We used to need irony because the reality of everything was masked.

Last night Delores said, “I can’t live in a town that doesn’t have a shoemaker.” Delores tells me for the fiftieth time that she will be selling her house and moving elsewhere. “What are you supposed to do with perfectly good shoes?”   I can see her point.  This swank village is over the top.  This is the kind of celebrity party/photo/gossip caption you read in the Hampton magazine:  Princess Amanda Borghese and Prince Francisco Borghese at the Italian Trade Commission’s 'Young Friends of “Save Venice' dinner at Bergdorf Goodman.

I once went into Bergdorf to kill time and asked to see a handbag in a case.  The major domo patrolling the floor told me pointedly that it cost 1500 dollars.  “Is it ostrich?” I persisted.  “Yes,” he said and finally invoked the retail rule that states:  don’t judge the wealth by the outfit.  He opened the case. I made him show me three more bags before walking out. 

Delores is a published poet and an ironist.  We used to need irony because the reality of everything:  marriage, childbirth, parenthood, government, the natural bent of human nature was masked and sentimentalized to keep the citizens in the dark and maintain social order.  Literalness is now so darn interesting that you could really do away with irony.  There’s a shop near my house called The Irony. I went in once just to see what the heck was going on. No iron or bon mots in sight.  They make decorative fences, gates and objects out of metal. 

Delores is always giving me the details of writing contests that I can enter.  Sometime back she gave me the Granta deadline and the Chicago short fiction rules and some drama contest in South Carolina.  She said I should take my one-woman show and turn it into a short story and just send it out.  Just send everything out and see what comes of it, she says.  It’s about getting things out there.  So in a flurry of activity, I dug out several things and sculpted a couple of stories and sent them out.  The only response I got was a handwritten note from Esquire with the following message:  Ms. Baehr, I enjoyed reading your story.  I found the big-muscle-little-muscle speach (sic) especially amusing and the story as a whole insightful and rather clever.  Sorry we can’t publish it. - B

Once I got a note from Gordon Lish who was the Fiction Editor of Esquire and created the minimalist effect that slashed one of Raymond Carver's stories to half its length. Lish published Carver, Kundera, DeLillo among others.  When he sent me the note, he was responding to an Op Ed piece of mine in the New York Times.  You could tell his note had been written with a real fountain pen because it was  smudgy and scratchy.  Here's what it said:

Dear Consuelo Saah Baehr,

I do the poetry editing here and should very much like to see yours.  Please mark PERSONAL on envelope if you do choose to send, a prospect I heartily encourage,  Thrive, Gordon Lish

He wrote all of that on a piece of paper the size of a Post-it, using both sides.

A funny albeit cranky survivor gets 4 stars

Before the last two feet of snow shut me in forever, I had got my favorite lamp fixed and found a good throw for my one-and-a-half chair.  (This is a chair that allows a short person - me - to scrunch sideways in perfect cocoon comfort.) I had my Kindle and a new book to review:  The Mystery of Mercy Close by Marian Keyes a bestselling Irish author.  The words Mercy Close had already zapped me with a yen to sell everything and move to the Cotswolds because who doesn’t want to live in a thatched roof cottage and send out address cards marked 43 Mercy Close.  Well, Mark Zuckerberg probably doesn’t. Btw the book is set in Ireland not the UK   I keep thinking it’s still 1899 in Ireland but apparently, they also have cell phones and the Internet.

The best thing I can ever say about a book is that I want to continue reading it more than I want to do most other things (that includes watching Shark Tank.)  The next best thing I can say is that I can read it on the elliptical machine and not be aware that almost an hour has slipped by.  This was mostly true of this funny, noir in a good way, noir in a bad way P.I. driven missing person mystery.  Helen Walsh, P.I. is a long list of contradictions: suicidal but competitive, despises phrases like  “good to go” but has a soft spot for Michael Bublé and his “chunky thighs.” (I went immediately to U-tube and listened to Bublé sing The Best Is Yet To Come and it put me in a good mood.)

