A Lexicon of Forbidden Language

I have been wanting to write this post for years, but other posts kept taking priority. As any reader of this blog will know, I love words. I love language. I love meaning. And I have always been fascinated by the history of words and how meaning evolves over time and place. 

 

This post was also inspired in part because of my upbringing. As a good Fundamentalist kid, “bad” language was strictly forbidden. And I mean strictly. Sure, in plenty of families, you couldn’t say “fuck” without punishment. But in ours, even the most finely minced of oaths was verboten. 

 

We were, for example, not allowed to say “gee” or “golly” or “crap” or “gosh.” Even “darn” got the side eye. 

 

On the one hand, this made for some fun moments, like my brother adopting “bat barf” as his favorite expletive. And also, unlike in other households, we were not permitted to use slurs of any kind, or lob verbal insults. That was a good thing, and something I have retained in my own household.

 

On the other, policing of language all too often becomes a self-righteous, judgmental thing, encouraging one to look down on others who have different rules. 

 

In any case, the reason I wanted to write this post was to take a look at the varieties of forbidden words, where they come from, why they are used, and why they came to be seen as forbidden, or at least transgressive. 

 

In writing this, I will also correct what I see as imprecise use of language in describing forbidden words - cue Inigo Montoya.

 

Interestingly, people in the past were far more careful in their use of terms, so understanding what each means can actually help in understanding the writings of the past, or in different places. 

 

I also intend to talk a bit about how language policing is often a distraction from more important issues, and explain my thoughts on how I use and experience language. 

 

***

 

First, some words. Depending on your era and place in the world, terms can vary a lot. For example, if you, like me, read old literature from the British Isles, you have run across references “the vilest oaths,” or “curses too foul to even utter” and stuff like that. So what is an oath, and what is a curse?

 

In the neighborhoods I grew up in, forbidden language was “cussing,” while a rung or two higher on the socioeconomic ladder would say “swearing.” What do those mean?

 

In point of fact, all of those refer to specific kinds of forbidden language, none of which are typically the ones we would now be referring to when we say “oath,” “curse,” or “swear.” 

 

To assist in understanding this, I want to take a look at each classification of forbidden language, how it was originally used, and how to understand it. 

 

***

 

Profanity

 

Ah yes, another constantly misused word. 

 

Saying “fuck” is not being profane. Rather, it is being vulgar (and possibly obscene), but it is not profanity at all, or even close. 

 

Profanity is using words in a profane way. What does it mean to be profane? 

 

Profane is the opposite of holy or sacred. In the non-pejorative sense, anything that is not sacred is by definition profane. But in the sense we mean in language, to be profane is to use something holy in a debased, irreverent, or vulgar way. 

 

So, using words in a way that goes against their holy meaning is profanity. 

 

In the most common usage these days, profanity is found in using the name of God (or gods) and things connected to them in irreverent ways. 

 

So, obviously, “God!” or “Jesus Christ” or “Holy Mother of the Flying Spaghetti Monster” qualify. 

 

So too do “damn” (profane reference to the place of eternal punishment) and “good heavens” (the polar opposite.) 

 

Add in the “minced” versions - gosh, darn, etc. - and that is about as far as it gets these days. 

 

In the past, people were FAR more creative. 

 

For example, did you know that “zounds” is a profanity, and used to be considered a particularly bad one? It is a contraction of “god’s wounds” - a vulgarization of the crucifixion. Same for “gadzooks” - “god’s hooks” - that is, the nails. 

 

If you go back in time, you will find pretty much every body part or element of Christ’s life and death used as a profanity. 

 

I should also mention the typical British profanity, “bloody.” I have had to explain to a lot of Americans why it is a profanity, and why it isn’t just a fun Britishism. 

 

There are some fun wrinkles to this category too. 

 

For reasons I do not understand, “hell” is considered far worse than “heaven” as a profanity. And yet, “God” is universally considered a profanity while “Satan” isn’t. Back in the day, “Beelzebub!” was one of the naughty ones, after all, so what happened? 

 

One final thought here: I was taught as a kid that using profanity was “taking the Lord’s name in vain.” 

 

That was a lie.

 

As I came to understand as an adult, reading Jewish interpretations of the Decalogue, and thinking more carefully about meaning, this interpretation misses the point. The Ten Commandments (the most familiar version, at least), isn’t about idle words or meaningless language sins. It is about specific behaviors that cause harm. 

 

In the book of Ezekiel, this is most clearly spelled out when the prophet condemns the false prophets who justify greed, theft, murder, and general oppression of the poor and powerless by claiming God justifies that evil. 

 

Her prophets whitewash these deeds by false visions and lying divinations, saying, ‘This is what the Lord GOD says,’ when the LORD has not spoken. (Chapter 22 - the whole thing is worth reading.) 

