The Prestidigitator

I counted seven of them; passed out on the floor surrounded by smoking paraphernalia and empty jello cases. The faint strain of a Marvin Gaye song came from somewhere in the decrepit apartment.

“What the hell does your boytoy want, Gwen?”

Gwen motioned me to follow her in.

“This is the guy I told you about Stu. He’s the one who wants….”

“Yeah yeah.”

Stu walked in from the toilet, wiped his hands on his khakis and plopped himself on the stained couch. The room reeked of cannabis and urine. There were copies of High Times, Extreme Golf and back issues of comic books I’d never heard of strewn about. In one corner of the room, there were giant stainless steel boxes that had wires going in and out of them. Temperature controlled vaults. Nonetheless, the place was the antithesis of what I had expected. Weren’t these people supposed to be a bit more, disciplined?

Stu sized me up and let out a condescending chuckle. I took that he wasn’t too impressed. I looked over to Gwen who seemed to be showing no emotion. Enter paranoia.

“I told you I wouldn’t sell to any wannabe latte sipping yuppie after last time Gwen. Why do you bring these little fuckers over?”

I tugged at Gwen’s sleeve but she didn’t seem to notice. I didn’t want to inconvenience the man any further. He probably had vegetative substance to get back to.

“He isn’t like the others Stu. Besides, why do you care for what he does with it?”

“Don’t tell me you don’t care what he does with it Lady Guinevere. You do. We all do.”

“We’re not having that conversation again. Stop being an elitist prick and just give him what he wants.”

Second thoughts now. An unemployed pothead was on the verge of putting me through another bout of existential angst. And from the looks of it, it’d take more than three bottles of vodka and a Dario Argento film to fix it.

Stu seemed to be contemplative all of a sudden. He picked his nose and drifted off for a minute.

“Alright, but I don’t have it sweetheart. You’ll have to see this Chinese kid. Peng.”

He turned to me, “And no asswipe, he doesn’t live with his mother.”

Hours later, I was trying to keep pace with Gwen as we raced through dingy streets and shady alleys. Screw Melbourne, this was Australia’s best kept secret. We waited by the Indian restaurant as instructed over the phone. Peng was a lot more like I’d imagined. He looked the type. Dressed in a Green Lantern t-shirt and jeans, he walked over and we shook hands awkwardly.

He seemed shy and didn’t make much eye contact with Gwen. From what I could make of his broken English, he wanted fifty more than we had agreed on. I shrugged and gave him the money. Too exhausted to haggle.

“You very lucky man. You take care of this, okay?”

I tore open the paper cover like an impatient schoolboy. Two years. Two whole years of tracking people down, forging unlikely friendships and promising unusual favors. It all boiled down to this.

I felt Gwen’s hands on my shoulder.

“Now, about that other thing.”

Maybe it’s up to me
Perhaps I’m the one to decide
Should I mold you from my squalid imagination
Or will entropy finally deliver
Am I to leave you to invisible machinations
While cheerful nihilists are betrothed
To despondent brides-to-be
And when the deluded throng the arena
To applaud the stoning of the heathen
Am I to comb the crowd for you
Or will you find me down here

Awkward glances and smiles did little to alleviate the screaming silence. She just stared at the outside world through the grimy window pane. I noticed her break into a smile now and then; memories I had no place in. I breathed in every single detail – the braided hair, the mole on her chin, the back of her neck and the rather odd looking pair of glasses she held on to.

I asked her how far along she was with her graduate school applications. She went on about about how difficult her day job made it to devote enough time to anything else; about how adulthood made childhood dreams seem naive. Time, we both agreed, was a commodity in short supply. She, like me was going through a crisis of sorts. But then again, my life had been one crisis after another ever since I turned twelve. She sullenly mused on how our parents had it easier; competition was less fierce and expectations weren’t so unreasonable.

Nothing brings two people together like shared angst. From there, conversation became easier. We flitted across politics, inflation and the recession. We shared a cigarette as we delved into the macabre.