Helen is suffering from a mental malady of unknown origins and resistant to solutions. (Aren’t we all?)  She can’t sleep.  She can’t eat anything except handfuls of Cheerios and has twice in the past  (in a clumsy way) tried to commit suicide. Just as she’s entering a good period the economy brings her down.  She loses her flat and her clients and has to limp back to her old bedroom in her parents’ house. To the rescue comes her ex, Jay Parker, a promoter who is producing a reunion of the boyband Laddz and needs her to find one of the Laddz who has gone missing. Helen has a past with Jay that did not end well but he’s offering cash and a job. Helen wants oblivion but remains engaged by her work ethic and a developing simpatico for the missing Ladzz. The fun of this book is not so much in the mystery but in the reveal of the main character, a funny albeit cranky survivor who is just barely holding on but whose thought process remains reliably interesting.

My quibble with The Mystery of Mercy Close is the lengthy multi-page acknowledgements up front.  We don’t know these people, we don’t care how much help they were to the author.  We want to dive into Chapter One straight away. (After reading the words bum for booty and boot for car trunk and petrol for gas, I’m already saying straight away for right away like a wannabe Brit.)

Living on "love and the good will of others" Ugh!

When I see a story that begins: “How this family lives with no money,” my mind  jumps around like a toddler on a sugar high.  Yes, yes, I want to try that, too.  I found out that Mr. & Mrs. Fellmer live in Berlin on nothing but “love and the good will of others.” First, I could not live on love because then you have to be involved with people (some of whom you don’t know).  I could not live on “good will” either. Because of some deficiency in myself, I am not attracted to “good will” people. When Hayden Panettiere was all upset about the dolphins and whales and was riding on one and crying I wanted to say “Just shut up. Come home and go do a movie or something.”  The PETA people scare the heck out of me. Living on the good will of others would be off limits for me.  I can’t even accept a birthday gift gracefully.

I’m thinking I was meant to admire this family but they are not passing my sniff test.  The wife is getting a little something from the government for her child and the husband is doing it because “money is hampering our dreams.”  I have never had money hamper my dreams.  My craziness hampers my dreams.

This couple lives rent free with roommates in Peace House in exchange for odd jobs and organizing work.  This would not work for me. Roommates?  I can hardly willingly have guests for more than forty-five minutes. The most impressive thing I read was that they managed to get a dentist to fix their teeth for free. The one thing that scares me - it used to be the plumbing bill - it is hands down the dental bill.

Maybe they raked the dentist’s yard in exchange.  I would have to have a lot to drink before I went into my dentist’s office and offered to rake his leaves in exchange for a veneer or two. (still it would be interesting to see his facial expression). Fellmer admits his lifestyle is radical, explaining that it’s to get his message across. “Not everybody needs to do this to such an extreme. This is for protest. We want to inspire people to think about changes they can make. There are so many tools out there, so many ways to reduce one's carbon footprint.”  I have never fully understood the phrase “carbon footprint”.  I know carbon paper was what you used to make copies before the invention of the duplicating machine.  And I know carbon dioxide is a silent, odorless killer that comes stealing in like the fog on “little cat feet” when you leave the car running in a closed garage.  Something tells me it is probably black....oh heck I’m going to look it up right now.

A carbon footprint has historically been defined as "the total sets of greenhouse gas emissions caused by an organization, event, product or person."[1]

However, calculating the total carbon footprint is impossible due to the large amount of data required and the fact that carbon dioxide can be produced by natural occurrences.

