An Empty Family Cabin
I arrived after midnight. I found the key on the peg in the unused barn using the flashlight on my phone.
There was a blanket of stars so thick I stood in the barn door staring upward at the swirling white masses for a long time after I found the key. The shadows in the old, haunted barn had made me think of the birth of Christ story as I remembered all the departed members of my family.
Now, looking at the sky, I was thinking of them again. I could see the ghosts of the animals staring down at the holy child in his manger and swaddling cloths through the stars as Boo, my Siberian Husky, stood staunchly on the ground by my side with his leash on, sniffing the wild twenty-first century wind and peering into the blackness where the heavy woods started.
There’s only one way out of this, I told myself, thinking of the city of Chicago I had left behind. It was the place I loved that had damn near killed me.
September Sunlight
Boo and I watched the sun rise sitting in a camp chair in the vast back yard surrounded by heavy woods leading down to a cedar swamp and a small stream. These woods were heavy and wild enough to harbor black bears, bobcats, and coyotes. The occasional wolf or mountain lion sighting were also reported in these parts of northern Michigan.
As the sun continued to rise, Boo jumped down off my lap, but I always kept his leash on, because I knew he had the potential to bolt for the woods following the call of the wild despite himself and not really knowing what he was doing while precipitating a panicked search on my end. He had the Houdini escape artist tendencies of the Siberian Husky, but at the same time he was more loyal to me than any human in my life except my kids, at least these days.
I stretched my muscles, getting ready, and watched the flaming red-orange colors in the sky, trying to pick up the signal.
I spread out all my painting supplies on a blanket in the thick, dewy green grass at my feet. I took stock of my materials and packed it all into a backpack and a painting sack. I had a small rack to which I attached my small blank canvases.
I drank hot, black instant coffee made in the cabin over the fire. I smoked a marijuana cigarette (legal in Michigan) with the coffee and thought of Van Gogh smoking so much and eating so little that his teeth fell out, because he was too busy painting, drawing, reading, or writing, always one or the other, even when sitting in bars, alone or with others.
Painting and smoking often go hand in hand, Pollock and Picasso, laughing, pointed out. Pablo claimed he didn’t inhale; and while it can be assumed that this amateur painter (myself) avoided alcohol, tobacco, and hard drugs these days, he was never far from a marijuana cigarette or a small pipe of the fresh green ganja supply I was traveling with, purchased in Illinois, another legal state (although my own purchase hadn’t been legal).
Van Gogh had died semi-young after managing to pack ten thousand lifetimes into one. He was an obsessive reader of Shakespeare, Dostoevsky, and Dickens. His final drama on the stage of this world was out of this world, as tragic and grand as anything on Shakespeare’s pages.
With his ghost behind us in my mind, Boo and I went out into the fields, always surrounded by woods. I began to paint, a lone tree with red leaves like a friendly, ancient monster waving its arms at us in the wind. After decades of practice drawing and painting in my free time, suddenly I was painting much more rapidly, intensely, and confidently than I’d ever been able to paint before.
After literally decades of off-and-on, amateur practice, the real paintbrush had been handed to me at last! Or so it felt like. Suddenly, magically, gracefully, gratefully, I felt like I knew just what I was doing, and why. The source remained a mystery. But my hand felt faultless now.
For decades, I’d struggled to master a million different techniques, trying out many different ways of painting, and drawing. But my own visual voice had never come out of the closet, at least not completely. Until now. Until now! Until now, at the ripe old age of forty-six.
With a hand that was gifted, and super-confident and assured, educated through the humble, lowly labor of years, the sometimes humiliating, lonely labor of years, I painted.
I made a practice of continually thanking Boo for being there with me during this time. This practice of thanking started to make me feel, more and more, that there’s more to this world than meets the eye. And by thanking Boo, I felt like I was thanking something, or someone, much larger than either of us which was beyond, or above, our eyes. I did, and did not, know who I was talking to, or what the Name really was.
And so with grateful, graceful, full-blown ease, I painted like I’d never painted before, in both volume and intensity. I was painting every single moment of my life now, sleeping included. I slept with my favorite paintbrush in hand or under the pillow. My strange cabin dreams were all filled with images and ideas for painting. I went to sleep dreaming of painting, and my first thought on waking was always about the same.
I painted the motions of the still-green leaf floating down in front of my face.
I painted the way the wild turkeys’ heads were made up of soft gray as they moved, searching for food together, their long tail feathers a bewildering variety of soft, earthy browns braided with mysterious black.
I painted the way Boo’s glistening black and pure white fur swirled as the dog jogged out ahead of me on his long leash in the green and yellow field and then began to run in mad, joyful, light-footed husky circles around me on the end of his super-long leash.
I painted the way I marched through the fields with Boo at my side.
I painted fresh deer tracks in white sand at water’s edge.
I painted the elk’s antlers I found in the woods.
I painted Boo’s blue eyes, and the bright blue of the bluebird disappearing behind the green tree and the dark blue of the great blue heron flying away forever into the light blue sky.
The eagle’s white head was nobility. The toadstool’s soft pink was sudden growth. The orange-red of the sugar maples was like a womb birthing. The bright yellow of aspen leaves was like finding fallen gold deposited in the grass at your feet. The aspen leaves fell down, twirling, swirling yellow in a blast of the Creator’s wind.