As smoke gracefully escaped her lips, I was engulfed by sudden sadness. This would soon be over too. Another connection would be lost thanks to the inherent randomness of life. I knew then that this would be an encounter that I would later romanticize; I would invariably project my idealism onto this mediocre moment. Infatuation does that. Nonetheless, we bonded. Conversation was never sparse. She was well read and we debated on the nuances of Eco’s Semiotics and Kafka’s predicament. The subtleties of cinema were not lost on her either. She seemed to eagerly await her turn as I delivered a rather pedantic rant on the French New Wave. I can be a pretentious prick but she seemed to lap up the bourgeois pseudo intellectual display.

I could not let this slip away. Carpe mundum. As I worked through lines in my head wondering what the appropriate way to ask her out would be, she gently touched my hand and smiled.

‘You shouldn’t think so much.’

‘Well, what do you propose I do?’

‘You look like the kind of person who’d know by now.’

‘You have me figured out, don’t you?’

‘Of course, you’re a Libra right?’

And it was over before it had even begun.

He was clumsy at almost everything that required any sort of physical exertion; litheness was an unattainable pursuit. Goddamn genes. Yet, there he stood, at the edge of what he was told was a 50 meter drop. Nausea set in. It wasn’t too late to back out; but what would he tell them?

“Hey Earl, has anybody died abseiling?”

“Fifty meter drop. Death is being optimistic.” Condescending chuckle.

“What?”

“Nope. Nobody’s died.”

Taking a deep breath, he looked at the gear he had on; like a chastity belt. Everything seemed so tight and restricting. That was how it was supposed to be he assured himself. He buckled himself on to the belay device that went through a set of pulleys and other contraptions that were meant to keep him from having to depend on himself. He tried recollecting the coefficient of rolling friction and felt safer. Deep breaths, Earl kept telling him.

“You have to enjoy the moment man, it’s pointless doing this otherwise.”

“Hey Earl, I think my legs are shaking. Is that going to be a problem?” Beads of sweat made their way from his forehead to his lips.

“Self awareness is the key.”

“What the hell am I supposed to be aware of?” He slowly leaned back and felt the rope tighten around his waist. Craning sideways, he took in the view. It was a long way down.

“You aren’t a separate entity. One with the rock. One.” Tree hugging bastard.

“Earl, I think I want to come back up.”

“You’re not coming back up. Lean back and trust the rope. Ten year olds do this, you little shit. Work your fingers through the buckle and slowly loosen your grasp on the rope. You won’t fall.” A beat. “If nothing, you will have learnt something about yourself today.”

“Right.”

He did as he was told and felt himself being lowered. Confidence rushed in from nowhere. He let a little more rope go and swung wildly scraping his knee on a jutting rock. Great day to wear shorts. He paused for a minute to collect himself. People do this everyday. Why was he making this seem so hard?

As he felt warm blood trickle down his knee, he suddenly felt more alive; more determined to see this through. Sometimes, all it takes is a knee-scrape. On his way down, he bruised himself a couple of times more but was no longer perturbed. Pain was a only a sensation, he told himself. He smiled at his borderline masochism.

Feet on hard earth again, he felt the rush of accomplishment, fleeting as it was. Sun beating on his face, he looked back to where Earl was.

“Hey Earl, I want to do this again.”

“Climb back up then.”

Over the last few years, churches have become something of a curiosity to me: places where you go to see other people wallow in their guilt and delusions. It’s especially weird considering I used to be an altar boy. Not the abused kind.

Realizing that the last time I visited a church was over a year back, I dragged myself to the Good Friday service at an Anglican cathedral here in the city and was amazed at how low the attendance was. Back home, Good Friday was the time of the year when the church burst at the seams, when people gathered to make that obligatory once-in-a-year appearance. Far from repentance, I suspect the masses did it more out of an odd sense of social responsibility.

Being a Syrian Orthodox Christian from Kerala and growing up in the middle east is a cliché of sorts, perhaps akin to being a Catholic from Boston or a Buddhist from Tibet. In hindsight, it does bring back a lot of memories. The Good Friday service for example stretched on for hours; the hymns and prayers accompanied by cymbals and frequent bells, the church covered in a thick pall of incense smoke and throngs of people pressed against each other reciting verses at the top of their lungs, more for the benefit of their friends than the invisible man upstairs. And the two years I spent in Kerala, the service was followed by the serving of choruka (a concoction made from bitter gourd and vinegar), kanji (rice gruel), payar thoran (green gram) and a pickle. Secretly, having the kanji in earthen pots was something I looked forward to, the one thing that kept me from feigning a head ache.