Fellmer is a full time activist on waste and overconsumption. He says too much food gets thrown away.  Now that is absolutely true.  When I buy a big pork loin, I know I’ve made a pact with society to cook that piece of meat and to do it to the best of my ability.  When I get it home I begin to wish I had left it in the case with its brothers rather than have to get out the roasting pan and peel some carrots and apples and onions and sear the meat in a hot frying pan before transferring it to the roaster and finishing it off in the oven. I could have just defrosted a pizza without all that other stuff.   About two o’clock the next day, I am tired of eating roast loin of pork and dream about getting a pizza but then I think it’s wasteful to throw this meat away and Fellmer isn’t around so I can foist it off on him.  You’d think I’d stop buying meat when it winks at me in the case, but then stop spraying me with subliminal “buy” incense when I enter the store. We are programmed to buy too much and over-consume.  It’s not our fault.  Why doesn’t Fellmer protest about packaged produce.  I buy the ready washed salad greens in the plastic tubs even though it’s like a shell game to choose one that is free of slimy parts. So, yes, I throw the good parts away with the slimy parts.  Mr. Fellmer will be happy to know there are cans of black beans in my pantry with expiration dates that have long passed. Whenever there is a “pantry” drive for the needy in my neighborhood, I don’t like what I see in the basket.  Usually it’s carbohydrate-laden stuff that nobody wants to eat: canned vegetables or canned ravioli.  I’m thinking if I was given this basket filled with packaged mixes for corn bread and canned string beans or lima beans, I would shoot myself.  Give me a fresh rotisseried chicken or Dover sole almondine or a medley of freshly steamed broccoli and cauliflower with butter/garlic sauce. 

Okay, I’m done with this story.

I have to make a terrible confession.

Me:  I see my cable bill is higher this month.  Of all my monthly bills, this is one of the highest except for the heating bill.

Cable Guy: Let me look at your bill and see where we can get it lower.

Me: Thank you.  Yes, I’d like it lower.

Cable Guy:  You already subscribe at the basic level the only thing I could do is downgrade family cable to econo but you’d give up a few channels. 

Me:  That’s ok.  I only watch a few channels anyway.  Channel Thirteen, PBS and maybe ABC and The History Channel also the Home and Garden Channel.  Which ones would I lose?

Cable Guy: Bravo, Animal Planet, Comedy Central, A&E, E,

Me: Here’s where I have to come clean.  I have to make a terrible confession.  I watch Bravo.  I watch some of the Housewives shows.

Cable Guy:  I know.  Me, too.  I watch the Housewives shows.

Me: Oh, you do?  What’s wrong with us?  Maybe I should stop watching for a week and then call you back and see if I can get along without Bravo.  It would probably be good for me.

Cable Guy:  Ok.  Or I could let you talk to a manager and maybe they could do something for you.

Me:  Ok.

Manager:  How can I help you?

Me:  I need to lower my cable bill to where it was because I just can’t pay another penny.  It’s my second biggest bill after the fuel bill.

Manager:  Le me see what I can do.  I see it’s 140.  I can get it down to 112. and give you free Showtime and Starz plus DVR capability.

Me:  You can get it down to 112 and I’m not going to lose anything and I’m going to get more channels? I can do that.  I really don’t need the DVR.  I wouldn’t know how to use it anyway.

Manager:  You have to take the whole deal.  That’s the way this promotion is packaged.  You’ll use it.   

Me.  Uh.  Ok. 

Manager:  Pay your bill and you’ll see the discount on your next bill.

Me.  Thank you. 

Blogger's Note:  I stopped watching Wheel of Fortune a long time ago but a recent "click-by" filled me with nostalgia. The puzzle category was: Artist and Song.  The puzzle had  I   -a-k the -in- by Johnny Cash.  I'll solve, said the contestant:  "I make the wine" by Johnny Cash.  Remember the woman who had  -ettisburg Address showing and guessed; The Bettysburg Address?  

120 square foot master bedroom

This morning I woke up in my 120 square foot master bedroom on my non-pillow topped Serta under my 250 thread count sheets with a ‘low fill power ‘ comforter.  I’ve watched enough HGTV to know that even first time homeowners barely out of their teens who have been living in her parents’ basement to save for a down payment demand a grand Master Bedroom with an en suite bathroom. My bathroom is not en suite (there’s barely a room and definitely not a suite).  My bathroom, at best, could be described as a Jack and Jill.  That means it’s meant to serve two bedrooms inhabited by  a boy and a girl whose parents named them Jack and Jill when those names were still usable. Even though there is no “master” in my house, I’m thinking I’ve settled and why didn’t I notice this before?