 

Enlisting the name of God to justify evil behavior IS what it means to take the Lord’s name in vain. And it is also the favorite sin of white Evangelicals. (On a personal note, my mother, who recoils in horror from “gosh,” constantly claims to speak for Almighty God about how everyone else should live their lives. Which is a significant reason we have no relationship.) 

 

In my opinion, then, whether you use words for the sacred in a profane way is really between you and your god. It is perfectly defensible to avoid those words. But expecting non-religious people to do the same is just being an Asshole for Jesus™. 

 

***

 

Cursing and Oaths

 

Ah, here we come to two interesting cousins of profanity. These two are rarely used these days, but you find them all the time in literature. 

 

A curse is just that: a curse. You are calling down horrible things on someone else. 

 

You can find these throughout the Bible, of course. Starting with The Curse - where God curses humankind for eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And proceeding through to the Gospels, where Christ curses the fig tree. 

 

As I said, you find curses all throughout literature. Usually with the thwarted bad guy spewing vile curses at the hero and heroine who thwarted him. 

 

Personally, I find curses to be an artifact of past ways of thinking. And by “past” I mean distant past. Even in Proverbs, you find “Like a fluttering sparrow or a darting swallow, an undeserved curse does not come to rest.” 

 

So, on the one hand, curses are ineffective against those who do not deserve them. And on the other, doing evil tends to bring its own consequences, and adding a curse won’t change that. 

 

One reason I believe curses are ineffective is that if they worked, Trump would have been dead a decade ago. 

 

In fact, the way curses have worked, is that a person known to be cursed would be shunned. And I am definitely in favor of shunning sociopaths. Or maybe putting them in prison. Let’s start with Trump and Elon. 

 

Related here, of course, is the word “cussing,” the vernacular for “cursing” that has lost its original meaning. 

 

The flip side of a curse is an oath. 

 

Again, these are all over the Bible, including this one from Ruth: “Where you die I will die, and there will I be buried. May the Lord do so to me and more also if anything but death parts me from you.” 

 

In this case, you wish bad things on yourself if you do not fulfil your promise. 

 

When we talk about “oaths” or “swearing,” this is what we mean. Oaths and curses are often combined with profanity, as defined above. 

 

Both oaths and curses have fallen out of style. Except perhaps for the fun of “creative” curses - the best of which, in my opinion, are Yiddish. I should probably use “may you turn into a blintz and be eaten by a cat!” more often in daily life. 

 

I think one reason that oaths have fallen out of favor is that in general, people believe less in curses, and specific divine retribution. In addition, the people who do retain that belief are at least even odds to also take Christ’s admonition against oaths seriously. Their yes should be yes. (In theory at least.) 

 

This is reflected in the law as well. I technically took an “oath” when I became an attorney:

 

“I, (licensee name) solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of California, and that I will faithfully discharge the duties of an attorney and counselor at law to the best of my knowledge and ability. As an officer of the court, I will strive to conduct myself at all times with dignity, courtesy, and integrity.”

 

I affirmed, as do most people in my experience. And no, there is no need to put one’s hand on a Bible or a Koran or even a copy of Blackstone. (IYKYK)

 

Ditto for “oaths” in court. These days, the clerk will just say “do you solemnly state that the testimony you are about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?” No need for a formal oath or a reference to a supreme being. 

 

In real life in our times, I really don’t see much that would qualify as either an oath or a curse. There are insults, and threats, and general expressions of contempt, but not really what the people of the past would have understood as curses or oaths.

 

***

 

Vulgarity

 

Here we come to the words that are usually what people mean by “cussing,” “profanity,” and “swearing.” 

 

What they really are is vulgarity. What is considered vulgar? That’s a good question, isn’t it? 

 

It clearly isn’t about the meaning of the word. If I were to say “feces,” “phallus,” “sexual intercourse,” “vulva,” or any number of other words that have forbidden equivalents, they wouldn’t be considered objectionable. So what makes these ones that way?

 

A clue is in the term. “Vulgar” comes from the Latin term for the common people. So, to be vulgar is to be common, low, part of the rabble. Definitely not sophisticated, aristocratic, etc.

 

Another clue is in the fact that you can find all of our common vulgarities in fairly recognizable form in The Canterbury Tales. And you find them used, not by the aristocratic characters, but by the commoners. Read “The Miller’s Tale,” for example. 

 

This led me to looking into what words are the “bad” ones when it comes to bodily functions and body parts.

 

And guess what? The issue is one hundred percent about classism.

 

Sinclair Lewis memorably put it in Elmer Gantry: “the nine Saxon physiological monosyllables.”

 

Simply put, the “bad” words are the ones the commoners - who spoke Anglo-Saxon (aka “Old English”) used. The “good” words were the ones in French (the Norman conquerors - the aristocracy) or Latin (the language of the clergy.) 

 

So, “shit” is bad because the rabble used it. “Excrement” is fine because it is French. Likewise “poop” (from the child word “popo”.) 

 

“Fuck” is bad. “Coitus” (Latin) is fine. 