Here, the service turned out to be far less eventful. The choir sang a rousing piece followed by tediously monotonous recitals of a few prayers and then, nothing. Despite having no religious convictions whatsoever, I find myself longing for that controlled chaos of a small church packed with people excited about actually being able to belong to a group that would have them, in spite of themselves.

Carefully unkempt twenty somethings with guitars standing next to bright red and blue boxes; another new indie band promoting cheerful nihilism. Methodically flipping through the pages once every two minutes, I thought to myself about what a creep I was being.

From the corner of my eye I watched her purse her lips to hum a tune; Damien Rice. What is it about a girl humming Damien Rice that never fails to arouse? Standing at the counter, she seemed oblivious to the evening commotion, a disposition that I was drawn to. The pretense of seeming interested in the stacks of music and pop culture journals was wearing thin. It was only a matter of time before someone at the counter realized I was not actually going to buy anything.

As I tried forming sentences from a random array of words in my head, he walked in. Quite an entrance, even turned a few heads in the process. I grinned not giving the slightest hint of displeasure and proceeded to return his rather enthusiastic wave. It was hard pretending to listen to him go on and on about coming to pick someone up. Or something. I managed to shrug, sigh and nod wherever necessary. Tilting my head ever so slightly towards the counter, I watched her tip over a can of coffee beans. Our eyes met and she gave one of those embarrassed smiles; I smiled back. I think. She exclaimed, ‘Best day ever’ to someone else at the counter.

I touched his shoulder politely stopping him mid sentence and managed a hurried goodbye. Too much pressure; I had to leave. Maybe another day. Nevertheless, I surprised myself by making a detour to the counter. She looked up and for about two seconds, I had nothing to say. Then, ‘I’ll have a orange juice.’ Fuck. An orange juice. An orange juice.

She smiled, one I’m assuming they taught her when she signed up for work. ‘That’ll be two fifty’. A false sense of confidence rushed over me by the time I reached into my purse, ‘You spilled a can of coffee beans, didn’t you?’ Way to go. That was as smooth as any opening line.

‘Yeah…I tried forcing the lid open and the entire thing just came off’, she was still smiling.

‘You come in on weekends huh?’

‘Mondays and Tuesdays, mornings and then weekends…wait…how do you know when I come in?’

‘No I just see you on…relax I’m not stalking or anything’. Exit false sense of confidence.

She grinned like a school girl. We had nothing to say to each other. She handed me the orange juice, ‘Thank you! You have a good night.’

‘Sure…you too.’

Making my way out, I couldn’t help but smile. Five weeks and so much progress. Glancing back for the last time, I watched him give her a peck on the cheek. She smiled. Not the one she gave me. Happier.

Epiphanies are dime a dozen; even while packing stuff into boxes. Nomadic exasperation perhaps. I’ve realized I have just a single pair of jeans; that too, one that hasn’t been washed in a couple of months and has been worn more times than it was designed for. All my t-shirts have insignias of marginally obscure cartoons a la Thundercats, comic book characters and band logos. I live in my own little delusional biosphere; oxygenated by seemingly intellectual literature, obligatory rock and indie music, cinema and distorted nostalgia. I pretend to care about things I don’t and am apathetic to the things that may matter. I lift lines from films hoping people won’t notice. I have nothing original to say; And now I learn that I am a cliche. Not a beautiful and unique snowflake. Organic decaying matter.

I’ve been told I act far too old for my age as many times as I’ve been chided for not growing up. In all likelihood, I’ll be that guy who hits 40 and still thinks he’ll make it in a band. Will mediocrity be the result of my struggle for a non conformist higher ground?

And today, she calls me a hipster. There is nothing that soothes the soul like being reduced to a stereotype. Nothing.

Once in a while, you read a book that is an entirely intimate and personal experience. It’s extremely gratifying but unnerving to read about a protagonist who shares your traits, quirks and personal philosophy. This was one such book for me.

This Book Will Save Your Life is a satire of affluence and it’s pitfalls. Richard Novak is a self made man who is obsessed with health food, art, culture and pretty much nothing else. A fit of unexplained chest pain forces him to reevaluate his life, loves and family. This is a story about a man who attempts opening up to a world and is surprised in the strangest of ways.