I captured their movements and colors on my canvas. But it wasn’t THE YELLOW I was searching for. It wasn’t the yellow, but it was close enough to keep me going in my search. I felt like any moment my world might burst open onto more true beauty. I would find what I’d been looking for through the paintbrush. Or have it handed to me.
I ran into the occasional “Keep Out” or “Private Property” sign on my hiking-painting trips. But there was and is an amazing amount of public land in northern Michigan to tramp around in, over and through.
The High Country Wilderness Pathway and the North Country Scenic Trail both ran for hundreds of miles back and forth through this area.
The Indians had called this region “Big Cloud” because of the big, wild white clouds that were continually forming and blowing away from the Great Lakes on either side at the top of Michigan’s mitten.
I painted the ever-moving varieties of shapes, forms, and colors of the clouds, mythical figures and faces of gods sending consoling messages to the earthbound human race.
I painted the light when it was raining while the sun was out, myself and my canvas under a large umbrella I was holding, Boo rocking and rolling around while happily dancing in a light, spring-like rain during autumn in northern Michigan.
I began to trust the peeking-out sunlight as a sign: more than itself.
I painted the sudden holy light when the clouds parted and the wordless vision finally broke through, only for an instant, leaving me wondering what it meant and when it would come back again.
I painted the dark redness of leaves in sunset. I painted the way the sunset threw its colors like magic lantern flames over lakes and trees.
When the cold autumn winds kicked up, I wore my old hooded sweatshirt like a black half cloak. Backpack, painting sack, canvas rack and canteen on my back, Boo on the end of his long leash, myself in a red flannel shirt, blue jeans, and hiking boots, and sometimes barefoot, with or without a walking stick, or the umbrella under my arm, the two of us marched, danced and pranced through the fields for hours at a time, in between, after and during painting sessions. Boo! Hopping and bouncing along through tall grass like a deer, hearing and barking out the call of the wild, howling back at the coyotes.
Sometimes, we listened to “Lake Marie” by John Prine on my phone: over and over again, the same great song countless times before moving on to Leonard Cohen’s “Suzanne” and “Hallelujah,” then Dylan’s “Tangled Up in Blue” and “Like A Rolling Stone.”
I painted huge pink and blue-grey rocks on the river bank with a mossy-backed snapping turtle sliding off into the water, shadows of Big Foot, spirit of the woods, lurking in trees on the other side.
I painted the underside of the stone river bridge with the water rippling blue and white in moonbeams and star light, elves and fairies present in the painting but also not there at all: only their shadows.
I painted Boo with his big, blue, expectant eyes, white eyebrows and stand-up ears, looking at everything, happy with all, curious about what was coming next.
I painted us again, two simple separate creatures of the modern world, underdogs, marching and dancing together through the fields as I painted, painted, and painted more until my hands and clothes, sometimes my face, hair and beard were covered in paint.
We stayed out from sunrise to sunset most days, painting and hiking, until my muscles and joints ached. Until my brain could take no more. But even then, in this hypnotic, hypomanic hum, I never felt ready to quit painting.
I saw the yellow undersides of the hawk’s wings as it swooped low above us as if saying hello while going away, and the bright yellow breast of the Kirtland’s warbler as this once-almost-extinct-and-now-recovered bird flitted away through the jack pine trees.
At night in the firelight mixed with my grandfather’s lantern light inside the old cabin, I painted my own head and face while Boo curled up on the sleeping bags on the floor next to me. I painted my shoulder-length brown hair with some gray hanging down out of its pony tail, a single, thin threading of white hair on the left side, like a memento mori from Epictetus. I painted my untrimmed, graying beard like the symbol of an ancient philosopher on my face, maybe Diogenes, the dog sage, looking at me through the mirror of time’s illusive shadows.
And I painted my own eyes, after all this seeing and looking. Though I’d been laughing a lot lately, all my self-portraits showed me as deadly serious with closed mouth and fiery green eyes, half-crazy maybe but married to a positive purpose.
I painted myself by the riverside as Siddhartha. Arjuna. Confucius. Mohammed. Lao Tzu. I painted myself as Black Elk. Sitting Bull. Bob Marley. Fridah Khalo. Emily Dickinson. Jesus.
As I now lay down and stretched out on the sleeping bags and blankets, I delicately felt myself merging with all the identities I’d painted, especially the last one, who seemed to somehow encompass all the others. And I was nailed to a cross, like him.
I painted the skull of a black bear. I found the entire skeleton pressed into the sand on a far-away lakeshore when the wind was moving the clouds along through the sky in shining October light.
I painted the bear skull from many different angles, like I’d painted the acorn, and the red, orange and yellow leaves.
When I found the bear skull, I realized I’d probably never find the yellow I was looking for on this earth. Maybe I would find it in the next life. In the meantime, I felt like my grandmothers and my mother, once with me in the family cabin for weekends and holidays, and all gone now, were also watching over me.
Then that feeling was gone. Almost lost again while hiking in the heavy woods with darkness coming on, on foot and then on dirt roads in the mini-van which had once held many stacks of empty canvases. Remote. Far from others. No people. Too tired. Sometimes going all day without seeing a single person. Avoiding the town. Alone in the cabin at night. Lost in the cabin at night now. Running out of energy as the well ran dry. An image of Big Foot tearing someone to shreds and eating the brains from their skull. The ghost of Van Gogh loading the pistol.
