' I was still with Jordan Baker. We were sitting at a table with
a man of about my age and a rowdy little girl, who gave way
upon the slightest provocation to uncontrollable laughter. I
was enjoying myself now. I had taken two finger-bowls of
champagne and the scene changed before my eyes into
something significant, elemental, and profound.
At a lull in the entertainment the man looked at me and
smiled.
"Your face is familiar," he said politely. "Weren't you in the
First Division during the war?"
"Why, yes. I was in the Twenty-eighth Infantry."
"I was in the sixteenth until June nineteen-eighteen. I
knew I'd seen you somewhere before."
We talked for a moment about some wet, grey little villages
in France. Evidently he lived in this vicinity, for he told me
that he had just bought a hydroplane, and was going to try
it out in the morning.
"Want to go with me, old sport? Just near the shore along
the Sound."
"What time?"
"Any time that suits you best."
It was on the tip of my tongue to ask his name when Jordan
looked around and smiled.
"Having a gay time now?" she inquired.
"Much better." I turned again to my new aquaintance.
"This is an unusual party for me. I haven't even seen the host.
I live over there -" I waived my hand at the invisible hedge in
the distance, "and this man Gatsby sent over his chauffeur with
an invitation."
For a moment he looked at me as if he failed to understand.
"I'm Gatsby," he said suddenly.'
Last night I made a mistake, went round to a mate who lives two doors away (between us we bookend the Dealers). He offered me a glass of wine, I was tired, I was stressed. Two hours later we were very drunk. Pouring wine into an empty stomach is like mainlining the stuff. It's not big and it's not clever. As a result I was knackered all day, not so much hung over as hung.
It's the General Election and every now and then a car sidles by with speakers and a voice normally heard only at railway stations. Mumble... muffled... Arghhhhh, ...tion... gerrout an vote, ... crackle...PASS US A FAG JEFF... nnnnnnnnnnnnn ... eeeeeeeeeeeeee.. last week.... grrrrrrrrrr... sssssssssss... put your x ... hmmmmmmmmmm.. affair... ssssss... vote now... .fffffffffffffftttttttt... night shift...rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr... course I'm gutted... mmmmmmmm...
Half the street's out waiting for their next pass.
5 comments:
I wish I'd been born in the 60's. I hate all this political apathy around now. I hate the way it's divided between hard core politics and trendy 'don't give a shit' hipsters. Why do people insist on labels so much? And why are people so downright cruel to each other? It's weird.
Not sure there's all that much political apathy around Mimi, just think it looks that way. If that was the case how come Michael Moore is so popular in the US? And his film F911, it was enormously popular. Then there's the anti war movement in Europe. I was on the historic demo in London on Feb 15th two years ago, over 2 million people!
I listen to Garrison Keiler's Home Prairie Companion, radio show on BBC7 (every Saturday 12 noon). It comes from all over the US and it's a gentle satire of middle America and the bible belt. The show is always broadcast from some theatre in Minnesota, or Chicago, or New York. In every show he has a gentle dig at George Bush and it always gets a massive round of applause. The other week he made a comment about how Abu Ghraib was un-American, indecent and wrong. And that the finger of accusation goes right to the top of the current administration. Honest, it was all said in an elegant two sentences, he didn't even raise his voice. The audience went wild, hooting, stamping their feet, cheering, because he gave voice to their disgust. And The Home Prairie Companion is not a political show. If tiny things like that indicate anything it's that there is seething anger in the US over corrupt right wing Christian bastard fuckwits that try and dominate everything. If Bush is all powerful how come he's struggling to get his pension bill through Congress? Why is the press having a go at him, calling him lame duck etc? It's not all plain sailing for those fuckers and that's because people are pissed off.
At the centre of the US there beats a decent heart, a political heart, a class heart. Our class's heart. Same heart that beats the world over. And that truly is something we should give thanks for.
xx
Hmm, I guess, but I can't help seeing the vast swathes of Republican territory in the heart of this land. New York is unusually liberal, that's why I love it, but there's still so much ignorance. People talk, but don't do... although, having said that, there are lots of people who 'do' more than myself, so I can't complain too much...
xx
I think the world is a complicated place and this is not always obvious. Trotsky talked about the class struggle being like a river, sometimes hidden underground then bursting to the surface again. The river though is always running. In December 1916, just months before Feb 1917 Lenin wrote to an acquaintance saying that the revolution would never happen in his life time. Now I'm not saying here that we live in pre-revolutionary times but you never know. Re a country called Republicana, I remember seeing a graphic that showed a more complex picture of the US election result than the usual states coloured by who won. The whole US was a fine grading of red and blue, so fine it was difficult to identify the dominant political party. The graphic better reflected just how close the election really was. I understand that it was down to 16,000 votes in Ohio or some such where. 16,000 votes, for a whole country. This is hardly a ringing endorsement. The tensions must be almost palpable. Here in the UK Blair has been returned on the lowest vote for any government since the 1832 Reform of Parliament Act. The tensions are even more palpable. The Saturday papers very quickly speculated how long he would last as leader, the Sunday papers also. Again, we aint talking ringing endorsements here. People voted Labour despite Blair, not because of him and so his days are numbered.
On an even more cheery note, everyone still loathes, detests, hates, and fucking remains disgusted by the rich, sanctimonious, smug, shiny Tory, hope they all rot in hell, bastards.
another interesting feature of Bush's win... he didn't carry any significant urban centers. the average level of education in urban areas is significantly higher, and he did not win them. Perhaps thats the hidden message behind his unfunding/dismantling of the educational system while hiding behind "no child left behind."
My opinion is that Americans are out of their minds with optimism. They vote for monied interests because they are sure they will have some soon, and want to protect those upcoming needs. They believe that all you have to do is eliminate Saddam Hussain and everyone will be happy. They truely don't get it or look deeply enough to understand. I was shocked in the run-up to the war in Iraq to find how many good-hearted, well-meaning people genuinely thought this was the right thing to do - and they knew it was expensive, knew it would cost lives, but thought it was the thing to do from ALTRUISM. Sometimes it is so jaw-droppingly insane here that I can't think of a thing to say. And me silent is another miracle.
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