 

You can go down the list, and the “bad” ones are really just common, non-forbidden terms from an old language that became “vulgar” because the common people used them. 

 

They also are all physiological, as Lewis points out, and humans have weird taboos surrounding genitals, excrement and its organs, and bodily functions. This combination led to labeling some words as bad. 

 

To me, this is, well, bullshit. It is an artifact of classism, and remains so in our culture. Hence why I am not mourning the change toward more common use of these very old words. 

 

***

 

Slurs

 

As I mentioned, one good thing about my upbringing is that I was taught to never use slurs. 

 

And I don’t mean the obvious racial ones. For that matter, my parents did say the n-word out loud when reading from a book that used it (See: Huckleberry Finn) as accuracy to the original - but with obvious discomfort and the explanation that it was wrong to use the word. 

 

We also learned not to use “retard” or “moron” or ableist slurs. Ditto for gendered slurs. And homophobic ones. I give full props to my parents for this - they were ahead of a lot of their peers - and I have duplicated this in my own family. 

 

The issue here is punching down. It is harming humans, reinforcing stereotypes and systemic injustice, and otherwise causing bad things. So don’t do it.

 

This leads me to an interesting observation. There has been a huge shift in what language is considered forbidden in our culture. This has happened during my lifetime. 

 

On the one hand, the “nine Saxon physiological monosyllables” have become a lot more commonplace. This means Fundamentalists have their panties in a constant state of wad simply walking around in our world. But ultimately, what it really indicates is that sex and bodies and bodily functions are becoming less taboo and less forbidden. And also that these particular words no longer serve as an indication of social class. 

 

On the other hand, using slurs has (mostly) become more forbidden. I know that the MAGA crowd is eager to bring back the n-word and other racial slurs, but even this is a reaction to a clear cultural shift.

 

Just as one example, my late great-uncle, who was a good, decent man, was of an age. And in that age, it was fine to call Brazil nuts “n-----r” nuts. His children would never have used that term. My generation find it puzzling that anyone ever said that, because by the time we came around, it was considered inappropriate, and only senile old people forgot and used the term. 

 

I have found some terms have changed too since my childhood, generally as a response to marginalized groups demanding change. Even some longstanding sports team names are finally changing. 

 

This is a good thing, in my opinion. It reflects what I think is a great life adage, which is to never punch down. We should take into account the effect our words have on those with less power than ourselves. 

 

***

 

Note that I haven’t made a definitive statement as to the value of forbidden words, except for my condemnation of the use of slurs. 

 

With the exception of slurs, which are harmful in any culture, the rest are culturally-based taboos, not moral absolutes. 

 

The question of what language is profane depends on religious beliefs. Because power in the Western world has largely been held by purported Christians, our common profanities are all directed in the direction of that power. 

 

In another world, “By Grabthar’s Hammer, you shall be avenged!” would be the profanity (and oath) of choice, perhaps. 

 

Had world events gone differently, perhaps we would be using “scheisse” instead. (Hey, common language root!) 

 

I am pretty sure, however, that fart jokes would be popular in any timeline. 

 

***

 

I know this post is a bit different from my usual faire, but I had fun writing it. And if you didn’t like it, I am all out of fucks for today. 

 

Flower Drum Song - David Henry Hwang revision (East West Players)

To celebrate my wife’s birthday, we took a day trip down to Los Angeles. She has always been a big Rodgers and Hammerstein fan, but many of the lesser-known musicals are rarely on stage. 

 

There are a few reasons for this. The key issue in many cases is the book. (Or, if you are an old-school classical musician, the libretto…) 

 

The problems tend to fall into two categories. First is simply that many librettos were written - and indeed exist - as a mere vehicle for the songs. This is true of some operas as well - Cosi Fan Tutte has to be one of the silliest (and sexist) things ever written, but Mozart’s dazzling music means opera companies find ways of putting it on stage. For many older musicals, a story of the usual comedy sort is cobbled together: girl and guy meet cute, fall in love, are separated by misunderstanding, but overcome the obstacles to be together. Repeat as many times as you need.

 

The other flaw, though, is a bit harder to overcome. The societal attitudes have changed since many of these works were written, and elements haven’t aged well. This is particularly the case with musicals written by white people about brown people. Porgy and Bess may have been revolutionary in casting African Americans at the time, but some stereotypes are winceworthy now. 

 

The same thing is the case with Flower Drum Song. At the time, writing a musical entirely about Chinese immigrants was bold and even progressive. But at the same time, story elements contain stereotypes about “exotic” foreigners that are dated or worse. 

 

There have been various revisions made to the script by different editors over time, ranging from slight adjustments to complete rewrites of the story. 

 

Going into this one, I had never seen the play or movie. My experience was limited to playing a Rodgers and Hammerstein song medley - pops concerts often use these sorts of things as crowd-pleasers. Oh, and also, my wife dances around the house singing Broadway tunes, so I was plenty familiar with “I Enjoying Being a Girl.”

