I had time, just now, that quiet time, of reading the magazines that came in last week. Oh, the stolen deliciousness of it all. In
The New Yorker, I read of Oliver Sacks on his years dedicated, in large part, to experimenting with large doses of amphetamines, morning-glory seeds, LSD, morphine, and all other manner of neuro-shifters. I thought of all the Sacks I have read these many years, of the seeming innocence of his beguiling childhood memoir,
Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood, of his great empathy for patients and ferns and other earthly beings. His
New Yorker essay delves, skips, and buries time before it rushes, headlong, toward its hard stop. Sacks had discovered a book on migraines and it had become important to him. He had a revelation about migraines. He ...
... had a sense of resolution, too, that I was indeed equipped to write a Liveing-like book, that perhaps I could be the Liveing of our time.
The next day, before I returned Liveing's book to the library, I photocopied the whole thing, and then, bit by bit, I started to write my own book. The joy I got from doing this was real—infinitely more substantial than the vapid mania of amphetamines—and I never took amphetamines again.
Writing books, Sacks suggests, saved him. The next story I read, an excerpt from D.T. Max's much heralded biography of David Foster Wallace (in
Newsweek), suggests how writing would and would not save this genius. The excerpt, which focuses on Wallace's early correspondence with Jonathan Franzen as well as his infatuation with Mary Karr, suggests that this book is well worth reading as a whole. I've always been a huge D.T. Max fan, and I'm certain I will learn from these pages.
In between the Sacks and the Wallace, I found two poems of interest. Joyce Carol Oates has a chilling, compelling poem in
The New Yorker called "Edward Hopper's '11 A.M.,' 1926"�worth reading from beginning to end. Oates was one of several authors who contributed to one of my favorite poetry collections (a gift from my sister) called
The Poetry of Solitude: A Tribute to Edward Hopper (collected and introduced by Gail Levin). Clearly this project, all these years later, continues to inspire.
Finally, within the pages of this week's
New Yorker is a poem by C.K. Williams, one of my favorite living poets. I had the great pleasure and privilege, years ago, of interviewing C.K. in his Princeton home for a magazine story. Later, I saw him read at the Writer's House at Penn. He remains vital, interesting, experimental, and honest, and his new poem, "Haste," is a terrifying portrait of time. From its later phrases:
No one says Not so fast now not Catherine when I hold her not our dog as I putter behind her
yet everything past present future rushes so quickly through me I've frayed like a flag
Unbuckle your spurs life don't you know up ahead where the road ends there's an abyss? ...
My first corporate interview isn't until 1 this afternoon. I'm sitting down to read Truman Capote's
In Cold Blood. I figure it's time.
(That above, by the way, is my cat Colors, who lived with me for many years. She's climbing into my bedroom window. I'm eleven or twelve years old. And I'm reading on my bed as she pokes her pink nose in.)
While waiting for the dentist, a different issue of
Newsweek on my lap, I encounter something that I have long known to be true for me (but hey, I just thought I was weird). I walk away from the computer to dream or write. I check no emails, don't carry my phone. I seek, and nurture, a deliberate fogginess, retreating to a far somewhere before I allow myself to think about the story or sentence at hand. Some people think I am sleeping. I understand that I'm not. I can't write unless I enter this fog state first. It's the most peaceful—and productive—place that I go.
But don't take it from me. This from a Sharon Begley story titled "I Can't Think," in the March 7 issue of
Newsweek:
Creative decisions are more likely to bubble up from a brain that applies unconscious thought to a problem, rather than going at it in a full-frontal analytical assault. So while we're likely to think creative thoughts in the shower, it's much harder if we're under a virtual deluge of data. "If you let things come at you all the time, you can't use additional information to make a creative leap or a wise judgment," says [Joanne] Cantor (author of Conquer Cyber Overload). "You need to pull back from the constant influx and take a break." That allows the brain to subconsciously integrate new information with existing knowledge and thereby make novel connections and see hidden patterns....
Between meetings, I sat at a client's office with the March 14 issue of
Newsweek on my lap, studying its remarkable center spread: "150 Women Who Shake the World." "They are heads of state and heads of household," the story begins. "Angry protesters in the city square and sly iconoclasts in remote villages. With a fiery new energy, women are building schools. Starting businesses. Fighting corruption...."
The pages that follow tell stories—feature heroines—we women can be proud of. Chouchou Namegabe is here, honored for her radio documentation of an epidemic of rapes in Congo. Sharon Cooper, for her studies of the brain development of trafficked girls. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, as Africa's first female head of state. Salma Hayek, for her worldwide travels on behalf of maternal health. Valerie Boyer, for her fight against eating disorders. Amy Gutmann, from my own University of Pennsylvania. Shakira for her Barefoot Foundation, started when she was just 18 (it says here) to open schools in Colombia, Haiti, and South Africa. Mia Farrow for not letting us forget Darfur. Elizabeth Smart, the kidnapping survivor who has become an advocate for victims. Rebecca Lolosoli of Kenya, who "persuaded women in her village to start a business selling their intricate traditional beadwork to tourists. Then she encouraged them to form a separate village as both a tourist attraction and a refuge for victims of domestic violence and girls fleeing female genital mutilation or forced marriage."
Get this issue, if you can. Look at what women can do—at what happens when they stand up on behalf of others and seek a greater, calming good. And then, if you have a moment, check out page 79. That's where my friend Caroline Leavitt's book,
Pictures of You, is featured as a Jodi Picoult Pick.
Michael Scheuer was the chief of the CIA’s bin Laden unit from 1996 to 1999 and remained a counterterrorism analyst until 2004. He is the author of many books, including the bestselling Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terrorism. His latest book is the biography Osama bin Laden, a much-needed corrective, hard-headed, closely reasoned portrait that tracks the man’s evolution from peaceful Saudi dissident to America’s Most Wanted.
Among the extensive media attention both the book and Scheuer have received so far, he was interviewed on The Colbert Report just this week.
Interested in knowing more? See:
0 Comments on Michael Scheuer sits down with Stephen Colbert as of 1/1/1900
Writing and reading totally saves me. Writing keeps the dark away. Reading is the infusion of light.
Much to ponder here.
Not sure you will be able to concentrate on your corporate interview after being immersed in In Cold Blood. You might want to put back some light by reading some poetry.
I have not read In Cold Blood either. I'll wait for your impressions. I'm ready the book club book and woefully behind in it...since the meeting is tomorrow and I'm only halfway done
I've not read In Cold Blood either, but I'm so glad you had some time to yourself this morning to really read. :)
What wonderful reads. I have loved many of Sacks' books. I wasn't aware of his earlier drug use.