I’d been painting obsessively for almost forty days. My mojo was going. This great painting session was on its way out. It was winding down. Soon, suddenly (like life), it would be over. But it wasn’t over yet. And maybe the best of it would be the end.
Laura
There was a cabin turned into a general store painted bright blue on a high, green hill in the middle of nowhere, not far from the Wilderness Pathway.
It had a festive sign outside showing lake waves, pine trees and sunset in mellow blue, green, and red.
One sign said “Trading Post.” Another sign said “SWEET’S 746” and yet another, “Beer Bait Buddies.”
Hungry, I left Boo in the mini-van out by the gas pump and headed into the store.
A young woman stood behind the counter staring at me.
I wasn’t used to seeing people lately and definitely not such a good-looking person this close up.
She was maybe nineteen years old. She wore a red halter top falling off both shoulders. She stood with her hands in the back pockets of her jeans, like Joan Crawford in a movie.
Her eyes were almond-shaped, with low dark lids that gave her glance a sleepy feel until you noticed the intensity of looking, noticing, seeing, observing. She had silky, long black hair falling back over her shoulders in a loose pony tail. She wore a white bandana on her head, tied in the back. And she was staring at me.
As I stepped up to the counter with two jars of peanut butter and a loaf of bread, she said, “Hey mister, you know I’ve seen you around.”
She was ringing up my items on the cash register and watching me.
“You’ve seen me?”
“For weeks now. I’ve been watching you, actually.”
“You’ve been watching me?”
“Your painting methods. Wait here!”
She hurried out from behind the counter, vanishing behind a curtain into the back part of the store.
When she came back out, she was holding a long purple wildflower in one hand and a small painting in the other. “You’ve been painting stuff like this,” she said, holding the flower toward me. “And I’ve been painting stuff like this, because of you.”
She held her small painting out to me.
It was of a sleeping dove. The dove was sleeping in the green leaves, painted like feathers, the feathers like white leaves.
She handed me the painting of the sleeping dove. “You can keep it.”
Her name tag said Laura. Laura, like the poet Petrarch’s lifelong love.
I was floating as I left the store. I literally felt like I was floating and walking on clouds. I had a fan! Not only a fan, a person who’d been inspired by me to do it herself.
I knew some people had seen me around. I’d had no idea one of these people was watching me closely. Much less a beautifully seeing young woman who’d been inspired to take up the paintbrush herself.
Waking up in the cabin, in my blankets, in the dying firelight, at 4 AM. Laura was a dream.
The Gallery
I painted for exactly forty days that September and October. My last paintings from this whirlwind were a small series of Laura. Laura in the distance under the spreading yellow tree. Laura’s hooded, electrifying eyes. Laura painting her sleeping dove under the yellow tree.
When I counted the paintings again, I knew that I’d made exactly one hundred and twenty in forty days.
I hung the paintings on the walls of the barn and the walls of the cabin. I painted a sign that said Now I am, and hung it over the barn door.
As Boo and I drove back to Chicago and all the failures and troubles that still waited for us there, I imagined the imaginary Laura’s children standing in the barn one day, studying my works.
They’d be interested in the way my paintings had influenced the paintings of their mother. They would look at my paintings, studying the invisible gold chain of influence. The unseen thread between us all that means everything.
I looked at Boo and his blue eyes, and felt like I saw him truly. He wagged his fluffy black and white brush tail and looked, curiously, back at me.
Image: Paint brushes and tubes of Oil paints on an artists pallet from Pixabay.com
literally stories 
Hi Dale,
I think you were showing the beauty in what he was painting and the artist’s eye that he had for those forty days. The ending was excellent with him thinking on inspiration and inspiration from inspiration.
Some of the descriptions on what he was painting teased. As I read them an idea touched my mind of what he was actually seeing but you moved on and so did the idea. Weirdly that didn’t annoy, it enhanced. If I read this again, I may think on some of these and try to work out if they were simple beauty that he wanted to capture, or was there another meaning to what he painted??
One thing Dale, you can write a story as well as you can comment!!
All the very best my fine friend.
Hugh
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Dear Hugh
That is a perfect reading of my story and I couldn’t have said it better myself! THANKS for selecting and curating this story and bringing it out into the light amidst the vast collection that is the LS project! With an amazing TEN year anniversary coming up, I couldn’t be more proud to be a part of this endeavor. Here’s to more, much more, in the future!…
Dale
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Dale
It’s great to be able to return compliments to you, and here they are well earned.
First, I must extol the performance by Boo in this story. You are never alone with a Dog.
This retreat into nature is extremely well told as is the theme of making a connection via solitude. Van Gogh influences this artist who in turn influences the girl who will pass that along.
Art offers if not mortality, at least the possibility of a damn long existence. You also breathed life into the setting, I felt as though in the woods.
Once more, cannot overstate the quality of the theme; it is wonderful, everyone adding something to the same greater beauty while defining their own individuality.
Great work !
Leila
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Dear Leila
Every good word I’ve ever said about you and your work is absolutely true, and anyone who’s read some or all of your dozens upon dozens of great short stories and interconnected, though stand-alone, nonfiction writings knows that’s true, if they’re awake anyway!
Thanks for mentioning Boo, he’s laying here at my feet right now!