 

But other than that, no expectations. 

 

East West Players is the longest-running Asian-American theater in the US, and has a history of putting a new spin on old classics. A couple years ago, for example, we went and saw their production of Pacific Overtures. That is another story that certainly feels different as interpreted by Asian-Americans. 

 

For this production, David Henry Hwang, who previously adapted this musical 20ish years ago, wrote a new version of the script. 

 

After we watched it, my wife pulled up an online summary of the original, and we compared the changes. They were pretty extensive. It isn’t exactly a completely different story, but it isn’t the same either. Considering that the original musical is based on a book by a Chinese-American author, and takes considerable liberties with that plot, I can’t really complain. Essentially, there are three different works, with different central ideas to convey. 

 

I won’t recount the plot of either of the originals - you can check out the Wikipedia summaries if you want. 

 

The version we saw mostly matches the 2002 Hwang revision, but with some updates. 

 

I think the primary revision is the elimination of the “mail order bride” and arranged marriage as the center of the Ta and Mei-Li romance. (Which, by the way, isn’t the center of the original book.) I can see why this was done. One of the unfair ways white people have stereotyped “exotic” cultures has been to focus on arranged marriages. Perhaps forgetting that marriage for love and personal fulfillment is a relatively recent development in white culture as well.

 

[For that matter, I would wager there are more arranged marriages among fundamentalist white people here in the US than among immigrants. You would be surprised.] 

 

The Cute Couple...

There are also omitted characters (the father is barely on stage at all), and added characters (Harvard, kind of a mashup of the comedian friend and the seamstress - and a hilarious and endearing tribute to queer theater people), and a lot less in the way of plot complexity. (The whole voidable marriage contract feels a lot more Anthony Trollope than music theater, honestly.) 

 

Singing about Chop Suey... 

What is retained in the new version is the question of assimilation. What does it mean to be culturally Chinese? What does it mean to be an American? 

 

This plays out, not among racist white people like Stephen Miller, for whom white skin is what it means to be American, but among the Chinese-American population in San Francisco’s Chinatown. 

 

There is the difference between those “just off the boat” and those who have been in America for decades. And between the first generation immigrants and their American-born children. 

 

Inseparable from this question is how one assimilates. Does this mean trying to “act white” and abandoning one’s culture? Does it mean playing up stereotypes to make money from white audiences? 

 

Who is an American anyway?

 

I was raised in a mostly minority neighborhood, with a lot of immigrants, documented and undocumented. For me, America feels like diversity. It is an idea, not an ethnicity. 

 

This clearly puts me at odds with a lot of white Americans these days, unfortunately. Including extended family. 

 

It was refreshing to see performances like this, where it is asserted - quite correctly - that Asian-Americans are as American as any other. At the end of the play, each actor told where they were born: most were born here in the US, with a few born overseas. But Americans one and all. 

 Harvard and company...

East West is a professional company, and its productions are always well performed. This was no exception, with signing, dancing, and acting that was everything it should have been. There also were an absurd number of costume changes, with everything from traditional Chinese opera to burlesque. 

 

Sets were relatively modest, probably related to the limited infrastructure for the theater - I don’t think it had a full fly far enough forward to drop stuff where they might have wanted, and there was no traditional curtain. The orchestra was in the back of the stage, and appeared visible for some of the scenes, which was a nice touch. 

 

I had a good time, but I suspect that those who grew up on the movie might take issue with the significant plot changes. It is a different story with the same songs, and how you feel about that may vary. 

 

As an assertion of American identity for immigrants, as an exploration of generational differences, as a look at the immigrant experience from inside - it succeeds well in my opinion. 

 

I believe this show runs through the end of the month, so if you are in the Los Angeles area, you might check it out. (And get some delicious food while you are in Little Tokyo.) 

Blanche on the Lam by Barbara Neely

Source of book: Audiobook from the library

 

Recently, I ran across a reference to Barbara Neely and her books, and made a note to give one a try. After all, I am a fan of murder mysteries, and these seemed like a unique take on the genre. 

Barbara Neely was an African-American author and activist, with a fascinating life story. 

 

She grew up in Pennsylvania, in an area where there were still a lot of “Pennsylvania Dutch” people - a subculture of German dialect speakers with a significant Mennonite and Amish numbers, although Lutherans are also represented. 

 

This meant that she was not only the only black kid at her private school, she was the only child fluent in English. Yeah, that’s a bit unique. 

 

As an adult, she obtained her masters degree at University of Pittsburg, then became involved in local activism and non-profit work. Among these were directing a branch of the YWCA, and managing groups related to housing, reproductive healthcare access, and rehabilitation of former inmates. 

 

She started writing at this time, but didn’t have a breakthrough until age 50, with Blanche on the Lam. She would go on to write three more Blanche books that decade. 

