shared, at enormous risk and with unprecedented ingenuity and effort. The ‘Friends’ of Knorr’s universe bring their gentle curiosity to human heroics and frailties, and the humans—we humans—are redeemed by our eagerness to share our naked selves and by Jane, who bravely matches the terrors of mortality with a selfless faith in our capacity to love. Sincere even in its playful and fantastic moments, Knorr’s poetics emerges from a deep groove of mourning all that we have to lose and will certainly lose, every day and on the last day, perhaps most of all ‘our mothers, tired/and lovely and floral and gone.’ In that mourning, though, runs an illimitable current of open-hearted reverence that is the best of humanity and beyond its possession—that craving for contact ‘[t]his world wishes across/space’ to whomever might accept our greeting and the belief that we are already together with loved ones, those we’ve lost and those we haven’t yet met, in the slippery fullness of time.” – Elizabeth Savage, author of Idylliad

And finally, about Mega-City Redux (Green Mountains Review 2017):

In 1405, Christine de Pizan, the world’s first professional writer, published an allegorical work called The Book of the City of Ladies, in which she imagined constructing (with the help of her fairy godmothers Reason, Rectitude, and Justice) a walled city where women could live safe from sexism, misogyny, and gendered violence. Six hundred years later, we still need such a city. Mega-City Redux charts a road-trip search for this mythical city today, with the help of 21st-century feminist heroes Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Xena Warrior Princess, and Dana Scully from The X-Files. Mega-City Redux is essential architecture built from ‘sword, suit, stake, and pen’ – feminine, marvelous, and mega-tough.”

– Mel Nichols, author of Catalytic Exteriorization Phenomenon

From here, we dialogue:

1. Your most recent projects, Mega-City Redux and Copper Mother inhabit unique worlds while following somewhat strange, utterly unpredictable narratives. How did the seedling ideas for these works germinate into their final works? Can you describe the creative decision-making process which led to their unique content and form?

The idea for Copper Mother came from a Radiolab interview with Ann Druyan in which Ann describes creating the Voyager Golden Record with her late husband, Carl Sagan, in 1977. NASA sent the Record into deep space with the hopes that an extraterrestrial civilization might find it, and it contains images, sounds, and languages from Earth meant to introduce our species to aliens. I started reading more and more about the Record, and started wondering what might happen if aliens did find the Record and come to Earth to talk to us about it. Ann ended up a character in the book as “Jane,” and I imagined that the aliens might have a technology that would allow present-day Jane to converse with her 1977 past-self. I’ve always been a big fan of science fiction, so I had a blast getting to play with some classic sci-fi tropes (like time travel and a moment of “first contact”) in the book.

I wrote Mega-City Redux after reading Christine de Pizan’sThe Book of the City of Ladies, a 1405 allegory in which Christine imagines building a walled city—with the help of her three fairy godmothers Reason, Rectitude, and Justice—where women can live safe from sexism and misogyny. I also wrote the book in the wake of the 2014 Isla Vista shootings, when a man shot and killed several women out of purely misogynistic hate. This violent tragedy made abundantly clear to me that we still need Christine’s City of Ladies today just as much as we did 600 years ago, so I imagined going on a road trip to find the City with my three personal fairy godmothers—Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Xena Warrior Princess, and Dana Scully.

With both of these projects, once I had the premise and the characters in mind, I just wrote as many poems as I could to try and see what would happen. I love to work in the novel-in-verse form because I get to build a world and create characters and then put them into interesting situations just to see what they’ll do. I love when my characters surprise me and when the plot takes a turn I didn’t see coming!

2. How did you arrive at the decision to source the unnamed female narrator’s fearless female companions Dana Scully, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Xena Warrior Princess, as companions? How are their popular personas purposed in your work, and what effect does their pre-established backstories have on your work? Why did you choose these characters specifically?

I’m a big TV buff, and TV has always been my outlet for self-exploration and my pathway to self-understanding. When I was a young girl, I couldn’t picture myself as the damsel in distress or the love interest in the media I consumed, but I could imagine myself into the role of hero in the form of a Ninja Turtle or Batman. I only felt ready to come out as a lesbian in graduate school after watching all six seasons of The L Word. And so, I really do consider Buffy, Xena, and Dana to be my feminist heroes or role models—they made a big impact on me when I first watched their shows, and they continue to mean a lot to me today.