I made a list of the places I’ve lived and searched for the wrong turn I might have taken.
1. Three boarding schools.
2. Three  studio apartments in New York City steps from glam Fifth Avenue.  
3. Newly married I was “at home” at the north end of Park Avenue.  
4. As a new mother I nursed my newborn in the chauffeur’s cottage in shadowy, secretive estate-choked Mill Neck, L.I. 
5. As a middle-aged mother I yelled at my children in Lattingtown Harbor, L.I. within the old gated estate of J. P. Morgan’s lawyer, Mr. Guthrie.  
6. Presently, I live in the village of East Hampton, N.Y. one and a half miles from the Atlantic Ocean and sleep in the smallest bedroom I’ve ever had.

The most interesting house I lived in was at 3102 Cleveland Avenue, Washington, D.C. and had previously belonged to Truman’s V.P. Alben Barkley.  The Barkleys left a lot of government memorabilia in the basement that could probably make me a millionaire today but I think my Uncle Charlie threw it away.  Barkley died while giving a speech at Washington & Lee Univ. “I would rather be a servant in the house of the Lord than sit on the seats of the mighty,” he said and then collapsed.  I’m like Alben.  I have the residential mind-set of a peasant. I don’t want to sit in the seats of the mighty either.  Tracing the past shows me that I am most likely to choose a humble repair-needy dwelling in a great zip code.  

Recently I did some house refurbishing.  I painted the living room a medium gray and it looks sophisticated in a “An unexpected color can transform a summer cottage” way. I painted the outside soffits and fascias and trim and got new storm windows and new leaders and gutters.  It all looks as good as it will ever look unless I tear the house down and start anew.   Since I cut down the overbearing tree in the backyard, the sunlight streams in throughout the day but especially around three o’clock.  It is a cheerful, welcoming light that leaves nothing in shadow.   With the tree gone I will be able to have a vegetable garden for the first time in my life.  I could sleep in any room in the house.  I could make the living room my bedroom if I wanted.  I could sleep in a bedroom that occupies the entire gabled attic floor.  With the tree gone and my house all spiffed up and much of my stuff given away or thrown away, let’s see how I do in 2013.  I will probably own this house for the rest of my life.  It’s a good house with big fat water filled radiators that give off a mellow heat.  I can dry my clothes on them and sit on them when I come in from the cold.   I can walk to everything in the village and the railroad is a block away.  There’s a studio cottage in back that I occasionally rent out for the night or sleep in when my kids come to visit.  There’s a garage filled with all the stuff I took out of the basement.  (For some reason, the empty basement gives me confidence.)  This spring I will plant my  vegetable garden. I'll start turning over the soil as soon as the ground is soft.  Whatever psychological map led me to this house, it feels okay.

Just leave it to the subconscious

In my recent divesting mania I came upon an old tattered unknown book that has been waiting for discovery in an attic nook for twenty years:  The Magic of Believing by Claude Bristol.  I turned to a page with the corner turned down and decided to share what it said.

 I offer this excerpt because it made sense to me. I believe that the worn and dog-eared playbook we stuck in our subconscious has been the blueprint for our lives but the good news is, we can still edit, add to it and hit publish at any time. 

“Desire is the generating power of all human action and without it no one can get very far.  The keener, the more urgent the desire, the sooner the consummation.  So you must start out with desire, keeping in mind with the magic of believing you can obtain what you picture in your mind’s eye.

