ROVIN'
AND RAVIN' WITH MIKE
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The juice was rich, subtle, a mixture of one kind of orange and two kinds of grapefruit, freshly squeezed within the hour. I felt that I could get intoxicated by it, even without vodka. As I sipped it, I was walking under the trees from which the fruit had been gathered, and I could smell their flowers. A friend had just told me that orange blossoms are edible, but the thought of eating anything with such a strong perfume was almost scary (even to someone who adds marigolds to his salads). The day was marked by what the locals call "Chamber of Commerce" weather, the sky shining with a blue that nineteenth century English travelers thought could be found only in their beloved Italy. My friend, the owner of those trees--who has appeared in these articles previously as the not so old warrior--and I sat on the riverbank that marks the end of his property, watching the mullet jump in the river.
The first time I ever heard of mullet jumping, the not so old warrior and I had been in a boat on this little river, and I saw a fish cut through the water and hang for a moment into the air. I still think he looked puzzled, as if he had broken through and done something that had been whispered about in mullet-dom for years—a Christopher Columbus of the finny set, or perhaps a scaly precursor of The Truman Show. Then, another jumped, and another. The warrior told me, yes, mullet jump, but no, he did not know why.
I speculated. Each fish was chasing some sort of food or trying to avoid being food, was performing some sort of kinky courtship ritual or perhaps expressing the sheer exuberance of being a mullet. Hey, look at me: I was not hatched to be smoked! I can do this, and you can’t. And then, a mullet jumped into my friend’s hand. A nice story, but not a very nice smell for the rest of the afternoon--not by the way, because the surprise of the fish jumping into my friend’s hand had caused either of us to lose control of an anatomical function… just that mullet stink.
"So, what can I write an article about?" I asked my friend; although he does not write, I often pick his brain for ideas. Considering my last non-movie article was on creating a brochure to advertise my cats as psychotherapists, I wondered where to go next. "Why not write about spring?" my friend asked or replied, with one of those questions that convey more information than they seek.
Back at home, with all those smells of the citrus trees safely shut out, I dipped into my dusty lair and emerged with one of my dustiest volumes, a drably put together book bearing the trademark of the Modern Library. That was a series of books which in its time was almost as exciting as the World Wide Web is for our time. It was a collection of the world’s great literature in very cheap hardcover editions, making it suddenly possible for people to surf the web of the world’s great literature. This particular volume carries some 1100 pages of the works of Charles Lamb, perhaps the greatest minor British essayist.
Somewhere, I was sure, Lamb had an essay on spring, an essay that I remembered fondly, and that would give me a starting point. But, such a starting point was nowhere to be found in this book which I bought, used, over half a life ago. Instead, I found a startling point, Lamb’s essay "On the Artificial Comedy of the Last Century." This essay is about the comedies of the Restoration, a period of English history marked by a casualness and freedom of discourse that for many of those who came after it but before us was truly shocking.
Lamb succinctly says, "We dread infection from the scenic representation of disorder and fear a painted pustule," or perhaps a garish web-site. How appropriate are his remarks in our time, his call for a freedom of expression, at least of response to expression. "In our anxiety that our morality should not take cold, we wrap it up in a great blanket surtout of precaution against the breeze and sunshine." I tried to imagine a modern equivalent: something involving latex.
It is a striking essay, especially for its time. But, I am probably the only person alive who can say that it is an essay that profoundly affected the course of his life. Many and many a year ago, I was snug as movie critic in a megaplex, a graduate student in English, complete with pipe and briefcase. Then I accepted a professor’s challenge to write a critical essay—on the criticism of the criticism of the criticism of Charles Lamb’s criticism of Restoration comedy. I wish that I could say I just made a joke.