At the time I wrote Mega-City Redux, I had also recently read Susan Douglas’s book Enlightened Sexism, which is all about the pop culture feminist TV renaissance of the 1990s-2000s, when shows like Buffy and Xena debuted with their fiercely feminist and also really campy and fun content. Even though Mega-City Redux is about very serious social issues, I wanted to have fun with it, and I loved the idea of spending time on a road trip with these three extremely different women. I loved thinking about how they might interact—how they might annoy each other in the car and how they might care for the other. I really appreciate that they’re all such different types of heroes, which I think is important for feminist dialogue. Dana is my Reason figure—logical and intellectual. Buffy is my Rectitude figure—she tries to set things right, which is an inherently vulnerable act to take. Xena is my Justice figure—she wrestles with the thin line between justice and revenge.

What’s great about these three characters is that they’re already so complex and have so much backstory—Dana Scully is the voice of reason to her partner Fox Mulder, and she’s a very logical, left-brained doctor—but she’s also a person of firm religious faith. This kind of complexity made it easy to work with my characters’ backstories and stay true to them without caricaturing them. But my main goal wasn’t to write about the shows or the characters but rather to take them and plop them into my narrative and go on this quest with them.

3. Mega-City Redux cleverly, humorously combines feminist content with pop culture imparting an accessible, modernized spin. What reader responses have surprised or impressed you? What role do feminist works such as your own play in the current political climate?

I’m always surprised to see just how much these pop culture figures mean to folks. I’ve had readers talk to me about how they first realized they were gay because of Dana or Xena, and I had a reader recently show me a photo of she and her wife dressed up as Xena and Gabrielle (Xena’s beloved) for Halloween. I teach a class on superheroes at Regis, and I love talking with my students about why pop culture matters. TV is often lightyears ahead of the mainstream public discourse, so it can advance social justice movements in powerful ways—shows like Glee and Grey’s Anatomy won a lot of hearts and minds over to the cause of LGBTQIA rights. But TV also acts—just like the Golden Record—as a kind of time capsule snapshot of our world and our culture at this specific moment in time. I love this inherent tension, and I love the space that pop culture creates for “serious play.”

When I read works like Frank O’Hara’s poem “Lana Turner Has Collapsed” or Gary Coleman’s book of superhero poems Missing You, Metropolis, I’m always reminded of the power of writing about our celebrity or our fictional pop culture heroes. These are our modern-day “saints” and icons—our role models and outlets and thought experiments. They can act as a kind of common language through which to discuss the issues of our time, and because they exist in another, imaginative realm, they’re also inherently full of possibility and potential. These, to me, are the ingredients of powerful dialogue.

4. While the majority of science fiction works treat alien arrival as synonymous with the apocalypse, Copper Mother approaches alien arrival with a tone of friendly, casual curiosity. What reason lies behind this significant, divergent decision?

I wrote Copper Mother while I was living in Alaska, and while we were there, my wife and I received many visitors—family and friends who had always wanted to go to Alaska and finally bought their plane tickets after we moved there. So we spent a lot of our time being tour guides—showing our visitors things and places that felt totally ordinary to us but that totally blew their minds (glaciers! moose! bald eagles!). I think for this reason, I imagined a real tenderness between the humans and Our Friends. They often have awkward but always well-meaning, sweet exchanges. The humans sincerely want to be good hosts and Our Friends genuinely want to be polite visitors. I’ve always been interested in what happens when two very different cultures or groups meet and interact, and on what gets included or neglected from the tour or the introductory conversations.

I’m also very invested in the sincerity of the Golden Record project itself—it’s our only truly “species-wide” project—the only artifact we have that attempts to represent us as a unified planet rather than a fractioned collection of different groups. There’s an inherent optimism in the idea of the Record itself—a beautiful hopefulness that I wanted to capture in my book. To launch the Record into space is to believe that someone will find it who wishes us well and wants to connect with us—and that’s the possibility I wanted to envision in my book, not the terrifying (and cliche!) apocalyptic one. I’m a pretty uncynical person by nature, so this was easy for me to imagine.