 

Describing this book is a bit difficult, because it is several things all at once. It is a murder mystery - with a good plot, and a surprising amount of humor to go with the suspense. It is a satire that lampoons rich southern white people, with a really razor edge. It is a commentary on racism in America, from biased policing to the casual dehumanization and infantilization inflicted on black people - particularly black women - in our country. It is a pointed look at marginalization through the perspective of a young man with Down Syndrome. It also examines the way white women are able to use their gender to get away with figurative - and sometimes literal - murder. 

 

So yes, it definitely has some preachy moments about race - we are inside the head of the protagonist, Blanche White (yeah, the name is played for a few jokes too), as she endures the experience of being a black female domestic worker for rich, entitled white people. And she is plenty salty about it, although rarely out loud. 

 

But the fun story and the delicious humor make it go down pretty pleasantly. 

 

I would also say that, particularly for 35 years ago, the idea of a protagonist in a murder mystery being not merely black, but also low-income, “traditionally built,” and thoroughly aware of the toxic racial dynamics of the modern south. It’s a bold choice of character in a way, but also thoroughly believable and consistent. Neely writes of what she knows, I suspect: being assumed to be stupid and lazy simply because of skin color. 

 

The title comes from the opening of the story. Blanche, like many in our country, but especially the low income workers, often female, who have unstable employment conditions, has fallen behind. As a result, she has had a check bounce, and is prosecuted for it. Because she has bounced a check before, an unsympathetic judge sentences her to jail time. 

 

But before she can serve it, a disturbance related to a corrupt politician whose case is in the courthouse at the same time, allows her to quietly slip out and go on the lam. 

 

She ends up taking a job working for a rich white family with political connections, and spends a week at their summer house, where, well, things happen. 

 

There is the childless married couple, Grace and Everett. There is Aunt Emmeline, Grace’s aunt, who has the money in the family. And there is Mumsfield, Grace’s cousin, who has Down Syndrome, but is also a skilled mechanic and more observant than his relatives realize. 

 

About half the book goes by before we have the first body - the sheriff, who is pretty horrible, has an argument with Everett, and then winds up dead in what is officially called a suicide. 

 

Once things get going, though, the bodies start piling up, and things get tense really fast. 

 

I won’t get into the plot any more than that - you will have to read it yourself. 

 

The books were written in the 1990s, but have apparently had a bit of a revival. The entire series was recorded as audiobooks in 2017, so I should be able to listen to them all eventually. 

 

The narrator is Lisa Renee Pitts, who has been on large and small screens, with award-winning results. I thought she did a great job on this audiobook, bringing out all the different Southern accents, character voices, and nuances of the text. Her work definitely contributes to the experience of the novel. 

 

In the Western Night and The First Hour of the Night by Frank Bidart

Source of book: I own this

 

I think it may have been one of my local literary friends of my parents’ generation who first suggested I read Frank Bidart. He is, after all, one of the true luminaries to come out of Bakersfield - he won the Pulitzer for his anthology, Half Light, which is the collection that I own of his. (I collect used hardbacks like a true hoarder…) 

 

Bidart is a living poet (although he is in his 80s now), with a career that now spans seven decades. He is also gay, and that fact both informs his writing and links him with others in a specific American poetic tradition. (I’ll note Richard Howard as a contemporary, whose poems are often explicitly gay. He and Bidart both utilized the Dramatic Monologue often in their poems.)  

 

So, what is a cishet guy like me interested in LGBTQ poets for anyway? Well, in the more intellectual sense, I have made a point of reading LGBTQ authors, because I believe that what is best in culture often arises from marginalized groups. The role of African Americans in American culture, for example, is crucial and unmistakable. Throughout history, LGBTQ people have thrived in the arts, and have created many of our most beloved works, from Messiah on down. 

 

But perhaps more to the point, at an emotional level, I find that poetry by LGBTQ authors resonates for me. Not in a sexual-orientation way, but in a more universal human way, just like the music of gay composers often speaks to me deeply. (Related: I think lesbian and bisexual women write the best sex scenes in literature, while straight men write the worst.) 

 

The poems are just really good, and love is love, so to speak. In this post, I will feature a few breathtaking lines that I think can represent heterosexual love as perfectly as homosexual love. 

 

In the case of Frank Bidart, I found his writing to be truly wonderful, and his often-unusual techniques to be effective in communicating his meaning beyond the mere words.

 

I ended up picking a pair of collections to read this time, because neither was that long. There are two things that link them together: the word “night” in the titles, and the fact that they were both published in 1990. Arbitrary? Perhaps. But it worked. 

 

The first poem I want to look at is “To the Dead,” from In the Western Night, which utilizes a number of Bidart’s common techniques and styles. He uses ALL CAPS liberally, but not constantly, so it doesn’t feel like yelling as much as it does a slightly stronger italics (which he also uses.) This poem also contains one of the most incredible lines I have ever read. 

 

To the Dead

 

What I hope (when I hope) is that we'll

see each other again,--

 

. . . and again reach the VEIN

 

in which we loved each other . .