So let’s get down to the mechanics.  Secure three or four index cards.  In a private room, sit down and ask yourself what you desire above everything else.  When the answer comes and you are certain that it is your uppermost desire, then at the top of one card write a word picture of it.  One or two words may be sufficient - a job, a better job, more money, a home of your own (or something small).  Then on each card duplicate the word picture on the original card.  Place the cards in your wallet, beside your bed, on the bathroom mirror, on your desk.  The idea is to enable you to mentally picture at all hours of the day.  Just before sleep and upon arising are important moments of thoughts.  The more you can visualize the desire, the speedier the materialization. 

You need not concern yourself with how the results are to come.  Just leave it to the subconscious mind which has its own ways of making contacts and opening doors and avenues that you may never have thought of.  You will receive assistance from the most unexpected sources.  You will find that ideas useful in the accomplishment of your program will come at the most unexpected times.  You may be suddenly struck with an idea of seeing a person you have never seen before.  You may get the idea of writing a letter or making a telephone call.  Whatever the idea is, follow it.”

Note:  If you decide to give it a try, do not, I repeat do not, talk about it. Also, don’t make a big deal out of the process or the outcome. Many of you might quibble with the word ‘magic.’  On the first page, the author (who was a financial editor at a big Los Angeles newspaper, says this:  “I realized that I had run across something workable but didn’t consider it then, neither do I now, as mystical except in the sense that it is unknown to the majority of people.”

Scary fairytales also known as love stories.

Internet presence is unpredictable.  Lately, Viking/ Penguin has been sending me some of their books to review.  I have no idea how this came my way but I feel all professorial/uppity about it.   This month, they sent me Flimsy Little Plastic Miracles by Ron Currie, Jr. and a book of short stories by Ludmilla Petrushevskaya.

When I looked at the first page of Currie’s book I was standing in the doorway between the sunroom and the kitchen munching a piece of bacon. (Yes, I bought bacon, I cooked bacon, I ate bacon.)  Janet Maslin (N.Y.Times) had said of Mr. Currie “pays no heed to ordinary narrative convention” and I thought, Oh, good, something innovative with no traceable narrative thread; just what I need to take my mind off my weight.

The other review book they sent was from Russia's acclaimed contemporary  fiction writer Ludmilla Petrushevskaya  (referred to henceforth as LP) whose previous collection of short stories was titled:  There Once Lived A Woman Who Tried To Kill Her Neighbor’s Baby.”  I had the follow up:  There Once Lived A Girl Who Seduced Her Sister’s Husband And He Hanged Himself. I knew this was the book I wanted to review.  First of all - get this - the subtitle is “Love Stories.”

 If nothing else, these titles parsed out in fairytale language send the message that we’re going to find out some truth about human nature and there’s going to be no fairytale about it.  That’s the purpose of good fiction and LP doesn’t disappoint.  It’s the opposite of the horrid sentimentality that imprisons some popular American fiction (except for Jennifer Egan and a few others).  Petrushevskaya is telegraphing, we’re dark, so what?  Get over it but let’s look at it.  Let’s look at it in an allegorical way so you won’t be freaked out.

The stories are short.  They are about society’s losers who are trying to get a foothold in love.  They are narrated simply without much dialogue and without any emotional prompting by the author.   Here’s what happened, I don’t care how you feel about it.  They are set in Russia where privacy and a place to live are everyday difficulties.  Lovers are homely or they have diabetes and they live with their mothers.  Existences are mostly meager. If one is foolishly daydreaming of the return of a one-night stand it is less hurtful than the eventual breakdown of a real romance. 

American Beauty comes to mind.  And a fabulous film The Details that is so dark, so true, so beguiling that we breathe a sigh of relief that our black marks are small.

The Goddess Parka, one of the more optimistic stories ends in a hook-up that barely happens and only through very fragile connections  - but isn’t that always the way? LC uses supernatural intervention with as much ease as she uses the macabre because she’s a humanist at heart although the nightmarish aspect of some of the stories makes us blink, look away and ponder a minute.  

Despite its Russian origins and the literary tradition that produced Dostoyevsky, the stories are easy to read and leave us with a lot to mull over.