5. Throughout the work, the aliens, later joined by Then-Jane, communicate through sound effects. How did you go about developing these dialogues?

The Golden Record includes a tremendous amount of sound, including an address by Jimmy Carter, spoken greetings in 55 different languages, a wealth of music (including Beethoven, Chuck Berry, Navajo night chants, and mariachi), and a series of “sounds from Earth” (wind, rain, crickets, wolves howling, cars).

During my research, I learned that many astrobiologists believe that if extraterrestrials ever actually hear the Record, they probably won’t be able to distinguish between the different sounds included—their auditory organs and understanding of language may be so different from ours that they may not know the difference between the music, language, and natural sounds on the Record. For that reason, I wanted Our Friends (and Then-Jane, since she’s a product of the Record) to speak with a mixture of all the types of sounds included on the Record. All of the dialogue they speak comes from actual Record contents, whether it’s a thunderstorm or a hyena laughing or a trumpet wail. I like the way this allows me to play with the definition of “language”—which is something the Record does, too, by including whale song not in the natural sounds portion of the content, but in the languages section!

6. And finally, info on how to purchase both works!

The best way to purchase is to go out to my website, www.alyseknorr.com, and click the licks on the books to go to the publisher’s page.

from Blog https://ondenver.com/colorado-poet-series-interview-with-alyse-knorr/

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janiklandre-blog · 7 years

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Saturday, March 4, 2017

10:45 a.m. chilly day, Already 11:15 - remembered still other people to write to - and earlier, for the first time I got an interesting response from one of my readers - attributing the very worst qualities to me - making me worried will she want to talk to me again? - I am asking myself, how do I feel about that? Am I really the truly horrible person she describes - whose friend she has been willing to be - another reader had sent me an iterm from the Atlantic Magazine regarding the book Kate Hennessy has written about her grandmother Dorothy Day - who was praised for accepting the most undesirable people - and now is being sainted.

Accepting undesirable people. I have written how Paco said I attracted what he called subhumans - the computer is underlining the word red - perhaps it should not exist - but one woman at the CW, who definitely will remain unnamed one day to my amazement said: I know I am better than other people. She already previously had indicated to me that I definitely was worse - and that brings me back to my pet topic - earlier this morning I actually found out how many people at the CW do get labelled "mentally ill" - it is kindness sending them to Bellevue Hospital where they will "get help" - read once again urged to take medication most kindly provided to them for free - and that will make "human" - the kind of people accepted by society.

Well, I always point out the classifications Hitler and his people - millions? - found for undesirables, subhumans, mentally ill and of course all the racially defective - I one of them, with a Jewish grandfather - spending the first 13 years of my life - 1933 to 1945 - as an outcast, an alien, a stateless and powerless person - on the list to be kindly killed and society relieved of one more subhuman.

Sigh. How we classify each other - how good it felt to those who were part of the "Herrenrasse" - the pure arians - of course it is well known that Hitler and his cohorts all had some Jew in their closets. The list of undesirables was long - the camps to them to were ready - within hours the political opponents were arrested and summarily executed - same story for all dictadors - kill your enemies as fast as possible - but close to the top of the list, also, the mentally ill - useless people - their families were told they died of pneumonia or some disease - and many families wanted to believe it and were unbelieving when the truth came out later. The Jews are the best known categories - many riches to be gained by disowning them. The homosexuals - those now known as LBTG - marked with some pink labels, off to be gassed. Gypsies - useless. And of course all the Slavic people - in the areas to the East of Germany - the Lebensraum - space to live, Germany needed, with slave labor to work in agriculture, in the factories - well, much has been written about the class of Superior Human beings for whom only the best of the best was good enough.

In the Ph.D. dissertation I never came to write I was going to write about German women writers not very much older than I who had belonged to the superior group and described in novels and memoir the days of disillusionment - learning the truth - finding out what had been happening (some denial to this day) - and also of course they too had come to suffer from bombardment, shortages and losing their men in futile battles - the Russians of course lost millions and the allies also sacrificed many wonderful young men to the struggle.

