M. David Hornbuckle

Author: mdavidhornbuckle

  • Verlaine

    I’m reading Arthur Symons’ book on the symbolist movement in French literature, which is supposed to be the seminal work of criticism on that genre. It’s an area of literature in which I’m sorely ignorant, and the book illuminates the definitive elements of poems by Rimbaud, Verlaine, Baudelaire and others of whom the importance has always been a distant mystery.

    The chapter on Verlaine, which I’m reading now, zeroes in on the antisocial persona taken on by the artist and puts me in mind of antisocial artists I’ve known over the years. At one time, I would have identified with it myself, but I became rather pragmatic at some point in my life, perhaps after my divorce. Beginning to make a solidly middle-class wage can do that to you I suppose.

    Artists like that are hated by almost everybody during their lifetime. People, like my acquaintance CXB, who are the embodiment of that spirit in the circle of artists I know, don’t seem to be doing anything more important or interesting than the work I’m producing. And it’s hard to imagine that there will be much to show for all CXB’s misanthropy when all is said and done.

  • Battery Park

    It’s 9 am, and I’m walking against the grain, against the hordes of commuters going to work, passing west over the north side of Ground Zero. There aren’t as many suits as I might have expected. I glance over each row of faces as I pass. None of them are hers.

    I cross down into Battery Park, following a group of tourists who are headed toward Clinton Castle. At the bay’s edge, I have a clear view of the Statue of Liberty, so gracious and majestic still, though she’s been having a hard time of late with so much of what she stands for being hypocritically challenged by ignorant or disingenuous fearmongers and warmongers.

    It was twenty years ago to the month, if not to the date, when I last explored this area, on vacation with my family. Being in New York then was like living in a dream. It’s still that way for me sometimes, when I happen to pass through Times Square late at night or early in the morning, while the crowds are sleeping in nearby hotels. This is one of those moments. I’m thinking about taking the Staten Island Ferry, just for the hell of it, but I decide I’ll save that adventure for another day. I’ve already strayed far enough from home.

  • McDonald’s

    Heard in the elevator around lunch time a couple of weeks ago:

    – Where are you going for lunch?

    – Mickey D’s.

    – Hate yourself that much, huh?

    – You have no idea.

    I went to McDonalds for breakfast this morning and had the following exchange with M.

    – I’m going to McDonalds.

    – Are you trying to kill yourself?

    – Yes, I hate myself that much.

    – Poly (our cat) wishes you hated her as much as you hate yourself.

  • The Virgin Spring

    I watched Bergman’s The Virgin Spring last night, which I’ve seen before, but not in many years. When the spring bursts out of the ground at the end of the movie, it’s one of the most powerful moments I’ve ever seen on film.

  • Title for a Country Song

    “Too Tired to Walk, Too Stoned to Drive.”

  • Seminary Thoughts

    Thinking about God today, particularly because I was walking by the seminary. I wonder if priests wrestle with their feelings about God more than lay people. It’s a sweeping generalization, but I think lay people tend to take their feelings about God for granted—be it belief, non-belief, or agnosticism—unless they’re in a state of crisis. And then you have people—the poor, the chronically ill—who are more or less always in a state of crisis or for whom one crisis begets another. And those people may be rather set in their ways about God also. Some people find hope or optimism through God; I tend to think that the hope itself is some aspect of God.

    I’m interested in the recent backlash against mythical thinking among certain scientists and philosophers—Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, etc. A kind of mythical thinking is key to the kind of literature that I’m trying to write, and it’s key to the way I tend to look at the world. Not that I believe the “magical” metaphysical implications of it, but the language of myth and religious metaphor helps me to understand my feelings about certain things. Perhaps I’m comfortable with that language because I come from the South.

    Allegedly, my uncle John had the following conversation with a street urchin when he came to New York in college to study at the seminary for a semester. I think he might have made it up.

    – Hey, where are you going?

    – I’m going to the seminary.

    – Why you wanna be around all those dead people?

  • Being an End Table

    I guess I’m feeling philosophical today. I’m not getting anything done on my novel (although I think I did add a sentence or two), but I’m finding myself lost in a lot of rather abstract thoughts. Just now, I was playing a mahjong game and thinking about what it means to be a “good person.” I’ve always found this concept rather suspicious.

    First, it implies that there is some essence or purpose to being a person, and if you fail at that purpose, you fail at being a person. I’m not sure that’s possible. If you’re a person, that’s just a natural, indisputable fact. I’m not sure it’s all that meaningful to say that someone is a “good” one or a “bad” one.

    Similarly, it sounds like a skill that can be acquired, along the lines of being a good golfer or a good mathematician. I suppose this could be a helpful metaphor if one is in the process of “trying to be a better person,” but one might just as likely throw one’s hands in the air and say, “I guess I’m just not that good at this ‘being a person’ thing. Maybe I should try to be something else, like maybe an end table.”

  • Dreamlog

    I had a number of interesting dreams last night, some of them involving Dothan and Westgate Park, which was the recreational center down the street from our house when I was growing up. In my dream, Westgate Park was also a bus terminal. Also, I had a recollection (in the dream) that Kelsey Grammar was the “equipment director” there before he was on television. I don’t know what that could have been about.

  • Dreamlog

    Really crazy dreams this morning, just in the hour or so in between M leaving for work and when I woke up. They all just sort of melded together.

    First, I was in a hotel with M and several other people, including Neil from the Bridge. M complained that Neil came in and didn’t seem like himself and ran into the bathroom. I didn’t see him, so I waited for him to come out. He never did.

    Instead, a beam of light seemed to come from the bathroom, projecting an image on the wall that said “Squeaky” over and over again, definitely a reference to the Gainesville band of that name. The image changed, moved around variously to all four walls and eventually showed some sort of commercial with a number we could call for more information. I said out loud, “I’m more interested in how they’re doing this than what they’re saying.” I started examining the windows, and noticed several cameras outside, apparently dangling from the floor above us.

    Meanwhile, a woman who was in the room with us called the number, but failed to find out what it was all about.

    Then some giant (he must have been over 7 feet tall) came by to replace a chair and radio in the room, even though he admitted there was nothing wrong with the old ones. I talked to him about the projections, and he said that several people had had similar complaints. He was fascinated by it, but couldn’t do anything of course. Also, inexplicably, there was a hole in the floor, and we could see a kitchen below. The giant from hotel management didn’t care about that either.

    At that point, the transition is unclear, but I was sort of attending a high school reunion that was also somehow a work conference (in the dream, I was still working for Karen Entner). The only reunion person I remember clearly was Tammy Tindal Taylor, who seemed genuinely happy to see me (utterly unrealistic). It was supposed to be some kind of dinner or maybe a lunch, but I was having a hard time finding a comfortable chair to sit in, so I left.

    I went to go clean out my car, which was extremely messy. I got a call from Karen asking me when M’s conference would be over (apparently she was also at a conference in the same town, so we were staying longer than some others) and to just give her receipts for my meals.

    The next thing I remember is M screaming at me to turn off the TV, and I woke up with a start.

  • Some Punk Lyrics

    Some lyrics (punk rock, G and F):

    You call me on the telephone everyday

    You’ve got nothing to say. You just want to say ‘hey’.

    Ask me how I’m doin’, say I sound bored.

    That’s a brilliant observation. You’ve got me floored.

    Chorus:

    I’m bored with you, bored with you.

    So hang up the phone; this conversation is through.

    I’m bored with you, bored with you.

    So get of my way; I’ve got other things to do.