Richard reconnects with his brother and son and opens himself to the idea of intimacy. In the meantime he makes friends with a movie star, a reclusive screenwriter and all the while, his house is slowly being devoured by a sinkhole. This is more of a dark comedy where you inadvertently laugh at a person’s misfortunes than at his sense of humor. What’s amazing is that A M Homes is a woman; and for a woman she shows an in depth knowledge about the inner workings of men.

On the surface, this seems like light reading but at the end of it you will be left with a surge of hope and maybe, just maybe, it’ll save your life.

An exhaustive review here.

http://www.amhomesbooks.com/

Yale: I mean we’re just people. We’re just human beings, you know? You think you’re God.
Isaac Davis: I… I gotta model myself after someone.
-Manhattan ( 1979,Woody Allen)

Ever since I can remember, I’ve never been satisfied with who I was. I’ve always pretended to be somebody with quirky tastes and admirable eccentricities. But then, that is how we all start out; we start pretending to be what we want to end up as. Along the years, there have been a number of people I’ve tried to model myself after and these weren’t your garden variety famous folks. These were people I knew (directly or otherwise); people who were older than me; people who possessed a vastly superior intellect when compared to my math hating frontal lobe.

So as I grew up, I read the books they raved about, listened to their favorite bands and watched the films they swore by. These were the people who unbeknown to them, I truly looked up to and to a very great extent, tried to ape. I always knew what I wanted to be; the pseudo intellectual. Like them.

Now, many years later, as I look around, I see them languishing with petty and materialistic pursuits. Somewhere along the line, they sold out. They found bliss in mediocrity and comfort in normalcy. I constantly find myself asking, did I aim too low?

Consciousness is a terrible curse. I think, I feel, I suffer.

I woke up this morning with a strong urge to write a short piece on Charlie Kaufman; screenwriter extraordinaire. (This is a prelude, a practice exercise if you will for another essay on Kaufman I’ll be writing soon for…academic (sic) purposes.)

Charlie Kaufman for the uninitiated is the genius behind such gems as Being John Malkovich and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. His stories all have immensely relatable characters going through bizarre situations that blur the lines between reality and fantasy.

No writer manages to capture my imagination like he does. His themes are both extremely poignant from an existential point of view as well as the metaphysical; the existence of the soul/conscience, the importance of the self, the meaning of love, life and the likes. Fortunately for Kaufman, his ideas have been perfectly brought alive to the screen by the directors he worked with namely Michel Gondry and Spike Jonze.

In spite of the fantastic nature of his plots, Kaufman’s characters are grounded in reality in a very literal way. For example, Being John Malkovich has the actor John Malkovich find out the people have been misusing a portal into his head. Adaptation is the story of a writer, Charlie Kaufman who has a hard time adapting a book into a film and so decides to adapt himself into the story. His stories deal with the subconscious (as seen in pivotal moments in Eternal Sunshine and Being John Malkovich), the importance of memory and the significance of events we witness as impressionable children. All his films seem to echo the thoughts of the character Craig Scwartz (from Being John Malkovich),

Do you know what a metaphysical can of worms this is?

What is so amazing about Kaufman is his ability to take risks with his characters and the medium which in essence contribute to the originality he’s been praised for. Apart from creating relatable but eccentric characters, Kaufman has an amazing control over structure which I for one consider to be his greatest strength. For example, Eternal Sunshine starts at the end and ends at the beginning. Sure, you’ve had stories like that but this technique proves imperative for Kaufman’s story. It wouldn’t have worked any other way.

No doubt he’s one of the finest writers today whose medium simply happens to be cinema. His ideas on the surface seem like a playful cerebral exercise but if you probe a little deeper through the tangled web of ego (mostly self loathing) and imagination, you find out that he ponders on some of the most important existential problems humanity has faced since time immemorial.

Sadly Kaufman lacks contemporaries today or at least writers of his ilk that I know of (except maybe for Vonnegut; and I’ve read very little Vonnegut) and hence it turns out to be difficult to quantify and compare the talent involved here. That may not be such a bad thing however.

[Note: Picture sourced from www.beingcharliekaufman.com]