Also, thanks for highlighting the theme of this piece. As I said to you in an email about this story, on one level I consider it a minimalist WALDEN by Thoreau. Emily Dickinson and HDT are the second and third presiding spirits, or muses, for this story.
The main inspiration is every TRUE artist on the planet, of which there are still, thankfully, countless numbers, the vast, massive majority of them NOT members of the celebrity crowd. Thanks again!
Dale
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Dale I cannot thank you enough for your support and kindness for my work.
But I predict this day (and next Sunday) will be all yours and deservedly so
This could have been a dirge in a less talented hand than yours, but you made it shine.
Say “Hey there, Boo” for me. A friend has a Husky named Kiki; according to Kiki is will be a “coo-holll wuntuh, wah wah.”
Take care to both of you. Now I am off to work. Six months of it to go, I tell myself on howling November mornings such as the one blowing off the Sound today.
Leila
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Leila
I told Boo you said hi!
Kiki sounds like quite the articulate prognosticator!
Six months = almost there!
Thanks again!
Dale
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An interesting piece that did a great job in bringing that part of the world, unknown to me, into my living room! And yes, sometimes we can be surprised by the impact our creative work can have on others, webbing us all together!
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Dear Steven
THANKS for reading my story and commenting on it!
I’m happy that the setting seemed real and brought a little bit of the northern Michigan wilds into your living room!
I agree with you, finding out that something about one’s creative work into which they’ve poured their heart and soul somehow had a small or large impact on someone else, is one of the best feelings in the world…
Dale
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There are beautifully written settings in this one and magic in the interpersonal reactions including the ones with lovely Boo. Inspiration comes from so many times and places and I think all we can do is bless the Muse. This was a lovely story – thank you – dd
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Dear Diane
Thanks for calling Boo lovely, he loves that description of himself which I just shared with him!
Thanks also for highlighting my attempt to write something about beauty itself. In a world where far too much seems to be going very wrong these days, it was fun to try and write something that reminded me that beauty itself is never-ending, and is always there, if we know where to look, which is all around us wherever we are.
And THANKS for all you’ve done and continue to do in creating, maintaining, and energizing LS!! I couldn’t be happier to be a part of this Decade-Long Story Project and Ongoing…
Dale
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Dale
Why are humans so caught by ‘progress’ measured by land & buildings possessed, capital preserved, assets bundled passed on to undeserving heirs?
Your story reminded there are infinitely more important things, things more human and lasting, to pass on. Like the invisible gold chain. The unseen thread.
The perfect yellow.
Thanks so much. Gerry
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Gerry
THANKS very much for reading, understanding, and commenting on this story.
You provided a great description of one of the key themes of this piece, which helped me see it in a new light. Thanks for the great comments!!
Dale
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A terrific story that blends a search for art and life’s meaning. The imagery is vivid and evocative. The setting contributes to a meditative, almost mystical tone, with Boo a grounding presence. I like that Emily Dickinson had a place of honor on the riverside.
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David
THANKS for your thoughtful comments on this story. I like how you described the tone and compared it with Boo in a yin and yang kind of way. Yes, Emily D. was a really big part of this story! There was one scene where she appeared for a longer time in a kind of dream sequence, but it ended up not belonging in this story (maybe in another one)…Thanks again!…
Dale
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Two ways I identify with this story.
Like painters, I wonder what the legacy of my writing will be. Many stories are no longer available. One is gone which had four thousand views (no more than three thousand from me). Maybe LS and FOTW will be around for a few more days. The kind comments keep me going for another day or two.
Michigander live-in editor taught me how Michiganders show where they are from by pointing out out a spot on the palm of their hands with thumb spread wide. At least I think that is how it is done.
The idea of enjoying what one is doing with a superb companion sounds great.
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Doug
Your comments on the evanescence of art are hauntingly accurate and I totally know exactly what you mean!! It was a thing that kept me up a lot at nights in the olden days until I realized, or rather was driven to the conclusion, that the artist’s first duty is to her- or himself. All we can do is remain true to ourselves and hope for the best! John Donne’s work virtually disappeared (almost) for over a century and more before being resurrected later when he vaulted to the top of the canon as an English poet (“For whom does the bell toll?”). By that time, he was probably too old to even roll over in his grave here on Planet Earth, but who knows but that a hint or whisper hasn’t reached him somewhere?…The last sentence of your great comments says it all…In one of his poems Whitman talks about a tree growing all on its own and says, “I know very well that I could not.” Yes, the thing with the hand is a Michigan thing! This story took place outside Atlanta, MI…THANK YOU…
Dale
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The “visual voice” most certainly got out of the closet! A kind of slow-burn meditation on the art of seeing, so striking in its portrayal of painterly solitude, it has all the clarity & colour of Van Gogh’s own letters! And the fleeting encounter with Laura is so warmly observed it brings home the reality of how such seemingly ‘incidental’ encounters can indeed lift morale, replenish the spirit. That sign above the barn door reads: “Now I am.” So too this entire story: IS. Great stuff.
