Lately,
I'm distracted from writing fiction. I've been seeing
astounding art, monitoring expenditures, trying to overcome my
obsessive, controlling tendencies and visiting and dining and with
friends. All crises solved, all questions answered. No sweat. I'm
about three-quarters of the way through an outline for a new novel,
but I will have to wait until I get back to the quiet solitude of New
Mexico to do the actual composition. For
now, I focus on the outline, short stories, notes, observations,
irritations, enlightenment and the discovery of new, important and
mindblowing French literature. An easy, worthwhile compromise.
I
haven't found a decent place to write.
That's
not true. I write everywhere, but I haven't found a place to set up
my computer in a comfortable environment and relax and compose. I can
plug in the earphones, turn on the Jazz, drown out the surrounding
ambient sounds, but I am usually hemmed in by others. There are forty
percent too many people everywhere on earth, even, I'm sure, in the
middle of fucking Antarctica. I've taught myself to write in
airports, coffee shops, amusement parks and on trains, but trying to
write fiction in a crowded room is really challenging.
I
often use the library and I have a French library card that gives me
a feeling of belonging. When I enter the bibliothèque I present my
card to the nice person behind the counter and he assigns me a
numbered seat at one of the tables reserved for “travaux”, work
or study. There are about ten polished wooden tables and 80 spots,
four people to a side, facing each other. Each place has the same
amount of room as a tiny table-top in a packed restaurant. A chair,
of course, and a lamp. The individually-assigned area is covered by a
two foot square of hard leather, similar to the kind that one finds
on an antique writing desk. It's pleasant and every effort has been
made to create a scholarly and serious atmosphere.
Under
the table, nearly impossible to locate, is a plug for the computer.
The French outlet is byzantine and complicated and never looks
stable or safe. I expect sparks, fire and sewage to spew forth. The
first day or two I spent fifteen minutes wrestling with my power cord
and eventually had to ask a librarian how to hook it up. She showed
me and since then it's been easy. I bend down, scramble around, hit
and miss, and finally, et voila, the odd shaped adapter slips into
the dangerous foreign outlet. I felt pretty stupid the first few
times; doubled over, groping under the table, grunting suspiciously,
muttering and swearing in English. Now I see that almost everyone,
French, Chinese, American, Italian, has the same trouble when
searching for an electrical connection. Confusion. When the
architects designed the building in 1590 they didn't consider the
future invention of the computer, electricity, the internet, smart
phones, email, world wide pornography and Netflix, so the outlets had
to be retrofitted into the historical building a few years ago.
They've done a good job of hiding the modern essentials from view and
everyone soon resolves the question of connectivity.
The
library patrons are all very well behaved, too. This is not an
American library, which often serves as a toilet for the homeless.
I've entered the library in Taos, New Mexico, and mentioned to the staff that it smells like
last call at the old Lucky 7 in San Francisco's Tenderloin. No one
snores, drinks or talks to themselves in the historical Paris
libraries. On the streets, bridges and in doorways, sure, of course, but the
library clients are students and scholars. I take sidelong glances at
their work and see that the young woman next to me has notebooks
full of complex equations on graph paper and she's making entries on
a spreadsheet.
An
older man, older than me, balding, fat, waddles up and down the
aisles, carrying heavy, leather-bound books of maps and charts back to
his spot where he stacks them up and searches through them for
hours, his head bent and his nose almost touching the open page. He
doesn't use a computer, probably has never had an argument with
someone about the Mac versus the PC. I envy him.
I
travel with a netbook computer; efficient, small, utilitarian. I've
had it for about six years and it's been everywhere with me, Asia,
Europe, Mexico. It finally shorted out a few weeks ago and I
panicked. How can I live without a computer? Right? Jesus.
The
first time I traveled to Europe I didn't have a cell phone or a
laptop. Everything I owned was in a carryon bag and S and I spent
five months on trains and in second class hotels, checking schedules,
learning the language. I had to make computations every time I
crossed a border to figure out the money.
If I
wanted to write, I'd use a lined notebook and fill up pages. It was
fun and easy and when I had a long message to send, I'd work it out
on the page and then find an internet cafe and email it to my
friends. I remember learning to use a pay phone in Italy. I was
living in Lucca, outside of Florence, and there was a phone booth
across the street from the apartment. I watched Italian people drop
in their coins (Lira in those pre-euro times) or insert incomprehensible phone cards, punch a few keys and talk, loudly, to
their friends and family. I wanted to do that, so I found a place to
buy a phone card, plugged it into the telephone, failed again and
again, scolded by the disembodied Italian phone lady, and eventually
got through to my friend Jonathan Lucero in the US. We just
bullshitted like we usually do, no big conversation, but I felt
completely assured and that was the moment that I knew I could solve
any problem on my own. I was capable and imaginative. If I could
learn to use an Italian pay phone, the sky was the limit.
If I
got lost I had to figure out how to read a map. When I couldn't find
a place to stay, I walked until I did. Questions were answered
without Google, Wikipedia or translation programs. I acquired enough
Italian to take care of all my needs. I even made some friends.
I use
tech stuff at home and when I travel; I like the convenience and the
programs and devices have become integral to my life. I was so
freaked when my computer crashed a couple of weeks ago that I bought
a new one right away, here, in Paris, in French (l'ordinateur =
computer), with a weird French keyboard. (Why the crap would anyone
switch the “A” with the “Q” and the “S” with the “Z”?
That's just nuts. Where the hell is the “M”? The French use “M”,
don't they? How can I write without an “M”?) It's cheap, slow,
but I can email, write, and of course, check out maps, find when the
Louvre closes, look up movies, bookstores and bus schedules. Amazing,
indeed, but I felt, dependent, isolated and deprived when the stupid
computer crapped out and I really didn't dig that at all.
I admire the old guy in the Paris bibliothèque,
trudging from shelf to shelf, schlepping his giant, antique books
around, doing something that he thinks is important, self contained
and focused, without distractions.
I'd
like to learn to unload the pain-in-the-ass cell phones and computers
when I travel and go back to pay phones and writing long hand and
using internet coffee shops, which are everywhere. I trust myself to
surmount the inevitable difficulties that arise when I'm on the road,
away from home. Christ, I've overcome bigger problems than bus
schedules in the past twenty years. I don't have GPS on any device I
own and here I am, safe, indoors, warm and comfortable. I write about
four hundred words a day in my notebook, anyway; I could probably
save it up and transcribe it into a computer when I returned home. I
think, in the old days, that was called “revising”. What's the
hurry?
Still,
here I am, at the library, plugged in, typing quietly, navigating
this goddamn weird-assed keyboard and I'm elbow to elbow with my
table mates and, even though they are polite and quiet, I can feel
them exhaling, shifting in their chairs, looking over my shoulder at
my work, snickering at my inability to create believable characters
and an engaging narrative. I often end up writing these blog posts
because much of the time it's all I can manage in this environment
and it keeps me occupied. I'm not sure it's real writing.
The old guy at the next table leans forward, breathing
hard, his face an inch from a seventeenth century map, analyzing,
nodding, scribbling strange words in a battered ledger. He doesn't
have any devices other than his brain and his interest in his
subject. Nothing to plug in, connect, recharge. I like all my stuff,
sure, it's fun and pretty and efficient, but, today, I think my
library card is a greater asset.
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