It existed. It existed.

 

There is a NIGHT within the NIGHT,--

 

. . . for, like the detectives (the Ritz Brothers)

in The Gorilla,

 

once we'd been battered by the gorilla

 

we searched the walls, the intricately carved

impenetrable paneling

 

for a button, lever, latch

 

that unlocks a secret door that

reveals at last the secret chambers,

 

CORRIDORS within WALLS,

 

(the disenthralling, necessary, dreamed structure

beneath the structure we see,)

 

that is the HOUSE within the HOUSE . . .

 

There is a NIGHT within the NIGHT,--

 

. . . there were (for example) months when I seemed only

to displease, frustrate,

 

disappoint you--; then, something triggered

 

a drunk lasting for days, and as you

slowly and shakily sobered up,

 

sick, throbbing with remorse and self-loathing,

 

insight like ashes: clung

to; useless; hated . . .

 

This was the viewing of the power of the waters

 

while the waters were asleep:--

secrets, histories of loves, betrayals, double-binds

 

not fit (you thought) for the light of day . . .

 

There is a NIGHT within the NIGHT,--

 

. . . for, there at times at night, still we

inhabit the secret place together . . .

 

Is this wisdom, or self-pity?--

 

The love I've known is the love of

two people staring

 

not at each other, but in the same direction.

 

Just read those last three lines again. 

 

The love I've known is the love of

two people staring

 

not at each other, but in the same direction.

 

Good lord those are amazing. The poem apparently was directed, not at a single person, but at all of the friends and family Bidart had lost. 

 

This next one is explicitly homoerotic, but again, it speaks of universal love, of death, of fear, and of transcendence. It is subtitled (John of the Cross), which is a fascinating reference. From what I can tell, the poem itself is loosely based on St. John of the Cross’ poem of the same name (more commonly called “Dark Night of the Soul,” which is actually St. John’s commentary on the poem. 

 

Bidart takes some definite liberties with the poem - even more than those necessary for translation - while preserving the basic ideas. 

 

Also fascinating here is that John of the Cross is believed to have been gay himself, and his work combines spirituality and homoeroticism much like Bidart would centuries later. 

 

The poem is worth reproducing here:

 

Dark Night

(John of the Cross)    

 

In a dark night, when the light

    burning was the burning of love (fortuitous

    night, fated, free,--)

    as I stole from my dark house, dark

    house that was silent, grave, sleeping,--

    

 by the staircase that was secret, hidden,

    safe: disguised by darkness (fortuitous

    night, fated, free,--)

    by darkness and by cunning, dark

    house that was silent, grave, sleeping--;

    

 in that sweet night, secret, seen by

    no one and seeing

    nothing, my only light or

    guide

    the burning in my burning heart,

    

 night was the guide

    to the place where he for whom I

    waited, whom I had long ago chosen,

    waits: night

    brighter than noon, in which none can see--;

    

night was the guide

    sweeter than the sun raw at

    dawn, for there the burning bridegroom is

    bride

    and he who chose at last is chosen.

 

            *

                                   

As he lay sleeping on my sleepless

    breast, kept from the beginning for him

    alone, lying on the gift I gave

    as the restless

    fragrant cedars moved the restless winds,--

    

winds from the circling parapet circling

    us as I lay there touching and lifting his hair,--

    with his sovereign hand, he

    wounded my neck-

    and my senses, when they touched that, touched nothing...

           

In a dark night (there where I

    lost myself,--) as I leaned to rest

            in his smooth white breast, everything

            ceased

            and left me, forgotten in the grave of forgotten lilies.

           

The title poem of the collection has several sections. One in particular stood out to me.

 

In the Western Night

3. Two Men

 

The man who does not know himself, who

does not know his affections that his actions

 

speak but that he does not

acknowledge,

 

                    who will SAY ANYTHING

 

and lie when he does not know that he is

lying because what he needs to believe is true

 

must indeed

be true,

 

            THIS MAN IS STONE ... NOT BREAD.

 

STONE. NOT CAKE. NOT CHEESE. NOT BREAD ...

 

The man who tries to feed his hunger

by gnawing stone

 

                        is a FOOL; his hunger is

 

fed in ways that he knows cannot satisfy it. 

 

That is quite the picture of fundamentalism in action. When a perceived theological need is more important than reality.

 

Before moving on to the second book, I want to note some lines from “In the Ruins.”

 

1. Man is a MORAL animal.

2. You can get human beings to do anything, - IF

you can convince them it is moral.

3. You can convince human beings anything is moral.

 

Moving on to the second book, The First Hour of the Night. Interestingly, the title poem (which is at the end of the collection, and makes up about two-thirds of it, is also connected to poems written later. “The Second Hour of the Night” is found in the 1997 collection, Desire; “The Third Hour of the Night” made its way into 2005’s Stardust. “The Fourth Hour of the Night” is in his final collection (so far), Thirst, from 2016. I haven’t yet read the other “hours,” but will quote a few lines from the first one. All of them are long poems, and could qualify as dramatic monologues. 