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Honestly
THANKS so much for these great comments! I always enjoy your incisive readings of stories and the elegant, poetic way you have of expressing your perceptions, along with the range of reference(s) you bring to your readings. All of the above is one of a kind. Thanks so much for shining a light on the importance of the “seemingly ‘incidental’ encounters” so crucial to modern life. It’s SUCH an important part of the way we live now, in this modern world, and sadly ignored by so many…such encounters truly can “lift morale, replenish the spirit,” if we are alive enough to let them happen! Thanks again…and THANKS for comparing this to VVG’s letters…
Dale
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Dale,
I love the setting of Northern Michigan! You have turned painting into an adventure. Makes me wonder if it could become a trend? My mind went to J. D. Salinger’s “De Daumier-Smith’s Blue Period,” and thoughts of “A Hunger Artist.” Art being the theme that is blended beautifully in this story of an obsession with painting, living and breathing painting, and his wonderful companion Boo. “Painting under an umbrella in the rain with the sun out,” that sounds magical. The Kirtland’s warbler took me away too, because as an amateur birder it is high on the list–always looking in the pines–never seen.The murderer Leopold has a strange connection with the K.
“I painted myself by the riverside…Confucius, Sitting Bull…Jesus.” Ending that paragraph with Jesus. I thought that was powerful!
I like Boo a lot. He sounds like the perfect companion, but I was worried about his safety when he heard “The call of the wild.” I was hoping he would make it out the woods, then there’s the touching moment between them riding back to the failures of Chicago. Nicely done.
There is a naturalist prose involved here, poetic, and masterful in the descriptions of the land. And it’s all going some place–and there is even a courtship of passing down his art. Like he is finding and once found, he is painting his very soul and then giving it away. Beautiful!
Christopher
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Christopher
I’m a big Salinger fan…I like how he disappeared into the woods, along with his writing…and also, I love Kafka’s “The Hunger Artist,” so thanks for mentioning both. In terms of our discussion from the other day, I wanted to mention two stories by Herman Melville, “Bartleby, the Scrivener,” “and “Billy Budd,” two of my favorites and also favorites of others on the site, including Leila. The short story “The Piazza” by Melville also fed “The Ghost of Van Gogh.” I truly, very much appreciate your great comments…can’t tell you what it means to me…coming from a reader and writer of your abilities and talents…I’ve been lucky enough to see the Kirtland’s warbler once or twice…
You quoted “American Pie” the other day in regard to these troubled times…along with that quotation, I wanted to add two by the Jokerman (Dylan) himself: “False hearted judges dying in the webs that they spin / Only a matter of time, ’til night comes steppin’ in,” and, “She say who gonna take away his license to kill?”
Since you mentioned Don McLean, I also wanted to mention his other really, really great song along with “American Pie”….”Vincent”…a truly great song, which Tupac Shakur’s girlfriend played for him over and over as he lay dying, full of bullet holes in a Las Vegas hospital bed…because they say it was one of his favorite songs. Both my daughters are huge fans of Tupac…
Boo is doing good! Thanks again…
Dale
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Dale
Thank you that means a lot! I’m glad to comment on your work. I’ve noticed by thinking about how others craft their stories. The idea of what a story is gets a little sharper. That’s a great song by Don M. “Vincent” Starry Starry night… is rather heart breaking. The way his voice is so gentle and folksy. Yes I need to check out Melville’s work. The giants from the 1800’s have a lot to offer. Mark Twain wrote a dark one called “Cannibalism in The Cars.” about a railroad incident on the plains in the middle of winter. Like being broke down on the moon. That’s sad about Tupac and his final request. I’ll comment back on your other post about Jesus on that link. This ironic, I’m currently listening to Jesus’ Son and it is mesmerizing with Will Patton reading it. His voice is going around in my head and now I’m writing a bar story.
Christopher
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Dear Christopher
Hello! I absolutely MUST thank you for pointing out/commenting on the all-important mention of Jesus in “The Ghost of Van Gogh,” and its placement in the story, and say a few words about this. I’m writing to you about this because I know you can understand, and get, this, a rare quality!
But Jesus occurred where he did for two reasons. The first is that Van Gogh himself started out with nature paintings and then moved on to self/portraits (mostly) like the character in the story does, and VG painted himself as Jesus a few times, following in line with Paul Gauguin. The second reason is that Jesus is my number one hero of all time…nothing gets me angrier, or more disgusted, more repelled, more indignant, more down-hearted, more outraged, or more just-plain-pissed-off-again, than all the millions of vapid, fake, right-wing, tasteless, uneducated-even-if-college-educated, judgmental, misinformed, misguided “Christians” who don’t understand “the poor in spirit,” at all, and who have perverted and distorted the real message of JC, now, then, and in the future…but he himself was ahead of them all, even then, when he said, “Watch out for the wolves in sheeps’ clothing…many will come in my name…false prophets.”
Jesus and his mother and his best friends Mary Magdalene, Peter, and the gang are my favorite “characters” in all of literature. While I know for a fact that these people really did exist in real life (and virtually all sane-minded historians agree with me on this point), I also know that there have been many FICTIONS, stories, myths, and legends that have grown up around these people. The fact that they were human, and maybe holy anyway, is what truly draws me to their stories…I happen to believe they were definitely holy as well as human. But one doesn’t need to believe this in order to take something from their stories. Mary Magdalene is an absolutely great person AND character, even though her portrait is drawn with so few strokes in the Gospels themselves. She’s an example of the true powers of brevity even beyond none other than Shakespeare and Hemingway themselves.