The paper was returned with lots of red ink but red ink of a good hue. The professor had taken time to give me some good advice on tightening up my arguments and even on choosing professional journals in which it might be published. Ah, yes, after a score of years or so, some pipe-smoking grad student would produce a critical essay on Segers’s criticism of the criticism of…. Long before I had ever seen a woman with a crew cut, I decided to stop the insanity. That one little epiphany, that special moment of awareness, had as much to do with my decision to leave graduate school as did the opportunity to move to New York and work in publishing. But, I’m saving that for another article.
So, since Lamb did not get me started on an essay on spring, I logged onto some search engines and typed in "spring." I forget how many millions of sites I got back. Spring water, spring issues or courses, Spring Hill College (another trip down memory lane, a college I had considered attending, way back when I was considering colleges to attend). Then there was Spring, a journal of the poet E. E. Cummings, where I learned that it is now appropriate to capitalize the name of the bad-boy of lower case. Back when I was a Cummings fan, there was a rumor that he had legally changed his name to e. e. cummings—sans capitals.
It was a nice footnote to my earlier memories triggered by the Lamb essay. As I became more and more convinced that the upper reaches of English studies were no country for me, I began collecting xerox copies for my "Atrocity File" of articles by English professors that were an atrocious waste of time, energy, and trees for pulpwood. One of my favorites (or un-favorites) involved the way that Stephen Crane wrote his lower case g. Who gives, as I might have said in those days, a rodent’s hindquarters?
I left the computer, with the web-radio’s opera channel playing. Although it was by now after midnight, I walked outside, sniffing to catch in the chilly air some of the pungent tinge of the citrus, squinted for some sign of moon through the arching tree limbs. This is what spring is all about, looking for a moon that may not be there.
In the missing essay, Charles Lamb, or whoever wrote it, said that spring is a season for disillusionment, that we see the coming of a new year, a new birth, and we think that somehow that is going to make a difference for us, bringing on a new us. Spring is a time for cleaning, for tonics, for starting over, a sort of three-month new year’s celebration, minus the resolutions and the hangovers. Easter, the great Christian celebration of renewal and rebirth is associated with spring, since it occurs on the Sunday after the full moon after the vernal equinox, the beginning of spring.
And yet (two words that I rely upon so often that I make an effort now to keep them out of my writing), that’s not the whole truth. With all this newness bursting like buds or bombs all around us, some of us perhaps defensively look back on the past. Or, as we stir up things with an overdue cleaning or with research for an article, we find things that we had not thought about in years.
We can’t escape it. We drag the past along behind us, and in some ways, we always live in the past. It is a strange route, but I can trace it, from Charles Lamb’s essay (and my criticism of the criticism of the criticism of the criticism of it) to this moment. Here I am, sipping freshly squeezed citrus juice, writing with the aid of a computer—which I never would have imagined in my Lamb-ful days—a computer that is, moreover, playing an aria from Carmen, sung by Maria Callas. Is there some small part of me that feels triumph in hanging on to those red-inked grad school essays that I churned out on my beloved little Smith-Corona portable? Has Charles Lamb somehow planted a "cookie" (and net-izens know I’m not talking about Oreos) in my psyche? Has Callas, the great Greek-American soprano (and other woman in the marriage of Aristotle Onassis and Jacqueline Kennedy), become some sort of aesthetic guardian angel of mine?
I don’t think I’ll find answers to such questions on the web, where Charles Lamb has some good representation, just not enough. E.E. Cummings fares better, complete with an online journal. As for jumping mullet, I am sure I could find a "Mullet FAQ" (frequently asked questions) site, but I haven’t looked. Spring is more about celebrating mysteries than about finding answers. Be prepared for all this season holds, however. Keep your feet dry, despite the spring rains, and your heart full of noble thoughts, despite the craziness in the air thick as the perfume of the citrus blossoms. And whether or not the name of Cummings should be capitalized, there’s a heck of a good season going on outside, scratching on the glass like one of my spoiled cats. I’ll meet you out there, just soon as I pour you a glass of this great juice another friend of mine squeezed this afternoon.