 

Before I get to that, however, there is shorter poem I want to mention:

 

Long and Short Lines

 

You who call me to weep afresh love’s long since cancelled woe, -

. . . mock me

 

with you -

 

hypocrisy’s thirst somewhere if you’re anywhere must

now make you again pave someone’s road to hell.

 

Toward that design cut long ago by your several divided nature

and mine,

 

. . . learn I too

twist, unchanged.

 

The use of line length is effective, and the metaphors are worth thinking about. I am particularly haunted by the idea of hypocrisy paving someone else’s road to hell. Ouch. And true. 

 

The rest of these are all from “The First Hour of the Night.” As I noted, it is a dramatic monologue, somewhat rambling, and very personal. It’s a beautiful read, particularly out loud. Also far too long to reproduce, so I am just going to highlight my favorite phrases. The poem starts off describing this scene where the narrator returns to the home of an older friend who has died, and talks with the son, who feels that he will never be at home in this ancient, inherited estate. From there, it goes a number of fascinating philosophical and poetical directions. 

 

-- Then I know that each object that father

chose for this house, but absent now from it

                                                says that everything ever

 

unresolved clearly FOREVER

is unresolvable between us.

 

There is another scene with philosophers, past and present, arguing with each other. 

 

From this milling, mercurial crowd

                                                (-- Hegel now looked

at one moment like 

Bismarck, at another like Shelley--)

 

words emerge:--

 

                        Master and Slave. Predestination. Preservation of 

the Species. God immanent in

Nature. Race. Blood.

                                    Stages of absolute mind. Progress. Class.

The inexorable laws of History, the Psyche, the Age.

                                                                        Logos. The world

as will and idea. The One. The inescapable

society of the dead and the living, who have made us what we are. . .

 

And the way the narrator eventually freaks out at this nightmare: 

 

III

 

Then I wanted to shout at this destruction, this

ruin, not only

 

in pain, but in relief:--

 

                                    Whenever human beings have felt

conviction that what they possess is indeed

 

‘KNOWLEDGE OF THE CAUSES OF THINGS,’--

 

. . . whenever this conviction has been

shared by, animated a whole

society, or significant group within society,--

the ancient hegemony of POWER and PRIESTHOOD

is reconstituted:--

 

                                    implicit within each

vision of cause, a structure of power:--

 

                                    an imagination not only of 

where power resides, but should, must reside. . .

 

That’s powerful stuff. What an insight. Related to that is another passage:

 

The ‘moral law within’

                       

                                    (for Kant, the ground

of the moral life itself, certain, beautiful, fixed

like the processional of stars above our heads)

 

is near to MADNESS--; everything terrible

but buried in human motivation

                                    Released, justified

 

by self-righteousness and fanaticism. . .

 

There are none so cruel as those who believe they speak for Almighty God…

 

I have a lot more Bidart to read from my collection, but what I did read was quite good. I look forward to future exploration. 

Chasing Manet by Tina Howe (BCT 2026)

This is one of those plays that I went to see in significant part because I had a bunch of friends in it. True, they are friends who are also good actors. Or, in one case, the director. 

 

In this case, the play itself sounded interesting as well. There are no end of plays about young lovers, or kings. But not too many are about ordinary people ravaged by age, frailty, and dementia. 

 

First, though, a bit about the author. I suppose I was vaguely aware of Tina Howe in the back of my mind, but I had never seen one of her plays. They have won or been shortlisted for a number of awards, and a few of the names are fairly familiar, although, oddly enough, not Chasing Manet. She also taught and served on the Dramatists Guild. 

 

I did a bit of reading about her, and discovered some facts of interest. She came from a family of notable writers. Her grandfather, Mark Antony Howe, won a Pulitzer for biography in 1925, and wrote over 50 books. With a name like that, I guess. Her uncle, Mark DeWolfe Howe, clerked for Supreme Court justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. - and later wrote his biography, a book I heard about in law school. Her father Quincy Howe wrote for television and radio news for CBS and ABC, and also wrote a three volume work on history. So quite a pedigree. 

 

Also of interest is the fact that she was named Mabel, but referred to as Tina since childhood. She changed her name legally when she turned eighteen. 

 

One thing I did not know about her was that she was married to historian and writer Norman Levy. And this wasn’t a brief marriage - it lasted over 60 years until his death soon before hers. 

 

So, about the play itself. 

 

What can you say to describe a play that is both hilarious and disturbingly real to life? Howe wrote the play fairly late in life, and presumably after life experience with aging relatives. And it shows. The portrayals of nursing home residents are so spot-on. 