The Book of Mark is a great, great, great NOVELLA that can and should be read by everyone whether you believe in the Christian RELIGION itself or not. (I myself believe in the teachings of JC, NOT the Christian religion per se.) (All four of the Gospels are great novellas, but the Book of Mark is the first in chronological order, the shortest, the fastest-moving, and the most palatable for people who don’t buy into the “religion” part of it). If nothing else, JC is there with Confucius, Lao Tzu, Socrates/Plato, Muhammad, and the Buddha as one of the greatest spiritual teachers of all time. (These were the leaders and their millions upon millions of TRUE, nameless followers are the real heroes.) Kurt Vonnegut called himself a “Christ-loving atheist,” Einstein lauded Jesus no end, and Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen both feel/felt the same. No further proof needed!
Jesus did everything he did via two methods. The first was how he lived his life (and I do believe he was able to pull off many healings that would have looked like miracles at the time, anyway.) The second was story-telling. He was an endless story-teller, telling one parable after another, telling hundreds of parables that fascinated his small audiences at the time, so much so that some few people started writing it all down. Along with the Sermon on the Mount, there are no greater short stories in the Western world than The Prodigal Son and the Good Samaritan. Jesus didn’t INVENT his parables, he REINVENTED them from what he found already there, just like Shakespeare did with most of his material (Cleopatra, Julius Caesar, King Lear, MacBeth, etc.) and Dylan did with music.
Another one of my favorite writers is Paul, whose letters helped spread the Jesus message after JC had vanished from this mortal realm. Paul too is so widely misunderstood, misinterpreted, misread, and misrepresented that it can drive one crazy at points. For one thing, he was against the EXCESSES of sexuality in ANY form, NOT necessarily in any one specific aspect of it. For another, his main message was always that of Jesus himself: “Love thy neighbor.” Ananias of Damascus was the name of the person/character who opened Paul’s eyes…”The Acts of the Apostles” is another great novella…which is to say, in this case, thinly veiled fiction based on fact. “”The greatest story ever told,” as a filmmaker once called it. (And almost every single movie ever made about any of this totally gets it all wrong to the point of being unwatchable…no actors or actresses I’ve ever heard of could play these roles at all well, although there are folks who resemble these people in real life…many, in fact…not outwardly…inwardly…)
There are a lot of false, fake, nasty, mean-spirted “Christians” around right now in the Land of the Homeless and the Home of the Greedy, sometimes lurking behind every tree, probably not so much on the coasts as in the middle, south, and west of this great country, although there are also a TON of them these days in WASHINGTON, DC, coming out of the woodwork in fact, I hear tell.
As Leonard Cohen said in “Suzanne,” which I name-check in “The Ghost of Van Gogh” because I admire it so much:
“Jesus was a sailor when he walked upon the water. And he spent a long time watching from his lonely wooden tower…He said all men will be sailors then until the sea shall free them…and he sank beneath your wisdom like a stone.”
Dale
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Dale
I hear what you are saying about Jesus. All the twisted points of views are ad infinitum. I like the stories of the Bible, too. Paul said he was Chief among sinners. Makes me think anyone can get in as long as they believe. Kurt Vonnegut a “Christ Loving Atheist” that sounds like him. I like his work, he had quite the sense of humor. I’ve never read Slaughterhouse Five–another one on the list.
Christopher
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Christopher
Totally cool that you mention that piece by Twain, I’ve heard of it but never read it, but now I plan on checking it out…he has another dark one called “The United States of Lyncherdom” in which he attacks the American herd mentality that leads to lynching, and extolls a few law enforcement officials who stopped lynchings via putting themselves in peril, blocking the mob…”The United States of Lyncherdom,” almost as good as “A Modest Proposal” by Jonathan Swift…wild to think that “A Modest Proposal” is only 3,376 words long…it shows what you can do in a short space…
I was partly raised in Quincy, Illinois, which is basically right across the Mississippi River from Hannibal, Missouri, where Samuel Langhorne Clemens, aka MT, was raised…so Twain’s also been one of my tutelary spirits. I like thinking about the connections between him and Kurt Vonnegut…right up to the point of imagining that Vonnegut was Twain, reincarnated (and who am I to say it ain’t really so…) because they have more in common than just the crazy hair, wild mustaches, and smoking habits…
Totally cool that you’re rockin’ on Jesus’s Son…good luck with the bar story!
The things Paul went through were amazing…shipwrecks, beatings, being jumped, being imprisoned, being starved, threats of death, being stoned almost to death…only to shrug it all off and continue with his work!…and the whole time he was also working full-time as a tent maker, as he also explains in one of his letters…
I tend to follow Emmanuel Swedenborg in believing that anybody can get in, if they want to bad enough…but depending on HOW wretched the things you did here on earth, it might take you a very long time…we’re all sinners, but some of us are also poor in spirit, and some of us try to crush the poor in spirit….I guess we’ll see! Maybe one of my big sins is being too judgmental!
Re: tales of writerly craft, the rough draft version of “The Ghost of Van Gogh” was originally 9,000 words long…far too prolix, and there are only so many ways you can describe a tree, after a while…at least for now…try again another day! Some of the stuff that ended up on the cutting room floor might be “sequel” or “prequel” story material…I’m letting it cool off before I peek at it again…and decide to press “delete” then head to the recycling bin in the alley with the pages…
Tupac was also a BIG fan of Shakespeare…I think he said Romeo and Juliet was “ghetto” and was his favorite play…
Wild to think that “Car Crash While Hitchhiking” by Denis Johnson is just over 1,000 words long…he does SO much within that space…the same length as “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place,” by Hemingway…Keep writing back when you can!