Perhaps for me it is having been part of the subhumans myself that makes me see value in people whom others see as useless. In the item about Dorothy Day that a friend sent me it is emphasized how much Peter Maurin, the 20 year older Frenchman who providentially entered her life when she was in her early 30's - a man who had been a hobo and often was taken for a bum - contributed to her desire to help the hobos and bums of this world - and effective as she was - do it in a marvelously effective way - for which I envy her.

Well, it is noon time. I once again I missed a call from C.B. - immediately called, called again, texted, emailed - dead silence Upsetting.

All the upsets we have to deal with. Tried a third time to call. No answer.

Oh well. Yesterday I had a wonderful time with the daughter of a friend who goes back to 1955 - a friend from young days who remained a beloved fried until she died too young. We had children at the same time - alas never lived in the same place - but both were mobile enough=to meet up - twice in France, later she came to New York with some regularity and eventually I spent a summer in her house in Califiornia, alas she herself went to Germany so we did not have a lot of time together. She still came to New York. Now her daughter lives and teaches in Ithaca where I have visited her, several times she has come to New York - last Thursday she emailed me that she would be in New York the next day and she invited me for lunch at the Algonquin hotel - we spent three hours talking. Sadly she lost a most wonderful husband whom I too had dearly loved and it turned out that yesterday would have been their 23rd wedding anniversary - to a marvelous wedding in Greece where I had been invited but did not have the wherewithal at the time to go. One of several weddings I have missed. Her father is Greek and I just wrote to her, regretting that I talked a little too much yesterday - a feature of old people living alone who rarely get the chance of a great listener. Life has not been easy for her - I never came to cope with grief like her grief - I never experienced the deep love she and her husband shared. Stephen W. often quoted Buddhists saying, attachment causes suffering - and yet I regret the deep attachments I have missed in my life and at times even think, though not a Buddhist I may well have avoided attachments - caused by the fears of my childhood when I was torn from so many people, so many people died that perhaps I became afraid of being too deeply attached. She told me how her body reacted to her deep grief - and lucklly an excellent doctor recognized the symptoms for what they were and helped by natural means to deal with them.

She had mentioned going to Europe and only in parting I asked about it and it turns out that she has warm and loving relatives on her Greek father's side in Greece on an island - she also has a speaking engagement in Athens - and she hopes to be there for two months. Her one sibling, a brother, to whom she is very close lives in California where she has grown up - would have loved to get a job in California but in her field, comparative literature - she was one of 323 candidates who got the job in Ithaca. It is very cold in Ithaca and she said people find it hard to deal with here grief - she is a loving teacher to her students - but they are young. I felt very honored that she chose me to be with her on a day that was hard to her. She is a beautiful woman - also asked for my sons and hopes to meet them again.

Then I did look into the CW newspaper and happened to notice Kathy Kelly was speaking at the Friday night meeting, decided to go - about to leave my grandson called from downstairs - I am happy for people to drop in on me and I was glad I had not left yet - I suggested a quick bite for him at the diner on the corner of 5th Street and 2nd Ave - now called Kitchen Sink - we did get to talk a bit, then he walked me to CW and briefly listened to Kathy Kelly - who is an excellent speaker - only - little of it was new to the group she was addressing - meeting very well attended - she kept talking of the need to educate people - also one of my pet topics - and I would like to remind people of the Socialists of yesteryear - education was their goal - they formed groups that read books, they set up what was called "Volkshochschule" - a free people's university - my father taught there - in New York their was the Brecht Forum - now gone - and all that gets studied at the CW is the bible - the attendance has shrunk to three with enormous familiarity with biblical figures - interesting up to a point _ would like a group reading some of the books I read about on present problems.

My grandson had to leave soon to meet a friend and I left before too long - slept a bit restlessly - and it is 1 p.m. and I am hungry. C.B.eventually called, said she could not see on account of the sun - though she talked of being inside - then couldn't hear what I was saying because she was busy sorting mail - I just said, call me when you are not doing 100 other things. And, so it goes.Off to eat something - walk to Washington Square - perhaps I'll call Jimmy see what he is doing - another friend is busy with her family - the plaint of my mother - everybody is busy with their family - don't really feel like going to CW - no one there to talk to - at best to listen to talk about trivial mattes. Marianne

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