 

Both my wife and I have worked with seniors our entire careers. She as a nurse, and me as an attorney. Dementia is our bread and butter, so to speak. For me, the life progress from retirement to frailty to dementia - and often to institutionalization - is where much of my practice lies. I help clients plan their estates, but also assist in applying for Medicaid benefits for nursing home care, and finding other placement options when people are no longer able to live safely on their own. 

 

In a sense, the play hit way too close to home. (And that’s before you get into the various people in my life who are on that continuum of end of life and functionality - it’s heartbreaking.) 

 

Howe, though, manages to make all of this incredibly humorous, even if you feel icky for laughing. She doesn’t do it through humor that punches down either. There is a gentle satire of the aging, but much more pointed satire of how younger, healthier people react to aging and dementia. 

 

None of us plan to end our lives in a nursing home. Indeed, none of us really plan to get old and frail and lose our faculties and memories. And none of us really plan to die, even though we know we will. 

 

So this play is a hard look at our own denialism, our own whistling past the ol’ nursing home on the way to the grave. 

 

The story itself centers around two elderly residents of the Mount Airy Nursing Home. Cathy is the rare (and unfortunate) resident whose brain still works well, but who has physical issues that prevent her from safely living alone. She has gone legally blind, and, since she was a professional painter before that, this loss leaves her depressed and angry. 

 

Her roommate, Rennie, has progressively lost touch with reality after the death of her husband, who she still thinks is alive. She talks to him, argues with him, and complains to him. This drives Cathy nuts, until she realizes that Rennie has just enough brains and chutzpah to be a co-conspirator in an escape attempt. 

 

And why not dream big? So they plan an escape to Paris, to see Cathy’s favorite Manet painting. 

 

Along the way, there are great scenes involving Rennie’s eccentric large family, Cathy’s uptight and frustrated son (the two of them are pretty horrible to each other - and it is clearly a lifelong thing…), and the other residents of the nursing home. 

 

Will they or won’t they succeed? Will Cathy implode from excessive sarcasm? Will Rennie give away the plot? 

 

I very much enjoyed this production. Cathy Henry, my wife’s knitting guild friend, who taught drama for decades in local high schools, was the director, and I really think she has done an outstanding job on every play she has directed. In this case, there was a coherent vision, memorable characters made real by the actors, and intriguing decisions about staging. 

 

This is the kind of play that can’t just be played straight off the page. The characters don’t play themselves - they have to be brought to life in every detail - tone of voice, gesture, pacing, body language, emotion. Getting these real and true to life is a challenge, and the actors in this case really stepped up.

 

First, Laurie Howlett as Cathy was superb. She has been in a lot of local productions, although the one role I really remember was as the Wicked Witch in The Wizard of Oz several years ago. In this one, she was furious, conniving, depressed, and always owned the scene. 

 

Opposite her was Julie Gaines, as Rennie. Regular readers of this blog will know that Julie is in everything, and is excellent in everything. This was no exception. Although it was startling to see her in the particular grey wig this time, it was even more startling to see her bend her face perfectly to get the character right. The childish surprise and sweetness that certain people with dementia display as they partly revert to the past was as good as it could be. She was the character. 

 Rennie (Julie Gaines) and Cathy (Laurie Howlett)

The supporting cast, in a variety of roles, larger and smaller, was great. I will particularly note a few friends. Josh Evans, as Cathy’s son Royal, brought that particular frustration of being a browbeaten adult child, trying to be a good son, but endlessly frustrated. He clearly knows he would go insane in a handbasket if he tried to take his mother home. And she would hate it just as much as she does the nursing home. So, more often than not, everything ends badly. 

 

Sofia Reyes as Iris didn’t get a lot of spoken lines, but she (along with another actor) were often on stage in the background, and needed to kill time. 

 Iris (Sofia Reyes) - center

Let me explain this one: the costume changes are written in a way that leaves some time gaps, particularly for a low-budget community theater that depends on volunteers. Enough money can get you faster changes, but…

 

So, the solution was that various residents, usually including Iris, on stage in the “hall” part of the home. Without much spoken, they had to hold interest with gesture. And this is where Sofia really did some fine work. The character lives in her own world much of the time, and we got to see that through the gestures and facial expressions during these silences. Watching this was fascinating. 

 

I will also express my appreciation for the set, which was very simple and sparse - in part so that the characters could maneuver their wheelchairs around - harder than it looks. And also, because of the institutional vibe of nursing homes, where utility matters more than style. 

 

A particularly lovely touch was the “wallpaper,” vaguely impressionist, and lovingly painted under the direction of Roger Upton, who claims to have retired from stage and costume design, but turns out to be a bald-faced liar. 

 Rennie and her boisterous family...

I know I am missing things I wanted to mention, but I’ll remember them tomorrow or something. In any case, it was a good production, and a thoughtful look at the ends of our lives. 

 

Unfortunately, this show has run its course - I caught the last weekend. But there will be more. Our local theater scene has a lot going on. You can check out what is coming up next at Bakersfield Community Theater on their website, or follow them on your preferred social media.