Dale
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Dale
“The United States of Lyncherdom,” that sounds like rough stuff. Like Billy Holidays “Strange Fruit.” All of that injustice is incomprehensible–No words…. Mark Twain’s name means two fathoms or twelve feet, the apparent safe depth for steamboats when he was a riverboat pilot. I think he said that was his favorite job of all. Writing too? Makes me wonder… That would be neat to grow up where you did. The spirit of Huckleberry Finn` in the very air. I never thought about the connection between M.Twain and Kurt. V. You’re right they do look alike. lol. I like the idea of Kurt being from Indianapolis.
Yeah its been a real study project Jesus’ Son, just amazing– has to be one of the best things ever written! Thanks on the bar story. Maybe Wayne will turn up?
Paul was a tent maker that is interesting. It is neat how real life grounds the Gospels. I believe the Bible, always have… Regardless of the label of fables. Nah, sorry it’s real.
You seem like a prolific writer. The way you can crank out these paragraphs is pretty amazing and clean copy, too. Bet the Editors from LS appreciate that. Yeah it sounds like a good idea to incorporate edits of “The Ghost of Van Gogh” into a sequel or prequel.
Yeah the start of the book with “Car Crash” is amazing! I didn’t realize it was around a 1000 words. I think it’s harder to study with audio but I’ll take what I can get. A Clean, Well-Lighted Place,” by E. Hem going to look that up. thanks
Christopher.
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Christopher
I totally agree with you about The Bible 100%…there’s something about it in the aggregate that’s totally convincing, including how so many of the stories circulate through world-wide culture at large even for people who’ve never read it. If things weren’t holy before this, they definitely were afterward…inspired writings at the highest levels…and that’s not to preclude the divine aspect of it either, on the contrary…the King James Version of the Bible is so full of poetry and poetic prose it’s utterly mind-blowing…the more modern English translations are almost all models of simple, direct prose and the powers of brevity, not to mention the poetry…
Hemingway claimed that The Bible was behind everything he ever wrote, especially something like “The Old Man and the Sea”…the Bible, and Shakespeare (he loved King Lear best)…not to mention the Bible’s influence on three of my favorite writers and singers, Nick Cave, Bob Dylan, and Leonard Cohen. Hemingway said The Bible influenced his prose style more than Shakespeare (the utter simplicity of it) which makes sense…that and his working as a reporter where he had to boil down the news stories into a few words that could be read by a newspaper audience (sixth grade level)…He learned a lot on the newspaper in Kansas City even though he didn’t stay there long…journalism and newspaper writing is mostly NO GOOD for creative writers any more…too corporate and generic. William Tyndale, one of the writers who first translated The Bible into English, was strangled at the stake for his efforts!…
Paul’s letters are wild in the way they’re written, like in the one at the end where he says, “I just took the pen from my scribe and am writing this in my own hand, SO YOU KNOW THIS MUCH IS TRUE…” He also keeps telling everyone they better be good because he’s coming to town in person soon and he’ll want to know why, if they haven’t been…to him, “being good” meant “love your neighbor”…and they say you didn’t want to get on the wrong side of Paul…
As stated previously, I also totally agree with you about Johnson’s “Jesus’ Son.” I discovered the book back in the 1990s, right when it came out, and I was wild about it, like you are now…the fact that it can still have that much of an impact on such a talented, creative writer as yourself speaks to the fact that this is lasting American literature…Johnson was another writer who retreated into the woods…claimed he wasn’t an outdoorsman but moved to a tiny town in Idaho in order to get away from the modern world as much as possible…which is also possible to do wherever you are (it doesn’t have to be the woods, it can be a mentality)…
Thanks for writing back, looking forward to more soon!…A big weekend for LS as this will be its TEN YEAR ANNIVERSARY…(and one of my essays is coming out on Sunday)…(it’s around 1,000 words long, so check it out and see if I managed to do anything good in it…)
Dale
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Dale
I agree the Bible is infinite. It is without a doubt the most powerful thing ever written. Jesus sits against the wall and casually says, “Let the one without sin cast the first stone.” Those words still ripple across humanity. Like he just said it into our ear. Even so, In Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery,” the towns’ people certainly ignored him.
That’s cool about the Bible influencing E Hem. Yes. Jesus’ Son is as Ezra Pound said, “Literature is news still news.” I had to think about that, but it’s true. Jesus’s son is alive for sure.
That’s a big deal on LS’ Ten Years Anniversary! I’m pretty much a newcomer, but they have made me feel welcome, as you and the other writers and readers have. It’s a fine site. Iv’e read some impressive pieces on here.
Good luck on you’re essay on Kafka that’s going to be good! I like anything about him.
Thanks
Christopher
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Hi Christopher,
That was totally cool where Leila name-checked and quoted you in her post/essay today! She’s totally right, the line she quoted is great! Congrads!
Jesus was also right when he told those two eternal tales over and over, The Prodigal Son and The Good Samaritan, both of which seem to play out somehow (not always in an obvious way) in Denis Johnson’s “Jesus’ Son”! The main character goes through a journey that makes him more than just an itinerant alcoholic/heroin addict in recovery…
Congrads again…
Dale
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Hi Dale,
Thanks! I totally missed that. We’re in the same paragraph so I’m in great company! I noticed you were mentioned at least three times. Congrats! You are definitely hitting it out of the park on your writing and comments.
Leila sent me a notification a couple of weeks ago about the line. I felt honored. I didn’t know what it would be. It was fun anticipating it. I’m happy they picked that one. Glad you like it!
Yes, The Prodigal Son seems like every alcoholic and drug addict that ever lived, including myself. I can relate to being out there… lost in the whirlwind. There are good Samaritans in the most unusual places. Denis Johnson’s work does go deeper than the chaos for sure. It’s like you said awhile back any writer learning the craft should read Jesus’ Son. I think it will be a kind of staple for me like Carver’s stories.
Good luck with your essay tomorrow!
Christopher
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Christopher
I too love the work of Raymond Carver…I used to devour it over and over, his stories, poems, and essays. I can say with all honesty and a totally straight face that the many, many short stories of another Pacific Northwest writer are better than Carver’s work…Leila Allison. She already has literary immortality in the bag…
Here’s a little poem I wrote one time when I was going through a fairly rough period, called “Campfire Song”:
“It was a very down period. Me and the / Old Player. Along the river. Again. In / the leaves island, by pondside. The fire / was out, out. Kickin’ an empty can. He say, / Little Old Eddie Poe. SAVE YOURSELF. / Any way / you can.”
My 1,000-word essay on the Rolling Stones and the British Romantics is up now! Kafka next month…
Dale
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Dale
Good deal I like those Pacific Northwest writers! Cool line…”Little Old Eddie Poe.”
Christopher
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Christopher
Glad you like the poem about E.A. Poe and his down-and-out pal, the Old Player…the empty cans they’re kickin’ are beer cans…After seeing a few of them fall, I realized that “SAVE YOURSELF” was one of the best pieces of advice for any and all writers; myself included…
Dale
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Dale,
I see in your comments that you mention Thoreau’s Walden as an inspiration and I certainly saw that noble parentage. Maybe we should all step out of society and into the wild wood for forty days in order to see things more clearly.
I imagine there is a strong autobiographical element in the piece, but I do hope you are now getting more nourishment than bread, peanut butter and the odd spliff. Please keep ’em coming.
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Mick
Thanks for appreciating, and mentioning, Walden and Thoreau, one of the truly great and endearing eccentrics of the English-speaking races, and beyond…I only wish I could’ve boiled down WALDEN as well as William Butler Yeats did in “The Lake Isle of Innisfree.” I read somewhere the other day that Walden is still the single best-known American book world-wide (widely known in India, for example)…(the same article said the best-known American writer overall is Edgar Allan Poe)…and Thoreau died penniless in his parents’ house, after reassuring his aunt that he hadn’t quarreled with God…
Re: the autobiographical nature of this story, I can say that I’m not much of a painter at all and that I tend to draw and take photos far more than painting…I had a health scare six months ago (I’m mostly fine now, on that score anyway) and it made me decide to make a few lifestyle improvements…because, to quote Marvell, “at my back I always hear / Time’s winged chariot hurrying near,” at 57!…
THANKS AGAIN, Mick!!
Dale
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Quite the painting experience…. I see the parallels with Van Gogh who also went more than a little crazy, as he worked on his art. A “hypnotic hypomanic hum” is mentioned, and other aspects indicating trying to stave off a possible breakdown due to loss or other serious issues. Reminds me a bit of “Up In Michigan” by Hemingway, although in that case it was fishing that was the therapy. Spirit connection and a connection with beauty is mentioned throughout and that includes Laura. That was cool at the end when the protagonist puts up all his paintings in the barn, then leaves them behind. Finally, a story that mentions John Prine gets my attention. Good ending.
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Harrison
Thanks for reading this and commenting with great sympathy and knowledge…Hemingway was a huge influence on this story, and it actually takes place about thirty miles away from where many of his “Nick Adams” stories occur…He cited Van Gogh as one of his favorite artists, along with Paul Cezanne, and that was an initial impetus for this piece…I used to live not too far from John Prine, here in Chicago…saw him wandering around a few times, but never met. A great poet artist in song, for sure!…Yes, the hypomanic hum always has the flipside waiting in relation to it…SO much so that it could almost be said that ALL real writers and artists are familiar with this on one level, in their own way and to their own degree…but the “down” times can also be when you get your best revisions completed! (if and when you’re lucky)….Thanks again for your great comments!
Dale
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I very much like the obsessive nature of this story, the repeated paragraphs starting with ‘I painted…’, the multitude of colours referred to and subjects used. I enjoy stories about artists and writers that do a successful job (as this story does) of getting under their skin and taking the reader inside their minds. Great writing.
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Paul
THANKS for highlighting the “I painted” repetitions in this story, which were deliberate and in imitation (sort of) of some of the incantatory language used by Walt Whitman and/or William Blake. A friend of mine who read this story said, “I was reading a story…and suddenly I was reading A POEM…” In that sense, this was an experimental story, as I did try to make it be a narrative/story that incorporated the poetry elements in a natural way, along with the painting…THANKS for noticing! (Or maybe I just resorted to that because I’m better at writing poetry than narrative fiction…not so much LOL as “Oh well”…)
Dale
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